Courtesy of Jonathan Strahan and Ben Payne…

Golden Aurealis
Novel: The Pilo Family Circus, Will Elliott (ABC Books)
Short Story: The Arrival, Shaun Tan (Lothian)

Science Fiction
Novel: K-Machines, Damien Broderick (Avalon)
Short Story: “The Seventh Letter”, Sean Williams (Bulletin Summer Reading Edition)

Horror
Novel (split): The Pilo Family Circus, Will Elliott (ABC Books) / Prismatic, Edwina Grey (Lothian)
Short Story: “Dead of Winter”, Stephen Dedman (Weird Tales #339)

Fantasy
Novel: Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier (Pan MacMillan)
Short Story: “A Fine Magic”, Margo Lanagan (Eidolon I)

Young Adult
Novel: Monster Blood Tattoo: Book One. Foundling, D.M. Cornish (Omnibus)
Short Story: The Arrival, Shaun Tan (Lothian)

Children’s
Novel: Melissa Queen of Evil, Mardi McConnochie (Pan Macmillan)
Short Fiction (split): “The True Story of Mary Who Wanted to Stand on Her Head”, Jane Godwin (Allen & Unwin) / “Woolvs in the Sitee”, Margaret Wild, Anne Spudvilas (Penguin)

Peter McNamara Convenor’s Award
Bill Congreve

Over at ASif! I’m guesting a discussion forum for the next little while. Anyone who wants to drop by and chat or to harass me with unanswerable questions, feel free to drop in here.

The Squid conspiracy has generated a list of the Australian stories, artworks, and books that impressed us in 2006. It is presented in Ditmar categories for the consideration of nominating folk, but remember that these are merely recommendations and not suggested nominations. For one, Greg Egan will not be accepting any Ditmar, but it would be remiss of us to overlook “Riding the Crocodile.”

[Addendum: I have made a handful of changes since the list was first posted. Most recent update is 26 Jan 2006.]

Novels
K-Machines, by Damien Broderick
The Pilo Family Circus, by Will Elliott
Prismatic, by Edwina Grey
Magic Lessons, by Justine Larbalestier
Carnies, by Martin Livings
Sir Thursday, by Garth Nix
The Devoured Earth, by Sean Williams
Geodesica: Descent, by Sean Williams and Shane Dix
The Last Days, by Scott Westerfeld
Midnighters 3: The Blue Hour, by Scott Westerfeld
Specials, by Scott Westerfeld

Novella/Novelette
“Along Came a Spider” by Simon Brown (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“Dharma Bums” by Jack Dann (Postscripts #4)
“World’s Wackiest Upper Atmosphere Re-entry Disasters Dating Game” by Brendan Duffy (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“Riding the Crocodile” by Greg Egan (One Million A.D.)
“The Devil in Mr Pussy” by Paul Haines (c0ck)
“Screening Test” by Chris Lawson (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“The Souls of Dead Soldiers are for Blackbirds (Not Little Boys)” by Ben Peek (Agog! Ripping Reads)

Short fiction
“The Dying Light” by Deborah Biancotti (Eidolon I)
“Stealing Free” by Deborah Biancotti (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“Surrender 1: Rope Artist” by Deborah Biancotti (Shadowed Realms: Redback)
“The Cup of Nestor” by Simon Brown (Troy)
“Leviathan” by Simon Brown (Eidolon I)
“The Grief Doll” by Lily Chrywenstrom (Ticonderoga Online #7)
“The Colossus of Roads” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Ticonderoga Online #9)
“Dead of Winter” by Stephen Dedman (Weird Tales #339)
“Down to the Tethys Sea” by Stephen Dedman (Science Fiction Chronicle #266)
“Three Wishes” by Shane Dix (Borderlands #8)
“La Profonde” by Terry Dowling (Basic Black)
“One Night Stand” by Dirk Flinthart (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“Baby Jane” by Margo Lanagan (Red Spikes)
“Daughter of the Clay” by Margo Lanagan (Red Spikes)
“A Feather in the Breast of God” by Margo Lanagan (Red Spikes)
“A Fine Magic” by Margo Lanagan (Eidolon I)
“The Point of Roses” by Margo Lanagan (Black Juice — original in the 2006 edition)
“Under Hell, Over Heaven” by Margo Lanagan (Red Spikes)
“Winkie” by Margo Lanagan (Red Spikes)
“Empathy” by Chris Lawson (COSMOS #8)
“Hieronymous Boche” by Chris Lawson (Eidolon I)
“Dwar7es” by M4r+1n L1\/1ng5 (Ticonderoga Online #9)
“When the World Was Flat” by Geoff Maloney (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“Mosquito Story” by Afifah Myra Muffaz (Fantasy Magazine #4)
“Street of the Dead” by Cat Sparks (COSMOS #9)
“The Revenant” by Lucy Sussex (Eidolon I)
“See Here, See There” by Anna Tambour (Agog! Ripping Reads)
“The Syncopation Streak” by Anna Tambour (Polyphony #6)
“Iron Shirt” by Susan Wardle (Ticonderoga Online #10)
“Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren (Fantasy Magazine #4)
“Woman Train” by Kaaron Warren (The Outcast)
“The Seventh Letter” by Sean Williams (Bulletin Summer Reading Edition)

Collected Work
Agog! Ripping Reads, ed. Cat Sparks
Basic Black, by Terry Dowling
Best Short Novels: 2006, ed. Jonathan Strahan
Borderlands, vols. 6-8
Eidolon I, ed. Jonathan Strahan and Jeremy Byrne
Fantasy: The Very Best of 2006, ed. Jonathan Strahan
Red Spikes, by Margo Lanagan
Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2006, ed. Jonathan Strahan
Shadowed Realms: Redback, eds. Anglea Challis & Shayne Jiraiya Cummings
Ticonderoga Online issues 7-9, eds. Lyn Battersby, Liz Grzyb, & Russell B. Farr
Troy, by Simon Brown
The Year’s Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Vol.2, eds. Bill Congreve & Michelle Marquardt

Best Artwork
The Devoured Earth, cover by Greg Bridges
Lost in Space: Voyage to the Bottom of the Soul, comic art by Michael Dutkiewicz
26 Lies/1 Truth, cover by Andrew Macrae
Daughters of Earth, cover by Cat Sparks
“The Blow-Off”, artwork by Cat Sparks
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
Fell, comic art by Ben Templesmith

Fan Writer
Greg Tannahill, for The Dust Forms Words (amongthedust.blogspot.com)

Best Professional Achievement
Kylie Ahern, Wilson da Silva, and Damien Broderick for COSMOS magazine
Alisa Krasnostein for editing and co-editing ASif!, Shiny, and Ceres
Jonathan Strahan, for editing multiple professional anthologies
Shaun Tan, for The Arrival

Best New Talent
David Conyers
David J. Kane

William Atheling Jr. Award
“Man and Super-Monster: A History of Daikaiju Eiga and its Metaphorical Undercurrents”, by Rob Hood (Borderlands #7)
Daughters of Earth: The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, by Justine Larbalestier
The Elephant at Midnight: The Curious Novels of Irskine Henry by Garth Nix
“Bad Film Diaries - Failing the Will Save: How to Draw Enjoyment from the Dungeons and Dragons Movie” by Grant Watson (Borderlands #6)
“Bad Film Diaries - Sink or Swim: The Truth Behind Waterworld” by Grant Watson (Borderlands #8)
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished, by Rocky Wood (with David Rawsthorne and Norma Blackburn) (Kanrock Publishing)

Several writers, readers, and editors have been putting together Australian recommended reading lists for 2006.

So far (courtesy of Paul Haines) I know of lists by Ben Payne (with follow-on honourable mentions), Alisa Krasnostein, ASif!, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Kathryn Linge.

Please add any other lists — or strong contenders that have been overlooked — in comments.

The British Science Fiction Association has announced its shortlist for the BSFA Awards.

Among many strong contenders, there are two Australians. Margo Lanagan’s story “The Point of Roses” from Black Juice is on the short fiction list, and Justine Larbalestier’s Daughters of Earth is on the non-fiction list (which is a recommended reading list — no award is given in this field).

Despite the “British” in its title, the BSFA is laudably international. Its member list is drawn from all over the world, and this year’s shortlist recognises writers and artists from Britain, America, Australia and Germany. It is possibly the most global of all the genre awards after the World Fantasy Award. To make it onto this shortlist means that the BSFA members believe you have created one of the 21 best works in the world last year. It is a huge honour.

A gladsome aside: While researching this post, I was surprised to find that my story “Hieronymous Boche” had been nominated for the BSFA Award, as were three other stories from Eidolon 1 by Lucy Sussex, Holly Phillips, and Hal Duncan. None of us made the cut to the final shortlist, but it’s a pleasure nonetheless and very good company.

I have this theory that some objects cause effects in culture similar to the gravitational effect a body such as a planet or comet causes in space-time. You know that demonstration: space as a flat sheet of rubber pulled taut. Billiard balls sit upon it, the indentations they make representing the effect of gravity. Roll a marble along the rubber sheet and it curves towards a billiard ball. You with me?

Anyway, imagine the billiard balls are memes. The marble is the consumers’ attention. Memes can assert dramatic impact on the marble, trapping it in orbit for awhile. Marbles have rockets embedded (independent thought) and thus can ignite engines, pull free of the billiard ball’s gravity well at any time and continue the journey through flat rubber space.

The further the marble gets from a billiard ball’s gravity well, the less able it is to understand what attracted it to that particular billiard ball in the first place.

Why am I thinking about this? Because last night myself and three friends watched Snakes on a Plane [IMDB entry]. We wanted to kick back, eat pizza and watch some dumb big arse Hollywood flick on my big arse plasma screen TV. We were not looking for quality, we were looking for amusement. I remember some of the reviews when the film was released in the cinema. The movie was supposed to be big shiny fun.

But you know, I reckon ‘Lazy Writers on a Plane’ would have been a better title. I expected the film to reference other disaster films. I expected the film makers to know why we were watching it, and put some clever little twists in there as rewards. But they didn’t. They ran through a checklist and ticked a bunch of boxes. Or worse — It’s like the producers assembled a room full of children, sat them round a table with crayons and butcher’s paper and asked them to draw every place on the human body that you can stick a snake. “On his willie! That’s very funny, Timmy ­ he can pretend it’s a fire hose. ‘Up the fat lady’s clacker!’ That’s a good one, Mary… ooh, in the eye. Very imaginative, Rebecca. Extra marks for that one.”

I mean, they had a kickboxer on the plane. Did I doze off and miss the big snake kickboxing sequence? I guess that might have cost too much to film. We had a plane, we had snakes all over everybody, then the plane landed. At rental price $2.95, I felt cheated.

So here’s the thing: The film looked so old and so dated, even though its only been out of the cinema a few months. IMHO, this is because my three friends and I, travelling on our imaginary marble, were seeing it from a position well removed from its billiard ball gravity well. As a source of gravity, Snakes on a Plane is a gas giant. No hard surface. No molten core. Just a memetic indentation. Yet had we seen it when it first came out, I reckon we all would have thought it was fun.

They’re out. From the SFWA website…

Novels:

From the Files of the Time Rangers - Richard Bowes (Golden Gryphon Press, Sep05)
Crystal Rain - Tobias Buckell (Tor, Feb06)
The Girl in the Glass - Jeffrey Ford (Dark Alley, Aug05)
The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner (Bantam Spectra, Jul06)
Counting Heads - David Marusek (Tor, Oct05)
To Crush the Moon - Wil McCarthy (Bantam Spectra, May05)
Seeker - Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov05)
A Princess of Roumania - Paul Park (Tor, Aug05)
Remains - Mark W Tiedemann (BenBella Books, Jul05)
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson (Tor, Mar05)

Novellas:

“Sanctuary” - Michael A. Burstein (Analog, Sep05)
Burn - James Patrick Kelly (Tachyon Publications, Dec05)
“The Walls of the Universe” - Paul Melko (Asimov’s, Apr/May06)
“Inclination” - William Shunn (Asimov’s, Apr/May06)

Novelettes:

“The Language of Moths” - Chris Barzak (Realms of Fantasy, Apr05)
“Two Hearts” - Peter S. Beagle (F&SF, Oct/Nov05)
“A Key to the Illuminated Heretic” - Alyx M. Dellamonica (Alternate Generals III, Harry Turtledove, Ed., Baen, Apr05)
“Second Person, Present Tense” - Daryl Gregory (Asimov’s, Sep05)
“Do Neanderthals Know?” - Robert J Howe (Analog, Dec05)
“Little Faces” - Vonda McIntyre (SCI FICTION, 23 Feb05)
“Journey into the Kingdom” - M. Rickert (F&SF, May06)
“Walpurgis Afternoon” - Delia Sherman (F&SF, Dec05)

Short Stories:

“Helen Remembers the Stork Club” - Esther M. Friesner (F&SF, Nov05)
“Pip and the Fairies” - Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons, 3 Oct05)
“Echo” - Elizabeth Hand (F&SF, Oct/Nov05)
“Mahmoud’s Wives” - Janis Ian (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly #1, WS & LWE, Ed., Sum06)
“Henry James, This One’s For You” - Jack McDevitt (Subterranean #2, Nov05)
“The Woman in Schrodinger’s Wave Equations” - Eugene Mirabelli (F&SF, Aug05)
“Anyway” - M. Rickert (SCI FICTION, 23 Aug05)

Scripts:

Howl’s Moving Castle - Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt (Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney Pictures, U.S. Premier 10 Jun05. Based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones.)
The Girl in the Fireplace - Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, BBC/The Sci-Fi Channel, Oct06 (broadcast 10 Oct06))
Batman Begins - Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer (Warner Bros., released 17 Jun05)

Also awarded by SFWA: Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy:

Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness - Scott Westerfeld (Eos, Mar05)
Magic or Madness - Justine Larbalestier (Penguin Razorbill, May05)
Peeps - Scott Westerfeld (Penguin Razorbill, Sep05)

The Norton Jury may add up to three additional works to the final ballot. In the Nebula Award catagories (sic!), juries may add one work to the final ballot.

Talking Squid predicts a frosty dinner at the Larbalestier-Westerfeld household come Nebula Banquet Night.

Did you know that Dr Seuss published dozens of pro-war propaganda cartoons? Oh yes he did!

From 1941 to 1943, Theodor Seuss Giesel was the chief editorial cartoonist for a New York newspaper called PM. This was well before he became a publishing phenomenon with such children’s books as Cat in the Hat (1957) and Green Eggs and Ham (1960), but he was already established as a best-selling children’s author by To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (1937) and Horton Hatches an Egg (1940). Theodor Giesel the editorial cartoonist saw no reason to distinguish his adult cartoons from his children’s work. His political cartoons are drawn in exactly the same style as his children’s books and he even signed them “Dr Seuss.”

Dr Seuss, as it turns out, was as good a political cartoonist as he was a children’s writer. This is my favourite:

What elevates this cartoon to greatness is Italy. Look closely now.

For more, see the Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr Seuss.

Does anyone not know that James Brown died this Christmas Day? A great deal has been written about his long, hard, amazing life. He was a phenomenal musician who knew nothing about music theory. He had to grunt and hum to his band to get them to understand what he wanted. He grew up in crippling poverty. His first brush with professional music came from sharing juvenile detention (for armed robbery) with Bobby Byrd. He abused alcohol; he abused drugs; he abused wives and women. But, you know, he had something…

…even lying in state, he’s as cool as anybody on the planet.