Out of the Woodwork 129.
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Winners of this year's World Fantasy Awards for works published in 2006 were announced on Sunday 4th November at a banquet held at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York.

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT
Betty Ballantine
Diana Wynne Jones
NOVEL
Soldier of Sidon, Gene Wolfe (Tor)
NOVELLA
Botch Town, Jeffrey Ford (The Empire of Ice Cream, Golden Gryphon Press)
SHORT FICTION
"Journey Into the Kingdom", M. Rickert (F&SF May 2006)
ANTHOLOGY
Salon Fantastique, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Thunder's Mouth)
COLLECTION
Map of Dreams, M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon Press)
ARTIST
Shaun Tan
SPECIAL AWARD, PROFESSIONAL
Ellen Asher (for work at the Science Fiction Book Club)
SPECIAL AWARD, NON-PROFESSIONAL
Gary K. Wolfe (for reviews in Locus and elsewhere)
Judges for this year's awards were Gavin Grant, Ed Greenwood, Jeremy Lassen, Jeff Mariotte, and Carsten Polzin.

It was announced that the World Fantasy Convention in 2009 will be held in San Jose, California, and the convention in 2010 in Columbus, Ohio.

Best Long-Form Work in English: Children of Chaos, Dave Duncan
Best Long-Form Work in French: Reine de Memoire 4. La Princesse de Vengeance, by Elisabeth Vonarburg
Best Short-Form Work in English: "Biding Time," Robert J. Sawyer
Best Short-Form Work in French "Le regard du trilobite," Mario Tessier
Best Work in English (Other): Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine, Karl Johanson, editor
Best Work in French (Other): Aux origines des petits hommes verts Jean-Louis Trudel
Artistic Achievement: Martin Springett
Fan Achievement (Publication): Brins d'Eternité, red. Guillaume Voisine
Fan Achievement (Organizational): Cathy Palmer-Lister
Fan Achievement (Other): Fractale-Framboise, Eric Gauthier, Christian Sauve, Laurine Spehner

International Horror Guild Awards 2006 (IHG)

NOVEL

• Conrad Williams. The Unblemished (Earthling)
Also nominated:
Keith Donohue. The Stolen Child (Doubleday)
Will Elliott. The Pilo Family Circus (ABC Books)
Brian Evenson. The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press)
Stephen King. Lisey's Story (Scribner)

LONG FICTION

• Norman Partridge. Dark Harvest (CD Publications)

Also Nominated:
Laird Barron. Hallucigenia (Magazine of Fantasy &Science Fiction, June 2006)
P.D. Cacek. Forced Perspective (Night Visions XII)
Douglas Clegg. Isis (CD Publications)
Bradley Denton. Blackburn and the Blade (Lords of the Razor)

MID-LENGTH FICTION
• Paul Finch. The Old North Road (Alone on the Darkside)

Also Nominated:
Glen Hirshberg. The Muldoon (American Morons)
Caitlin R. Kiernan. Bainbridge (Alabaster)
M. Rickert. Journey into the Kingdom (Magazine of Fantasy &Science Fiction, May 2006)
David J. Schow. Obsequy (Subterranean #3/Havoc Swims Jaded)

SHORT FICTION
• Stephen Gallagher. "The Box" (Retro-Pulp Tales)
Also Nominated:
Terry Dowling. "Cheat Light" (Basic Black)
Stephen Graham Jones. "Raphael" (Cemetery Dance #55)
Joel Lane. "You Could Have It All" (The Lost District)
Steve Rasnic Tem. "The Disease Artist" (Dark Arts)

COLLECTION (Single Author) [TIE]
• Terry Dowling. Basic Black (CD Publications)
• Glen Hirshberg. American Morons (Earthling)

Also Nominated:
Joel Lane. The Lost District and Other Stories (Night Shade Books)
M. Rickert. Map of Dreams (Golden Gryphon)

ANTHOLOGY
• William Sheehan and Bill Schafer, editors. Lords of the Razor (Subterranean Press)

Also Nominated:
Kealan Patrick Burke, editor. Night Visions XII, (Subterranean Press)
J.N. Williamson and Gary A. Braunbeck, editors. Masques V (Gauntlet Publications)

PERIODICAL
• Subterranean
Also Nominated:
Cemetery Dance
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Postscripts
Weird Tales

ILLUSTRATED NARRATIVE
• Lewis Trondheim. A.L.I.E.E.N. (France: Editions Breal, 2004; US: Firstsecond Books, 2006)

Also Nominated:
Macon Blair and Joel Flood. Hellcity (Gigantic Comics)
William Harms, Nick Postic and Nick Marinkovich, Impaler (Image Comics)
Greg Ruth. Sudden Gravity: A Tale of the Panopticon(Dark Horse)

NONFICTION
• S.T. Joshi, editor. Icons of Horror and the Supernatural (Greenwood Press)

Also Nominated:
John Clute. The Darkening Garden (Payseur & Schmidt)
Scott Connors, editor. The Freedom of Fantastic Things (Hippocampus Press)
Mark Morris, editor. Cinema Macabre (PS Publishing)
Kim Paffenroth. Gospel of the Living Dead (Baylor University Press)

ART[TIE]
• Aeron Alfrey. Exhibits from the Imaginary Museum (www.ligotti.net/gallery/alfrey.html)
• John Picacio. Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio (MonkeyBrain)

Also Nominated:
Camille Rose Garcia. Camille Rose Garcia: Subterranean Death Clash, Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York
Chris Mars. Chris Mars: Subderma, Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York
J.K. Potter. Cover and illustrations: A Soul in a Bottle by Tim Powers (Subterranean)

Dumbledore is gay - J K Rowling

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has revealed that one of her characters, Hogwarts school headmaster Albus Dumbledore, is gay. She made her revelation to a packed house in New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday, as part of her US book tour. She took audience questions and was asked if Dumbledore found "true love". "Dumbledore is gay," she said, adding he was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. Full BBC story

All hail the power of the collective consciousness: remember this one?

The story (as I remember it) was about a guy in hospital who has some
sort of serious condition that can't yet be cured. He's frozen for a
while and wakes up to find a robot tending to him. There's still no
cure so he's put back to sleep. As the story unfolds, centuries pass
while this robot looks after him, waking him every now and then to
keep him up to speed on the state of his treatment. Eventually, after
a millennium or so, it turns out that the robot has built him a
complete new world, with a civilisation already in place, that he can
now inhabit having been cured.

Any idea what this story's called and whether it's available in a
collection anywhere? There's always the chance that it wasn't Mr
Sheckley at all, but at least that's one SF writer I can strike off the
list!

Well John Boston thinks he may have cracked it!

The "Sheckley story" actually sounds a bit like James White's "Second Ending," a novella initially serialized in FANTASTIC in 1961 and making it to the Hugo ballot, and then appearing as half of an Ace Double with one of Samuel Delany's early novels, and subsequently in White's collection MONSTERS AND MEDICS and in an anthology, Out of This World 8, ed. Amabel Williams-Ellis & Mably Owen, Blackie 1970, the latter information as usual from the Contento indexes.

John Boston

and John Norton also thought it might be the James White tale!

Hi Simon'n'Laraine ( much better than Ant'n'Dec ),
could the answer to Phil Jackson ( great as Inspector Japp in Poirot )'s query be the robot 'Ward Sister 5B' who tends to the last man on Earth in 'Second Ending' , by Northern Ireland author James White ( pub. 1962 )?
Cheers,
the "Honestly , not demented " John Norton

The Moose Headed Man? Well no one on the mailing list recognised it so I emailed Sam to admit defeat, but he e-mailed me back and said that

"no problem, many thanks for responding however. i've since tracked the book down. it's called alfred hitchcocks ghostly gallery, a great out of print book of slightly scary horror stories for youngsters, that had a big impact on me.

anyway, i appreciate you time,

best,

sam schroeder

Can anyone help with this little teaser?

Hi

Your newsletter readers have been 100% successful in identifying books for me in the past from sketchy plot lines. I wonder if they can help again? I've just read Ben Bova's Powersat (at last he's found another country other than England to draw his villains from!). The idea of a satellite gathering power from the sun and beaming it to Earth as microwave energy is not new. I remember starting to read a book, possibly serialised in a magazine, about a manned satellite doing just the same. In this book, someone on board the satellite is unofficially experimenting with some electronic device which unexpectedly causes the satellite to move out of its normal alignment and orbit. As a result the microwave beam (to somewhere in the Arabian desert?) moves off target and causes havoc. That's about as far as I got. I got the impression that the electronic device was probably going to prove, unexpectedly, to be some new source of drive for space vehicles. Does this ring any bells with anyone? I can't even begin to put a date to this but probably 20+ years ago.

All the best.

Chris Smith

or this little belter?

Hi guys,

A message board of which I am a member is currently discussing the veracity of the following Anne McCaffrey quote:

"It's a proven fact that a single anal sex experience causes one to be
homosexual. The hormones released by a sexual situation involving the anus
being broached, are the same hormones found in large quantities in
effeminate homosexual males. For example, when I was much younger I knew a
young man who was for all intents and purposes, heterosexual. He was
mugged, and involved in a rape situation involving a tent peg. This one
event was enough to have him start on a road that eventually led to him
becoming effeminate and gay."

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=19511

The quote is mentioned on several websites, but nowhere gives the source of the interview. Do you have any info on this?

Many thanks,

Steven Browne.

The plastic bag was possibly the best idea I've seen for a bit and indicates that you've been here before ;)

Thanks again
Ric

"It's about minor characters," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's completely different. But it's a good idea, and it's going to be a lot of fun to do." Full BBC story

A rare signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has been sold for £19,700 at Christie's auction house in London.
Experts had estimated the book, which was signed "Joanne Rowling", to have been worth between £8,000-£12,000. The auction also included a publisher's proof copy of the book.

The misspelling of JK Rowling's name on the title page as "JA Rowling", did not put deter bidders and the manuscript sold for £2,250. A signed paperback edition, also inscribed by Rowling, was sold along with a similarly inscribed first hardback edition of the second book in the series - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - for £1,250. Full BBC story

Texan "Goatsucker" revealed as a bald Coyote!

US scientists say an animal found in Texas is not the chupacabra - or goat-sucker - of American myth, but a coyote with a hair loss problem.
DNA tests on the carcass found at a ranch south-east of San Antonio yielded a virtually identical match to coyote DNA, biologist Mike Forstner said. The coyote was one of three found dead by rancher Phylis Canion this summer.

Central American myth has long spoken of a vampire-like creature that slays livestock by sucking out their blood. The chupacabra is said to attack its victims at night, leaving a trail of carcasses with their throats torn out. Full BBC story

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