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.

According to the LA Times, Warner Brothers plans to split Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into two movies. Part one will arrive in cinemas in November 2010 and part two will follow in May 2011. It might seem an obvious ruse to add a little more value to the richest franchise in movie history - which has brought in £2.2bn around the world thus far - but those involved insist the decision has been made to serve a story that cannot be properly adapted any more briefly.

Daniel Radcliffe, the series’ star, is quoted as saying “it’s the only way you can do it, without cutting out a huge portion of the book”. He explained that subplots in earlier books could be excised for adaptations, but “the seventh book doesn’t really have any subplots. It’s one driving, pounding story from the word go.”

Link to full Guardian article

From Guardian Unlimited:

The Tolkien community was in hysterics yesterday. At least that was the verdict on one of the leading Hobbit websites following the announcement in Los Angeles that Peter Jackson, director of the $3bn-plus trilogy The Lord of the Rings, had signed up to produce two films based on The Hobbit, expected to go into production in 2009.

Story here. The Hobbit will be split into two films, tentatively scheduled to release in 2010 and 201. No director has been chosen yet - Peter Jackson is too busy with other projects, according to an article in stuff.co.nz. Presumably, the leading website mentioned is TheOneRing.net.

Newsweek reports:

“The Golden Compass,” New Line’s $150 million film adaptation of the first volume in Philip Pullman’s best-selling fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials,” stands accused of being both anti-Catholic and not anti-Catholic enough - though no one making either claim has actually seen it, reports Senior Editor Devin Gordon in the December 3 issue of Newsweek. The Catholic League is urging families to boycott a film in which the word “Catholic” is never uttered.

The story is available on NYTimes.com. (I’m still trying - and failing - to understand why it’s filed under Business and Financial News.)

Yahoo News reports:

The tale of the Spartan battle of Thermopylae as seen through the unique eyes of graphic novelist Frank Miller captured the top spot at the box office over the weekend, commanding a take of nearly $71 million to become the year’s first blockbuster.

The movie, an adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 (a superhero-style take on the battle of Thermopylae) was shot entirely indoors, with the movie’s impressive skies and landscaped added in later digitally. In an interview with Wired News, director Zack Snyder said, “I wanted to get at the book as much as I could. Shooting outside, we couldn’t control the skies and lighting to the extent I wanted to. And the landscapes are different than in real life. They don’t exist in the real world, only in Frank Miller’s imagination.”

For a taste of the finished product (and some eye candy), see this gallery of photos on the Wired site.

Philip Pullman may have hit Hollywood paydirt by selling the rights to the His Dark Materials trilogy to New Line Cinema - but it seems his interest in film goes beyond the bottom line.

According to the Independent’s Pandora, the author has awarded the film rights to an earlier novel, The Butterfly Tattoo, free of charge to a small independent Dutch company that promotes educational projects for young people. Dynamic Entertainment now has the option to adapt the book, in exchange for 10% of any eventual revenues. Filming is expected to begin in August.

Guardian Unlimited Books has the full story, which includes a brief description of the story. It notes that the film’s budget is just 200,000 euros - quite a difference from the £83m being spent on The Golden Compass.

Here’s how it works: a producer or production company “options” a book — that is, buys the rights (typically for several thousand dollars) to adapt the book for a period of time (typically from eighteen months to two years). If the producers have not adapted the book when agreed-upon the period of time lapses, the rights revert back to the author. [3] Books are optioned far more than they are produced, and some books have been optioned more than once. But sometimes, a book manages to slog its way through the development process and get filmed.

Is this a good experience for an author?

The rest of the article can be read here.

Best-selling writer Cussler, who has featured Pitt in 19 of his 32 books, is suing Crusader Entertainment, owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz, for making so many script and plot changes to the film version of his book “Sahara” that it was doomed to box-office failure.

“This was not the dramatic, gripping story Clive Cussler told. As a result, the audience just didn’t care,” Fields said in his opening statement. He added that the movie “Sahara” released in 2005 with Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz lost between $60 million and $70 million.

In a countersuit, Crusader said Cussler had overstated by tens of millions the number of books he had sold to induce them to enter the agreement.

Cussler is seeking millions of dollars in damages.

Link to the Yahoo News article