Six news items and a video:
(1) Brandon Kempner has updated his SF/F awards meta-list on Chaos Horizons. Three Hugo-nominated novels have been among the most successful works during the current awards season – and two have not.
You can see my full list here: 2015 Awards Meta-List. I’m tacking 15 major awards. Let’s focus on the Top 8, everyone who received at least 3 different award nominations:
- The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu: 5 nominations, 0 wins (Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, Locus SF, Prometheus)
- Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie: 4 nominations, 2 wins (Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Locus SF, with wins in the BSFA and Locus SF)
- Annihilation/Area X, Jeff VanderMeer: 4 nominations, 1 win (Hugo, Nebula, Locus SF, World Fantasy, with a win in the Nebula)
- The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison: 4 nominations, 1 win (Hugo, Nebula, Locus Fantasy, World Fantasy, with a win in the Locus Fantasy)
- Memory of Water, Emmi Itaranta: 3 nominations, 0 wins (Clarke, Tiptree, Philip K. Dick)
- Europe in Autumn, David Hutchinson: 3 nominations, 0 wins (Clarke, BSFA, Campbell)
- The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North: 3 nominations, 1 win (Clarke, BSFA, Campbell, with a win in the Campbell)
- Lagoon, Nnedi Okorafor: 3 nominations, 0 wins (BSFA, Tiptree, Kitschies)
- The Peripheral, William Gibson: 3 nominations, 0 wins (Campbell, Locus SF, Kitschies)
(2) Here is an interesting twist in ESPN’s The Body Issue — the Super Heroes Edition.
Every day, all over the world, Marvel’s top comic book artists flex their creative muscles to illustrate the world’s mightiest super heroes. In the spirit of The Magazine’s visual celebration of athleticism, dedication and strength, a mix of those same artists took to their drawing boards to craft bold images of Marvel’s characters like never before.
Includes Daredevil, Captain Marvel, Medusa, Luke Cage, She-Hulk, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Hulk, and Ant-Man.
(3) Nina Horvath on Europa SF reports there is an exhibition on designs for the Soviet space program being held in Frankfurt, Germany.
This monographic exhibition on the oeuvre of Russian architect Galina Balashova presents a unique collection of design proposals for the Soviet cosmonautical program: plans and construction drawings for Soyuz capsules and for the Salyut and Mir space stations. Balashova acted as a consultant for the Buran program, the Soviet counterpart to the US space shuttle. With her search for harmony and beauty, Galina Balashova lent the high-tech world of booster rockets, laboratories and life-support systems an emotional touch. We therefore have Balashova’s talent to thank for adding an important, rich chapter to construction history: cosmonautic architecture. Her extraordinary artistic oeuvre, and it includes designs for medals and awards, is to date hardly known inside Russia. Let Galina Balashova whisk you away into a world of architecture where gravity has been replaced by weightlessness.
Here is a direct link to more examples of the artwork.
(4) Microsoft is offering five $100,000 grants to academics to research new uses for holographic computing.
On Monday, the company published a request for proposals for researchers who want to use its augmented reality headset to develop new applications, ranging from data visualisation to medical training, remote support, first-responder emergency management, virtual conferences, and more….
Microsoft has impressed games developers with its demo of Minecraft through HoloLens, but the company has also been keen to show off to other codes its potential for business applications, such as in engineering, collaboration, and training.
With that in mind, it’s also working with NASA to put HoloLens to work on the International Space Station, giving it a high profile case study and a chance to show off its use in training and assistance. For example, the headset, with the aid of Skype, could guide an astronaut….
Request for proposal details are available at hololensresearch.com. The application deadline is September 5, 2015.
(5) A rare sighting on this side of the Pond: Ramsey Campbell and Stephen Jones will be among the Special Guests at Necronomicon in Providence, RI over the August 20-23 weekend.
(6) Hugh Jackman says the third Wolverine spinoff film will be his last and Conan O’Brien rounded up half of Hollywood to audition as his replacement.
On Wednesday night’s episode of Conan, O’Brien shared tapes of Nick Offerman, Patton Oswalt, Larry King, Michael Sheen and Betty White, among others, auditioning for the part (CGI claws and all).
[Thanks for these items to Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor, and John King Tarpinian.]