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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications 3-1-2006 SFRA ewN sletter 275 Science Fiction Research Association Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/scifistud_pub Part of the Fiction Commons Scholar Commons Citation Science Fiction Research Association, "SFRA eN wsletter 275 " (2006). Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications. Paper 90. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/scifistud_pub/90 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. #1TS lan./ Feb./ Ifareh ~006 • Editor: Chris«ine Mains Hiw3ging Editor: Janice M. Boss«ad Nonfiction Reriews: Ed McKnish« Science Fiction Research fiction Reriews: Association Philip Snyder SFIUI Re"iew The SFRAReview (ISSN 1068-395X) is published four times a year by the Science Fiction Research As I ..... HIS ISSUE: sociation (SFRA) and distributed to SFRA members. Individual issues are not for sale; however. starting with issue SFRA Business #256, all issues will be published to SFRA's website no less than 10 weeks Editor's Message 2 after paper publication. For information President's Message 2 about the SFRA and its benefits, see the Candidates' Statements 2 deSCription at the back of this issue. For a membership application, contact SFRA Treasurer Donald M. Hassler or get one from the SFRA website: <www.sfra.org>. Non Fiction Reviews SFRA would like to thank the Univer sity of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for its as Speculations 7 sistance in producing the SFRAReview. On SF 8 Haunted Screen 9 SUBMISSIONS The SFRAReview encourages all submis Science in SF I I sions, including essays, review essays that Social and Virtual Space 12 cover several related texts, and inter Unsung Heroes of LotR 14 views. If you would like to review non fiction or fiction, please contact the respective editor. Fiction Reviews Wandering Star 15 Christine Mains, Editor Box 66024 Tiptree Anthology II 16 Calgary,AB T2N I N4 Pretender 17 <[email protected]> Cuckoo's Boys 19 Janice M. Bogstad, Managing Editor Fiction Factory 20 239 Broadway St. Alanya to Alanya 21 Eau Claire WI 54703-5553 <[email protected]> Temeraire 2J Ed McKnight, Nonfiction Editor I 13 Cannon Lane Taylors SC 29687 <[email protected]> Philip Snyder. Fiction Editor 109 Northumberland Road Rochester NY 14618 <[email protected]> SFRA BUSINESS C_~ __~) Editor's Message Christine Mains News Items: H:nmm. Still running a litde behind, so I'll repeat much of my message from last Issue. It goes something like dlis: Apologies, nagging of late reviewers, The World Fantasy Con has an pleas for more content, wishes for good reading. nounced site selection for the next three years: 2006 in Austin, Texas, SFRA BUSINESS November 2-5; 2007, in Saratoga, Presideni's Message New York, November 1-4; 2008, in David G. Mead Calgary, Canada, TBA. I am looking forward to our annual meeting in \Vhite Plains, NY, June 22- BSFA Awards for short fiction: ~5. I hope you are too. Please book your room, send in your conference registra "MagiC for Beginners" by Kelly link; oon, and -If dlere's still time for last minute submissions - send in your paper novel: Air by Geoff Ryman; nonfic and get on dle program. Oscar and Tom have great plans and a terrific slate of tion: Soundings by Gary K. Wolfe. guest audlOrs, including - among odlers - Norman Spinrad, Nancy Kress, and N alo Hopk11lson. I really can't wait to get dlere, and I hope to see you there too. The 2005 Philip K. D ick Award was We are planning to hold our 2007 SFRA annual meeting in conjunction given to War Surfby M.M. Buckner. with the Heinlein Centennial celebration in Kansas City, July 6-8, 2007. For our SFRA meeting, we need a Conference Chair and a Program Chair, or a team of The Crawford Award for the best SFRA folk who will take dlarge of dle meeting. I am making some preliminary fantasy novel by a new author was arrangements, with dle help ofJim Gunn and Chris J'vIcKitterick of fue University presented at the International Con of Kansas, but more help is needed. Please consider volunteering. ference on the Fantastic in the Arts Also, recruiting new members of SFRA is somedling we all can do. If in Fort Lauderdale on March 18 to you know someone who works in fue field but isn't a member, please invite him Joe Hill for 20th Century Ghosts. or her to join. Membership forms are on-line as www.sfra.org. \Ve'll do all we can to make dleir association fruitful and pleasant. The Lord Ruthven Award recogniz . I hope .spring fmds you all well and happy, and busy writing wonderful ing excellence in vampire fiction went 11lstOry and cnousll1 of science fiction. to Elizabeth Kostova for The Histo PS. If you were in Las Vegas last year, you might have met my grandson rian, with Octavia Butler's The Fledg Leo an~ ~is ~other Jennifer, who came to help with dle conference. Leo is expect- ling as runner-up. 11lg a slbhng 11l September. His doting grandparents are beside dlemselves widl joy, as are his parents Chris and Jen Shields. The Dell Magazine Award for un published fiction by an undergradu SFRA BUSINESS ate was presented at the Interna Candidaies' Siaiemenis tional Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Fort Lauderdale on For President March 18. The winner was Meghan Sinoff. Adam Frisch I anl honored to be nominated for the position of SFRA President. I Four inductees to the Science Fic have been a member of SFRA since 1978, and served as dle organization's vice tion Hall of Fame in Seattle have president in 1999-2000. I have also served on several Sf'RA committees most been announced: George Lucas, recently the Pilgrim Award Committee from 2002-2004. I am currendy Pr;fessor Anne McCaffrey, Frank Herbert and and Chatrperson of English at Briar Cliff lllliversity in Sioux City, IA., from Frank Kelly Freas (the last two post wl11ch poslt1o.n I have m~Ulaged to do some scholarly work on dle audlOrs James humous). The event will be held at Tlptrce,Jr., Ken ~lacLeod and Kim Stanley Robinson. as well as on dle genre of the Science Fiction Museum on June 17. SF film. If elected. I will do my best: 1) to keep the organization. its print and electronic publications, atId its annual meetings running smoothly, 2) to work \Vitll the other SF1L-\ officers to find new ways to increase our c___________________________________ ~) organization's diversity of interests, scholarly appeal, and membership numbers, ( and 3) to listen to individual members about how to make SFRA a more efficient and a more exciting organization. The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund has been estab Bruce Rockwood lished to provide a scholarship for My experience with the SFRA includes attending dle annual meetings in writers of color to attend the Schenectady, Guelph, and last summer in Las Vegas, and I will be participating Clarion Writers Workshop, where again this June. After serving two years as SFRA Vice President, attending the Butler got her start.The scholarship executive committee work-session in Cleveland and participating in the panel on will be administered by the Carl pedagogy at the meeting in Las Vegas last summer, where I also presented a paper, Brandon SOciety, which earlier this I have come to realize that the SFRA is an interesting and diverse group of people year established the Parallax Award I enjoy working with, and whom, if elected, I would like to serve. and the Kindred Award. My interests include dle intersections of SF and Fantasy with law, politics, and ethics. I am concerned about the political distortion of science by some who The winner of the James Tiptree see it as a threat to their religious views, economic or political power, or all of the Award for gender-bending specu above, and see SF as a good place for critical and satirical commentary on the lative fiction is Air by Geoff Ryman. alternative presents and futures we endure, or hope to create or avoid. I would like The award will be presented at to see the SFRA continue to encourage critical and creative dlinking and writing Wiscon 30, from May 26-29 in about what dlose futures are likely to be. We are already living in a period once Madison,WI. regularly written about as "the future" by SF's leading figures--do we need to rewrite the past-future, or consider whether the present is an alternative time line? Forthcoming Nonfiction: And what new futures are now possible that we wish to write about and, as (Spring, 2006) Frederik Pohl has said, perhaps try to prevent? My professional experience includes my current role as department chair Anonymous, ed. St. James Guide to (Finance & Legal Studies) at Bloomsburg University, where I have taught since Fantasy Writers. St. James P. 1985. Law & Literature, and International Law are my favorite subjects, and I have Battaglia, Debbora E T. Culture: An used SF texts in various cla.<;ses, including my required "business law" course (I thropology in Outerspaces. Duke used Jane Yolen's "Briar Rose" one term in trying to get my students to think UP. about dle implications of dle Solomon Amendment litigation). I attend various Brin, David and MatthewWoodring professional meetings, most recendy the centennial of dle American Society of Stover, eds.