io9's February bookclub meeting will be discussing Paolo Bacigalupi's "Windup Girl". To help with the discussion the publisher Night Shade Books are offering a free ebook (pdf) version of the novel. Simply email Night Shade Books at I09Windup@nightshadebooks.com requesting a copy*.

The bookclub meeting begins on Tuesday 23rd Feb over at the io9 website.

*You will be signed up for Night Shade Books' email newsletter when you get the free PDF - you can unsubscribe later if you don't like it

There’s a campaign afoot (pun not entirely unintended) to gain celebrated SF author John Wyndham a star on Birmingham’s Walk of Stars in the city’s Broad Street.

Born in Knowle, Warwickshire, Wyndham spent most of his childhood years in Edgbaston, yet there is little or nothing commemorating the author’s links to the city.  To date, the Walk of Fame has selected mainly people from the worlds of sport and music, with five for the former and three for the latter from the first dozen awarded.  None for any literary figures (let alone genre).

To help support this campaign, all that’s required is a visit to http://www.walkofstars.net/?page_id=20

Once there, please:
1) Put John Wyndham in the ‘name of star’ field
2) Enter your name and email address.
4) Click submit.
It’s as simple as that.

Many thanks to Andy Sawyer for first bringing this to our attention.

Lizzy Mitchell from Warwick Conferences has been in touch to tell us about one of the UK’s largest celebrations of Japanese culture, which they staged at the University of Warwick over a weekend in September.

More than 1,200 colourfully dressed enthusiasts paid tribute to Japanese comic book, animation and pop music characters to celebrate the sixth Ayacon festival at the conference and events arm of the University of Warwick.

Activities included an introduction to the Kimono, Taiko drumming workshops and the extravagant masquerade, which brought a fitting climax to the spectacle, with attendees donning make-up, wigs and an outlandish array of costumes to replicate Japanese cult heroes.

There were Samurai Warriors as well as iconic anime characters, including Princess Mononoke and Kenshin. In keeping with the far eastern theme, the venue’s chefs also brought a taste of Tokyo to attendees by specially preparing a selection of tasty Asian delicacies.

Rachael Bartlett, head of sales and marketing at Warwick Conferences, said: “We’ve worked with Ayacon for several years and we always challenge ourselves of improving the client experience at each subsequent event.”

Here’s to Ayacon 2010!

Our friends over at Forbidden Planet have listed their top 25 essential graphic novels. They are not numbered so I assume these are in no partuclar order. Looks like I have a bit of reading to do.

http://forbiddenplanet.com/picks/essential-graphic-novels/

Iain Bank's new novel Transition will be released over 12 weeks as an abridged podcast via iTunes. The first instalment of the podcast will be broadcast on 3rd September, with 23 further 15-minute episodes released on iTunes in the UK and US every Thursday and Saturday for 12 weeks.

Sarah Shrubb, editorial director of Hachette Digital, said: "This is the first time an audio has been serialised in this way, and we're very excited to be doing something so groundbreaking."

Source: The Bookseller

The British Board of Film Classification has banned the DVD release of Japanese helmer-scribe Koji Shiraishi’s "Gurotesuku" (Grotesque) for what it called violence so extreme that it was inappropriate for audiences.

The BBFC described the straight-to-DVD horror pic, distributed in the U.K. by 4Digital Media, as an "an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism."

Source variety.

Release date is not until December 18th 2009.

Source Empire.

Philip K. Dick's "Adjustment Team" tells the story of Ed Fletcher, a real estate salesman, who discovers that our world is really, in effect, one large soundstage controlled by strange and mysterious guardians.

The planned movie called The Adjustment Bureau will feature a smooth-talking congressman (Matt Damon) whose political future is thrown in doubt by uncontrollable events and the arrival in his life of a mysterious ballerina (Emily Blunt). The film is to be directed by George Nolfi.

As reported by the BBC, self-proclaimed meteorite chaser Robert Elliott is auctioning 171 piecee of space artefatcs.

As well as buying and selling, Rob has spent many years hunting for meteorites in the hot deserts, mainland Europe, and also much closer to home in the British Isles. Two notable British meteorites stand out from his successful meteorite hunting finds: the Glenrothes meteorite (lot 70), which he found in Fife in 1998, and the particularly rare Hambleton meteorite (lots 122 & 123) discovered in North Yorrkshire in 2005. These remain the only meteorites that have ever found by chance in the United Kingdom.

Other items of note include: Wold Cottage (lot 32), a witnessed fall in Yorkshire in 1795 which became a major piece in gaining acceptance that stones do sometimes fall from the sky;  the ‘Christmas’ meteorite (lots 68 & 69), which fell on the village of Barwell, Leicestershire on the 24th December 1965; and a helium tank from the Russian Salyut 7 spacecraft (lot 171), which went out of control and fell to earth as a fireball in 1991.

Now retired as a dealer and collector, he is hoping to fund his dedication to meteor hunting by running the auctioning off his one of a kind collection. The collection is expetced to net over £500,000.

If you have a few pounds to spare you can bid on the lots at the auction held by Lyon & Turnball on 18th August.

More info

Presented at: Anticipation, Montréal, Quebec, August 6-10, 2009

Toastmaster: Julie Czerneda, with translation by Yves Menaud

Base design: Dave Howell

Awards Administration: Jeff Orth

• Best Novel: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
• Best Novella: “The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
• Best Novelette: “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)
• Best Short Story: “Exhalation”, Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
• Best Related Book: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008, John Scalzi (Subterranean Press)
• Best Graphic Story: Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, Written by Kaja & Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: WALL-E Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter, story; Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon, screenplay; Andrew Stanton, director (Pixar/Walt Disney)
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon, & Maurissa Tancharoen, writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
• Best Editor Short Form: Ellen Datlow
• Best Editor Long Form: David G. Hartwell
• Best Professional Artist: Donato Giancola
• Best Semiprozine: Weird Tales, edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal
• Best Fan Writer: Cheryl Morgan
• Best Fanzine: Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima
• Best Fan Artist: Frank Wu

And the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (presented by Dell Magazines): David Anthony Durham

A full voting breakdown is available here.

Full nominations details are available here.