Ditmar Awards!

Congratulations to all of the Ditmar Award winners!  It was terribly fun to be able to sit at home and “listen” to the awards being announced as several people (Alan Baxter and Tansy Rayner Roberts were who I was following mostly).

The winners and nominees (all of whom would have been equally awesome winners):

Best Novel

• Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson (Hachette)
• Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan Macmillan)
• Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Voyager)
• Stormlord Rising, Glenda Larke (Voyager)
• Walking the Tree, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)

Best Novella or Novelette

• “Acception”, Tessa Kum (Eneit Press)
• “All the Clowns in Clowntown”, Andrew J McKiernan (Brimstone Press)
• “Bleed”, Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “Her Gallant Needs”, Paul Haines (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “The Company Articles of Edward Teach”, Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story

• “All the Love in the World”, Cat Sparks, Sprawl (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “Bread and Circuses”, Felicity Dowker, Scary Kisses (Ticonderoga Publications)
• “One Saturday Night With Angel”, Peter M. Ball, Sprawl (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “She Said”, Kirstyn McDermott, Scenes From the Second Storey (Morrigan Books)
• “The House of Nameless”, Jason Fischer, Writers of the Future XXVI (Galaxy Press)
• “The February Dragon”, Angela Slatter and Lisa L. Hannett, Scary Kisses (Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Collected Work

• Baggage, edited by Gillian Polack (Eneit Press)
• Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
• Scenes from the Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)
• Sprawl, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
• Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)

Best Artwork

• Cover art, The Angaelien Apocalypse/The Company Articles of Edward Teach (Twelfth Planet Press), Dion Hamill
• Cover art, Australis Imaginarium (FableCroft Publishing), Shaun Tan
• Cover art, Dead Sea Fruit (Ticonderoga Publications), Olga Read
• Cover art, Savage Menace and Other Poems of Horror (P’rea Press), Andrew J McKiernan
• “The Lost Thing” short film (Passion Pictures), Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan

Best Fan Writer

• Robert Hood, for Undead Backbrain
• Chuck McKenzie, for work in Horrorscope
• Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
• Tehani Wessely, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus

Best Fan Artist

• Rachel Holkner, for Continuum 6 props
• Dick Jenssen, for cover art of Interstellar Ramjet Scoop
• Amanda Rainey, for Swancon 36 logo

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

• Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, edited by Alisa Krasnostein et al.
• Bad Film Diaries podcast, Grant Watson
• Galactic Suburbia podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
• Terra Incognita podcast, Keith Stevenson
• The Coode Street podcast, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan
• The Writer and the Critic podcast, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Best Achievement

• Lisa L. Hannett, cover design for The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales (Ticonderoga Publications)
• Helen Merrick and Andrew Milner, Academic Stream for Aussiecon 4
• Amanda Rainey, cover design for Scary Kisses (Ticonderoga Publications)
• Kyla Ward, Horror Stream and The Nightmare Ball for Aussiecon 4
• Grant Watson and Sue Ann Barber, Media Stream for Aussiecon 4
• Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, Rachel Holkner, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, Snapshot 2010

Best New Talent

• Thoraiya Dyer
• Lisa L. Hannett
• Patty Jansen
• Kathleen Jennings
• Pete Kempshall

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

• Leigh Blackmore, for “Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling’s Clowns at Midnight” in 21st Century Gothic (Scarecrow Press)
• Damien Broderick, for editing Skiffy and Mimesis: More Best of Australian Science Fiction Review (Wildside Press)
• Ross Murray, for “The Australian Dream Becomes Nightmare – Visions of Suburbia in Australian Science Fiction” in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 44.
• Tansy Rayner Roberts, for “A Modern Woman’s Guide to Classic Who”

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

In which I am a total fangirl

No writing yesterday or the day before.  The day before for obvious reasons (Swancon) but yesterday, because we took some time off for fun.

Which for us means a movie.  And an awesome movie – Thor – which inevitably means Gold Class

I know Gold Class is pricey, but it’s totally worth it once in a while to be able to watch a good movie reclined in a comfy chair with someone bringing you food and drinks.

Avoiding spoilers, since I know that most people reading this won’t have seen the movie yet, but it was awesome.  When my main nitpicks after a first viewing are a spelling error on a computer screen, a character who exists only to be pretty and state the obvious and a female character wearing inappropriate footwear for the weather.  I know, but it’s about suspension of disbelief, people.  I get thrown out by small details like “If she was wearing those boots, she’d be flat on her arse after a step).

It was very shiny, indeed.  We saw it in 3D, but I don’t know if you need to see it in 3D to enjoy it, really.  And I’m looking forward to the Avengers movie an awful lot, now.

And last night, the first episode of the new season of Dr Who.  Which I also won’t spoil, but let’s just say that I’m a Moffat fangirl for a reason.  Looks like it’s got the potential to be one of the most emotional and well-written seasons to date.

I am a happy little media consuming person.

And now caffeine.  And more writing and reading.  And there’s still a day and a half of weekend!

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Lest We Forget

Ode of Remembrance

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

 

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.