It's All About Me
Well, not quite. The shortlist for the John W Campbell Memorial Award has been announced, and I'm very pleased to find that Gardens of the Sun is included. I have no chance of winning against some very impressive competition, but it's a honour, and all that.
I was asked to write about my favourite space opera novels and series; the results are here, along with some other great picks.
And in the mail today, Infinivox's spoken-word anthology The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction, which includes my story 'Crimes and Glory'.
I was asked to write about my favourite space opera novels and series; the results are here, along with some other great picks.
And in the mail today, Infinivox's spoken-word anthology The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction, which includes my story 'Crimes and Glory'.
posted by Paul McAuley at 8:04 pm
9 Comments:
Congratulations on the nomination Paul. Thoroughly deserved. It makes quite a nice list of books I must get round to reading too.
Good luck!
And my congratulations, Paul.
Thank you for space opera list - I didn't read majority of your favourite novels.
Good to hear about Gardens of the Sun. It's on a stack of TBRs, on top of nearly three bookcases of TBRs. I shall do my best.
I too bought the 1970s edition of the Lensman book, and found the first one unreadable enough to deter me from reading the rest. It was my second try. The first was in 1958, when it was part of my home town library's small SF collection. Had I tried to read them first I might never have become an SF reader at all. Fortunately, my first were The City and the Stars, Last and First Men, Star Maker, and the "Foundation" trilogy. In that year this was an unbeatable introduction.
I feel you are being too modest in your assessment of the possibility of you winning. Not only is Gardens a superb novel, it's far and away the most Campbellian title on the shortlist.
Congratulations and good luck! Quite an eclectic bunch of nominees, but I agree with Adam--Gardens deserves to stand among them.
Thanks, everyone. Although Adam's comment about it being the most Campbellian title 0n the hsortlist somewhat threw me... (I wouldn't be surprised, and would be rather pleased, if Yellow Blue Tibia won, though. It's wise and sad and funny.)
Thank you!
I didn't, obviously, mean Campbellian in a loony, right-wing ESP sense. I meant it in a classic hard genre, no-superior-aliens, proper spaceships SF sense. I'd praise it further, at length indeed, for its varied and extraordinary power, but the thread might get a bit gooily mutual-admiration-society.
Good stuff, and congrats on the nomination and story entry!
Re: Adam's second comment, here's an UnlikelyWorldsTrueFact. One of my middle names is Campbell. Freud would have a field day.
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