SF Signal has a page collecting links works from this year’s Hugo nomination list that are online for free. This is a great chance to read some of the year’s best speculative fiction - nearly all the nominated novellas, novelettes and short stories are online, and Harper Collins has even put up a substantial preview (71 pages) of Michael Chabon’s alternate history novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

Out of the stories I’ve read so far, I particularly enjoyed Ted Chiang’s The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate (time travel, Arabian Nights style - also available as a free mp3 podcast episode from Starship Sofa) and Nancy Kress’ The Fountain of Age, a clever and affecting piece of science fiction.

Link

The official shortlist for the Hugo (one of the top awards for science fiction and fantasy books, stories, movies, TV shows, art and more) has just been released. Here are the candidates in the best novel category:

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
Brasyl by Ian McDonald
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Halting State by Charles Stross

Link to the full list of nominations

From the Hugo award site:

You do not need to attend Denvention 3 in order to participate in the Hugo Awards. A “supporting membership” will be sufficient to make you a member of the World Science Fiction Society and get you voting rights for both the nomination stage and the final ballot. A supporting membership costs US$50 and you can buy one here.

The first winner of a new award that celebrates Arabic literature has just been announced:

A $50,000 prize styling itself as the Arabic Booker has been awarded for the first time. At a ceremony in Abu Dhabi last night, the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction went to Egyptian author Baha Taher for his novel Sunset Oasis.

The award, which aims to boost the international profile of literary fiction in Arabic, carries with it prizes of $10,000 for all shortlisted novels, and a further $50,000 for the winner. The victor is also assured of being translated into English.

Authors from 18 Arab countries were considered for the prize, with a total of 122 books submitted. Launched in association with the Booker Prize Foundation, the prize is funded by Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Foundation.

Link to full Guardian article.

This is from the Sydney Morning Herald:

New Nobel laureate Doris Lessing has used her acceptance speech to rail against the internet, saying it has “seduced a whole generation into its inanities” and created a world where people know nothing.

Similarly, author Andrew Keen argued in his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, that the internet was killing culture and assaulting economics.

Read the full article here on Sydney Morning Herald online.

Lots of recent articles on the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

BBC News: “‘Bad sex’ winner to be announced”

The winner of the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award for the most awkward description of an intimate encounter is to be announced later. […] Now in its 14th year, the prize is awarded by Literary Review magazine in an attempt to discourage authors from writing such accounts.

Times Online: “Sex in Ian McEwan’s novel is not bad enough to impress judges”

Weeks after his novel about a young couple’s unconsummated wedding night was beaten to the Man Booker Prize, Ian McEwan will be feeling relieved that On Chesil Beach has failed to make the shortlist for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

Guardian Unlimited: “Bad Sex Award 2007 shortlisted passages” (No, we’re not going to post a snippet, but excerpts of the award contestants can be found at the link.)

We also reported on the award last year:

• Stiff competition on bad sex shortlist
• Debut novelist Iain Hollingshead wins bad sex prize

It’s almost the beginning of the new month, so here’s the regular glut of contest deadlines coming up on the 1st:

Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize
Prize: $3000 and publication
Eligibility: Poets who have not have published more than one previous collection of poems.
Website

W. Y Boyd Literary Award
Prize: $5000 and a 24k gold-framed citation of achievement
Eligibility: Published novel set in a period in which the US was at war.
Website

Doris Bakwin Award
Prize: $2000 and publication
Eligibility: For short stories, a novel or memoirs written by a woman
Website

Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Competition
Prize: $1000 and publication
Eligibility: Open
Website

Willis Barnstone Translation Prize
Prize: $1000
Eligibility: For translated poetry
Website

Beatrice Hawley Award
Prize: $2000 and publication
Eligibility: For US residents
Website

Anna David Rosenberg Award
Prize: At least $750
Eligibility: For a group of poems on the Jewish experience.
Guidelines (pdf)

Lambda Literary Foundation Debut Literary Awards
Prize: $1000
Eligibility: For published debut books of fiction by gay or lesbian authors.
Website

Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize
Prize: $1000
Eligibility: Open
Website

Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award
Prize: $500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to NYC to meet with writers, editors, publishers, and agents.
Eligibility: Poets and authors from Washington D.C. who have published no more than one full-length book in the genre in which they are applying.
Website

SFAI Poetry Translator Residency
Prize: Residencies of up to 4 weeks and a stipend
Eligibility: Poets over 25
Website

Slipstream Press Poetry Chapbook Competition
Prize: $1000, publication and 50 copies of the published chapbook
Eligibility: Open
Website

Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize
Prize: $1000 and publication
Eligibility: For writers in Mountain or Pacific time zones, Alaska or Hawaii
Website

A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize
Prize: $1500 and publication
Eligibility: US writers 18 years of age or older, who have not yet published a full-length collection of poetry in book form.
Website
Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation grants (short story competition)
Prize: $1000
Eligibility: Open; for pieces that present the gay and lesbian lifestyle in a positive manner and are based on a historic person or event.
Website

Cider Press Review book award (poetry)
Prize: $1000, publication and 25 author copies
Eligibility: Open.
Website

Fence Books: Motherwell Prize (poetry)
Prize: $5000 and publication
Eligibility: For a first or second book of poetry by a woman writing in English.
Website

Fish Short Story Prize
Prize: 2,500 Euros & publication.
Eligibility: Open to authors writing in English. Overall winner must attend the launch of the anthology.
Website

Glimmer Train Press Short Story Award for New Writers
Prize: $1200 and publication
Eligibility: Open only to writers whose fiction has not appeared in any publication with a circulation over 5,000.
Website

New Issues Poetry Prize
Prize: $2000 and publication
Eligibility: Poets writing in English who have not previously published, or self-published a full-length collection (48+ pages) of poems in an edition of 500 or more copies.
Website

White Pine Poetry Prize
Prize: $1000 and publication
Eligibility: US citizens
Website

The shortlist for the Costa Awards have been announced, with young women authors making up the entire line of nominees for the first novel award.  Other categories are best novel, children’s book, poetry and biography.
The Guardian writes:

The winner of each category will be announced on January 3, and the overall Costa Book of the Year on January 22. Traditionally a more populist award than the Booker, the Costa recognises the most “enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland”. Last year’s winner was Stef Penney, for The Tenderness of Wolves.

Link to the complete shortlist on the Costa site.