This Is Horror Awards 2021 Voting Opens

This Is Horror, the UK website, is taking votes for its annual awards through 12:01 a.m. BST on January 7. Anyone can vote — click through for instructions. Here is the shortlist, which was just announced on December 7.

NOVEL OF THE YEAR

  • My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
  • Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper
  • Red X by David Demchuk
  • Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo
  • This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

NOVELLA OF THE YEAR

  • Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
  • Goddess of Filth by V. Castro
  • Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
  • Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
  • Waif by Samantha Kolesnik

SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF THE YEAR

  • Beneath a Pale Sky by Philip Fracassi
  • Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons by Keith Rosson
  • In That Endlessness, Our End by Gemma Files
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez (translated by Megan McDowell)
  • The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise

ANTHOLOGY OF THE YEAR

  • Lost Contact, edited by Max Booth III and Lori Michelle
  • Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, edited by Eric J. Guignard
  • The Bad Book, edited by John F.D. Taff
  • There is No Death, There are No Dead, edited by Aaron J. French and Jess Landry
  • When Things Get Dark, edited by Ellen Datlow

FICTION MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

  • Apex Magazine
  • Fantasy Magazine
  • Lamplight Magazine
  • Nightmare Magazine
  • The Dark

PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR

  • Clash Books
  • Grimscribe Press
  • Meerkat Press
  • Titan Books
  • Tor Nightfire

FICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

  • Bridgewater by Grim & Mild
  • Old Gods of Appalachia
  • The Silt Verses
  • The Wicked Library
  • WE’RE NOT MEANT TO KNOW

NONFICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

  • Against Everyone with Conner Habib
  • Cursed Morsels
  • Dead Headspace
  • Talking Scared
  • The Kingcast

This Is Horror Awards 2020

This Is Horror, the UK website, has announced the winners of the This Is Horror Awards 2020.

NOVEL OF THE YEAR

Winner: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Runner-up: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

NOVELLA OF THE YEAR

Winner: Crossroads by Laurel Hightower
Runner-up: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF THE YEAR

Winner: Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies by John Langan
Runner-up: Velocities by Kathe Koja

ANTHOLOGY OF THE YEAR

Winner: Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors, edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey
Runner-up: Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, edited by Samantha Kolesnik

FICTION MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

Winner: Nightmare Magazine
Runner-up: The Dark

PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR

Winner: Undertow Publications
Runner-up: Death’s Head Press

FICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

Winner: The Other Stories (Hawk & Cleaver)
Runner-up: NIGHTLIGHT: A Horror Fiction Podcast

NONFICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

Winner: Ink Heist
Runner-up: Post Mortem with Mick Garris

COVER ART OF THE YEAR

Winner: Todd Keisling for Arterial Bloom, edited by Mercedes M. Yardley
Runner-up: Mike Davis for grotesquerie by Richard Gavin

This Is Horror Awards 2020 Voting Opens

This Is Horror, the UK website, is taking votes for its annual awards through 12:01 a.m. BST on May 22. Anyone can vote — click through for instructions. Here is the shortlist.

Here are the nominees.

NOVEL OF THE YEAR

  • Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk
  • The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
  • The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
  • The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

NOVELLA OF THE YEAR

  • Crossroads by Laurel Hightower
  • Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
  • The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper
  • True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik
  • We Need to Do Something by Max Booth III

SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF THE YEAR

  • Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies by John Langan
  • The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature by Christopher Slatsky
  • Thin Places by Kay Chronister
  • Velocities by Kathe Koja
  • Wyrd and Other Derelictions by Adam Nevill

ANTHOLOGY OF THE YEAR

  • Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, edited by Zelda Knight and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
  • Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, edited by Ellen Datlow
  • Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror, edited by Mark Matthews
  • Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors, edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey
  • Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, edited by Samantha Kolesnik

FICTION MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

  • Lightspeed Magazine
  • Nightmare Magazine
  • The Dark
  • Uncanny Magazine
  • Unnerving Magazine

PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR

  • Death’s Head Press
  • Del Rey Books
  • Silver Shamrock Publishing
  • Undertow Publications
  • Valancourt Books

FICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

  • Chilling Tales for Dark Nights
  • Crypto-Z
  • NIGHTLIGHT: A Horror Fiction Podcast
  • The Other Stories (Hawk & Cleaver)
  • Thirteen (Imaginary Comma)

NONFICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

  • Afro Horror
  • Ghoulish
  • Ink Heist
  • Post Mortem with Mick Garris
  • TheNecronomi.com

COVER ART OF THE YEAR

  • Matthew Revert for Antioch by Jessica Leonard
  • Mike Davis for grotesquerie by Richard Gavin
  • Mikio Murakami for The Best of Both Worlds by S.P. Miskowski
  • Stephen Mackey for Thin Places by Kay Chronister
  • Todd Keisling for Arterial Bloom, edited by Mercedes M. Yardley

This Is Horror Awards 2019

This Is Horror, the UK website announced the winners of its annual awards on August 20.

NOVEL OF THE YEAR

Winner: The Bone Weaver’s Orchard by Sarah Read
Runner-up: The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz

NOVELLA OF THE YEAR

Winner: The Pale White by Chad Lutzke
Runner-up: The Half-Freaks by Nicole Cushing

SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF THE YEAR

Winner: Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan
Runner-up: Out of Water by Sarah Read

ANTHOLOGY OF THE YEAR

Winner: Nox Pareidolia, edited by Robert S. Wilson
Runner-up: Echoes, edited by Ellen Datlow

FICTION MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

Winner: Vastarien: A Literary Journal
Runner-up: Dark Moon Digest

PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR

Winner: Nightscape Press
Runner-up: Crystal Lake Publishing

FICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

Winner: The NoSleep Podcast
Runner-up: The Magnus Archives

NONFICTION PODCAST OF THE YEAR

Winner: Ladies of the Fright
Runner-up: The Horror Show with Brian Keene

COVER ART OF THE YEAR

Winner: Ben Baldwin for Hollow Heart by Ben Eads
Runner-up: Catrin Welz-Stein for This House of Wounds by Georgina Bruce

This Is Horror Awards
2019 Voting Opens

This Is Horror, the UK website, is taking votes for its annual awards through 12:01 a.m. BST on May 30. Anyone can vote — click through for instructions. Here is the shortlist.

Novel of the Year

  • Carnivorous Lunar Activities by Max Booth III
  • The Bone Weaver’s Orchard by Sarah Read
  • The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz
  • The Reddening by Adam Nevill
  • Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Novella of the Year

  • Dear Laura by Gemma Amor
  • In The Scrape by James Newman and Mark Steensland
  • Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma
  • The Half-Freaks by Nicole Cushing
  • The Pale White by Chad Lutzke

Short Story Collection of the Year

  • Out of Water by Sarah Read
  • Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan
  • Sing Your Sadness Deep by Laura Mauro
  • Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson
  • Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud

Anthology of the Year

  • Echoes, edited by Ellen Datlow
  • Midnight in the Graveyard, edited by Kenneth W. Cain
  • Nox Pareidolia, edited by Robert S. Wilson
  • Pop The Clutch, edited by Eric J. Guignard
  • The Twisted Book of Shadows, edited by Christopher Golden and James A. Moore

Fiction Magazine of the Year

  • Black Static
  • Dark Moon Digest
  • Nightmare Magazine
  • The Dark
  • Vastarien: A Literary Journal

Publisher of the Year

  • Crystal Lake Publishing
  • Flame Tree Press
  • Nightscape Press
  • Raw Dog Screaming Press
  • Silver Shamrock Publishing

Fiction Podcast of the Year

  • Creepy Pod
  • Tales to Terrify
  • The Magnus Archives
  • The NoSleep Podcast
  • The Wicked Library

Nonfiction Podcast of the Year

  • Bizzong
  • Booked. Podcast
  • Cosmic Shenanigans
  • Ladies of the Fright
  • The Horror Show with Brian Keene

Cover Art of the Year

  • Ben Baldwin for Hollow Heart by Ben Eads
  • Catrin Welz-Stein for This House of Wounds by Georgina Bruce
  • Mikio Murakami for The Worst Is Yet to Come by S.P. Miskowski
  • Sabercore Art for The Fearing: Book One Fire and Rain by John F.D. Taff
  • Stephen Mackey for Sing Your Sadness Deep by Laura Mauro

Pixel Scroll 1/1/20 Old Pixel’s File Of Practical Scrolls

(1) AFTER QUARTER CENTURY, GOMOLL STEPS DOWN. The Otherwise Award announced yesterday: “Jeanne Gomoll Retires from Motherboard”.

Jeanne Gomoll, whose art, design, and organizing energy has propelled and sustained the Award for the last 25 years, is retiring from the Otherwise Motherboard at the end of 2019. The remaining members of the Motherboard are incredibly grateful for Jeanne’s tireless, brilliant work and look forward to celebrating her contributions at WisCon in 2020.

Jeanne writes:

Up until 1991 it felt to me as though the efforts of the Madison SF Group, Janus and Aurora fanzines, and WisCon, to encourage and celebrate feminist science fiction were largely restricted to a single place and to those who came to this place and attended WisCon. Indeed, by the late 1980s, it felt to me as if our efforts to foster feminist SF were increasingly being met with opposition and might possibly have been in danger of flickering out, as the backlash to feminism in general and feminist SF in specific gained strength. Pat Murphy’s 1991 announcement of the Tiptree Award thrilled me and gave me renewed strength. It was as if a small group of us, following a narrow, twisty path had merged with a much wider, well-traveled path. After the Tiptree Award began handing out annual awards and raising funds, and had sparked a massive juggernaut of community activism, I stopped worrying about the viability of the movement.

I will be forever grateful to the Tiptree Award and proud of my work on it. I chaired two Tiptree juries—one in 1993, which chose Nicola Griffith’s Ammonite as the winner; and the other in 2016, which presented the award to When the Moon Was Ours, by Anna-Marie McLemore. I served on the Motherboard for 25 years, 1994-2019, and worked behind-the-scenes on most of the auctions during those years, and as an artist creating logos, publications, and Tiptree merchandise. I will be forever grateful to the Motherboard for the work we did together and the friendships we created along the way. I am awed by and very proud of the community of writers and readers who supported and were nurtured by the award, even as they guided the award further along the path toward greater diversity and scope.

The Tiptree Award, and now the Otherwise Award will always have my heartfelt support. But it is time for me to step back and make space for a new generation of activists. I want to thank my fellow motherboard founding mothers and members, past and present—Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Jeff Smith, Alexis Lothian, Sumana Harihareswara, Gretchen Treu, Debbie Notkin, Ellen Klages, Delia Sherman—for all they have done and for their friendship, which I will value forever.

(2) THIS IS HORROR. Public nominations are being accepted through January 8 for the This Is Horror Awards.

The public nominations are now open for the ninth annual This Is Horror Awards. This year we’ve retained all the categories from last year and added one more, ‘Cover Art of the year’. Here are the categories: Novel of the Year, Novella of the Year, Short Story Collection of the Year, Anthology of the Year, Fiction Magazine of the Year, Publisher of the Year, Fiction Podcast of the Year, Nonfiction Podcast of the Year, and Cover Art of the Year.

Readers can e-mail in their nominations for each category. Taking into consideration the nominations for each category This Is Horror will then draw up a shortlist.

We invite you to include one sentence as to why each nomination is award-worthy.

(3) DEEP STATE. Jason Sanford has been posting interviews he conducted with sff magazine editors in conjunction with his fantastic report #SFF2020: The State of Genre Magazines.

Jason: How much of an increase in your budget would be required to pay all editorial and publishing staff a living wage?

Scott: Estimating using a salary of $15/hour for the work our staff does, we would need a $45,000 increase in our annual budget to pay all staff a living wage.  That’s double what our annual budget is to pay for the stories we publish.  To cover that, our monthly donations through Patreon would have to increase by 7000%….

Jason: Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld has said some of the problems experienced by genre magazines come about because “we’ve devalued short fiction” through reader expectations that they shouldn’t have to pay for short stories. Do you agree with this? Any thoughts on how to change this situation?

LDL: …I think the issue is one of exhaustion on the part of volunteer staff and a strained supporter base. In my observation, the people who contribute to zine crowdfunds also contribute to crowdfunds for individuals in emergency situations. There are a lot of emergencies or people in general need, just within the SFF community and funds are finite. If you’re supporting your four favorite zines every year, donating to three medical funds, two Kickstarters, a moving fund, and also taking on costs associated with at least one fandom-related convention every year, it’s not sustainable for a lot of readers, especially the marginalized ones….

Jason: In addition to paying your writers, Asimov’s also pays all of your staff, something which is not common among many of today’s newer genre magazines. Is it possible to publish a magazine like Asimov’s without the support of a larger company, in this case Penny Publications?

Sheila: An anecdotal review of the American market doesn’t really bear that out. F&SF is published by a small company. Analog and Asimov’s are published by a larger (though not huge) publishing company. Being published by a larger company does have its advantages, though. While only one and a half people are dedicated to each of the genre magazines, we do benefit from a support staff of art, production, tech, contracts, web, advertising, circulation, and subsidiary rights departments. I’m probably leaving some people out of this list. While the support of this infrastructure cannot be underestimated, Asimov’s revenue covers our editorial salaries, and our production and editorial costs. We contribute to the company’s general overhead as well.

Jason: Strange Horizons also helped pioneer the idea that a genre magazine could be run as a nonprofit with assistance from a staff of volunteers. What are the pros and cons of this publishing model?

Vanessa: With volunteer staff, the con is simple: no pay. Generally, working for no pay privileges people who can afford to volunteer time, and devalues the work we do as editors. I’d like to think that at SH, we have partially balanced the former by making our staff so large and so international that no one need put in many hours, and folks can cover for you regardless of time zone. Despite having 50+ folks, we’re a close group. Our Slack is a social space, and we bring our worst and best days there for each other. Several members (including me) have volunteered right through periods of un- and underemployment because of the love of the zine and our community….

(4) NEBULA CONFERENCE EARLYBIRD RATE. The rate has been extended another week —

(5) MORE ON MILAN. The Guardian’s coverage of the RWA/Courtney Milan controversy, “A romance novelist spoke out about racism. An uproar ensued”, starts with the now-familiar origin story, then adds dimension with background history like this:

HelenKay Dimon, a past RWA president, previously told The Guardian that she regularly received letters from white RWA members expressing concern that “now nobody wants books by white Christian women”.

There is “a group of people who are white and who are privileged, who have always had 90% of everything available, and now all of a sudden, they have 80%. Instead of saying: ‘Ooh, look, I have 80%,’ they say: ‘Oh, I lost 10! Who do I blame for losing 10?’” Dimon said.

The tweets that sparked the ethics complaints against Milan, which were posted this August, were part of a broader conversation on romance Twitter about how individual racist beliefs held by gatekeepers within the publishing world have shaped the opportunities available to authors of color.

(6) ARRAKIS AGAIN. Just before the calendar clicked over to 1965, Galactic Journey’s Gideon Marcus forced himself to read the first installment of the Dune World sequel: “[December 31, 1964] Lost in the Desert (January 1965 Analog)”.  

The…next installment of Frank Herbert’s Dune World saga has been staring me in the face for weeks, ever since I bought the January 1965 issue of Analog. I found I really didn’t want to read more of it, having found the first installment dreary, though who am I to argue with all the Hugo voters?

And yet, as the days rolled on, I came up with every excuse not to read the magazine. I cleaned the house, stem to stern. I lost myself in this year’s Galactic Stars article. I did some deep research on 1964’s space probes.

But the bleak desert sands of Arrakis were unavoidable. So this week, I plunged headfirst into Campbell’s slick, hoping to make the trek to the end in fewer than two score years. Or at least before 1965. Join me; let’s see if we can make it.

(7) RINGS TWICE. Tor.com reprints “A Weapon With a Will of Its Own: How Tolkien Wrote the One Ring as a Character”, Megan N. Fontenot’s engrossing manuscript study about how Bilbo’s trinket became the key to the LOTR trilogy.

In September 1963, Tolkien drafted yet another of a number of letters responding to questions about Frodo’s “failure” at the Cracks of Doom. It’s easy to imagine that he was rather exasperated. Few, it seemed, had really understood the impossibility of Frodo’s situation in those last, crucial moments: “the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum,” Tolkien explained; it was “impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted” (Letters 326). Even had someone of unmatched power, like Gandalf, claimed the Ring, there would have been no real victory, for “the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end” (332).

It would have been the master.

From humble beginnings as a mere trinket bartered in a game of riddles (see the original Hobbit), the Ring grew in power and influence until it did indeed include all of Middle-earth in its simple band of gold. “One Ring to rule them all” wasn’t just meant to sound intimidating—it was hard truth. Even Sauron couldn’t escape the confines of its powers. It was his greatest weakness.

But how did the Ring become the thing around which the entirety of the Third Age revolved (Letters 157)?…

(8) JANUARY 2. Get ready – tomorrow is “National Science Fiction Day”. It must be legit – “National Science Fiction Day is recognized by the Hallmark Channel and the Scholastic Corporation.”

National Science Fiction Day promotes the celebration of science fiction as a genre, its creators, history, and various media, too. Recognized on January 2nd annually, millions of science fiction fans across the United States read and watch their favorites in science fiction. 

The date of the celebration commemorates the birth of famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.  An American author and Boston University professor of biochemistry, Isaac Asimov was born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov on January 2, 1920. He was best known for his works of science fiction and his popular science books.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 1, 2007 — The Sarah Jane Adventures premiered starring Elizabeth Sladen who had been in the pilot for K-9 and Company which the Beeb didn’t take to series. The program, which as you well know was a spin-off of Doctor Who, lasted five series and fifty-four episodes. It did not make the final Hugo ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in either 2007 or 2008. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born January 1, 1854 James George Frazer. Author of The Golden Bough, the pioneering if deeply flawed look at similarities among magical and religious beliefs globally.  He’s genre adjacent at a minimum, and his ideas have certainly been used by SFF writers a lot both affirming and (mostly) critiquing his ideas. (Died 1952.)
  • Born January 1, 1889 Seabury Quinn. Pulp writer now mostly remembered for his tales of Jules de Grandin, the occult detective, which were published in Weird Tales from the Thirties through the Fifties. (Died 1969.)
  • Born January 1, 1926 Zena Marshall. She’s Miss Taro in Dr. No, the very first Bond film. The Terrornauts in which she’s Sandy Lund would be her last film. (The Terrornauts is based off Murray Leinster‘s The Wailing Asteroid screenplay apparently by John Brunner.) She had one-offs in Danger Man, The Invisible Man and Ghost Squad. She played Giselle in Helter Skelter, a 1949 film where the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, played Charles the Second. (Died 2009.)
  • Born January 1, 1933 Joe Orton. In his very brief writing career, there is but one SFF work, Head to Toe which the current publisher says “is a dream-vision allegory of a journey on the body of a great giant or ‘afreet’ (a figure from Arabic mythology) from head to toe and back, both on the body and in the body.” Like his other novels, it’s not available digitally.  (Died 1967.)
  • Born January 1, 1954 Midori Snyder, 66. I was most impressed with The Flight of Michael McBride, the Old West meets Irish myth novel of hers and hannah’s garden, a creepy tale of the fey and folk music. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati which I’ve not read.  With Yolen, Snyder co-authored the novel Except the Queen which I do recommend. (Yolen is one of my dark chocolate recipients.) She’s seems to have been inactive for a decade now. Anyone know why?
  • Born January 1, 1957 Christopher Moore, 63. One early novel by him, Coyote Blue, is my favorite, but anything by him is always a weirdly entertaining read. I’m hearing good things about Noir, his newest work which I’m planning on listening to soon. Has anyone read it? 
  • Born January 1, 1971 Navin Chowdhry, 49. He’s Indra Ganesh in a Ninth Doctor story, “Aliens of London.“ I also found him playing Mr. Watson in Skellig, a film that sounds really interesting. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that he was Nodin Chavdri in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
  • Born January 1, 1976 Sean Wallace, 44. Anthologist, editor, and publisher known for his work on Prime Books and for co-editing three magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine which I love, The Dark which I’ve never encountered, and Fantasy Magazine which is another fav read  of mine. He has won a very, very impressive three Hugo Awards and two World Fantasy Awards. His People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy co-edited with Rachel Swirsky is highly recommended by me. He’s not well represented digitally speaking which surprised me. 
  • Born January 1, 1984 Amara Karan, 36. Though she’s Tita in an Eleventh Doctor story, “The God Complex”, she’s really here for being involved in a Stan Lee project. She was DS Suri Chohan in Stan Lee’s Lucky Man, a British crime drama series which is definitely SFF. Oh, and she shows up as Princess Shaista in “Cat Among Pigeons” episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot but even I would be hard put to call that even close to genre adjacent. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) DODGED THE BULLET. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] In an alternate universe, it seems that original director Harold Ramis would’ve made a very different Galaxy Quest. From ComicBookResources.com: Galaxy Quest: Tim Allen Equates Harold Ramis’ Version to Spaceballs”.

Before Dean Parisot signed on to direct Galaxy Quest, Harold Ramis was supposed to helm the movie, which was initially titled Captain Starshine. However, according to Tim Allen, if Ramis directed the film, it wouldn’t have just been titled differently — it would have looked quite different as well.

[…] “Katzenberg pitched me the idea of the commander character and then they started talking and it became clear that Ramis didn’t see me for the part,” Allen said. “It was pretty uncomfortable.”

[…] Interestingly, Sigourney Weaver also wouldn’t have gotten her role as Gwen DeMarco in Galaxy Quest if Ramis had directed the film, despite their relationship from Ghostbusters. “I had heard that Harold was directing a sci-fi movie but he didn’t want anyone who had done sci-fi in the film,” she said. “Frankly, it’s those of us who have done science fiction movies that know what is funny about the genre.”

(13) JUST CHUCK IT. Is this April 1 or January 1? Today Tor.com posted Leah Schnelbach’s “Excellent Writing Advice from Erotica Author Chuck Tingle”.

…I’ll start with this reddit AMA from a few years back, and an interview with Tingle on Nothing in the Rulebook. His answers reveal a consistent approach to the writing life that mirrored the habits of authors who are, possibly, even more well-known than our favorite erotica author.

Asked about a typical writing day, Tingle replies:

yes average day is getting up and having two BIG PLATES of spaghetti then washing them down with some chocolate milk then i get out of bed and meditate to be a healthy man. so when i am meditating i think ‘what kind of tingler would prove love today?’. if nothing comes then i will maybe trot around the house or go to the park or maybe walk to the coffee shop with my son jon before he goes to work. if i have a good idea i will just write and write until it is all done and then I will have son jon edit it and then post it online.

OK, so to translate this a bit out of Tingle-speak, we have a recommendation that you fuel your writing with carbs (and also an unlikely alliance with Haruki Murakami’s spaghetti-loving ways) with a bit of a boost of sugar….

(14) GREASED LIGHTNING. [Item by Daniel Dern.] From one of the CES 2020 press releases I got today…

Subject: [CES NEWS] Experience a Roomba-Like Device that Navigates the Home Charging ALL Devices

…I want to put an innovative device on your radar: RAGU, a Roomba-like robot that navigates the home charging ALL of your devices.

GuRu is the first company to crack the code on totally untethered, over-the-air charging.

Even discounting remote mal-hackers, this sounds like a recipe for either a droll TV episode, or Things Going Horribly Wrong. (Fires, fried gear, tased/defibrilated pets and sleeping people, etc.)

(15) MIXED BAG. [Item by Chip Hitchcock.] I expect everybody will find something interesting or strange in the BBC’s “Alternative end-of-the-year awards”

Animal rescue of the year

Winner

Spare a thought for the poor fat rat of Bensheim, which became stuck in a German manhole in February. She was eventually freed, but not before passers-by took embarrassing photos of her plight. “She had a lot of winter flab,” one rescuer said, compounding the humiliation.

…Runner-up (2)

In this case, the animals were the rescuers rather than the rescued (sort of).

Anticipating the threat of wildfires later in the year, staff at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California hired a hungry herd of 500 goats to eat flammable scrub around the building in May.

And so, when fires did strike in October, the library was saved because of the fire break the goats had created by eating the flammable scrub. Nice one, goats.

(16) MAKING TRACKS. “SpaceX satellites spotted over Derbyshire” – BBC has photo and short video.

Stargazers across Derbyshire were startled when they saw what appeared to be a new “constellation” in the night sky.

The near-perfect line was in fact formed by the Starlink, satellites launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company earlier this year.

They were spotted across Derbyshire and the Peak District.

Tom Sparrow, an amateur photographer, said the satellites were “quite a spectacle”.

The Bradford University archaeology researcher caught the orbital pass by chance on a time-lapse video in the Peak District.

(17) BEYOND BINARY. The Hollywood Reporter’s Robyn Bahr, in “Critic’s Notebook: Baby Yoda, ‘The Dark Crystal’ and the Need for Puppetry in the Age of CGI “, cheers on non-digital effects.

As always, the existential wisdom of Werner Herzog prevails. “You are cowards,” the director castigated on set of The Mandalorian, upon realizing the producers intended to shoot some scenes without the Baby Yoda puppet in case they decided to go full CGI with the character. “Leave it.”

Herzog, who guest-starred on a few episodes of the Disney+ Star Wars spinoff series, was one of Baby Yoda’s earliest champions. And indeed, Baby Yoda — a colloquial epithet referring to the mysterious alien toddler merely known as “The Child” in the script — was designed for maximum neoteny. The gigantic saucer-like dilated eyes; the tiny button nose; a head that takes up nearly half his body mass; the hilariously oversized brown coat; the peach fuzzy hairs tufted around his head; and the pièce de résistance of his custardy little green face: that minuscule line of a mouth that could curve or stiffen in an instant and erupt a thousand ancient nurturing instincts in any viewer. (He’s the only thing my normally stoic husband has ever sincerely described as “cute.”) Heck, there may very well be a micro generation of Baby Yoda babies about eight months from now, thanks to this frog-nomming, lever-pulling, bone-broth-sipping little scamp.

And all because Jon Favreau and company finally recognized that rubber-and-fabric practical effects will almost always have a greater emotional impact than plasticky digital ones.

The recent success of The Mandalorian, thanks to the adorable face that launched a thousand memes, and Netflix’s fantasy-adventure epic The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, recently nominated for a WGA Award and a Critic’s Choice Award, prove that we still need puppetry and mechanical effects in the age of CGI….

(18) PERRY MASON. My fellow geezers may enjoy this quick quiz.

[Thanks to Jo Van Ekeren, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Daniel Dern, Contrarius, Darrah Chavey, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

This Is Horror Awards 2018

This Is Horror, the UK website, announced the winners of its annual awards through 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 29. Anyone can vote — click through for instructions. Here is the shortlist.

Novel of the Year

  • Winner: The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste
  • Runner-up: The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Novella of the Year

  • Winner: The Writhing Skies by Betty Rocksteady
  • Runner-up: At The End of the Day I Burst Into Flames by Nicholas Day

Short Story Collection of the Year

  • Winner: Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files
  • Runner-up: Little Black Spots by John F.D. Taff

Anthology of the Year

  • Winner: Ashes and Entropy, edited by Robert S. Wilson
  • Runner-up: Lost Highways, edited by D. Alexander Ward

Fiction Magazine of the Year

Publisher of the Year

  • Winner: Crystal Lake Publishing 
  • Runner-up: Flame Tree Press

Fiction Podcast of the Year

Nonfiction Podcast of the Year

[Via Locus Online.]

This Is Horror Awards 2018 Voting Opens

This Is Horror, the UK website, is taking votes for its annual awards through 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 29. Anyone can vote — click through for instructions. Here is the shortlist.

Novel of the Year

  • Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias
  • The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
  • The Hunger by Alma Katsu
  • The Listener by Robert R. McCammon
  • The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

Novella of the Year

  • At The End of the Day I Burst Into Flames by Nicholas Day
  • Maniac Gods by Rich Hawkins
  • Out Behind the Barn by John Boden and Chad Lutzke
  • The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp
  • The Writhing Skies by Betty Rocksteady

Short Story Collection of the Year

  • Cry Your Way Home by Damien Angelica Walters
  • Figures Unseen: Selected Stories by Steve Rasnic Tem
  • Little Black Spots by John F.D. Taff
  • Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files
  • The Human Alchemy by Michael Griffin

Anthology of the Year

  • Ashes and Entropy, edited by Robert S. Wilson
  • Lost Highways, edited by D. Alexander Ward
  • Phantoms: Haunting Tales from Masters of the Genre, edited by Marie O’Regan
  • Suspended in Dusk II, edited by Simon Dewar
  • The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, edited by Ellen Datlow

Fiction Magazine of the Year

Publisher of the Year

Fiction Podcast of the Year

Nonfiction Podcast of the Year

This Is Horror Awards 2017

The winners of the This Is Horror Awards 2017 were announced April 19.  They were chosen by a vote of the UK website’s readers.

Novel of the Year

  • Winner: I Wish I Was Like You by S.P. Miskowski
  • Runner-up: In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson

Novella of the Year

  • Winner: Mapping The Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
  • Runner-up: Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Short Story Collection of the Year

  • Winner: “Behold the Void” by Philip Fracassi
  • Runner-up: “Everything That’s Underneath” by Kristi DeMeester

Anthology of the Year

  • Winner: Looming Low Volume I, edited by Justin Steele and Sam Cowan
  • Runner-up: Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology, edited by Ellen Datlow

Fiction Magazine of the Year

  • Winner: Black Static
  • Runner-up: Apex Magazine

Publisher of the Year

  • Winner: Crystal Lake Publishing
  • Runner-up: Journalstone

Fiction Podcast of the Year

  • Winner: Pseudopod
  • Runner-up: Nightmare Magazine Podcast

Nonfiction Podcast of the Year

  • Winner: The Horror Show with Brian Keene
  • Runner-up: Lovecraft eZine Podcast

[Via Locus Online.]

This Is Horror Awards 2017 Voting Opens

This Is Horror, the UK website, is taking votes for its annual awards through 12:01 a.m. GMT on February 26. Anyone can vote — click through for instructions. Here is the shortlist.

Novel of the Year

  • Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman
  • I Wish I Was Like You by S.P. Miskowski
  • In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson
  • The Changeling by Victor LaValle
  • The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn

Novella of the Year

  • Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan
  • In the River by Jeremy Robert Johnson
  • Mapping The Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
  • Quiet Places by Jasper Bark
  • The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

Short Story Collection of the Year

  • Behold the Void by Philip Fracassi
  • Everything That’s Underneath by Kristi DeMeester
  • Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
  • She Said Destroy by Nadia Bulkin
  • 13 Views of the Suicide Woods by Bracken MacLeod

Anthology of the Year

  • Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, edited by Doug Murano
  • Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology, edited by Ellen Datlow
  • Looming Low Volume I, edited by Justin Steele and Sam Cowan
  • New Fears, edited by Mark Morris
  • The Beauty of Death 2 —Death By Water, edited by Alessandro Manzetti & Jodi Renée Lester

Fiction Magazine of the Year

  • Apex Magazine
  • Black Static
  • Gamut
  • Nightmare Magazine
  • The Dark Magazine

Publisher of the Year

  • ChiZine Publications
  • Crystal Lake Publishing
  • Journalstone
  • Tor.com Publishing
  • Word Horde

Fiction Podcast of the Year

  • Nightmare Magazine Podcast
  • Pseudopod
  • Tales to Terrify
  • The NoSleep Podcast
  • The Other Stories by Hawk & Cleaver

Nonfiction Podcast of the Year

  • Last Podcast on the Left
  • Lore Podcast
  • Lovecraft eZine Podcast
  • Post Mortem with Mick Garris
  • The Horror Show with Brian Keene