[bragging]

Last friday, I went down to Seattle, Washington to meet George R.R. Martin. He was in town for a book signing at Town Hall. 1,000 people showed up. He’s a popular dude. I was on hand to help with the signing for The Signed Page signing, hauling nearly 400 books from one side of the room to the other, with George signing them along the way. Along with George, I had the pleasure of meeting one half of James S.A. Corey (Ty Franck, whose novel, Leviathan Wakes, rocks) and Peter Orullian, author of The Unremembered. Needless to say, I was a star-struck little blogger for the entire weekend!

But, well being a braggart is only fun for me. So, instead of gushing more, here’s a video filmed by Suvudu blogger Shawn Speakman. I was sitting right next to the camera. Cherie Priest, the Hugo-nominated author of Boneshaker was on the other side of the camera. She’s a sweetheart, too.

Beyond that, there’s not much to report that the video doesn’t relate. He’s a wonderful man; very humble and possessing a dry, self-deprecating sense of humour and very passionate about his work. All around, a great experience.

[/bragging]

Via Locus Online:

Best Novel

• Zoo City, Lauren Beukes (Jacana South Africa; Angry Robot)
• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
• The Silent Land, Graham Joyce (Gollancz; Doubleday)
• Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada; Roc; Harper Voyager UK)
• Redemption In Indigo, Karen Lord (Small Beer)
• Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)

Best Novella

• Bone and JewelCreatures, Elizabeth Bear (Subterranean)
• The Broken Man, Michael Byers (PS)
• “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon”, Elizabeth Hand (Stories: All-New Tales)
• The Thief of Broken Toys, Tim Lebbon (ChiZine)
• “The Mystery Knight”, George R.R. Martin (Warriors)
• “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window”, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer 2010)

Best Short Fiction

• “Beautiful Men” , Christopher Fowler (Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts)
• “Booth’s Ghost”, Karen Joy Fowler (What I Didn’t See and Other Stories)
• “Ponies”, Kij Johnson (Tor.com 11/17/10)
• “Fossil-Figures”, Joyce Carol Oates (Stories: All-New Tales)
• “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us”, Mercurio D. Rivera (Black Static 8-9/10)

Best Anthology

• The Way of the Wizard, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Prime)
• My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, Kate Bernheimer, ed. (Penguin)
• Haunted Legends, Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas, eds. (Tor)
• Stories: All-New Tales, Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio, eds. (Morrow; Headline Review)
• Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, S.T. Joshi, ed. (PS)
• Swords & Dark Magic, Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders, eds. (Eos)

Best Anthology

• What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler (Small Beer)
• The Ammonite Violin & Others, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
• Holiday, M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon)
• Sourdough and Other Stories, Angela Slatter (Tartarus)
• The Third Bear, Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon)

Best Artist

• Vincent Chong
• Kinuko Y. Craft
• Richard A. Kirk
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan

Special Award, Professional

• John Joseph Adams, for editing and anthologies
• Lou Anders, for editing at Pyr
• Marc Gascoigne, for Angry Robot
• Stéphane Marsan & Alain Névant, for Bragelonne
• Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine

Special Award, Non-Professional

• Stephen Jones, Michael Marshall Smith, & Amanda Foubister, for Brighton Shock!: The Souvenir Book Of The World Horror Convention 2010
• Alisa Krasnostein, for Twelfth Planet Press
• Matthew Kressel, for Sybil’s Garage and Senses Five Press
• Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker
• Lavie Tidhar, for The World SF Blog

As always, good to see so many great authors and industry folk represented. Really hope that ‘The Mystery Knight’ by George R.R. Martin wins the award it’s up for. Under Heaven has my easy vote for best novel.

Thoughts?

While reading A Dance with Dragons, the fifth volume in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, I was struck by a particular passage that really encapsulated the difference in Martin’s writing when comparing his earlier work to his later works. Not surprisingly, it’s a descriptive piece:

Deepwood’s mossy walls enclosed a wide, rounded hill with a flattened top, crowned by a cavernous longhall with a watchtower at one end, rising fifty feet above the hill. Beneath the hill was the bailey, with its stables, paddock, smithy, well, and sheepfold, defended by a deep ditch, a sloping earthen dike, and a palisade of logs. The outer defenses made an oval, following the contours of the land. There were two gates, each protected by a pair of square wooden towers, and wallwalks around the perimeter. On the south side of the castle, moss grew thick upon the palisade and crept halfway up the towers. To east and west were empty fields. Oats and barley had been growing there when [spoiler] took the castle, only to be crushed underfoot during her attack. A series of hard frosts had killed the crops they’d planted afterward, leaving only mud and ash and wilted, rotting stalks.

This is an exhaustingly detailed passage about Deepwood Motte, a strategically important castle, but one that has little to offer the series other than it’s place within the politics and military movement of Westeros’ various factions. And, frankly, it’s just not very interesting.
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