You know how sometimes it's hard to feel sorry for people?

Well, I confess I'm having one of those moments myself.

I just read on the BBC website that British author Doris Lessing, who won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, is complaining that her win has been (quote) "a bloody disaster."

"All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed," she complains. The increased media interest has meant, she says, that writing a full novel is next to impossible. She thinks she'll probably give up writing novels altogether.

Now, granted the woman is 88 years old. And she's already written some 50 books. But giving up entirely?

I can understand media interest being high in the six months or first year after her win, but they'll give the award to someone next year. And at that point, barring a bunch of phone calls the day of the announcement for "So what do you think of the choice for this year's winner?" kinds of questions, I have to think the interest in her win would diminish substantially.

Okay, a year can be a long time when you're 88. But throwing in the towel? Hmmm. Strikes me as giving up a bit easily.

When Lessing won the Nobel, LOCUS made a big deal of it, claiming her as the first science fiction writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature--her writing includes the five-volume Canopus in Argos science fiction series (beginning with Shikasta, 1979).

Whether Ms. Lessing would call herself a science fiction writer or not (I tend to think not--such a designation is usually a self-identified one) this seems a little like SF grasping for recognition. And given how she's bemoaned her success (and $1.5 million dollar prize) do we really want to claim her as the first Nobel Laureate of Science Fiction?

Thus I make this promise: when I win my Nobel Prize for Literature, with no confusion about my chosen style and genre being SF, I vow to enjoy the hell out of the money, fame, and accolades that come with such recognition. I won't whine or complain, no matter how old I am, and I promise to continue writing afterward no matter how many feature articles written about me or dinners held in my honour.

After all, I owe it science fiction to do no less.

- S.

Basking in the Reflected Glow of an Aurora

The 2008 Prix Aurora Awards were announced Sunday 18 May 2008 at Keycon 25 in Winnipeg.

Congratulations to Hayden Trenholm, whose story "Like Water in the Desert" won Best Short-Form Work in English. Hayden is a really nice guy and a heck of a competitor. He wrote a great story and definitely deserves an Aurora. And watch out next year when his first novel, Defining Diana (Bundoran Press), will be eligible in the Best Long-Form Work in English category.

The 2008 Best Short-Form Work in English Aurora Nominees,
from this year's Ad Astra. Left to right: Stephen Kotowych, Tony Pi,
Hayden Trenholm, David Livingstone Clink, Douglas Smith.
(Photo courtesy Robert J. Sawyer & Caroline Clink)

However, I'm thrilled to be associated with an Aurora Award by proxy, because Julie E. Czerneda & Jana Paniccia won the Best Work in English (Other) Aurora for edited Under Cover of Darkness! Yay! Congratulations Julie and Jana! I had my first published story in UCoD and I'm thrilled that they won for their excellent work! A well-deserved accolade!

The full list of winners are:

Lifetime Achievement:
Dennis Mullin

Best Long-Form Work in English:
The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson (Warner)

Best Long-Form Work in French:
Cimetière du musée by Diane Boudreau (du Phoenix)

Best Short-Form Work in English:
"Like Water in the Desert" by Hayden Trenholm (Challenging Destiny)

Best Short-Form Work in French:
"Sur la plage des Èpaves" by Laurent MacAllister (Solaris)

Best Work in English (Other):
Under Cover of Darkness edited by Julie E. Czerneda & Jana Paniccia (DAW)

Best Work in French (Other):
No nominations.

Artistic Achievement:
Lar deSouza

Fan Achievement (Fanzine):
No award.

Fan Achievement (Organizational):
Penny Lipman

Fan Achievement (Other):
Paul Bobbitt (editor of The Voyageur)

Aurora Voting Final Day!

Hi all -

The Prix Aurora Prize has arrived! Online voting closes Saturday, May 17th at 5 pm (Central Std Time).

My story, "Saturn in G Minor"--which has previously won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize--is a finalist in the Best Short Form in English category. You can read the story for free right HERE.

Any Canadian citizen anywhere in the world and all landed immigrants, as well as all attending members of Keycon/Canvention, are eligible to vote.

Online voting (available HERE) and on-site voting at KeyCon 25 must be completed by Saturday, May 17th at 5 pm (Central Std Time).

Don't delay! Vote today!

While I won't be attending KeyCon myself I will post as soon as I hear who won what at the Aurora Award presentation on Sunday night.

Best,

- S.

"He Ain't Alien, He's My Brother" OR "Saint ET?"

So I've been woefully behind in regular postings of late--I've been traveling a lot for work--but I saw something today that I just had to post about.

Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Fr. Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

Now as a Catholic myself and as a sci-fi writer it was nice to hear this. I've been thinking it for a long time, but it's nice to have my opinion backed up :) But what was even more interesting to me was Fr. Funes' speculation that some aliens could even be free from original sin, that primordial break with God that gave rise to (amongst other things) the saying "forbidden fruit".

The funny thing is when I was about twelve I asked my dad, who was in seminary for a while and who has a Church degree in Tomistic philosophy, whether he believed in aliens--we’d been watching a lot of ST:TNG at the time and were also having a debate about whether Data could have a soul (my father assures me that, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, that would be impossible. He backed this up by assigning me some reading from the Summa Theologica on the nature of the soul--I was TWELVE...)

As I recall, he didn’t ever give me a yes or no to the alien question (which I think means it’s a “no”), but dad did speculate--as does this Vatican astronomer--that if there were aliens they might not have suffered original sin. If that were the case, he reasoned, these perfect aliens in their state of grace might not want anything to do with us, or perhaps we simply wouldn’t have anything to say to each other. My dad used this to duck the question and say something to the effect of "So what does it matter if there are aliens, then?"

You can imagine how this infuriated a young, would-be SF writer... :)

- S.

My FACEBOOK Interview Now Available

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy group on Facebook has been running a series of interviews with Aurora Award nominees on their discussion board, and the interview with me (conducted by fellow Fledgling Karen Danylak) is now posted and available here.

In the same thread you can also find posts by a number of this year's Aurora nominees, including most of the rest of the finalists in the Best Short Form in English category.

Special thanks to Donna Farley, one of the admins of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy group, for starting and organizing the interview thread. Great idea, Donna!

- S.