Nebula Award Winners Announced

The 2011 Nebula Award Winners are:

Winning Novel:

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

Also Nominated:

The Native Star by M.K. Hobson
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Echo by Jack McDevitt
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Life is a Beach

An original short story by Peter Willox
The first I knew of my mother’s demise was the alarm in my eye. I was at work at the fusion plant so I flipped down the clear screen on my helmet and read the auto message from Mum’s implant. She had died at a clinic in Birmingham, coordinates attached. I buzzed the clinic. Something had “malfunctioned” on her ‘stay young’ driver. There was nothing they could do. Could I pick up her ashes and deal with them according to her will (attached)?

The Quantum Thief

Nominated by Peter W, chosen by Rodney (one of our increasing number of remote members), the book for this month is The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, which is described as a far-future thought experiment SF detective novel.

Reviews

'If you dropped Greg Egan's hard physics chops into a rebooted Finnish version of Al Reynolds with the writing talent of a Ted Chiang you'd begin to get a rough approximation of the scale of his talent. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I read it. Hard to admit, but I think he's better at this stuff than I am. And The Quantum Thief is the best first SF novel I've read in many years -- Charles Stross

BSFA Award 2010 Winners

The 2010 British Science Fiction Awards ceremony at the 62nd Eastercon convention, Illustrious 2011, has announced this year's winners:

Equations of Life

Simon Morden, author of The Lost Art and Another War, and contributer to this site, has a new book out: Equations of Life. Its London cyberpunk distopian setting is alreading getting excellent critical review.

Samuil Petrovitch is a survivor. He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone - the last city in England. He's lived this long because he's a man of rules and logic. For example: GETTING INVOLVED = A BAD IDEA.

But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he's saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London. And clearly: SAVING THE GIRL = GETTING INVOLVED.

Now, the equation of Petrovitch's life is looking increasingly complex: RUSSIAN MOBSTERS + YAKUZA + SOMETHING CALLED THE NEW MACHINE JIHAD = ONE DEAD PETROVITCH.

But Petrovitch has a plan - he always has a plan - he's just not sure it's a good one.

You can read an extract, or find more information at Simon's website or that of his publisher, Orbit