The
list of judges for the 2020 World Fantasy Awards, for work published in 2019, was
released today by Peter Dennis Pautz, President of the World Fantasy Awards
Association.
The judges read and consider eligible materials received by June 1,
2020 — the earlier the better. Pautz explains, “If, for instance, something is
received on May 31 the judges may well have only one day to read it before
their deliberations conclude. Anything
received after June 1 will receive little or no consideration.”
2020
World Fantasy Awards Judges
Gwenda Bond, 439 North Upper Street; Lexington, KY 40508; USA;
So a comprehensive submission list may be kept, a copy should also go to:
Peter Dennis Pautz, President World Fantasy Awards Association 3519 Glen Avenue Palmer PA 18045-5812 USA [email protected]
Send materials to be considered directly to the addresses above, and very importantly, please mark all packages as PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS – NOT FOR SALE OR RESALE – NO COMMERCIAL VALUE — WORLD FANTASY AWARDS MATERIALS. The copy to Pautz ensures the judges have received eligible items, and that submissions are given fair attention.
Qualifications: All books must have been published in 2019; magazines must have a 2019 cover date; only living persons are eligible.
Fantasy Types: All forms of fantasy are eligible, e.g. high, epic, dark, contemporary, literary.
Categories: Life Achievement; Best Novel; Best Novella (10,001 to 40,000 words); Best Short Story; Best Anthology; Best Collection; Best Artist; Special Award – Professional; Special Award-Non-Professional.
When submitting works shorter than novel lengths, please provide a word count for the judges’ benefit.
The awards will be presented at the convention, to be held Thursday, October 29 through Sunday, November 1, 2020, at the Little America Hotel, Salt Lake City, UT 84101.
Currently, an attending membership costs $200 (increasing to $250 in mid-February, 2020), which does not include the Awards Banquet, tickets for which must be purchased separately. Banquet tickets will be available in Summer, 2020. Information and forms can be found on the convention website.
World Fantasy
Convention 2020 has named Brandon Sanderson,
author of many NYT bestselling books, including the Mistborn® trilogy
and the recently released Starsight, as one of the convention’s special
guests. WFC 2020 will take place October 29–November 1 in Salt
Lake City. Sanderson lives and works in Utah.
“We’re delighted to be able to highlight the
accomplishments of one of Utah’s many talented authors,” said Ginny Smith,
convention co-chairperson. “Mr. Sanderson has made a significant contribution
to the fantasy genre, and we’re pleased to honor him.”
Sanderson’s books are regulars on the New York
Times bestseller list, and many are international bestsellers as well. He
was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s groundbreaking The Wheel of Time
series, which celebrated its thirty-year anniversary earlier this month.
Sanderson’s work has been published in more than twenty-five languages and has
sold millions of copies worldwide.
He joins previously announced author guests C.J. Cherryh, Stephen Gallagher, Cindy Pon and Stephen Graham Jones, plus editor Anne Groell, artist David Cherry, and toastmasters Tracy and Laura Hickman.
By Colleen McMahon: Back on January 17, the daily Scroll noted that it was the
anniversary of the release of Freejack, the extremely forgettable movie
based on Robert Sheckley’s Immortality Inc., also called Time Killer.
I am
one of the few who saw Freejack in the theater on the original release,
mostly because there had been great hoopla about it being filmed in Atlanta
(back when that was still a big event!). My most vivid memory of the movie was
my first exposure to how movies play with locations in the editing — a wild
car chase plunges down a ramp that in real life leads to an underground parking
deck, but a few wild turns later, the chase continues on a highway in New York
City. My friends and I immediately began to refer to that ramp as the
“teleportal.”
Of
course, the mention of the book behind the movie sent me off to see whether
that book was in the public domain. It isn’t. But a whole bunch of Sheckley
stories are:
Sheckley
appears to have gone through a couple of incredibly prolific periods for short
stories in the 1950s, so much so that twice here he has more than one story
published in a single issue, so one story appears under a pen name. “The Leech”
was published under the name Phillips Barbee, and “Forever” has Ned Lang as the
author. The second story by Sheckley in that February 1959 issue of Galaxy was
none other than “Time Killer”; presumably the copyright to that was renewed
with the tie-ins around the 1992 movie, so it’s not available on Project
Gutenberg.
Most
of Sheckley’s stories have been recorded in various Short Science Fiction
collections at Librivox; you can check his index page here.
Two
Robert Sheckley stories were dramatized in the X Minus One radio show,
and you can listen to them here:
The Black Cat (1895-1922) was a monthly literary magazine, publishing
original short stories, often about uncanny or fantastical topics. Many
writers were largely unknown, but some famous authors also wrote original
material for this magazine.
There was once a cat which was not in the least like any cat you have
ever seen, or I either, for the matter of that. It was a fairy cat, you
see, and so you would rather expect it to be different, wouldn’t you? It
had a violet nose, indigo eyes, pale blue ears, green front legs, a yellow
body, orange back legs and a red tail. In fact, it was coloured with all
the colours of the rainbow, and on that account it was known as the
Rainbow Cat. It lived, of course, in Fairyland, and it had all sorts of
strange adventures.
Another great book in the world of Oz, in which King Fumbo of Ragbad
loses his head in a storm and Prince Tatters, accompanied by the wise and
wonderful old soldier Grampa, sets off to find the king’s head, a fortune,
and a princess. With Bill, a live iron weathercock, they visit a Wizard’s
Garden and discover Urtha, a lovely girl made all of flowers — and
proceed to fall, swim, explode, sail, and fly above and below Oz and Ev.
Grampa and Co. eventually meet Dorothy herself, traveling with a Forgetful
Poet in search of the missing princess of Perhaps City who has been
condemned to marry a monster!
A man from the past. He fixed things—clocks, refrigerators, vidsenders
and destinies. But he had no business in the future, where the calculators
could not handle him. He was Earth’s only hope—and its sure failure!
[From
a press release.]Dublin 2019 An Irish Worldcon is honoured and proud to have been
nominated for ‘Best Irish Comic Related Event’ by Irish Comic News. A wonderful
testimony to the huge team who worked so hard to ensure comics were fully
represented. Featured artists Afua Richardson, Jim Fitzpatrick , Maeve Clancy
and Sana Takeda added so much to our convention but we are so grateful to all
the comic professionals, organisations and businesses who supported Dublin
2019.
Without
the participation of fans and professionals alike, we would have lost out on
the wonderful conversations that we had, and we congratulate those brilliant
participants on your nominations.
We
were also so proud of the extensive art show, and are still amazed that we sold
€40,000 euro of art, and very grateful to all the people who loaned us art to
display in the massive wall of our Irish Comic Art Gallery as well as our
Featured Artists displays and installations.
We
were grateful to all small press, shops and professional publishers who
supported us by participating in the Programme, Art Show, and Dealers Room
and congratulate those who are nominees.
We
would also like to congratulate Dublin 2019 Fringe Division Head Maura McHugh
for her nomination as Best Irish Writer, and Dublin 2019 volunteers Pádraig Ó
Méalóid and Michael Carroll, who are head-to-head in the ‘Best Irish Writer –
Non Fiction’ category.
James
Bacon, the chair of Dublin 2019, said: “I am incredibly proud, so many people
came together to make this happen, and I am continually stunned at how Dublin
2019 continues to resonate and have its impact felt and how it is
recognised by Irish fans. I am of course absolutely torn, as I love Enniskillen
Comic Fest, DCAF, Small Press Day and know SuirCon has a great following. I am
very pleased to see so many people and works connected to Dublin 2019 nominated
and hope that reflects well on how well we integrated the Worldcon with
local interests.”
To
view the full list of nominees follow the Twitter thread starting here.
The PaleyFest LA 2020 television
festival will take place March 13-22 in Hollywood.
This year’s festival will open with the cast and creative
team from ABC’s Modern Family, followed by Pop TV’s One Day at a Time,
Netflix’s A Special Evening with Dolly Parton & Dolly Parton’s
Heartstrings, CBS’s NCIS: 400th Episode Celebration, Amazon Prime
Video’s The Boys, CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Picard, Starz’s Outlander,
HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, Netflix’s Dead to Me, Netflix’s Ozark,
Pop TV’s Schitt’s Creek, and the festival will close with Disney+’s The
Mandalorian.
“It’s an honor to be invited to PaleyFest and join other
filmmakers and talent in celebrating great television programming. It is
especially exciting to be representing our Disney+ series, The Mandalorian,
at the closing night presentation,” said Jon Favreau, executive
producer/creator, The Mandalorian.
“I keep telling my wife, my sh*t belongs in a museum. Well,
who’s laughing now?? The brilliant cast and troubled producers of The Boys
can’t wait to get together with their fans and say some inappropriate things.
Seriously, it’s an amazing honor for a freshman show to be chosen by PaleyFest.
We look forward to making them deeply regret it,” said The Boys
executive producer and showrunner Eric Kripke.
“We are honored to be included as part of PaleyFest LA. We
love being able to speak directly to the Outlander fans and we look forward to
taking this opportunity to thank them for their tremendous support over the
years,” said Outlander executive producer Ronald D. Moore.
PaleyFest LA benefits the Paley Center’s preservation and
archival digitization efforts, and its ongoing mission to explore the
significant impact of media on our culture and society. The Paley Center is
home to the nation’s foremost publicly accessible archive of television and
radio content, with over 160,000 programs spanning the history of media,
including collections that feature achievements in television from the
African-American, Hispanic, and LGBTQ+ communities, women, music, and most
recently comedy.
Items of genre interest in the PaleyFest LA lineup include:
Sunday, March 15: Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys
(7:00 pm):
Scheduled to appear: Karl Urban (Billy Butcher), Jack Quaid
(Hughie Campbell), Antony Starr (Homelander), Erin Moriarty (Annie January /
Starlight), Chace Crawford (The Deep), Jessie T. Usher (A-Train), Laz Alonso
(Mother’s Milk), Karen Fukuhara (The Female), and Eric Kripke, Executive
Producer & Showrunner
Wednesday, March
18: CBS All Access’s Star Trek: Picard (7:30 pm):
Scheduled to appear: Sir Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard),
Alison Pill (Agnes Jurati), Isa Briones (Dahj), Evan Evagora (Elnor), Michelle
Hurd (Raffi Musiker) with Special Guest Stars: Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi),
Brent Spinern (Data), Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine),
Heather Kadin, Executive Producer, and Akiva Goldsman, Executive Producer
Thursday, March 19: Starz’s Outlander (7:30
pm):
Scheduled to appear: Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall), Sam
Heughan (Jamie Fraser), Sophie Skelton (Brianna Randall Fraser), Ronald D.
Moore, Creator & Executive Producer, Maril Davis, Executive Producer, and
Matthew B. Roberts, Executive Producer
Sunday, March 22: Closing Night Presentation:
Disney+’s The Mandalorian (7:00 pm):
Scheduled to appear: Jon Favreau, Creator & Executive
Producer, Dave Filoni, Executive Producer, Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Gina
Carano (Cara Dune), Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand),
Ludwig Göransson, Composer, and Rick Famuyiwa, Writer, plus additional guests
to be announced
*All events and participants are subject to change
Jo Reed: …How then did you get into the audiobook biz, where you are one of the shining lights there as well?
Jim Dale: That was an accident, a sheer accident. They were looking for someone with an English accent to be the narrator, and someone said to whoever it was at the publishing company, they said, “Well, there’s a guy called Jim Dale. He’s playing Off-Broadway at the moment with three other men in a play called Travels with my Aunt. One of the men doesn’t speak at all, so three of them are now doing 33 characters between them,” and of course, the publisher said, “Wow, that sounds fantastic. That’s the sort of guy we need.” So they approached me, asked me if I’d read the book, which I did. I loved it. They said, “Would you like to record it?” I said, “Yes,” and it was only after I had signed the contract that one of them said to me, “Well, how many characters did you play in the play?” and I remember saying, “Just the aunt and the nephew. The other two guys played 31 characters between them.” So there’s a shocked silence on the end of the phone, ‘cause they realized they’d signed someone who may unable to do any more than a couple of voices.
Jo Reed: And the book we’re talking about is Harry Potter.
Jim Dale: That’s correct. There were seven of them, as you know, and so I didn’t realize that the first book had, I think it was, 34 different speaking characters, but that was nothing compared to the final book, which had 147 different characters that needed a voice, so that was quite a challenge, quite a challenge.
Two satellites could potentially collide just above Pittsburgh on Wednesday, according to space debris tracker LeoLabs. IRAS (13777), a decommissioned space telescope launched in 1983, and GGSE-4 (2828), an experimental US payload launched in 1967, will pass incredibly close to each other at a relative velocity of 14.7 km/s, LeoLabs said in a tweet Monday.
The company said it’s monitoring the approach, and that its latest metrics “show a predicted miss distance of between 15-30 meters.” That distance is concerning given the size of IRAS, which is 3.6 meters by 3.24 meters x 2.05 meters, LeoLabs said. The combined size of IRAS and GGSE-4 increases the chances of a collision, which stands at around 1 in 100.
The fifth edition of BroadwayCon had enthusiasts dressing for the underworld, swapping stories and merch, and singing along to “Six,” a show that hasn’t even opened yet.
Nyssa Sara Lee came to the 2020 edition of BroadwayCon as Ursula from “The Little Mermaid.”
On any other weekend, a gaggle of teenagers belting songs from “Hadestown” in the hallway of the New York Hilton Midtown would raise some eyebrows.
But for three days that ended Sunday, they were in the right place. More than 5,000 others — including several Beetlejuices, a handful of Heathers and the rare Dolly — made the pilgrimage to New York for the fifth annual BroadwayCon, a haven for the most passionate musical theater fans.
Some arrived in full character for the event, where attendees can meet and take photos with the stars of their favorite shows. Passes range from $80 for one day to $1,000 for a full weekend platinum pass with extra perks.
When fans weren’t doing their own dramatic hallway renditions of musical numbers, here’s what they were up to.
Kris Williams and Matt Whitaker as the title character from “Beetlejuice,” a show that drew many fan tributes.Dalton Glenn, Meaghan Cassidy and Grace Nobles as the trio from “Heathers.”…
(4) AI OH! In “Artificial
Morality” at the LA Review of Books blog, Bruce Sterling offers his latest thoughts on artificial intelligence.
Sterling is going to be the keynote speaker on a conference on AI which will be
held at the University of California (Irvine) in February which will include
Cory Doctorow and sf podcaster Rose Eveleth which you can find out more about
at a link at the Sterling piece.
This is an essay about lists of moral principles for the creators of Artificial Intelligence. I collect these lists, and I have to confess that I find them funny.
Nobody but AI mavens would ever tiptoe up to the notion of creating godlike cyber-entities that are much smarter than people. I hasten to assure you — I take that weird threat seriously. If we could wipe out the planet with nuclear physics back in the late 1940s, there must be plenty of other, novel ways to get that done….
(5) CRAZY RICH ASTRONAUT. SYFY
Wire has a teaser trailer for a “new-old”
short—Nine Minutes—which will premiere on DUST on January 30. It
features an actor who has become rather well known since she shot this
previously-unreleased short quite some while back. “Nine Minutes: Constance Wu is a marooned astronaut
in first look at DUST short film”
You may know Constance Wu from her roles in Fresh Off the Boat and Crazy Rich Asians, but you may not know that she also played an astronaut in Nine Minutes, a science fiction short film that arrives on DUST later this week.
Directed and written by Ernie Gilbert (Atlanta, Barry), the story follows Lilian (Wu), a scientist for the United Earth Space Administration who finds herself stuck on an alien planet light-years from home. With some help from her A.I. companion named M.A.R.C. (voiced by comedian Reggie Watts), Lilian attempts to stay alive for as long as she can.
[…] The film was shot several years ago, but never premiered to the public — not even at festivals. […]
(6) TRIVIAL TRIVIA.
In the opening sequence of The Matrix, the iconic streams of green Japanese code are actually recipes for sushi. Production designer Simon Whitely, now with the animation and visual effects studio Animal Logic in Australia, said he got the idea from one of his wife’s cookbooks. Source: CNET
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.
January 28, 1986 — The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take-off.
January 28, 1994 — Body Snatchers premiered. It was directed by Abel Ferrar, and it starred Gabrielle Anwar, Billy Wirth, Terry Kinney, Meg Tilly and Forest Whitaker. It’s somewhat based on Finnney’s The Body Snatchers with the screenplay by Stuart Gordon, Nicholas St. Johnnand Dennis Paoli. Reception was mixed with Ebert and some horror critics thinking it far better than previous takes; one critic thought it was “a soulless replica of Don Siegel’s 1956 model”. Reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes don’t think much of it giving it just a 38% rating. You can see for yourself what’s like here.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 28, 1910 — Arnold Moss. Anton Karidian a.k.a. Kodos the Executioner in the most excellent “The Conscience of the King“ episode of Trek. It wasn’t only SFF role as he’d show up in Tales of Tomorrow, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Time Tunnel and Fantasy Island. (Died 1989.)
Born January 28, 1920 — Lewis Wilson. Genre wise, he’s remembered for being the first actor to play Batman on screen in the 1943 Batman, a 15-chapter theatrical serial from Columbia Pictures. (Died 2000.)
Born January 28, 1935 — John Chandler. His very last role was as Filth in the “Honor Among Thieves” episode of Deep Space Nine. Genre-wise, he also showed up in Moon of the Wolf, The Incredible Hulk, Fantasy Island, The Sword and The Sorcerer, AirWolf, Trancers and Carnosaur 2. (Died 2010.)
Born January 28, 1944 — Susan Howard, 76. Mara, the Klingon woman, on “The Day of The Dove” episode for Star Trek. She also showed up on Tarzan, The Flying Nun, I Dream of Jeanie, Land of Giants, The Immortal, The Fantastic Journey and Mission: Impossible.
Born January 28, 1959 — Frank Darabont, 61. Early on, he was mostly a screenwriter for horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob and The Fly II, allminor horror films. As a director, he’s much better known as he’s done The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist. He also developed and executive-produced the first season of The Walking Dead. He also wrote Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that I like a lot.
Born January 28, 1965 — Lynda Boyd, 55. Let’s start off with she’s a singer who starred in productions The Little Shop of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Film-wise, she had roles in Final Destination 2, The Invader, Mission to Mars and Hot Tub Time Machine. She’s had one-offs in X-Files, Highlander, Strange Luck, Millennium, The Sentential, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (where she had a recurring role as Darla Mohr), Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and Smallville.
Born January 28, 1981 — Elijah Wood, 39. His first genre role is as Video-Game Boy #2 in Back to the Future Part II. He next shows up as Nat Cooper in Forever Young followed by playing Leo Biederman In Deep Impact. Up next was his performance as Frodo Baggins In The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit films. Confession time: I watched the very first of these. Wasn’t impressed. He’s done some other genre work as well including playing Todd Brotzman in the Beeb’s superb production of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
Born January 28, 1985 — Tom Hopper, 35. His principal genre role was on the BBC Meriln series as Sir Percival. He also shows up in Doctor Who playing Jeff during the “The Eleventh Hour” episode which would be during the time of the Eleventh Doctor. He’s also Luther Hargreeves in The Umbrella Academy which is an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name, created by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá.
Born January 28, 1986 — Shruti Haasan, 34. Indian film actress known for the Telugu fantasy film Anaganaga O Dheerudu, and the Tamil science fiction thriller 7aum Arivu. She voiced Queen Elsa in the Tamil-dubbed version of Frozen II.
Born January 28, 1998 — Ariel Winter, 22. Voice actress whose shown up in such productions as Mr. Peabody & Sherman as Penny Peterson, Horton Hears a Who!, DC Showcase: Green Arrow as Princess Perdita and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as Carrie Kelly (Robin). She’s got several one-off live performances on genre series, The Haunting Hour: The Series and Ghost Whisperer.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
Pearls Before Swine show what happens when a writer thinks about life too deeply.
(10) FIRST FLOWERS. While many people have seen 1968’s Charly,
the film version of Flowers for Algernon, few living fans remember or
have seen the 1961 TV adaptation “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon.”
In this teleplay adaptation of Daniel Keyes’ noted short story “Flowers for Algernon,” Cliff Robertson portrays a gentle, disabled young man who undergoes a highly experimental treatment to increase his mental capacity. Robertson received an Emmy nomination for his sensitive work and would go on to win an Oscar for his reprisal of the eponymous role in the feature film Charly (1968).
…Meanwhile, a new device created by the University of Melbourne and spun off into a company called Growave is undergoing trials in Victoria.
Just as a domestic microwave warms food, so the microwaves emitted by the Growave system heat up the water molecules within weeds and cause them to vibrate. This ruptures the cell walls, killing the plant.
Meanwhile, microwaves can also heat the soil, killing weed seeds as they lie.
“Early data is demonstrating that using the Growave technology will be as cost-effective and potentially less expensive than current approaches to weed management,” says Paul Barrett, head of physical sciences of investment firm IP Group.
“The Growave approach also has the benefit that it is not influenced by the elements and can be used when it rains, when it’s windy or even at night – conditions which are not possible with traditional herbicide-spraying approaches.”
A row over the yeti has pitted experts against officials – and, for once, it is not about whether or not the mythical creature actually exists.
Instead, it is how the creature looks.
“This is not right. The government can’t just do as it wants,” passer-by Reshma Shrestha says, shaking her head in front of the 7ft (2.1m) tall statue at the centre of a row.
“If you did not tell me, I would not have known that it was a yeti.”
‘It’s a sumo wrestler’
The arrival of the first of more than 100 statues emblazoned with the words “Visit Nepal” was supposed to be the start of a year-long celebration of what the small Himalayan nation had to offer to the outside world.
They will soon be popping up across the country – at popular tourist attractions, trade centres, airports and some of the base camps in the Himalayas – as well as travelling further afield to act as mascots in cities around the world.
But the launch of the tourism drive, which aims to bring two million tourists to the region, has been somewhat overshadowed by the row over the statues’ appearance.
A rare species of frog with translucent skin has been seen in Bolivia for the first time in 18 years.
Three Bolivian Cochran frogs, a species of so-called “glass frogs”, were spotted by conservationists earlier this month in a national park.
The tiny amphibians weigh just 70-80g and measure 19-24mm.
Glass frogs are found in Central and South America and have skin so translucent that their internal organs can be seen through their bellies.
Investigators found the frogs in Carrasco National Park, east of the city of Cochabamba, as part of a mission to rescue reptiles and amphibians whose habitat is threatened by a hydroelectric project.
“The rediscovery of this species fills us with a ray of hope for the future of the glass frogs – one of the most charismatic amphibians in the world – but also for other species,” members of the team told AFP news agency.
(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “The Box Preview”
on YouTube, Jason Shiga describes his forthcoming graphic novel The
Box, which he says can also be about 20 other things, including a computer!
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Leo
Doroschenko, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Mike Kennedy, and JJ
for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of
the day Xtifr.]
The 2020
Reading List: Year’s best in genre fiction for adult readers has been
published by the Reference and User Services Association. The Reading List Council selects an
annual best-of list comprised of eight different fiction genres for adult
readers. A shortlist of honor titles, up to 4 per genre was also announced. The
list was announced January 26 during the American Library Association’s
Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia.
The 2020 selections are:
Adrenaline
Winner
“The Passengers” by John Marrs, Berkley an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
After their driverless cars are hacked, eight passengers have two and a half hours to live. One will be set free based on the votes of a captive jury and the will of the world’s social media population – but each has secrets that could condemn them.
Readalikes
“Speed” the 1994 movie
“Elevator Pitch” by Linwood Barclay
“The Escape Room” by Megan Goldin
Short List
“The Chain” by Adrian McKinty, Mulholland Books an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a Division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
“Cold Storage” by David Koepp, HarperCollins
“Conviction” by Denise Mina, Mulholland Books an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a Division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
“Lock Every Door” by Riley Sager, Dutton an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Fantasy
Winner
“Gods of Jade and Shadow” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Del Rey an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC
In Jazz Age Mexico Cassiopeia’s dull life takes an adventurous and life-changing turn when she must help a Mayan death god vanquish his brother and regain his throne in the underworld.
Readalikes
“Spinning Silver” by Naomi Novik
“Trail of Lightning” by Rebecca Roanhorse
“We Hunt the Flame” by Hafsah Faizal
Short List
“Middlegame” by Seanan McGuire, a Tor.com book published by Tom Doherty Associates
“Ninth House” by Leigh Bardugo, Flatiron Books
“The Ruin of Kings” by Jenn Lyons, a Tor book published by Tom Doherty Associates
“Silver in the Wood” by Emily Tesh, a Tor.com book published by Tom Doherty Associates
Historical Fiction
Winner
“The Secrets We Kept” by Lara Prescott, a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf
During the Cold War, the CIA trains a new generation of female spies in an attempt to smuggle Boris Pasternak’s censored novel, Doctor Zhivago, back into the U.S.S.R. while Pasternak’s mistress deals with the fallout
Readalikes
“A Thread of Grace” by Mary Doria Russell
“Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly
“A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles
“The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book” by Peter Finn
Short List
“City of Flickering Light” by Juliette Fay, Gallery Books an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
“The Confessions of Frannie Langton” by Sara Collins, Harper an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
“The Song of the Jade Lily” by Kirsty Manning, William Morrow An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
“Where the Light Enters” by Sara Donati, Berkley an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Horror
Winner
“The Twisted Ones” by T. Kingfisher, Saga Press an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Brimming with spookiness, paranoia, and a single-minded bloodhound, this devilishly wicked tale of folkloric horror set in the woods of North Carolina is inspired by Arthur Machen’s “The White People.”
Readalikes
“The White People and Other Weird Stories” by Arthur Machen
“The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” by Rhett McLaughlin
“Meddling Kids” by Edgar Cantero
Short List
“The Devil Aspect” by Craig Russell, Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC
“The Homecoming” by Andrew Pyper, Simon & Schuster Canada a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
“The Toll” by Cherie Priest, a Tor Book, published by Tom Doherty Associates
“Violet” by Scott Thomas, Inkshares, Inc.
Mystery
Winner
“The Right Sort of Man” by Allison Montclair, Minotaur Books
In post-World War II London, Iris Sparks (perhaps a wartime spy) and Gwendolyn Bainbridge (a society widow) have teamed up to matchmake singles with The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. When one client is accused of murdering another, Iris and Gwendolyn decide the police have the wrong man and start investigating
Readalikes
“Dear Mrs. Bird” by A.J. Pearce
“Mr. Churchill’s Secretary” by Susan Elia MacNeal
“Girl Waits with Gun” by Amy Stewart
The Tommy & Tuppence books by Agatha Christie
Short List
“The Chestnut Man” by Soren Sveistrup, Harper an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
“Magic for Liars” by Sarah Gailey, a Tor Book published by Tom Doherty Associates
“Paper Son” by S.J. Rozan, Pegasus Crime an imprint of Pegasus Books, Ltd.
“The Scholar” by Dervla McTiernan, Penguin Books an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Relationship
Winner
“When You Read This” by Mary Adkins, Harper a division of HarperCollins Publishers
After her death at 33 from an aggressive lung cancer, Iris leaves behind a blog that connects her boss and sister. Told through blog entries, emails and texts, this tender, uplifting, and at times amusing story shows each working through their grief and discovering an unexpected connection
Readalikes
“The Garden of Small Beginnings” by Abbi Waxman
“Attachments” by Rainbow Rowell
“Meet Me at the Museum” by Anne Youngson
Short List
“Evvie Drake Starts Over” by Linda Holmes, Ballantine Books an imprint of Random House a division of Penguin Random House LLC
“Queenie” by Candice Carty-Williams, Scout Press an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc
“Rules for Visiting” by Jessica Francis Kane, Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
“The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters” by Balli Kaur Jaswal, William Morrow an imprint HarperCollins Publishers
Romance
Winner
“The Flatshare” by Beth O’Leary, Flatiron Books
Tiffy needs a place to live and Leon works nights, so they come to an unusual arrangement: sharing an apartment (and a bed!) but never seeing each other. Communicating via post-it note, they begin to rely on each other in ways they never imagined.
Readalikes
“Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating” by Christina Lauren
“Our Stop” by Laura Jane Williams
“We Met in December” by Rosie Curtis
Short List
“The Bride Test” by Helen Hoang, A Jove Book published by Berkley
“Lady Derring Takes a Lover” by Julie Anne Long, Avon Books an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
“The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics” by Olivia Waite, Avon Impulse an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
“Royal Holiday” by Jasmine Guillory, Berkley an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Science Fiction
Winner
“A Memory Called Empire” by Arkady Martine, A Tor Book published Tom Doherty Associates
In this conspiracy-filled novel, a determined ambassador desperately tries to survive her new diplomatic assignment while investigating the murder of her predecessor on a planet with rules she doesn’t understand.
Readalikes
“The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison
“The Collapsing Empire” by John Scalzi
“Ancillary Justice” by Ann Leckie
Short List
“Finder” by Suzanne Palmer, DAW Books, Inc.
“The Future of Another Timeline” by Annalee Newitz, A Tor Book published by Tom Doherty Associates
“Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir, a Tor.com Book published by Tom Doherty Associates
“To Be Taught, If Fortunate” by Becky Chambers, Harper Voyager an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
The winners were selected by the Reading
List Council whose members include twelve expert readers’ advisory and
collection development librarians. The eight genres currently included in the
Council’s considerations are adrenaline, fantasy, historical fiction, horror,
mystery, romance, science fiction, and women’s fiction. However, the Council is
adaptable to new genres and changes in contemporary reading interest.
The Council consists of Matthew Galloway,
Anythink Libraries, chair; Craig Clark, Upper Arlington OH; Gloria Drake,
Oswego Public Library District; Halle Eisenman, NoveList; Andrea Gough, Seattle
Public Library; Marlene Harris, Reading Reality LLC; Sarah Jaffa, Kitsap
Regional Library; Jackie Kropp, Western Plains Library System; Teresa May,
Durham County Public Libraries; Jo Schofield, Stark County District Library;
Karin Suni, Free Library of Philadelphia; Estella Terrazas, Altadena Library
District.
(1) BAD DOG. “No Doctor Who spoilers will adorn future Pixel Scrolls,” promised Mike Glyer, after spending the day being chastised by File 770 commenters.
Now that “Star Trek” has beamed Jean-Luc Picard back up into its universe, the sci-fi franchise’s captain is already plotting its next course. And that may include mind-melding the film and TV universes after more than a decade apart.
When Viacom and CBS agreed to re-merge, after spending the past 14 years as separate companies, the film and TV rights to “Star Trek” once again came under the same corporate roof. CBS TV Studios controls the TV side, while Paramount has steered the Enterprise on the film part of the universe.
Alex Kurtzman, who oversees “Star Trek” for CBS TV Studios, believes it’s only a matter of time before the film and TV worlds of “Star Trek” collide.
“The ink has just dried on the merger and the doors are just opening. So I think anything is possible at this point,” he told TheWrap. “I can’t imagine that CBS and Paramount, in their infinite wisdom, would say lets create two ‘Star Trek’s and have them be separate. That doesn’t seem like it would be a good strategy to me.”
You can choose between seven different designs: animated Batman images for the character’s 80th anniversary; the Batman symbol; an animated Superman opening his shirt to the logo underneath; the Wonder Woman symbol; The Flash’s symbol; an animated Harley Quinn; and the whole Justice League in animated form.
Super-sized volcanic eruptions and giant asteroids crashing in from outer space are the stuff of disaster movies. They have listener Santosh from South Africa slightly concerned. He’d like to know what’s being done in real life to prepare for this kind of event.
Although the chance of these events occurring is low, Santosh isn’t entirely wrong to be worried: Earth has a much longer history than humans do, and there’s evidence that several past extinction events millions of years ago wiped out the dominant species on the planet at the time, as we’ve heard before on CrowdScience. The kind of extraordinary geological and extra-terrestrial hazards thought to be responsible for the death of millions of lives do still exist. So is there really any way that humans could survive where the dinosaurs – and plenty of other species – have failed?
Presenter Marnie Chesterton finds out by meeting experts who are already preparing for the remote but real possibility of the biggest disaster we could face. It turns out that in real life most things we can think of which could cause an extinction event are being watched closely by scientists and governmental agencies.
How worried we should really be by the possibility of a sudden super-volcanic eruption at Yellowstone in the USA, or one of the other enormous volcanoes dotting our planet’s surface? Marnie heads into an underground bunker near the remote Scottish coast to find out if hiding out is a viable survival option. Now a museum, Scotland’s Secret Bunker, formerly RAF Troywood, is one of a network of nuclear shelters built by nation states during the Cold War.
And she hears about one of the combined space agencies most ambitious projects yet: NASA and ESA’s Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission to crash an impactor into an asteroid’s moon to find out whether we could knock any potentially problematic collisions off-course well before Earth impact
(5) PAUSEWANG OBIT. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Gudrun Pausewang, a German YA author who
occasionally ventured into SFF, died on January 24 at the age of 91. Ms.
Pausewang’s forays into science fiction were mainly dystopian such as the 1983
novel The Last Children of Schewenborn, a story about life and death
(but mainly death) after a nuclear war, and the 1987 novel The Cloud
about the fallout from a nuclear disaster, which sits on the reading list of
many German schools. She also wrote less gloomy fare on occasion such as the
1972 modern fairytale “The Merman Behind the House”. I wasn’t a huge
fan of her work – way too gloomy for my tastes – but she was certainly an
important voice. Here is an English language obituary: “Anti-nuclear author Gudrun Pausewang dies”.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY.
January 27, 1980 — Galactica 1980 premiered on ABC. A spin-off from the original Battlestar Galactica series, it was the result of a massive letter writing campaign in the days before email which made the network actually pay attention. Alas it performed quite poorly and was canceled after the initial order of ten episodes. I remember Lorne Greene as Commander Adama was the only major returning cast member, but I’ll freely admit I’ve not seen either series in decades so that could be inaccurate. The DVD release twenty seventy years later would be carry the tagline of “The Original Battlestar Galactica’s Final Season”.
January 27, 1998 — The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy premiered on UPN. Written by Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist, it was directed by Joe Dante. It starred John Corbett, Carolyn McCormick, Rod Taylor, John Pyper-Ferguson, Elisabeth Harnois and J. Madison Wright. It was intended as a pilot for The Osiris Chronicles series but that never happened though similar concepts can be seen in Roddenberry’s Andromeda series. It is available for viewing here.
January 27, 2008 — Attack of the Gryphon premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel. It was directed by Andrew Prowse, with a cast led by Amber Benson, Jonathan LaPaglia, and Larry Drake. It was one in a series that included a film called Mansquito. Really. Truly. Like most of the Sci-Fi Pictures original films series, neither critics or reviewers were impressed with the story, SFX or acting. It’s got no rating at Rotten Tomatoes and the scant number of Amazon ratings are all over the place.
January 27, 2008 — Journey To The Center Of The Earth premiered. It was directed by Eric Brevin. It starred Brendan Fraser, Anita Briem, and Josh Hutcherson. Surprisingly, at least to me, it received positive reviews from critics, and was a huge box office success. It currently holds a 51% rating among reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 27, 1756 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. On the strength of The Magic Flute. (Died 1791.)
Born January 27, 1940 — James Cromwell, 80. I think we best know him as Doctor Zefram Cochrane In Star Trek: First Contact , which was re-used in the Enterprise episode “In a Mirror, Darkly (Part I)”. He’s been in other genre films including Species II, Deep Impact, The Green Mile, Space Cowboys, I, Robot, Spider-Man 3 and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. He played characters on three Trek series, Prime Minister Nayrok on “The Hunted” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Jaglom Shrek in the two part “Birthright” story, Hanok on the “Starship Down” episode of Deep Space Nine and Zefram Cochrane once again as noted before on Enterprise.
Born January 27, 1950 — Michaela Roessner, 70. She won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer for Walkabout Woman. Her The Stars Dispose duology is quite excellent. Alas, none of her fiction is available digitally.
Born January 27, 1956 — Mimi Rogers, 64. Her best known known SFF role is Professor Maureen Robinson in the Lost in Space film which I did see in a theatre I just realized. She’s also Mrs. Marie Kensington in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, and she’s Orianna Volkes in the Penny Dreadful hitchhiker horror film. She’s got one-offs in Tales from The Crypt, The X-Files, Where Are You Scooby Doo? and Ash v. Evil Dead.
Born January 27, 1957 — Frank Miller, 63. He’s both an artist and writer so I’m not going to untangle which is which here. What’s good by him? Oh, I love The Dark Knight Returns, both the original comic series and the animated film, though the same not no true of Sin City where I prefer the original series much more. Hmmm… What else? His runs on Daredevil and Electra of course. That should do.
Born January 27, 1958 — Susanna Thompson, 62. She played Dr. Lenara Kahn in Deep Space Nine’s “Rejoined” episode and was the Borg Queen in three episodes of Voyager. Back here on Earth, she was Moira Queen on Arrow. She’s also had roles in Alien Nation: Dark Horizon, The Lake, Bermuda Triangle, Dragonfly, Kings, The Gathering and she had two different one-offs on Next Gen before being cast as the Borg Queen.
Born January 27, 1963 — Alan Cumming, 57. His film roles include his performances as Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Fegan Floop In the Spy Kids trilogy, Loki, god of Mischief in Son of the Mask (a really horrid film), Nightcrawler In X2 and Judas Caretaker in Riverworld.
Born January 27, 1966 — Tamlyn Tomita, 54. I’m fairly sure I first saw her in a genre role on the Babylon 5 film The Gathering as Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima. Or it might have been on The Burning Zone as Dr. Kimberly Shiroma. And she had a recurring late on Eureka in Kate Anderson, and Ishi Nakamura on Heroes? She’s been in a number of SFF series in one-off roles including Highlander, Quantum Leap, The Sentinel, Seven Days, FreakyLinks, Stargate SG-1 and a recurring as late as Tamiko Watanabe in The Man in The High Castle.
Born January 27, 1969 — Patton Oswalt, 51. He gets his Birthday Honors for voicing Remy in Ratatouille, a truly lovely and rather tasty film. He also played Eric, Billy, Sam and Thurston Koenig in a recurring and fascinating role on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series. And let’s not overlook that he’s been Max for the part several years on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Damn, I almost forgot he voiced Space Cabbie on Justice league Action!
We Terry Pratchett fans have been lucky in recent years. We were given Good Omens, which thanks to co-author Neil Gaiman’s shepherding and incredible performances from David Tennant and Michael Sheen, was a joy to watch. And we were told that BBC America was developing The Watch, a series based on Pratchett’s stories about Ankh Morpork’s City Watch. Yes, we were a little nervous to read that Pratchett’s fierce, dark, sardonic stories were to become a “startlingly reimagined … punk rock thriller” that was “inspired by” the books. But we stayed faithful, for it was promised that the show would “still cleav[e] to the humour, heart and ingenuity of Terry Pratchett’s incomparably original work”.
Growing up in Portland, Ore., in the ’90s, tofu could be hard to find. It would be a long time before ramen joints spread across the city, before national chains like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods had their own store-brand tofu.
But like soba noodles, nori, rice and fish, tofu is a staple of Japanese home cooking. So my parents regularly made a 15-minute drive west, across the Willamette River, to stock up at Ota Tofu.
The old-school company still makes its tofu by hand in small batches, navigating a growing demand for plant-based foods. But what I didn’t realize then is that it’s also a cultural institution — the oldest tofu producer still operating in the country, Ota Tofu has fed Portland’s Japanese American community for more than 100 years.
Eileen Ota, a former owner of Ota Tofu, notes that other tofu producers existed earlier in the United States, but many ceased operations because of one event: the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
(14) MYTH FULFILLMENT OR METAL FATIGUE? As The Week put
it: “A brawny visitor to
Disneyland managed to pull a model of Excalibur out of a model stone, thus
arguably revealing himself as the future king of England. A friend fo the
future king, whom he identified only as ‘Sam,’ says he’s ‘a pretty buff dude.”
Also at CinemaBlend: “A
Disneyland Guest Literally Pulled The Sword Excalibur From The Stone”.
A few days ago the sword, which sits in front of the carousel, went missing, and while it was believed to have something to do with an upcoming refurbishment of the attraction, it seems that’s not the case. WDWNT reports that the site has been told by somebody in the know, that the hilt of the sword was actually pulled, or more accurately, broken, by a guest who pulled on it so hard that it came out.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Obst” on Vimeo, Jan Eisner asks the question, “If fruit could move, what would they do?”
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Andrew
Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, John Hertz, and Mike Kennedy for some of these
stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]
The LITA Committee Recognizing Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction has released the 2020 Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists.
The lists are composed of notable children’s and young adult science fiction published between November 2018 and October 2019 and organized into three age-appropriate categories. The annotated lists will be posted on the website at www.sfnotables.org.
The Golden Duck Notable Picture Books List is selected from books intended for pre-school
children and very early readers, up to 6 years old. Recognition is given to the
author and the illustrator:
Field Trip to the Moon by John Hare. Margaret Ferguson Books
Hello by Aiko Ikegami. Creston Books
How to be on the Moon by Viviane Schwarz. Candlewick Press
Out There by Tom Sullivan. Balzer + Bray
The Babysitter From Another Planet by Stephen Savage. Neal Porter Books
The Space Walk by Brian Biggs. Dial Books for Young Readers
Ultrabot’s First Playdate by Josh Schneider. Clarion Books
Good Boy by Sergio Ruzzier. Atheneum Books
Llama Destroys the World, written by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrated by Heather Fox. Henry Holt & Co
The Eleanor Cameron Notable Middle Grade
Books List titles
are chapter books or short novels that may be illustrated. They are written for
ages 7 – 11. This list is named for Eleanor Cameron, author of the Mushroom
Planet series.
Awesome Dog 5000 by Justin Dean. Random House Books for Young Readers
Cog by Greg van Eekhout. HarperCollins
Field Trip (Sanity and Tallulah #2) by Molly Brooks. Disney-Hyperion
Friendroid by M. M. Vaughan. Margaret K. McElderry Books
Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat by Johnny Marciano & Emily Chenoweth. Penguin Workshop
Maximillian Fly by Angie Sage. Katherine Tegen Books
The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith. Clarion Books
The Greystone Secrets #1: The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Katherine Tegen Books
We’re Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey. Crown Books for Young Readers
The Unspeakable Unknown by Eliot Sappingfield. G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Seventh Grade vs the Galaxy by Joshua S. Levy. Carolrhoda Books
The Hal Clement Notable Young Adult Books
List contains
science fiction books written for ages 12 – 18 with a young adult protagonist.
This list is named for Hal Clement, a well-known science fiction writer and
high school science teacher who promoted children’s science fiction.
Alien: Echo by Mira Grant. Imprint
Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Girls With Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young. Simon Pulse
The Hive by Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden. Kids Can Press
The Pioneer by Bridget Tyler. HarperTeen
How We Became Wicked by Alexander Yates. Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
The Waning Age by S.E. Grove. Viking Books for Young Readers
The Fever King by Victoria Lee. Skyscape
War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi. Razorbill
I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Rishi. HarperTeen
Honor Bound by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre. Katherine Tegen Books
The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the top
books, video and audio books for children and young adults – including the
Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards – at its Midwinter
Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Congratulations to Seanan McGuire and Colson Whitehead, whose
books received Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to
teen audiences.
And also of genre interest, the Young Adult winner of the Asian/Pacific
American Award for Literature is They Called Us Enemy, written by George
Takei, Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott, illustrated by Harmony Becker.
A list of all the 2020 award winners follows:
John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature:
New
Kid,
written by Jerry Craft, illustrated by the author and published by
HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.
Newbery Honor Books
The
Undefeated,
written by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson and published by
Versify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;
Scary
Stories for Young Foxes,
written by Christian McKay Heidicker, illustrated by Junyi Wu and published by
Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group;
Other
Words for Home,
written by Jasmine Warga and published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of
HarperCollins Publishers;
Genesis
Begins Again,
written by Alicia D. Williams and published by Atheneum Books for Young
Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, a
Caitlyn Dlouhy Book.
Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:
The
Undefeated,
illustrated by Kadir Nelson. The book was written by Kwame Alexander and
published by Versify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Caldecott Honor Books
Bear
Came Along, illustrated
by LeUyen Pham, written by Richard T. Morris and published by Little, Brown and
Company, a division of Hachette Book Group;
Double
Bass Blues,
illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez, written by Andrea J. Loney and published by
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Children’s Books, a division of
Penguin Random House LLC;
Going
Down Home with Daddy,
illustrated by Daniel Minter, written by Kelly Starling Lyons and published by
Peachtree Publishers.
Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African-American
author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:
New
Kid
written by Jerry Craft, is the King Author Book winner. The book is illustrated
by the author and published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of
HarperCollins Publishers.
King Author Honor Books
The
Stars and the Blackness Between Them, written by Junauda Petrus and published by Dutton Books, an
imprint of Penguin Random House LLC;
Tristan
Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, written by Kwame Mbalia and published by Disney-Hyperion, an
imprint of Disney Book Group;
Look
Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, written by Jason Reynolds and published by Atheneum Books for
Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Division, a Caitlyn Dlouhy Book.
Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award:
The
Undefeated,
illustrated by Kadir Nelson. The book is written by Kwame Alexander and
published by Versify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
King Illustrator Honor Books
The
Bell Rang,
illustrated by James E. Ransome, written by the illustrator and published by
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s
Publishing Division, a Caitlyn Dlouhy Book;
Infinite
Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace, illustrated by Ashley Bryan,
written by the illustrator and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers,
an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, a Caitlyn
Dlouhy Book;
Sulwe, illustrated by Vashti Harrison,
written by Lupita Nyong’o and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young
Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.
Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award:
Genesis Begins Again, written by Alicia D. Williams.The book is published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, a Caitlyn Dlouhy Book.
Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award:
What Is Given from the Heart, illustrated by April Harrison. The book is written by Patricia C. McKissack and published by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime
Achievement: The
award pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children’s author
Virginia Hamilton.
Mildred
D. Taylor
Born in Mississippi in 1943 and raised in Ohio, Taylor resides
in Colorado. “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” won the 1977 Newbery Award and a
Coretta Scott King Book Award honor.
Taylor received the international 2003 inaugural NSK Neustadt
Prize for Children’s Literature. Her books earned national recognition
including four CSK author awards and two author honors. Her 2020 Logan family
series conclusion “All the Days Past, All the Days to Come” continues
addressing systemic injustice, entrenched inequality and the roots of racism.
Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for
young adults:
Dig, written by A.S. King. The book
is published by Dutton Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young
Readers, a division of Penguin Random House.
Printz Honor Books
The
Beast Player,
written by Nahoko Uehashi, translated by Cathy Hirano and published by Godwin
Books/Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group;
Laura
Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, written by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Rosemary
Valero-O’Connell and published by First Second/Macmillan Children’s Publishing
Group;
Ordinary
Hazards: A Memoir,
written by Nikki Grimes and published by Wordsong, an imprint of Boyds Mills
& Kane;
Where
the World Ends,
written by Geraldine McCaughrean and published by Flatiron Books, an imprint of
Macmillan Publishers.
Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic
expression of the disability experience:
Young Children
Just
Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You, written by Sonia Sotomayor, illustrated by Rafael López and
published by Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, wins the
award for young children (ages 0 to 10).
Honor book for Young Children
A
Friend for Henry,
written by Jenn Bailey, illustrated by Mika Song and published by Chronicle
Books LLC.
Middle Grades
Song
for a Whale,
written by Lynne Kelly and published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random
House Children’s Book, a division of Penguin Random House LLC,
Honor book for middle grades
Each
Tiny Spark,
written by Pablo Cartaya and published by Kokila Penguin Young Readers Group,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
Teen
Cursed, written by Karol Ruth
Silverstein and published by Charlesbridge
Honor book for teens
The
Silence Between Us,
written by Alison Gervais and published by Blink.
Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen
audiences:
A
Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, By C.A. Fletcher, Published by Orbit, a division of Hachette
Group
Do
You Dream of Terra-Two?
By Temi Oh, Published by Saga Press/Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon &
Schuster, Inc.
Dominicana, By Angie Cruz, Published by
Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers
Gender
Queer: A Memoir,
By Maia Kobabe, Published by Lion Forge, an imprint of Oni Press
High
School,
By Sara Quin and Tegan Quin, Published by MCD, a division of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers
In
Waves,
By AJ Dungo, Published by Nobrow
Middlegame, By Seanan McGuire, Published
by Tor.com Publishing, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, a division of
Macmillan
The
Nickel Boys,
By Colson Whitehead, Published by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House
Red,
White & Royal Blue By
Casey McQuiston, Published by St. Martin’s Griffin, a division of St. Martin’s
Publishing Group, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers
The
Swallows,
By Lisa Lutz, Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a
division of Penguin Random House
Children’s Literature Legacy Award honors an author or illustrator
whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years,
a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children through books
that demonstrate integrity and respect for all children’s lives and
experiences.
The
2020 winner is Kevin Henkes, whose award-winning works include “Kitten’s
First Full Moon” which won the Caldecott Award in 2005 and “The Year of Billy
Miller,” recipient of a Newbery Honor in 2014. In addition, Henkes has received
two Geisel honors, two Caldecott honors and a second Newbery honor.
Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing
for young adults:
The
2020 winner is Steve Sheinkin. His books include: “Bomb: The Race to
Build-and Steal-the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon,” “The Port Chicago 50:
Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights,” and “The Notorious Benedict
Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery,” all published by
Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and
“Lincoln’s Grave Robbers,” published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of
Scholastic Inc.
2020 ALSC Children’s Literature Lecture Award recognizing an author, critic,
librarian, historian or teacher of children’s literature, who then presents a
lecture at a winning host site.
Dr.
Rudine Sims Bishop
will deliver the 2021 Children’s Literature Lecture. Dr. Sims Bishop, Professor
Emerita at The Ohio State University, has served on numerous noteworthy
committees for ALA and other organizations, and has been recognized with
prestigious awards for her work. Her research, writing, and teaching have
informed and expanded conversations about representation of African Americans
in children’s literature and provided a critical framework for research and
pedagogy. Her essay, “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors,” is
not only cited globally, it has inspired shifts in publishing, teaching, and
the inclusion of authentic, diverse voices in literature for children and
teens.
Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children’s book originally published in a
language other than English in a country other than the United States, and
subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States:
Brown. Originally published in
Norwegian as “Brune,” the book was written by Håkon Øvreås, illustrated by
Øyvind Torseter, translated by Kari Dickson and published by Enchanted Lion
Books.
Honor Books
The
Beast Player,
published by Godwin Books/Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s
Publishing Group, written by Nahoko Uehashi, illustrated by Yuta Onoda and
translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano;
The
Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, written by Paola Peretti,
illustrated by Carolina Rabei, translated from the Italian by Denise Muir;
Do
Fish Sleep?
published by Enchanted Lion Books, written by Jens Raschke, illustrated by Jens
Rassmus, translated from the German by Belinda Cooper; and
When
Spring Comes to the DMZ,
published by Plough Publishing House, written by Uk-Bae Lee, illustrated by the
author, translated from the Korean by Chungyon Won and Aileen Won.
Odyssey Award for best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults,
available in English in the United States:
Hey,
Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction, produced by Scholastic
Audiobooks. The book is written by Jarrett J. Krosoczka and narrated by the
author, Jeanne Birdsall, Jenna Lamia, Richard Ferrone and a full cast.
Odyssey Honor Audiobooks
Redwood
and Ponytail,
produced by Hachette Audio, written by K.A. Holt and narrated by Cassandra
Morris and Tessa Netting;
Song
for a Whale,
produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Penguin Random House Audio
Publishing Group, written by Lynne Kelly and narrated by Abigail Revasch with
the author;
We
Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga,
produced by Live Oak Media, written by Traci Sorell and narrated by Lauren
Hummingbird, Agalisiga (Choogie) Mackey, Ryan Mackey, Traci Sorell, Tonia
Weavel;
We’re
Not from Here,
produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Penguin Random House Audio
Publishing Group, written by Geoff Rodkey and narrated by Dani Martineck.
Pura Belpré Awards honoring a Latino writer and illustrator whose children’s books
best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience:
Dancing
Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln, illustrated by Rafael López.
The book was written by Margarita Engle and published by Atheneum Books for
Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Division.
Belpré Illustrator Honor Books
Across
the Bay,
illustrated by Carlos Aponte, written by the illustrator and published by
Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC;
My
Papi Has a Motorcycle,
illustrated by Zeke Peña, written by Isabel Quintero and published by Kokila,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC; and
¡Vamos!
Let’s Go to the Market,
illustrated by Raúl Gonzalez, written by the author and published by Versify,
an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Sal
and Gabi Break the Universe, written by Carlos Hernandez, is the Pura Belpré Author Award
winner. The book is published by Disney-Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book
Group.
Belpré Author Honor Books
Lety
Out Loud,
written by Angela Cervantes and published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of
Scholastic Inc.;
The
Other Half of Happy,
written by Rebecca Balcárcel and published by Chronicle Books;
Planting
Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré, written by Anika Aldamuy
Denise, illustrated by Paola Escobar and published by HarperCollins Children’s
Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers;
Soldier
for Equality: José de la Luz Sáenz and the Great War, written by Duncan Tonatiuh,
illustrated by the author and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an
imprint of ABRAMS.
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished
informational book for children:
Fry
Bread: A Native American Family Story, written by Kevin Noble Maillard and illustrated by Juana
Martinez-Neal. The book is published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of
Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings.
Sibert Honor Books
All
in a Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World, written by Lori Alexander, illustrated
by Vivien Mildenberger and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;
This
Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality, written by Jo Ann Allen Boyce
and Debbie Levy and published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books;
Ordinary
Hazards: A Memoir,
written by Nikki Grimes and published by WordSong, an imprint of Highlights;
and
Hey,
Water!
written and illustrated by Antoinette Portis and published by Neal Porter
Books, Holiday House.
The Excellence in Early Learning Digital Media Award is given to a digital
media producer that has created distinguished digital media for an early
learning audience.
Molly
of Denali,
produced by PBS Kids.
Honor recipients
Seek, produced by iNaturalist, and
States
of Matter by
Tinybop, produced by Tinybop, Inc.
Stonewall Book Award – Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s
& Young Adult Literature Award given annually to English-language children’s and young adult
books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender experience:
When
Aidan Became a Brother,
written by Kyle Lukoff, illustrated by Kaylani Juanita and published by Lee
& Low Books Inc.
The
Black Flamingo,
written by Dean Atta, illustrated by Anshika Khullar and published by Hodder
Children’s Books, an imprint of Hachette Children’s Group, part of Hodder and
Stoughton
Honor Books
Pet, written by Akwaeke Emezi and
published by Make Me a World, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a
division of Penguin Random House LLC;
Like
a Love Story,
written by Abdi Nazemian and published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of
HarperCollins Publishers,
The
Best at It,
written by Maulik Pancholy and published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of
HarperCollins Publishers.
Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most
distinguished beginning reader book is:
Stop!
Bot!
written and illustrated by James Yang. The book is published by Viking, Penguin
Young Readers.
Geisel Honor Books
Chick
and Brain: Smell My Foot!
written and illustrated by Cece Bell and published by Candlewick Press;
Flubby
Is Not a Good Pet!
written and illustrated by J. E. Morris and published by Penguin Workshop, an
imprint of Penguin Random House; and
The
Book Hog,
written and illustrated by Greg Pizzoli and published by Disney-Hyperion, an
imprint of Disney Book Group.
William C. Morris Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for
teens:
The
Field Guide to the North American Teenager, written by Ben Philippe. The book is published
by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Other finalists for the award:
The
Candle and the Flame, written
by Nafiza Azad and published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of
Scholastic;
Frankly
in Love, written
by David Yoon and published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers,
an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, a division of Penguin Random House;
Genesis
Begins Again, written
by Alicia D. Williams and published by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, an
imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing; and
There
Will Come a Darkness, written
by Katy Rose Pool and published by Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan
Children’s Publishing Group.
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults:
Free
Lunch,
written by Rex Ogle. The book is published by Norton Young Readers, an imprint
of W.W. Norton & Company.
Other finalists for the award:
The
Great Nijinsky: God of Dance, written and illustrated by Lynn Curlee and published by
Charlesbridge Teen;
A
Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust, written by Albert Marrin and
published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a
division of Penguin Random House;
A
Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II, written by Elizabeth Wein and
published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; and
Torpedoed:
The True Story of the World War II Sinking of ‘The Children’s Ship’, written by Deborah Heiligman
and published by Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing
Group.
Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. The award promotes Asian/Pacific
American culture and heritage and is awarded based on literary and artistic
merit.
The Picture Book winner
Queen
of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom, written by Teresa Robeson, illustrated
by Rebecca Huang and published by Sterling Children’s Books.
Picture Book honor title:
Bilal
Cooks Daal,
written by Aisha Saeed, illustrated by Anoosha Syed and published by Salaam
Reads/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon &
Schuster Children’s Publishing.
Children’s Literature winner:
Stargazing, written by Jen Wang and
published by First Second, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.
Children’s literature honor title:
I’m
Ok, written by Patti Kim
and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon &
Schuster Children’s Publishing.
Young Adult Literature winner
They
Called Us Enemy,
written by George Takei, Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott, illustrated by
Harmony Becker and published by Top Shelf Productions, an imprint of IDW
Publishing.
Young Adult Literature honor title:
Frankly
in Love,
written by David Yoon and published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of
Penguin Young Readers, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Sydney Taylor Book Award is presented annually to outstanding books for children and
teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience.
Picture Book winner:
The
Book Rescuer: How a Mensch from Massachusetts Saved Yiddish Literature for
Generations to Come,
by Sue Macy, illustrated by Stacy Innerst and published by Paula Wiseman Books,
an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Picture Book honor books
Gittel’s
Journey,
by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by Amy June Bates and published by Abrams Books
for Young Readers,
The
Key from Spain: Flory Jagoda and Her Music, by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Sonja Wimmer and published by
Kar-Ben Publishing, a division of Lerner Publishing Group.
Middle Grade winner
White
Bird: A Wonder Story, by
R. J. Palacio and published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random
House.
Middle Grade honor books
Anya
and the Dragon,
by Sofiya Pasternack and published by Versify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, and
Games
of Deception: The True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the
1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany, by Andrew Maraniss and published by Philomel Books, an imprint
of Penguin Random House.
Young Adult winner
Someday
We Will Fly,
by Rachel DeWoskin and published by Viking Books for Young Readers, an imprint
of Penguin Random House.
Young Adult honor books
Dissenter
on the Bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life and Work, by Victoria Ortiz and published
by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and
Sick
Kids in Love,
by Hannah Moskowitz and published by Entangled Teen, an imprint of Entangled
Publishing LLC.
American Indian Youth Literature award is announced in even years and
established to identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by
and about American Indians.
Picture Book winner
Bowwow
Powwow: Bagosenjige-niimi’idim, written by Brenda J. Child (Red Lake Ojibwe), translated into
Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain (Lac La Croix First Nation), illustrated by Jonathan
Thunder (Red Lake Ojibwe) and published by the Minnesota Historical Society
Press.
Picture Book Honor titles
Fry
Bread: A Native American Family Story, written by Kevin Noble Maillard (Seminole Nation, Mekusukey
Band), illustrated by Juana Martínez-Neal (Peruvian-American) and published by
Roaring Brook Press / Macmillan;
Birdsong, written and illustrated by
Julie Flett (Cree-Métis) and published by Greystone Kids;
At
the Mountain’s Base,
written by Traci Sorell (Cherokee), illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre
(Tongva/Scots-Gaelic), and published by Kokila / Penguin Random House;
We
Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga,
written by Traci Sorell (Cherokee), illustrated by Frané Lessac, and published
by Charlesbridge; and
Raven
Makes the Aleutians,
adapted from a traditional Tlingit story and illustrated by Janine Gibbons
(Haida, Raven of the Double-Finned Killer Whale clan, Brown Bear House) and
published by Sealaska Heritage.
Middle Grade Book winner
Indian
No More,
written by Charlene Willing McManis (Umpqua/Confederated Tribes of Grande
Ronde) with Traci Sorell (Cherokee), cover art by Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake
Dakota, Mohegan, Muscogee Creek), published by Tu Books / Lee & Low.
Middle Grade Book Honor titles
I
Can Make This Promise,
written by Christine Day (Upper Skagit), with cover art by Michaela Goade
(Tlingit, Kiks.ádi clan, Steel House), published by HarperCollins; and
The
Grizzly Mother, written
by Hetxw’ms Gyetxw (“Brett D. Huson,” Gitxsan), illustrated by Natasha Donovan
(Métis Nation of British Columbia), and published by Highwater Press.
Young Adult Book winner
Hearts
Unbroken,
written by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee) and published by Candlewick Press.
Young Adult Book Honor
Surviving
the City,”
written by Tasha Spillett (Nehiyaw-Trinidadian), illustrated by Natasha Donovan
(Métis Nation of British Columbia), and published by Highwater Press;
Reawakening
Our Ancestors’ Lines: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tattooing, gathered and compiled by Angela
Hovak Johnston (Inuk), with photography by Cora De Vos (Inuk), published by
Inhabit Media;
An
Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People, written by Debbie Reese (Nambé
Owingeh) and Jean Mendoza adapted from the adult book by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,
published by Beacon Press; and
Apple
in the Middle,
written by Dawn Quigley (Ojibwe, Turtle Mountain Band) and published by North
Dakota State University Press.