If you liked “From the Clay of His Heart” you can nominate for Hugo

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You may nominate works for the 2009 Hugo award if you either:

  • were an attending or supporting member of Denvention 3 (the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention); OR
  • are an attending or supporting member of Anticipation (the 2009 World Science Fiction Convention) before January 31, 2009

If you liked “From the Clay of His Heart” and want to nominate it in the novelette category, all you need to do is go here and fill out this form before Saturday, February 28, 2009. You can nominate up to 5 stories in each category.

If you want to read it, you can do so online if you have an IGMS vol 8 subscription ($2.50). If you don’t plan on subscribing to that issue, post a comment, and I’ll make sure you get a copy.

Here are nomination numbers for last year’s awards. What this shows is that 40 nominations puts a novel on the final ballot. 17 nominations put a short story there.

Best Novel (382 nominating ballots cast):
65 – Brasyl by Ian McDonald
58 – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
58 – Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
41 – The Last Colony by John Scalzi
40 – Halting State by Charles Stross

Best Novella (220 nominating ballots cast):
52 – “Memorare” by Gene Wolfe
50 – “Recovering Apollo 8” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
49 – “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis
39 – “The Fountain of Age” by Nancy Kress
34 – “Stars Seen Through Stone” by Lucius Shepard

Best Novelette (243 nominating ballots cast):
69 – “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang
45 – “Dark Integers” by Greg Egan
24 – “Finisterra” by David Moles
22 – “The Cambist and Lord Iron” Daniel Abraham

Best Short Story (270 nominating ballots cast):
46 – “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
29 – “Last Contact” by Stephen Baster
28 – “Distant Replay” by Mike Resnick
25 – “A Small Room in Koboldtown” by Michael Swanwick
17 – “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” by Ken MacLeod

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin + Interview

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I have read few books more interesting than Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.

In it she describes her world of autism and how it helped her a perspective into animals unlike any other expert in the field. She can literally see what we block out. It’s part of what helped her make a huge impact on the meat packing industry.

And it’s had an impact on her. When she was visiting her grandparents once in Arizona, she saw a squeeze chute in operation on a ranch. She saw the cattle calm, for the most part, in the chute. “Watching those cattle calm down,” she says, “I knew I needed a squeeze chute of my own.” So when she got back home she built a human-sized one with the help of her teacher. “I got through my teenage years thanks to my squeeze machine and my horses.”

Grandin is not a vegetarian activitst (she eats meat herself) or a brutal slayer. She has taken the middle ground between the fantatics that want to prevent the consumption of all meat, on one hand, or totally disregard the life of animals on the other. She writes, she says, “because I wish animals could have more than just a low-stress life and a quick, painless death. I wish animals could have a good life, too, with something useful to do. I think we owe them that.”

Temple has dozens and dozens of insights into animals, which she shares here. You’ll learn about rapist roosters and the problem of one-trait breeding, whether prediators find it “fun to kill a groundhog” (yes, she says, they do), whether animals have true cognition, and so many other things it’s impossible to list them here. I was fascinated on every page. If you have anything to do with animals, you’re going to LOVE this book.

Get the book. Read it. In the meantime, watch a 27 minute interview of Temple by Doug Fabrizio on Utah NOW. I caught this on TV flipping through the channels and couldn’t look away. This is a fascinating interview of a fascinating woman.

Source:Temple Grandin on Utah NOW

Press Release – Utah Author Selected for Best SFF Stories 2008

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UTAH AUTHOR SELECTED FOR BEST STORIES OF 2008

Will Present Keys to Successful Fiction at BYU Symposium

LAKETOWN, UTAH |  February 9, 2009 |  Utah author John Brown’s novelette, “From the Clay of His Heart,” has just been listed as one of the best stories of 2008 by Locus Magazine, the main trade publication for the field of science fiction and fantasy. Locus Magazine selected its list from the hundreds of stories published and reviewed in 2008. Brown’s novelette will also be included in the annual Year’s Best Fantasy anthology edited by Hugo award-winning editor David G. Hartwell.

“I’m thrilled with the recognition,” says Brown. “Still, I suppose you’d have to be a potato head not to squeeze some drama out of a story that’s a mix of religion, thieves, monsters, and love.”

Brown will present his views on the keys to successful fiction in a lecture and workshop titled “The 3 Things You Must Learn To Write Killer Stories” at BYU on Friday evening, February 20, 2009 as part of Life, The Universe, & Everything, a symposium on science fiction & fantasy. Admission is free and open to all.

John Brown is an award-winning Utah author. His epic fantasy, Servant of a Dark God, will be released in September 2009 by Tor, the largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy in the world. For more information on the author visit: http://JohnDBrown.com

MORE INFO

Click on image. Artwork for “From the Clay of His Heart” which will appeared in Locus Magazine’s recommended reading for 2008 and will appear in the Year’s Best Fantasy #9 edited by David Hartwell.