BBC Doctor Who Comic-Con panel from Stacy Tiderington on Vimeo.

Best Novel

Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

Best Novella

Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit)
“The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2011)
“Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s June 2011)
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s September/October 2011)
“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)

The Hugos continue to include a section celebrating comics works with SF&F elements and, I am rather relieved to see this year it features something other than Girl Genius! And before fans of that popular series take offence, I don’t mean any slight against that comic at all, but for the last few awards it seems to be the only comic those eligible to vote have any knowledge of and some were starting to question if it was really worth having a graphic award segment if those who could vote clearly weren’t reading widely enough in comics to make much of an informed decision (that’s not Girl Genius’s fault of course, but it was becoming depressing given how many other good relevant works there were to consider). This year, however, there are several comics works in the running, including three by major comics talents who also have a track record in genre prose fiction as well: Mike Carey, Bill Willingham and Joe Hill, so it looks as if it is slowly becoming more accepted and considered by Hugo voters:

Best Graphic Story

Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)
Fables Volume 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
Locke & Key Volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

In the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long form) we have the amusing situation of one of the nominees, Marty Scorcese’s wonderful Hugo, sharing the name of the award it is nominated for. I am a little surprised to see A Game of Thrones in the long form category though – usually TV goes into the short form category (in which this year Doctor Who has not one but three nominations, which is great but I hope it doesn’t split the vote) but in this case they seem to be nominating the entire season rather than a specific episode as is more common with television SF&F. To be honest though with a show like Game of Thrones that probably makes a lot more sense, I think, so fair enough.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely, directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)

Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

“The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)

“The Drink Tank‘s Hugo Acceptance Speech,” Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon (Renovation)
“The Girl Who Waited” (Doctor Who), written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
“A Good Man Goes to War” (Doctor Who), written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
“Remedial Chaos Theory” (Community), written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)

And on a personal note all of the FP blog crew run up the geek flag and salute in the direction of a nominee who we’ve been very fortunate to have gracing these pages with some fine reviews and reports: yes, James Bacon, already a Hugo winner, is nominated again. In fact James is nominated four times this year! He’s in the short form Best Dramatic Presentation (it’s the top hat, award voters love a fine chap in a top hat), two in Best Fanzine (for Drink Tank and Journey Planet with Christopher J Garcia) and one in Best Fan Writer. Huge congrats to James for bagging himself such an impressive number of nominations. SF Awards Watch has the full list details, the winners will be announced at Worldcon this summer, best of luck to all nominees.

And this weekend at the annual Eastercon the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) awards were announced, with Christopher Priest winning the Best Novel gong for The Islanders, the excellent Paul Cornell won the Best Short Fiction for The Copenhagen Interpretation (published in Asimov’s – you can read it as a PDF here), Best Art went to Dominic Harman for the cover of Ian Whates’ The Noise Revealed (published Solaris), while the Best Non Fiction award, rather correctly I think, honoured the enormous years-in-the-making new third version of the SF Encyclopedia by John Clute, Dave Langford, Peter Nicholls, Graham Sleight et al on the Gollancz website. Congratulations to all the winners. (via the Ot-2 blog)

Paul Harrison-Davies offers up a warm slice of colourful nostalgia for those of us of a certain age with his fabbity fab Rentaghost artwork. And to complete the nostalgic flashbacks why not indulge in that theme tune again too?

“It always seems impossible when you start casting these parts, but when we saw Matt and Jenna together, we knew we had our girl. She’s funny and clever and exactly mad enough to step on board the Tardis,” Steven Moffat on casting Jeanna-Louise.

Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures from André Oliveira on Vimeo.

Novel

Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Del Rey; Subterranean Press)

Firebird, Jack McDevitt (Ace Books)

God’s War, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)

The Kingdom of Gods, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella

“Kiss Me Twice,” Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2011)

“Silently and Very Fast,” Catherynne M. Valente (WFSA Press; Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2011)

“The Ice Owl,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2011)

“The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2011)

“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary,” Ken Liu (Panverse Three, Panverse Publishing)

“With Unclean Hands,” Adam-Troy Castro (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2011)

Novelette

“Fields of Gold,” Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse 4, Night Shade Books)

“Ray of Light,” Brad R. Torgersen (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2011)

“Sauerkraut Station,” Ferrett Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus, November 2011)

“Six Months, Three Days,” Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, June 2011)

“The Migratory Pattern of Dancers,” Katherine Sparrow (Giganotosaurus, July 2011)

“The Old Equations,” Jake Kerr (Lightspeed Magazine, July 2011)

“What We Found,” Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011)

Short Story

“Her Husband’s Hands,” Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine, October 2011)

“Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son,” Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011)

“Movement,” Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2011)

“Shipbirth,” Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2011)

“The Axiom of Choice,” David W. Goldman (New Haven Review, Winter 2011)

“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2011)

“The Paper Menagerie,” Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Attack the Block, Joe Cornish (writer/director) (Optimum Releasing; Screen Gems)

Captain America: The First Avenger, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (writers), Joe Johnston (director) (Paramount)

Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)

Hugo, John Logan (writer), Martin Scorsese (director) (Paramount)

Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen (writer/director) (Sony)

Source Code, Ben Ripley (writer), Duncan Jones (director) (Summit)

The Adjustment Bureau, George Nolfi (writer/director) (Universal)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book

Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Juvenile)

Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)

Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

The Boy at the End of the World, Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)

The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)

The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson (Greenwillow Books)

Ultraviolet, R.J. Anderson (Orchard Books; Carolrhoda Books)

Nice to see Doctor Who on the Dramatic Presentation category (well done, Neil!) and it’s nice to see them including Woody Allen’s delightful Midnight in Paris as a contender there too (and yes, with the time travel aspect it does qualify, besides it is a lovely film). Of the contenders for Novel I’m afraid the only one there I have read so far is China Mieville’s brilliant Embassytown, in which he creates a remarkably alien civilisation and way of thinking and being. The winners will be announced at the SFWA’s 47th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend which takes place from May 17th to 20th in Arlington, Virginia; Connie Willis will be the recipient of the 2011 Damon Knight Grand Master Award for lifetime contributions to the field.

An Irish Science Fiction series, funded by our national broadcaster, RTE, is and was unthinkable. I grew up loving Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Gerry Anderson, but there was always a dearth of SF from Ireland, in many forms, and especially TV.

And so, a group of fans, who have been involved in the film and TV business, have created a series, the first webisode is now online on RTE’s website. It’s up to fans who like the series to VOTE for another to go online, over a series of weeks.

Ireland would not be a great place to subdue, the people a bad choice to harangued and so I was stunned by the first webispode…

From RTÉ Storyland’s description: “The Earth has been conquered by the Oortesian Alliance. The Ministry of Reason, a Vichy-style government, now runs Ireland. Can one man make a difference?”

I didn’t expect it to look as good as that, and am impressed. See what you think. And if you like it then vote and give them some support and encouragement. Screenwriter for Victory, John Vaughan, is one of the guests at next month’s Hi-Ex comic con in Inverness.