14 May 2007

Back from the Nebula Awards

posted in: science fiction | 0

I did what I said I was going to do, and made a one-day trip to NYC for the Nebulas, the annual award event of the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). It was a good trip. Also, an exhausting trip. Out early Saturday morning, and back at around 8:30 Sunday morning, with an hour or two of what you might laughingly call “sleep” on the train ride home. On the other hand, the trip down on the Acela was very nice—quite comfortable and pleasant. (I was also surprised to discover that Amtrak gives a discount to AAA members, so I earned back a bit of my annual AAA fee.)

The affair itself was a pleasure: a ballroom filled with writers, editors, agents, various other people including folks who were just plain fans. I saw some friends I hadn’t seen in a long time, made some new friends, saw my agent and publisher (not my editor, who wasn’t able to be there, but Tom Doherty of Tor), and finally met Ronald D. Moore, of Battlestar Galactica. He was there as toastmaster for the awards, and carried out his role with charm and a disarming sense of humor. I was asked by Jane Jewell, SFWA’s Executive Director and an old friend, if I would handle the reading aloud of the “In Memoriam” list, the annual remembrance of members of the SF community who have died in the last year. It was an unexpected privilege. The list was sadly long, and though only a couple of the names were of people I’d known personally, I found myself moved by the reminder of the toll that time takes on us, with the passing of loved and respected members of our field.

This was the second year for the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult SF/F novel, an award I helped to write the rules for (in my dual role as member of the YA special interest group and chairman of the SFWA Awards Rules Committee). Despite the hifalutin’ sound of that latter role, I don’t usually have anything to do with running of the event or the preparation of the trophies; but in this case, I helped to unpack the beautiful Lucite blocks before the ceremony. We had a problem. The Norton Award trophy hadn’t arrived with the others. But we had a spare Grandmaster trophy—one rejected by the manufacturer because of flaws in the Lucite—so we quickly decided on our out. We taped a label over the flawed Grandmaster: “Redeemable for one (1) Andre Norton Award trophy,” and set it out with the others. As it happened, the winner wasn’t able to make the trip from Australia, so I hope she’ll get her real trophy without much more delay than would have been the case anyway.

Here are the Nebula Award® winners:

  • Novel: Jack McDevitt for Seeker
  • Novella: James Patrick Kelly for “Burn”
  • Novelette: Peter S. Beagle for “Two Hearts”
  • Short Story: Elizabeth Hand for “Echo”
  • Script: Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt for Howl’s Moving Castle

Andre Norton Award winner:

  • Justine Larbalestier for Magic or Madness

Grandmaster Award winner:

  • James Gunn

Author Emeritus

  • D.G. Compton

Congratulations to all of the winners and the nominees. But especially, congrats to Jack McDevitt and Jim Kelly, who between them had—until last night—racked up something like 20 nominations without taking home a win! Last night was a biggie for both of them.

Read more about it at sfwa.org, and see pages of photos starting here. Or, if you want to skip ahead to the page with my photo—though I don’t know why you would, unless you’re related to me—that would be here and here.

Next up: I’m teaching next weekend, Thursday through Sunday, at the New England Young Writers Conference, at the Breadloaf campus of Middlebury College in Vermont!

8 May 2007

Nebula Awards

posted in: science fiction | 0

I previously mentioned here that I would be attending the Nebula weekend in New York City, this coming weekend. That’s still true, but not as true as before. The event is taking place over the whole weekend, starting on Thursday evening. Turns out I have a prior engagement—my daughter’s acting in Much Ado About Nothing, with Arlington Children’s Theater. So I’ll catch the Friday evening performance here (I’m the designated videographer, or one of them), and then catch Amtrak’s Acela to NYC Saturday morning. So I’ll be at the Nebulas for the Saturday afternoon panels and business meeting, and attending the awards banquet. Then (urk) I’m catching a red-eye back to Boston. Penn Station at 3 a.m.—whee! But it beats paying over 200 bucks for a hotel room in New York, just to sleep badly and then take the train.

I’ve been wanting to ride the Acela for years. Haven’t had an excuse, till now. I hope this is one of its good runs, free of malfunctions.

By the way, you can see who’s up for the award here: Nebula Final Ballot.

26 Apr 2007

Shields Up?

posted in: science, science fiction, space, technology | 0

One of the thorniest questions relating to interplanetary travel, or even long-term residence on the moon, is danger to astronauts from radiation. I’ve often wondered why magnetic fields could not be used to protect astronauts in the same way that Earth’s magnetic field protects us. Well, maybe the answer is—they can. A group of British scientists is working on a plan to create a magnetic field 20-30 km around a spacecraft or moonbase, and then fill that space with ionized gas (plasma). The plasma would slow incoming particles and reduce the hazard.

We’re getting awfully close to Star Trek technology here.

Read the full story at Technovelgy.com.

25 Apr 2007

Gliese 581 C: a New Earth?

posted in: science, space | 0

For some years now, astronomers have been racking up discoveries of extra-solar planets—that is, planets circling other stars. It’s been very exciting, but until now, they’ve mostly been giant planets, because those are the most easily detected. And they’ve all been way outside the presumed habitable range in terms of distance from their suns. That has now changed, according to study leader Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. Space.com reports:

An Earth-like planet spotted outside our solar system is the first found that could support liquid water and harbor life, scientists announced today.

Liquid water is a key ingredient for life as we know it. The newfound planet is located at the “Goldilocks” distance—not too close and not too far from its star to keep water on its surface from freezing or vaporizing away.

And while astronomers are not yet able to look for signs of biology on the planet, the discovery is a milestone in planet detection and the search for extraterrestrial life.

This possible Earth-like planet is only 20 light-years away, circling the red dwarf star Gliese 581. Read the whole story on space.com.

As an aside, although we haven’t yet discovered weird life on other planets, we do have some pretty weird life on this one (outside of the federal government, I mean). Check out this short video of a bird of paradise performing a mating dance.

25 Apr 2007

More Progress on Rewrite

posted in: personal news, Sunborn, writing | 0

After yet another rewrite of the opening of Sunborn, I feel as if I’ve finally got it. I haven’t yet heard from my writing group or my editor, but this version—a hybrid of my original approach and the alternative version I’d attempted on editorial request—feels right to me. We’ll see if others agree. (And eventually, we’ll see if you the readers agree.)

Progress was impeded somewhat by two rites of getting-on-in-years: a routine colonoscopy (not bad in itself, but the preparation—oy!), and a few days later, a kidney stone. (!!) I’ve gotten off easy on the kidney stone, so far; it wasn’t fun, but neither was it the excruciating pain I remember from a previous incident, years ago. But an X-ray says it’s still there, so it ain’t over till it’s over. If you hear a muffled scream, that could be me with a fist in my mouth. Right now, though, I feel fine. (Another glass of water? Why, thank you—don’t mind if I do.)

12 Apr 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 – 2007

posted in: farewells, science fiction, tributes, writing | 0

Kurt Vonnegut has died, from brain injuries resulting from a fall. He was 84. (See New York Times obituary.) An iconoclastic writer, he had a big influence on me during my college years, circa 1970. I remember first encountering his work with Cat’s Cradle, which I started and at the time didn’t finish. It just didn’t grab me, somehow; probably I was looking for something more like “normal” science fiction. I also tried Player Piano and didn’t like that, either; it was too normal, and seemed like just another take on the familiar Brave New World theme.

But then he came to give an informal talk at Brown, where I was in school, and I went to hear him. I was an aspiring writer, and he was a sensationally popular author. In person, he was fascinating, very unassuming and welcoming to questions from the students. I remember someone asking him what his favorite novel was (I believe this was before Slaughterhouse Five), and he said that he had had the most fun writing The Sirens of Titan. That title had seemed so preposterous to me, so unserious (I was pretty serious about my SF back then) that I hadn’t even thought of reading it. But I got a copy of Sirens—and I loved it. Somehow that story infected me with Vonnegut’s sardonic sense of humor and absurdity, and from there I went back and tried Cat’s Cradle again; and it was all different this time. On the second attempt, I thoroughly enjoyed it, too. Finally I read Slaughterhouse Five, and that one did me in, not just for the heavy-hitting themes inspired by Vonnegut’s witnessing of the Dresden fire-bombing in World War II, but for the silly stuff, as well. The line, “Kazak wuzza dog. Kazak wuzza dreat big chronosynclastic infundibulated dog” has been embedded in my mind ever since. (I hope I got that right. I typed it from memory.)

Reading those books was an intense emotional and intellectual experience for me, but one that was never repeated. His later books didn’t do it for me, and my world-view now is pretty different from what it was when I was in college, so I don’t know how the books would stand up to rereading. But I’m profoundly grateful to him for what he gave me then and there, when this aspiring writer needed it.

Rest in peace, Kurt Vonnegut.

11 Apr 2007

Writing Blues

posted in: personal news, quirky, Sunborn, writing | 0

You know, sometimes rewriting can be kind of fun, and sometimes it really sucks. Currently, I am in the latter phase, trying to redraft the opening section of Sunborn in a way that will grab new readers, as opposed to smoothly moving returning Chaos Chronicles readers back into the story. I’ve been working on a new version for a few weeks now, and ran one attempt past my writing group tonight. While there was some disagreement among the group about what worked and what didn’t, there was nevertheless general agreement that it’s not there yet. I’m still waiting to hear what my editor thinks, but I suspect he’ll agree. I told him that trying to restructure the opening felt like trying to fit bricks into a Mason jar. That’s still pretty much what it feels like.

Rrrrr. I shoulda’ been a cat herder.

11 Apr 2007

Easter Coda

posted in: personal news | 0

I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend, especially if you celebrate Easter. Ours was, well, interesting. Came home from church to find that our boxer, Hermione, had devoured an entire 9-ounce solid dark chocolate Easter bunny! Not just any chocolate, but Williams Sonoma chocolate, which had come as a gift. Oh yes, plus a 3 ounce Lindt Easter bunny.


So she was right up there close to the level of toxicity. Which meant we got to give her hydrogen peroxide to make her throw up (and she did—ugh!) and then spend the afternoon taking a trip to the doggie E.R. to be checked and fed liquid charcoal. What fun! (She’s fine, and at no time did she actually act sick or bothered in any way. Well, except when I gave her the hydrogen peroxide.)

I’m pretty sure Hermione and Moonlight the cat are channeling our departed beagle friend, Sam. Neither one used to get into serious trouble from stealing food, etc. But recently Hermione has been thieving food all the time, and the cat has learned to get up onto the pantry shelves so that she can knock her food container onto the floor. Sam, tell them to stop!

10 Apr 2007

Saturn—Curiouser and Curiouser

posted in: quirky, science, science fiction, space, writing | 0

So, I don’t pretend to really know what’s going on out there at Saturn, but the images coming back from Cassini really are telling a strange tale. On the one hand, we have Saturn’s north pole:

which is clearly a hex-wrench socket of alien design, though we don’t know its function with certainty (could be to open up the planet, could be to adjust its orbit, could be something even more fiendish).

And then we have Saturn’s south pole, which at first glance appears to be the place where you stick a Saturn-sized inflation needle to maintain internal pressure with, presumably, a giant bicycle pump:

But a closer look reveals that the south pole is…well, you decide:

Now you just tell me that’s not an eye. The window onto the soul of Saturn. And if it’s not related to a whale’s eye, I’ll eat my hat.

Who says the space program doesn’t pay its own way with dividends of new knowledge. Remember Senator Proxmire? If he’d had his way, we wouldn’t know any of this stuff.

By the way, these photos are all from JPL and NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. I love those guys, don’t you?

9 Apr 2007

Teens Only SF/F Writing Workshop

posted in: science fiction, writing | 0

Our general SF workshop for all ages had to be canceled, unfortunately, because of too few people registering. (Too bad, our workshop last fall was packed, and was a great group.)

We are, however, offering one other workshop—a writing workshop for Teens Only. It’s to run during the public school vacation week, which starts April 16. Here’s the blurb, as it went out to some local email lists:

This notice is for teen writers (and parents of teen writers)! Are any of you (or your kids) aspiring fantasy and science fiction writers, or do you have friends who are? Starting during April vacation week, I’ll be teaching a teens-only writing workshop along with fellow Arlingtonian and veteran SF/F writer Craig Shaw Gardner. We’ll be leading three 3-hour afternoon sessions of discussion and brainstorming to help you get moving with your fiction, followed by two Saturday sessions for group critique of your completed stories.

Be ready to write, stretch your mind, and write some more! You’ll learn the craft of writing—and just as important, the art of workshopping, with the support of your peers.

So who the heck are we, that we would propose to mess with your minds this way? Well, between us, we’ve written forty-some novels and a like number of short stories. My work has been a finalist for the Nebula Award, and Craig’s has made it to the NY Times bestseller list. We’ve both even written Battlestar Galactica novels, based on the new series! You can find out more about us by visiting our web sites at http://www.starrigger.net/ and http://www.craigshawgardner.com/.

The workshop costs $200, runs April 16, 17, 18 (1:00–4:00 p.m.)—that’s school vacation week—and then will be followed by two Saturday sessions, April 21 and May 5 (also 1:00–4:00) to workshop the stories you’ve written.

We’ll be meeting at Pandemonium Books and Games in Central Square, Cambridge. (For directions, visit the Pandemonium web site at http://www.pandemoniumbooks.com/.) You must register in advance. You can pick up a registration form in the store, or request one by email from me. Don’t delay!

For more information, call Pandemonium at 617-547-3721, or email either of us at jeff [at] starrigger.net or csgcsgcsg [at] aol.com.

–Jeffrey A. Carver

So if you’re local to the Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts area, and you are a teen (or have a teen in your house) with an interest in a cool writing workshop, get in touch! Preferably right away!

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