Big Dumb Object

The Telegraph compares the Arthur C. Clarke award and the Man Booker Prize:

One obvious distinction between the Arthur C Clarke Award, for the best science fiction novel published in Britain the previous year, and the Man Booker is that a lot of people care, a lot.

...and then goes on to discuss why mainstream readers don't read SF:

None of this is to pretend that there is not an awful lot of tosh produced under the label science fiction. But if you will not read a novel because it is set on another planet, or has a robot in it, you are cutting yourself off from some of the most exciting and urgent writing now being produced.

As Geoff Ryman reminded me at last week's bash, opponents of science fiction always use the worst examples of it as evidence of its worthlessness as a form. But then look at what an awful lot of very bad fiction of other sorts there is, too. This response is known as Sturgeon's Law (devised by the SF writer Theodore Sturgeon): "90 per cent of science fiction is crud, but then 90 per cent of everything is crud."

You needn't become a Jedi or read Star Wars novelisations, but if you are interested in fiction at all, you should embrace a little geekiness. We are living, after all, in the world the geeks made, and you will find no better guide to understanding it and changing it than in science fiction.

Doctor Who scriptwriter Steven Moffat has won this year's British Academy Television Award for Best Writer.

It's in recognition of his Doctor Who Series Three script for Blink.

Via the BBC.

Hurrah. Although were these the BAFTA's that weren't on the TV, or did I miss them? How many BAFTA shows are there now?

The Doctor's Daughter takes what could have been a cringey idea and actually does a pretty good job, making it one of the most enjoyable episodes of the series.

"Hello, Dad!"

Spoilers Ahead

Somehow all the publishing news always seems to be bad, fewer books being bought, shorter author lists at publishers, less shelf-space for SFF. And yet, Orbit seem to be doing okay, so much so that they've just announced expansion plans...

In the US, Orbit is going to double the size of the list over the next 3 years, taking its title output to 70-80 titles per year by 2011. In the UK, where Orbit is already the biggest SFF imprint, it will increase the size of the list by approximately 10% each year over the next three years.

Via www.orbitbooks.net

Via a post by Paul Cornell's, which highlights a load of stuff he's doing he mentions...

Iain Banks has now taken a look at the recording script of my BBC Radio 4 adaptation of his novella ‘The State of the Art’ and pronounces himself pleased. Any awfulness, of course, remains my own, and is not his responsibility. We’re now into the exciting process of casting, news of which I shall share with you when I can, and will be recording in a few weeks, for broadcast early next year.

Cool. I'm pretty excited about that. I wonder whether to read it again first, it's been a while, or maybe having forgot the details might be a nice way to hear the radio version?

Also in that post, Paul mentions an interview with Grant Morrison (who I still think of as "that guy from 2000AD who wrote Zenith" because I'm so out of touch with comics), where he talks about Doctor Who; interesting summation of the first three series.

Niall has a detailed summary of the Science Fiction as a Literary Genre Symposium which was held in London yesterday.

Or, if you want a brief summary, Paul has a Tweet about it.

There should be video up on the website, sooner or later.

I'm experiencing some slow performance with this site. It's noticeable when anything calls a cgi script ie. comments, searching tags etc. I'm looking into it.

And before anyone recommends some other blog engine or technology, try running PHP without mod_php and you'll see what the problem is. And yes I should use FastCGI etc. etc.

Geoff Ryman was interviewed (briefly) on Radio 4, for Front Row, about the Mundane Science Fiction movement. That interview has now been converted to MP3 for all to hear. Nice plug for Interzone!

Via Mundane-SF

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF) is offering review free copies of July 2008 to bloggers willing to blog about it. There's a limited amount, so you better be quick.