ALL WELCOME – FREE ENTRY (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)

The discussion will commence at 7.00 pm, but the room is open from 6.00 (and fans in the ground floor bar from 5ish).

There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

Location: Cellar Bar, The Melton Mowbray Public House. 18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE . Map is here. Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central line)

FUTURE EVENTS:
27th June – TANITH LEE interviewed by Nadia van der Westerhuizen
25th July 2012 – Roz Kaveney (interviewer TBC)

• Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month

The Call for Papers closes on 30 September 2012.

More details here: http://www.sf-foundation.org/conference

The award was presented by former winner Jeff Noon tonight at a glittering ceremony in central London.

We are currently reviewing the posts (which has become a much larger task than anticipated) and intend to announce the winners at the AGM on 9th June. Subsequently there will be an announcement on this website.

Once again, thank you to all who contributed and we hope you all had as much fun with it as we did following #tbsfa.

• Best Non-Fiction: The SF Encyclopedia, third edition (beta), edited by John Clute, Peter Nicholls, David Langford and Graham Sleight.
• Best Artwork: Cover of Ian Whates’s The Noise Revealed by Dominic Harman (Solaris)
• Best Short Fiction: “The Copenhagen Interpretation” by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s, July)
• Best Novel published in Britain: The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)

At Eastercon, as well as at four other conventions held that same weekend, the Hugo shortlists were announced. The BSFA Award winners for best non-fiction and best short fiction both made that ballot, so their fans will have another opportunity to vote for them, should they wish!

Gollancz did extremely well this year, since they host/publish The SF Encyclopedia as well as The Islanders.

P.S. Please see the BSFA’s apology for the way the awards ceremony worked out.

And lastly, this information has appeared to be sadly missing from this site since the awards were announced. It was in fact here, but only visible from certain pages. Our apologies for that.

ALL WELCOME – FREE ENTRY (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)

The discussion will commence at 7.00 pm, but the room is open from 6.00 (and fans in the ground floor bar from 5ish).

There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

Location: Cellar Bar, The Melton Mowbray Public House. 18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE . Map is here. Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central line)

FUTURE EVENTS:
23rd May* – CJ LINES interviewed by Tony Keen
27th June – TANITH LEE interviewed by Nadia van der Westerhuizen
25th July 2012 – Roz Kaveney (interviewer TBC)

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month

The committee would like to issue a broad and unreserved apology, and regrets any and all offence caused to its members, the attendees at Eastercon and those watching the ceremony streamed on the internet.

We would also like to apologise to several of our own committee members who felt compelled to personally defend the BSFA while the committee were still reviewing the situation, and who encountered a number of personal attacks that should have more rightly been directed towards the organisation as a whole.

We would also like to apologise to the host of our ceremony, John Meaney, who generously agreed to support our presentation this year and who we have clearly failed by not providing a better briefing in advance.

Learning lessons

It is worth discussing our own processes in public as part of our learning and moving the conversation forward.

The BSFA committee is a distributed network of volunteer members. Its first duty on receiving a complaint is to fully understand the issues, talk to individuals involved, look at what can be done immediately and what can be learned for the future.

We do this as a committee, discussing and sharing comments, reviewing blogs and message threads, running extensive twitter searches and so forth to be sure of having as wide an understanding of the issues as possible.

This process has been ongoing since the ceremony, lessons have been learned and we offer our apologies that this process has necessarily taken time.

The committee has lost several key members in the past few days, either via direct resignation or as an acceleration of an already stated wish to step down within the year.

This leaves us considerably under-resourced for the short to mid term future, and we would ask for patience in the coming weeks and months as we aim to rebuild our organisational strength and the trust of our membership and our community.

The BSFA committee remains dedicated to the positive promotion of science fiction and its fans, and will endeavour to both rectify its errors and continue to act as a positive force within the SF&F community.

.
Tom Hunter
on behalf of the BSFA committee

Marc is a mediaeval historian and broadcaster.  He presented the television series Castle in 2003, and wrote the accompanying book (a new edition comes out in May 2012).  He is also the author of The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century, and A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain.  His new book, published on March 29, is a history of The Norman Conquest.  Copies will be available to purchase at Eastercon. He also appeared in the most recent episode of Time Team.

The BSFA lecture is intended as a companion to the George Hay Lecture presented at the Eastercon by the Science Fiction Foundation. Where the Hay Lecture invites scientists, the BSFA Lecture invites academics from the arts and humanities (with a particular bias towards history), because we recognise that science fiction fans aren’t only interested in science.  The lecturers are given a remit to speak “on a subject that is likely to be of interest to science fiction fans” – i.e. on whatever they want!  This is the fourth BSFA Lecture.

Our esteemed panellists this year are Duncan Lawie (aka Hoopoes, reviewer for Strange Horizons and The Zone), and Dave Hutchinson, (aka Hutch, science fiction writer and editor, shortlisted for the 2009 BSFA Best Short Fiction Award for ‘The Push’) and Donna Scott – BSFA Award Administrator. We are hoping for some lively debate so please do come along and join in the discussion.

ALL WELCOME – FREE ENTRY (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)
The discussion will commence at 7.00 pm, but the room is open from 6.00 (and fans in the ground floor bar from 5ish).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

Location: Cellar Bar, The Melton Mowbray Public House. 18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE . Map is here. Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central line)

FUTURE EVENTS:
25th April – SHARYN NOVEMBER interviewed by Professor Farah Mendlesohn
23rd May* – CJ LINES interviewed by Tony Keen
27th June – TANITH LEE interviewed by Nadia van der Westerhuizen

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month

P.S. BSFA members voting on the awards in advance of Eastercon – the deadline for submitting your votes is the 2nd of April.

The winner in each of the categories will be presented with a specially commissioned artwork created by Northampton Skulls and Robots artists, Dan Brodie and Lauren Hubbard.

Members of the BSFA and Eastercon will now have the opportunity to vote on the shortlists.

Advance voting forms have been posted out to BSFA members, who will have until 2^nd April 2012 to get their nominations in. They can do that by post, email or online form, ranking each of the nominees according to their personal preference: 1 for favourite, 2 for second favourite etc. They don’t have to rank all nominees and they don’t have to vote in every category.

After 2^nd April, the only way to get your voice heard will be to attend the Eastercon and grab a ballot form from your pack or the BSFA desk. Deadline for voting at Eastercon will be 12 noon on the day of the ceremony, which is Sunday 8th April at 6pm in Commonwealth.

The nominees are:

Best Novel

Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (Newcon Press)

Embassytown by China Mieville (Macmillan)

The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)

By Light Alone by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Best Short Fiction

The Silver Wind by Nina Allan (Interzone 233, TTA Press)

The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s, July)

Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley (Kameron Hurley’s own website)

Covehithe by China Mieville (The Guardian)

Of Dawn by Al Robertson (Interzone 235, TTA Press)

Best Non-Fiction

Out of This World: Science Fiction but not as we Know it by Mike Ashley (British Library)

The SF Encyclopedia, 3^rd Edition ed. John Clute, Peter Nicholls, David Langford and Graham Sleight (Gollancz website)

Review of Arslan by M J Engh, Abigail Nussbaum (Asking the Wrong Questions blog)

SF Mistressworks, ed. Ian Sales (website)

Pornokitsch, ed. Jared Shurin and Anne Perry (website)

The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who (Foundation Studies in Science Fiction), ed. Graham Sleight, Tony Keen and Simon Bradshaw (Science Fiction Foundation)

Best Art

Cover of Ian Whates’s The Noise Revealed by Dominic Harman (Solaris)

Cover and illustrations of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls by Jim Kay (Walker)

Cover of Lavie Tidhar’s Osama by Pedro Marques (PS Publishing)

Cover of Liz Williams’s A Glass of Shadow by Anne Sudworth (Newcon Press)

This British Library’s Out of This World exhibition, which several members wished to nominate for the Non-Fiction Award, will also be given a  Specially Commended Award at the Ceremony.

Also to be announced during the ceremony will be the winner of the James White Award. The James White Award is an annual short story competition open to non-professional writers with the winner chosen by a panel of judges made up of professional authors and editors. This year’s award will be judged by the novelists Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Juliet E McKenna and by the publisher of Interzone, Andy Cox

The six shortlisted books are:

• Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three (Gollancz)
• Drew Magary, The End Specialist (Harper Voyager)
• China Miéville, Embassytown (Macmillan)
• Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
• Charles Stross, Rule 34 (Orbit)
• Sheri S.Tepper, The Waters Rising (Gollancz)

The winner will be announced on Wednesday May 2^nd at an award ceremony held in partnership SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival. The winner with a cheque for £2012.00 and the award itself, a commemorative engraved bookend.

… And now that the shortlist is out, stay tuned for the announcement of the Guess the Shortlist Competition over on Torque Control.

Option

UK Resident £29.00 UK Resident Unwaged £20.00 Joint/Family £31.00 Non UK Resident £40.00 BSFA Patron £500.00

BSFA AWARDS BOOKLET 2011

Featuring all the shortlisted short stories…

• The Silver Wind by Nina Allan
• The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell
• Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley
• Covehithe by China Miéville
• Of Dawn by Al Robertso

FOCUS 58

All the science you don’t need to know
Think writing hard sf is difficult? Just get the basics right, says Alastair Reynolds

Fighting for words
Dev Agarwal explains why a good fight scene is about more than choreography.

Masterclass 9: What I know
In the last of his regular articles, ChrisPriest offers sage advice.

One vial or two
C John Arthur on doing biochemistry for real. It’s not much like CSI… 

Writing The Other
Clarke Award-winning author Lauren Beukes says that if you want to write the other convincingly, you need to ask questions. 

Over the wall
Gary Budgen wonders why class isn’t a more important issue for writers. 

To plug or not to plug?  
Should authors promote their own works. Juliet E McKenna says it is good for readers and good for business. 

Learning to love learning
Paul Graham Raven returns with the latest update from his Masters adventure. 

Poetry in a SF magazine?
The new Focus poetry editor, Charles Christian, discusses sf poetry.

VECTOR 270

ARTICLES

BSFA Reviewers’ Poll – The Best of 2011
Edited by Martin Lewis

2011 in Pictures
Jonathan McCalmont

From Outcasts to Black Mirror: British SF Television 2011
Alison Page

Gaia Beware: Infertility in Science Fiction due to Bioterrorism, Pollution and Accidental Iatrogenic Events
Victor Grech with Clare Thake-Vassallo and Ivan Callus

Modern Marvels: The Fairy Tales of Victorian Science and Technology
Melanie Keene

RECURRENT

Kincaid in Short: Paul Kincaid

Picture This: Terry Martin

Resonances: Stephen Baxter

Foundation Favourites: Andy Sawyer

THE BSFA REVIEW

In this issue Adam Roberts reviews The Weird, Shaun Green looks at small press novellas, Maureen Kincaid Spellar considers Danish SF, Dan Hartland reads a book of essays on Stanislaw Lem, Paul Kincaid discusses Kim Lakin-Smith’s debut novel and much more…

… Good SF and Fantasy written in less than 140 characters?

Impossible! – Or is it?

Take the challenge, take part in the @BSFA’s

TWEETFICTION TWEETSTREAM

DURING OLYMPUS – EASTERCON 2012

And get your tweet considered for reading out at the BSFA Awards and inclusion in future BSFA publications!

The Tweetstream

• is free to enter
• each author is allowed multiple entries
• is open to writers of any age and nationality, including professional authors and BSFA Committee members.

Your Story

• Stories must be in English and must be less than 140 characters in length..
• Submissions must be original – they should be the sole work of the author/s in whose name they are submitted – and should not have previously appeared in any publication – in any language or format.
• Stories can be Science Fiction or Fantasy (and we will take a broad definition of what those terms mean).
• Stories may not feature characters/locations/ etc. that are part of other copyrighted works – i.e. nothing set in the universes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, etc.
• Your name should only appear in tweet form e.g. @joebloggs
• Please include the hashtag #TBSFA – which leaves 134 characters for creativity
• Simply tweet your story (including the hashtag #TBSFA as stated above, we’ll pick it up) or email to tweetfiction@bsfa.co.uk or place a hard copy into the box available at Eastercon.
• At the end of the entry window, all entries, however delivered (tweet, email, or in the box) will be treated as granting permission to the BSFA to include in future publications.

Adminstration

• Entries may commence at midnight Wednesday April 4^th 2012
• The closing date for submissions is midnight (GMT) on Tuesday April 10^th 2012.
• The administrators reserve the right to refuse to accept or disqualify any submission:
• the administrators may, at their discretion, offer the opportunity for the author to re-submit
• The administrators will not enter into correspondence on stories. They cannot offer critiques or advice on how to get published.
• One worthy tweet will be announced as “winner” (BSFA committee members excluded) on the website after the closing date and the decisions of the administrators is final.
• If anything is unclear, or if you have any questions, please email tweetfiction@bsfa.co.uk

Good Luck & JOIN IN !

Please help us spread the word. You can download a PDF of this page to share with all your friends and colleagues.

tweetfiction rules

Torque Control and the BSFA are again delighted to be hosting a competition in conjunction with the release of the submissions list, to guess the short list. The winner will received copies of all the shortlisted books, due to be announced at the end of March. For full details – and to enter the contest – see the separate contest details post over on Torque Control.

This year, the five members of the jury read 60 books from 25 imprints in order to narrow it down to whatever their shortlist is going to be. That’s slightly greater participation – and slightly more work for the jury – than last year, when 54 novels were submitted by 22 imprints.

Submissions include four past winners (Ian R. MacLeod, China Miéville, Christopher Priest and Neal Stephenson) as well as ten authors who have previously been shortlisted (Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, James Lovegrove, Adam Roberts, Justina Robson, Sherri S. Tepper, Charles Stross, Connie Willis and Chris Wooding).

Note that this is a submissions list, of the books submitted by their imprints, for consideration by the judges. It is a not a longlist.

Embedded by Dan Abnett (Angry Robot)
Dead of Veridon by Tim Akers (Solaris)
The Departure by Neal Asher (Tor UK)
Novahead by Steve Aylett (Scar Garden)
Bronze Summer by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear (Gollancz)
The Kings of Eternity by Eric Brown (Solaris)
The Great Lover by Michael Cisco (Chomu Books)
Random Walk by Alexandra Claire (Gomer)
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (Orbit)
Sequence by Adrian Dawson (Last Passage)
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan (Canongate)
The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan (Gollancz)
Gods of Manhattan by Al Ewing (Abaddon Books)
Bringer of Light by Jaine Fenn (Gollancz)
Final Days by Gary Gibson (Tor UK)
Heaven’s Shadow by David S. Goyer&Michael Cassutt (Tor UK)
The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Orbit)
The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman (Michael Joseph)
Dead Water by Simon Ings (Corvus)
The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher (Abaddon Books)
11.22.63 by StephenKing (Hodder and Stoughton)
Shift by Tim Kring and Dale Peck (Bantam)
Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (NewconPress)
Echo City by Tim Lebbon (Orbit)
Nemonymous Nights by D.F. Lewis (Chomu Books)
The Age of Odin by JamesLovegrove (Solaris)
Wake Up and Dream by Ian R. MacLeod (PS)
The End Specialist by Drew Magary (HarperVoyager)
Germline by T.C. McCarthy (Orbit)
Savage City by Sophia McDougall (Gollancz)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan)
Equations of Life by Simon Morden (Orbit)
Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyemi (Picador)
Hell Ship by Philip Palmer (Orbit)
The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky (Hodder and Stoughton)
The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell (Solaris)
The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
Here Comes The Nice by Jeremy Reed (Chomu Books)
The Demi Monde: Winter by Rod Rees (Jo Fletcher Books)
by Light Alone by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Down to the Bone by Justina Robson (Gollancz)
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Sandstone)
Regicide by Nicholas Royle (Solaris)
Wonder by Robert J. Sawyer (Gollancz)
War in Heaven by Gavin Smith (Gollancz)
Reamde by Neal Stephenson (Atlantic)
Rule 34 by Charles Stross (Orbit)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (Hodder and Stoughton)
The Waters Rising by Sherri S. Tepper (Gollancz)
Osama by Lavia Tidhar (PS)
Dust by Joan Frances Turner (Berkley UK)
The Noise Revealed by Ian Whates (Solaris)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (Harvill Secker)
All Clear by Connie Willis (Gollancz)
Blackout by Connie Willis (Gollancz)
Son of Heaven by David Wingrove (Corvus)
The Godless Boys by Naomi Wood (Picador)
The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

The shortlist will be announced in late March, and the 2012 Clarke Award winner on Wednesday, May 2nd, at the SCI-FI London Film Festival. The winner will receive a cash prize of £2012 and a commemorative trophy bookend.

Details:

http://www.sf-foundation.org/masterclass/criticism2012

Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass 2012

Liz Williams (author of The Ghost Sister, Empire of Bones, The Poison Master, Nine Layers of Sky, Banner of Souls, the Inspector Chen series (Snake Agent, The Demon and the City, Precious Dragon, The Shadow Pavilion, The Iron Khan, Morningstar), Darkland, Bloodmind, and Winterstrike, among others) http://mevennen.livejournal.com/
will be interviewed by Ian Whates (BSFA Chair)

Location:
Cellar Bar, The Melton Mowbray Public House
18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE

View Larger Map

(Note that this is now the new permanent home for the London meetings.)

Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central Line)

All welcome! (No entry fee or tickets. Non-members welcome.)
Interview will commence at 7pm, but the room is open from 6pm (and fans will very likely be in the ground floor bar from 5pm).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.

FUTURE EVENTS:

28th March 2012 – BSFA Awards Meeting
25th April 2012 - Sharyn November interviewed by Farah Mendlesohn
23rd May 2012 * = CJ Lines interviewed by Tony Keen

* Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month.

Paul Kincaid writes:

The only time I ever actually met John Christopher was at an event in London a few years ago. I remember he looked old, though nowhere near as old as he actually must have been. But what I noticed most was the way the famous authors in attendance kept turning in his direction, drawn to him like a magnet. He meant something to them; more, I think, than younger generations of sf readers might realise. But it indicates how important he was to the genre. Important in two ways. In the post-war years, he and John Wyndham practically re-invented British science fiction as a distinct and literate form. Perhaps even more important, he wrote that vanishingly rare thing, science fiction for children. The Tripods and their ilk were probably the first taste of science fiction for a whole generation of today’s sf writers. He was, in other words, one of the key architects of sf in Britain today, and if you want to see his monument, look around you.

Christopher Priest’s Guardian obituary can be read here.

When I took over the BSFA London meetings in 2007/2008, one of the first names I wanted to book was John Christopher.  Sadly, it was clear even then that the journey into London from Rye wasn’t practical for him.