Monthly Archive: April 2012

Apr 30

Ditmar ballot – first I pat myself on the back…

The 2012 Ditmar ballot was announced last week. I’m chuffed that Writer and the Critic appears in Best Fan Publication in Any Medium. I always look forward to my podcast night with Kirstyn. Not just because she provides baked goods – seriously there are gingerbread men and then there are the gingerbread men baked by …

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Apr 25

The Shirley Jackson Awards

As usual I’m late to the party, but the Shirley Jackson Award nominees were announced a few days ago.  The full list is here. Because this is a juried award, I take great interest in categories like Best Novel.  Essentially I see it as a potential reading list.  Of the 6 books announced, I own …

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Apr 23

Hugo Commentary: Best Graphic Story

Here’s the actual ballot:. Best Graphic Story (339 ballots) Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press) Fables Vol 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, …

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Apr 22

Episode 18 of the Writer and the Critic is up!!!!

It’s a good ‘un. You will never look at stick figures the same way again.  I promise! I’m also curious to get feedback on the Effinger book.  So feel free to send feedback here to or the writer and critic gmail address.

Apr 18

Fan Writery Links #1

I’m not good with the whole link salad thing.  But as I said in this post, I’m going to spend this year and next linking to the best articles and rants and reviews I come across.  I’m calling it fan-writing, but it doesn’t necessarily need to have been written by a fan or be about …

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Apr 17

Coode Street

97 episodes in and Coode Street gets better and better.  Yeah, it’s done by Skype and yeah it abruptly begins and ends and yeah you could make a drinking game out of how many times “The Pelican Brief” has been mentioned on the show,*but the last bunch of podcasts, which have included interviews with Peter …

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Apr 16

Shooting the Poo Episode 13 –

– is up.  Actually it’s already been up for a few days so you should have already been offended by it.  But if you haven’t clicked play and you want to know what the three of us think of Frank Miller and Mark Millar… well off you go and have a listen.

Apr 15

Hugo Commentary: Best Fan Writer (long post – tangents included)

As I understand it the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) will be debating this year whether Best Graphic Story should survive as a category or be taken out and shot. There’s actually a number of good reasons why you’d remove the category from the ballot ranging from graphic comics being well serviced by other awards …

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Apr 14

And before the Hugos we have… the Chronos Awards

On 4 April 2012, the Continuum Foundation announced the Awards Ballot for the Chronos Award.  (For those of you not aware, the Chronos recognises excellence in Victorian Science Fiction and Fantasy.) The Long Fiction ballot includes a number of works that I own but haven’t actually read.  It also includes Scape, a YA web-zine that …

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Apr 12

Mea Culpa

On April Fool’s day I wrote this post asking someone out there to go “Chris Priest” on the Aurealis awards. In the post I made the statement that no-one had bothered to comment on the awards ballot, apart from the odd congratulatory pat on the back. Well, I was wrong. A recent episode of the …

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