G. Scott Huggins of Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin, has won the grand prize in the 2021 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award competition with his short story “Salvage Judgement.” The Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest has been held annually since 2007 and is focused on stories of space exploration and discovery, with an optimistic spin on those activities for the human race.
Last year, Huggins won the 2020 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, another short story contest sponsored by Baen Books. Both contests are judged anonymously.
FIRST PLACE
“Salvage Judgement” by G. Scott Huggins
SECOND PLACE
“Reaction Time” by C. Stuart Hardwick
THIRD PLACE [tie]
“Samba do Espaço” by Gustavo Bondoni
“Love On The Ganymede Trail” by Kurt Pankau.
Judges for the award were NASA scientist and science fiction author Les Johnson, and the editors of Baen Books. Stories were judged anonymously. The Jim Baen Memorial Award will be presented May 27 in a virtual ceremony at the annual International Space Development Conference.
The winner receives a distinctive award and professional publication of the story in June 2021 at the Baen.com web site. Second and Third place winners receive a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
“The National Space Society and Baen Books applaud the role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to sponsor this short fiction contest in memory of Jim Baen, the founder of Baen Books,” said William Ledbetter, contest administrator. “Winning the contest and attending the ISDC is a wonderful opportunity for winners to meet scientists and space advocates from around the world.”
Entrants hail from all over the world. This year, in addition to the United States, stories come from many countries, including: Libya, Nigeria, Romania, Sudan, Bolivia, Iraq, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Canada, Algeria, and Spain.
The finalists for the 2021 Jim Baen Memorial Award competition have been announced. The Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest has been held annually since 2007 and is focused on stories of space exploration and discovery, with an optimistic spin on those activities for the human race.
These are the ten finalists, in alphabetical order.
Gustavo Bondoni
Deborah L. Davitt
C. Stuart Hardwick
Scott Huggins
José Pablo Iriarte
William Paul Jones
Leigh Kimmel
Wendy Nikel
Kurt Pankau
Russell Pike
Four of these writers have made it to the finals before. C. Stuart Hardwick has been a finalist every year since 2015 (placing second in 2018 and third in 2020). Gustavo Bondoni was a finalist in 2019 (placing second). William Paul Jones was a finalist in 2020. Wendy Nikel was a finalist in 2018 (placing third) and again in 2019.
Judges for the award were celebrity author Les Johnson, and the editors of Baen Books . Stories were judged anonymously.
The Jim Baen Memorial Award will be presented May 27, 2021 in a ceremony at the annual International Space Development Conference (held virtually this year.) The winner receives a distinctive award and professional publication of the story in June 2021 at the Baen.com web site.
“The National Space Society and Baen Books applaud the role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to sponsor this short fiction contest in memory of Jim Baen, the founder of Baen Books,” said William Ledbetter, contest administrator.
The contest occurs annually and looks for stories that demonstrate the positive aspects of space exploration and discovery. This year, in addition to the United States, entrants hailed from Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, Algeria, Spain, Morocco. France, Kazakhstan, India, Canada, Libya, Nigeria, Romania, Kosovo, Sudan, Netherlands, Tunisia, Bolivia, Germany, Iraq, Indonesia, Japan, and Switzerland.
Entries in the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award writing contest are being accepted beginning today through February 1, 2021. See rules and specifications at the site.
Judging will be by Baen Books editors Hank Davis, Jim Minz, Tony Daniel, David Afsharirad, and Baen author David Drake.
Ten finalists will be announced no later than March 8, 2021
The GRAND PRIZE winner will be published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and paid at the normal paying rates for professional story submittals, currently .08/word. The author will also receive an engraved award, free entry into the 2021 International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
SECOND and THIRD place winners will receive free entry into the 2021 International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books merchandise.
The winners will be announced and notified no later than March 22, 2021. The winners will be honored at the 2021 International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, California, May 27-May 30, 2021.
M.T.
Reiten has won the
grand prize in
the 2020 Jim Baen Memorial Short story Award competition with his short story “Bagala Devi Objective.” Persistence paid off — it’s Reiten’s first win, after twice
placing third in previous years (2017 and 2019).
The Jim Baen Memorial Short
Story Contest has been held annually since 2007 and is focused on stories of
space exploration and discovery, with an optimistic spin on those activities
for the human race.
FIRST PLACE
“Bagala
Devi Objective” by M.T. Reiten
SECOND PLACE
“Spinners”
by Kate MacEachern
THIRD PLACE (tie)
“Sample
Return by C. Stuart Hardwick
“The
Caretaker” by Tiffany Smith
The contest judges were Baen Books
editors Hank Davis, Jim Minz, Tony Daniel, David Afsharirad, and Baen author
David Drake.
The Grand Prize winner will be
published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and
paid at the normal paying rates for professional story submittals, currently
.08/word. The author will also receive an engraved award, free entry into the
2020 International Space Development Conference (unfortunately cancelled due
to the coronavirus outbreak), a
year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing
various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
Second and Third place winners will receive a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise. They were also to have received free entry into the now-cancelled 2020 International Space Development Conference.
William Ledbetter, who administers
the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award contest for Baen Books and the National
Space Society, announced the ten
finalists of this year’s contest on March 7.
D.A. D’Amico, “The Boy Who Cried Fish”
Austin Eberle, “Stars of Their Own”
Meghan Feldman, “Dancing on Spun Sugar”
C. Stuart Hardwick, “Sample Return”
William Paul Jones, “Wander On”
K. D. Julicher, “Primum Non Nocere”
Kate MacEachern, “Spinners”
Wendy Nikel, “Bounty #1486”
M. T. Reiten, “Bagala Devi Objective”
Tiffany Smith, “The Caretaker”
Four of these writers have made it to the finals before. C. Stuart Hardwick has been a finalist every year since 2015 (placing second in 2018). Wendy Nikel was a finalist in 2018 (placing third) and 2019. M.T. Reiten made the finals in 2017 (placing third) and 2019 (placing third), and Tiffany Smith made the finals in 2019.
And several have been doing a quality of work that’s placed them in contention for other sff awards. C. Stuart Hardwick was voted a 2017 AnLab Readers’ Award for Best Novelette. K.D. Julicher was the inaugural Baen Fantasy Adventure Award winner in 2014, and was also a Published Finalist in the 2016 L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards for Writers of the Future Contest. Wendy Nikel was a 2017 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award finalist, and a 2018 WSFA Small Press Award Finalist.
“The National Space Society and Baen Books applaud the role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to sponsor this short fiction contest in memory of Jim Baen, the founder of Baen Books,” said William Ledbetter, contest administrator. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for the winner to meets scientists and space advocates from around the world.”
The contest judges are Baen Books
editors Hank Davis, Jim Minz, Tony Daniel, David Afsharirad, and Baen author
David Drake.
The Grand Prize winner will be published as the featured story on
the Baen Books main website and paid at the normal paying rates for
professional story submittals, currently .08/word. The author will also receive
an engraved award, free entry into the 2020 International Space Development
Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize
package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
Second and Third place winners will receive free entry into the 2020
International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National
Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National
Space Society merchandise.
Matt McHugh of New Jersey has won the grand prize in the
2019 Jim Baen Memorial Award competition for his short story
“Burners.” The Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest has been held
annually since 2007 and is focused on stories of space exploration and
discovery, with an optimistic spin on those activities for the human race.
GRAND PRIZE
“Burners” by Mat McHugh of New Jersey
FIRST RUNNER-UP
“Acid Test” by Gustavo Bondoni of Buenos Aires, Argentina
SECOND RUNNER-UP
“Dangerous Orbit” by M. T. Reiten of Los Alamos, NM
Judges for the award were the editors of Baen Books.
Stories were judged anonymously.
The Jim Baen Memorial Award will be presented June 8, 2019
in a ceremony at the annual International Space Development Conference held
this year in Arlington, VA. The winner receives a distinctive award and
professional publication of the story in June 2019 at the Baen.com web site.
“The National Space Society and Baen Books applaud the
role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to
sponsor this short fiction contest in memory of Jim Baen, the founder of Baen
Books,” said William Ledbetter, contest administrator. “It’s a
wonderful opportunity for the winner to meets scientists and space advocates
from around the world.”
The contest occurs annually and looks for stories that
demonstrate the positive aspects of space exploration and discovery.
Baen Books has announced the top ten finalists for the
2019 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award. The Grand Prize will be presented at
the 2019 International Space Development Conference in Arlington, VA the
weekend of June 6-9.
“The goal of this contest is to encourage writers
to create exciting and positive stories about humankind’s near future in
space,” said William Ledbetter, contest administrator. “The stories
all take place within the next fifty or sixty years and show the challenges and
wonders that await us as we explore and colonize the solar system. Our winners
can be novices or professionals; we just care about a well told story.”
The contest is judged by top Baen editors, who read
the entries “blind” with no author information included, so the
winners are picked solely by merit of the stories.
This year’s top ten Jim Baen Memorial Award finalists
(in alphabetical order) are:
Gustavo Bondoni – Argentina
C. Stuart Hardwick – Texas, USA
Harry Lang – Pennsylvania, USA
Jeffrey Lyman – New Jersey, USA
Matt McHugh – New Jersey, USA
Wendy Nikel- Utah, USA
M. T. Reiten – New Mexico, USA
Tiffany Smith – Texas, USA
Benjamin Tyler Smith – Pennsylvania, USA
Marie Vibbert – Ohio, USA
Four of these writers have made it to the finals before. C. Stuart Hardwick has been a finalist every year since 2015. Gustavo Bondoni, and Wendy Nikel were finalists in 2018. M.T. Reiten was a 2017 finalist with a story that placed as second runner-up.
And several have been doing a quality of work that’s
placed them in contention for other sff awards. Benjamin Tyler Smith made the
2017 finals of another Baen contest, the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. Hardwick
and Vibbert also are finalists in this year’s Analog AnLab Readers’ Award. Gustavo Bondoni was a finalist for the
2018 James White Award.
For those interested in reading sixteen of the best
stories from the first ten years of this contest, The Jim Baen Memorial Award: The First Decade anthology is
available through Baen Books and at book stores everywhere.
Entries in the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award writing contest are
being accepted through February 1, 2019. See rules and specifications at the
site.
Judging will be by Baen Books editors Hank Davis,
Jim Minz, Tony Daniel, David Afsharirad, and Baen author David Drake.
Ten finalists will be announced no later than March 8, 2019.
The GRAND PRIZE winner will be published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and paid at the normal paying rates for professional story submittals, currently .07/word. The author will also receive an engraved award, free entry into the 2019 International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
SECOND and THIRD place winners will receive free entry into the 2019 International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
The three winners will be announced and notified no later than March 22, 2019. The winners will be honored at the 2019 International Space Development Conference in Arlington, VA, June 6-9 2019.
In an alternate 1930’s Prohibition-era New York City, it’s not liquor that is outlawed but the future production of highly sentient robots known as automatons. Automata follows former NYPD detective turned private eye Sam Regal and his incredibly smart automaton partner, Carl Swangee. Together, they work to solve the case and understand each other in this dystopian America. Putting a science ?ction twist on the classic hard-boiled detective drama, Automata explores a dystopian alternative version of Prohibition-era New York City, similarly shaped by moral panic even though the alcohol ?ows freely here. In this universe, Prohibition doesn’t ban drinking, but the further production of sapient androids that have become prevalent by the 1920s. As a result, the existing androids, called automatons, are shunned by society, relegated to an untouchable caste of servants despite their near-human thought capability, and are frequently subjected to hatred and violence. It’s in this oppressive setting that human private detective Sam Regal (Basil Harris, “Grimm”) and his automaton partner Carl Swangee (Doug Jones, The Shape of Water) work together to solve cases for both communities, learning to see humanity in one another while trying to prove that justice is still worth serving.
Canadian designer Dave Delisle, of Dave’s Geeky Ideas, has come up with a concept tent that resembles a Star Trek Federation shuttlecraft.
The two-person tent, though not able to travel to other galaxies, allows Trekkies to go on their ‘away missions’.
It features a hull that looks like the real spacecraft, with an entrance at the back. When you want to stow it away, the tent can easily fit inside one of its thrusters.
(3) I’M LOSING IT HERE. RedWombat strikes a blow for artistic freedom. The thread starts here.
I REJECT YOUR UNREALISTIC BEAUTY STANDARDS FOR MYTHICAL COW LADIES
(4) TECH VIRTUOSO. Ursula V’s Twitter stream is also where I found this:
Yesterday, my coworker very casually mentioned that as a raft guide, he used carrier pigeons to send SD cards back to the shop so the guest photos would be printed on time. I still haven’t figured out how to process this in my mind.
(5) SPFBO 2018. Mark Lawrence, who announced the 2017 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off winner just the other day, wasted no time cranking up the next round of the contest: SPFBO 2018 – A call to authors.
This is the call for authors wanting to enter books for the fourth Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off.
The contest will be open for entries until August 1st or when 300 titles have been entered, whichever comes first.
If 250+ titles are not gathered by August 1st the contest will be deferred for a year. I have no idea if there is a limit to how many years we can gather 250+ new self-published fantasy book 1s.
So far they have 101 entries. These bloggers will review and rate the submissions.
If you’re someone with a passing interest in science fiction who’d like to know the genre better or would like to experience all the many splendours it has to offer without having to read 300-page novels, one of the best ways is through an anthology. If you’re a hardcore science fiction reader who wants to discover new authors or get deeper into the genre’s history and trends, one of the best ways is through an anthology.
Here then, are five essential science fiction anthologies that will appeal to – and are recommended for – both, the seasoned sci-fi fan, and the casual reader who’d really like to know what the big fuss about science fiction really is. Whatever it is that you’re looking for – spaceships and robots, interstellar travel or the future of humankind, feminist stories, swashbuckling adventures, stories about love and loss, funny stories, stories to make you ponder, about politics, economics, about culture(s), stories about the future that are really a commentary on our present, stories about technology done right, of technology gone wrong – they’re all in here, and then some….
The first two weeks of June’s StrangeHorizons brings a pair of stories and a pair of poems. The fiction is a mix of fantasies, one with magic and ghosts and monsters and the other with a looser grasp on reality. Both feature characters charged with watching over a space through. For one, it’s through elaborate ritual. For the other, it’s by house sitting. In both, there’s a feeling of something being trapped, of something being infested, and of the characters having been wronged. The poetry deals with myths, with mythical creatures, and with longing and endings and beginnings. And all together it makes for a rather lovely but haunting collection of short SFF. To the reviews!
Moviegoers sitting down to see Incredibles 2 are in for a tasty treat in the form of an animated short called Bao. It tells the story of an empty nester who discovers joy — and sorrow — when a steamed bun she makes comes to life.
The story is pulled from the childhood of Domee Shi, who wrote and directed the Pixar film. Shi was born in China and raised in Toronto. She started working at Pixar as an intern in 2011, and now she’s the first woman to direct a Pixar short.
Pixar and the larger animation industry have been criticized for shutting female animators out of top jobs, but Shi says that culture is changing.
“You’re just seeing this gradual shift in the industry because, before, animation was predominantly white and male, but now in animation schools all over the country enrollment is now over 50 percent female. … I think just more and more girls are just getting into animation. And I hope that we’re going to see those numbers be reflected in the industry and not just in the animation schools.”
(NPR interviewed Shi before the announcement that Pixar’s co-founder, John Lasseter, would be leaving the company. Lasseter had been absent since November, when allegations of sexual harrassment surfaced.)
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
On this day in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has its world premiere in New York. Did you know: Paramount gave Hitchcock a very small budget to work with, because of their distaste with the source material. They also deferred most of the net profits to Hitchcock, thinking the film would fail.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY
Born June 16 – John Cho, 46. Sulu in Star Trek, Star Trek into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond. First genre role appears to on Charmed, other shows includes Static Shock, Star Trek and Batman video games, Flashforward and the current season of The Exorcist.
“Wake up!” said Timothy the Talking Cat, a highly intelligent cat with a piercing intellect who was looking very dapper that bright morning in a yellow bow tie that deftly coordinated with his purple, velvety fur.
“I am awake,” said Susan.
“It is so hard to tell because you sleep standing up and also last night I painted eyes on your eyelids which was funny at the time but now I regret because when you close your eyes it looks like you are staring at me in a really angry way like you are about to stomp on me,” replied Timothy loquaciously (who was briefly surprised that of all the words the meat robot hadn’t spelt incorrectly “loquaciously” was one of them).
A day after allegations of emotional abuse and sexual assault were leveled against Chris Hardwick by an ex-girlfriend, AMC has decided today to officially pull the plug on their long time host’s talk show and appearances at San Diego Comic-Con next month.
“We have had a positive working relationship with Chris Hardwick for many years,” said the home of The Walking Dead in a statement on Saturday, one day before Season 2 ofTalking With Chris Hardwick was set to debut. “We take the troubling allegations that surfaced yesterday very seriously. While we assess the situation, Talking with Chris Hardwick will not air on AMC, and Chris has decided to step aside from moderating planned AMC and BBC America panels at Comic-Con International in San Diego next month.” …
(13) ERRATA. Locus Online’s item “Jemisin Wins 2018 BoBi” repeats Publishers Weekly’s mistake – the portion in quotes:
N.K. Jemisin will receive the annual Best of Brooklyn (BoBi) Award, and “is the first author of speculative fiction to win the BoBi.”
The yellow-orange tholin haze above Titan’s surface whirled around the chassis of a lighter-than-air research drone. A tiny carbon-fiber humanoid robot sat perched on its support structure, dangling his feet next to the drone’s camera as it took pictures of the rocky surface below. The dirigible, designed to carry sampling probes and communication equipment, barely registered the stowaway’s mass. Folded aramid-fiber wings fluttered on aluminum ribs on the bot’s back as the breeze swept over the drone’s chassis….
(15) EXPLORING FAN PHOTOS. Andrew Porter has been working on identifying people in the Jay Kay Klein photos posted by the UC/Cal/Riverside Collection. He sent out links to some of his finds —
Already renowned for his science fiction and scientific nonfiction, Arthur C. Clarke became the world’s most famous science fiction writer after the success of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He then produced novels like Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise that many regard as his finest works.
Gary Westfahl closely examines Clarke’s remarkable career, ranging from his forgotten juvenilia to the passages he completed for a final novel, The Last Theorem. As Westfahl explains, Clarke’s science fiction offered original perspectives on subjects like new inventions, space travel, humanity’s destiny, alien encounters, the undersea world, and religion. While not inclined to mysticism, Clarke necessarily employed mystical language to describe the fantastic achievements of advanced aliens and future humans. Westfahl also contradicts the common perception that Clarke’s characters were bland and underdeveloped, arguing that these reticent, solitary individuals, who avoid conventional relationships, represent his most significant prediction of the future, as they embody the increasingly common lifestyle of people in the twenty-first century.
Westfahl, formerly of the University of La Verne and the University of California, Riverside, has now retired to focus exclusively on research and writing. His many books on science fiction include William Gibson and Hugo Gernsback and the Century of Science Fiction
(17) FEATHERED NERD RANKINGS. Joe Sherry’s “Reading the Hugos: Short Story” puts this one somewhere in the middle of his ballot.
“Fandom for Robots”: So, the original sentient AI discovers fan fiction and gets involved in the fandom for the anime Hyperdimension Warp Record. On its surface, “Fandom for Robots” is exactly what it seems to be – an AI learning about fandom, about shipping characters, about writing fan fiction and commenting on other stories. But, I wonder, is there a point here where Prasad is also talking about how fanfiction gives a greater opportunity to marginalized people to see themselves in stories where they are otherwise excluded? Is Prasad telling a story about how fanfiction can build community and inclusion?
“Fandom for Robots” was a lot of fun to read, but it’s a better story when I’m reading a bit deeper into what message may be baked into an otherwise basic story of an AI discovering fanfiction.
Guests can encounter the Shaman of Songs inside Na’vi River Journey, after they board a boat and are whisked away on an immersive journey deep into a bioluminescent rainforest on Pandora. There, the Shaman of Songs sits, sending positive energy out into the forest through the power of her movements and music.
But bringing her to life required the Imagineering/LEI project team to not only apply the latest technologies in robotics, but also develop an estimated 20 new technologies to bring this figure to life. The goal was to make the figure’s tech as hidden as possible, to make the shaman as lifelike as possible.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, and BigelowT for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor Lurkertype.]
What the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award looks like.
The winner and runners-up for the 2018 Jim Baen Memorial Award competition have been announced.
GRAND PRIZE
“Homonculus” by Stephen Lawson
FIRST RUNNER-UP
“Dangerous Company” by C. Stuart Hardwick
SECOND RUNNER-UP
“Falling to the Moon” by Wendy Nikel
Stephen Lawson’s win comes on the heels of taking the first runner-up spot in 2017.
The contest is focused on stories of human space exploration and discovery, with an optimistic spin. Judges for the award were the editors of Baen Books and special guest judge, author David Drake. Stories were judged anonymously.
The Jim Baen Memorial Award will be presented May 26, 2018 in a ceremony at the annual International Space Development Conference held this year in Los Angeles, CA. The winner receives professional publication of their story in June 2018 at the Baen.com web site, where new fiction is featured each month.
“The National Space Society and Baen Books applaud the role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to sponsor this short fiction contest in memory of Baen Books founder, Jim Baen” said William Ledbetter, contest administrator. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for the winner to meet scientists and space advocates from around the world.”