Industry News

The winner for the Endeavour Award was announced at OryCon 44, held October 18-20, 2024, in Portland OR.

• WINNER: Painted Devils, Margaret Owen (Holt)

• Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree (Tor)
• Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Cañas (Berkley)
• Again and Again, Jonathan Evison (Dutton)
• Sleep No More, Seanan McGuire (DAW)

The prize recognizes “a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author

The World Fantasy Awards winners for works published in 2023 were presented during the 2024 World Fantasy Convention, held October 17-20, 2024 in Niagara Falls NY.

The Life Achievement Awards, presented annually to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding service to the fantasy field, went to Ginjer Buchanan and Jo Fletcher.

The World Fantasy Awards winners are:

Best Novel

• WINNER: The Reformatory, Tananarive Due (Saga; Titan UK)

• The Possibilities,

A museum dedicated to science fiction author Cixin Liu has opened in Yangquan, China. Ceremonies were held on October 13, 2024, as part of Yangquan’s second annual Liu Cixin Hometown Science Fiction Culture Week.

Liu, author of The Three-Body Problem, The Wandering Earth, and other influential works, took to the stage with local officials. In his commemorative speech (reported here), he said, “I hope that science fiction can bring ...Read More

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) sent a message to members on October 15, 2024, announcing that Russell Davis is being brought in for “a transitional leadership position.” Interim President Anthony W. Eichenlaub said

Recent resignations prove to us how much we’ve come to depend on our staff while also highlighting flaws in the structure of our organization. SFWA must change as it rebuilds… [Davis] knows SFWA well, ...Read More

Seattle Worldcon 2025 has announced a short story writing contest with separate categories for adult and young adult writers.

The winners in each category will be recognized at the convention, receive free memberships to the convention, and have their stories published in an upcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press. Stories must draw inspiration from our Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future – For Everyone.

The theme “was selected to invoke nostalgia

by Austin Conrad

Editor’s note: This piece is part of a rolling series, Writing from History, in which creators share professional insights related to the work of using historical elements in fictional prose.

Online media is my preferred starting point when seeking historical inspiration for my game writing—especially my recent fixation on King Arthur. If you use a discerning eye, the internet’s free resources are flush with useful information. For example, YouTube is home to many good documentaries that glean information from hard-to-access sources. Likewise, Wikipedia provides useful overviews and often detailed information. Even if the online encyclopedia is often maligned, it remains far superior to the ChatGPT hallucinations permeating search engines and “content” mills.

However, even high-quality secondary sources don’t present the joys, fears, and limits of people living through “history” firsthand. For a more immersive experience, writers of alt-history need to employ the vitality of primary sources.

Yet writers shouldn’t treat primary sources as gospel, either. Primary sources are a wonderful resource for internal perspective, which includes a culture’s own biases. Historiography—the way history is written—is also shaped by biases when reading primary sources. When writing alt-history, these biases can mislead, but they can also be an intriguing font of ideas.

Wikipedia’s bibliography section is helpful for exploring primary sources. Due to Wikipedia’s editorial requirements, the online encyclopedia’s citations and references often point directly to texts that are freely accessible from Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive. While a crowd-sourced article shouldn’t be blindly trusted, Wikipedia’s citations are a reliable way to find primary and peer-reviewed sources.

When tracking down historical works not yet in the public domain, check if your local college or university offers free library cards to members of the community. In my own work, I’ve found this is the best way to access archaeological information about material culture, since accounts of excavations and other specialized publications are often prohibitively expensive. A library’s primary sources are most relevant when writing alt-history set during the last few centuries (for example, stories about vanquishing Nazi vampires). Many schools provide general access as part of community outreach. In-person shelf-skimming is valuable too, since the Library of Congress system uses precise topical organization.

The bibliography of a secondary source is also a strong tool for identifying primary sources. This tends to be how my own reading lists expand! Quality secondary sources rely upon direct citation of primary evidence during argument or analysis. Writers of alt-history should use these citations to immerse themselves in their period of interest.

When evaluating non-English sources—so, most sources when writing alt-history fiction—you also need to consider how the translation impacts your primary source. 

Two approaches to translating historical documents are prevalent:

1.     Direct translation
2.     Idiomatic translation

One isn’t necessarily better than the other. For example, Plato’s dialogues often contain ancient Greek puns. In some works—like the Cratylus—these plays on words constitute part of the argument! This situation is often confusing in direct translation. A translation that provides the “sense” of the primary source’s metaphors, colloquialisms, and puns may be more useful to the typical reader.

At the same time, the original phrasing can be a valuable resource for alt-history writers. Using contemporaneous metaphors adds historical verisimilitude to the story. Selecting a translation depends on the type of information you seek. For general historical perspectives, I find idiomatic translations more useful because they’re more readable while remaining descriptive of the emotions, opinions, and perspectives of the author. Direct translations are better when doing the work of writing once you’re already immersed and the prose will benefit from adopting the period’s figurative vocabulary.

Hunting for a culture’s idiosyncratic phrases is also a good way to identify its biases. For example, the phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” contains Christian biases around religion, status, and debt. Note, too, that—as this example demonstrates—biases aren’t always negative. Rather, biases are often merely ways a person’s culture helps them frame and comprehend the world. Recognizing biases in a primary source refines alt-history fiction by strengthening the writer’s characterization of people from that culture.

Of course, not all biases are neutral. Diversify your primary sources, seeking a variety of authorial perspectives, to expose yourself to a variety of biases. This avoids accidental reliance on a negatively biased source. Comparing multiple primary sources also identifies which biases are specific to an author, and which more broadly characterize a culture.

When writing alt-history, recognize bias in your primary sources and don’t avoid using it in your own stories. Alt-histories can change quite a lot about a historical period. For example, if writing an alt-history set in a third century Roman Empire where Christianity never emerged, Christian ideas will not have any historical impact on indigenous Greco-Roman religious institutions, and Jewish culture will also appear differently. Cultural structures that developed from Christian thought ought to be avoided in such a story.

Apart from bias, some primary sources are just plain incorrect. In the Classical world this is embodied by Herodotus, who claimed in The Histories that Egypt has flying snakes and that ants mine gold in India. However, Herodotus also provides useful information about the wars between Greece and Persia, supported by archaeological investigation. How can accurate and inaccurate information be teased apart?

Trick question—we write speculative fiction, after all.

When building an alternative history from primary sources, the need for historical accuracy is context-dependent, as other articles in this series will address. Accuracy is useful for immersion, but accurate inaccuracy also immerses the reader. Continuing from Herodotus, in an alt-history novel about the Persian wars, the Greeks might attribute the Great King’s wealth to gold-digging ants. (By Hades, that could even be true!)

Because primary sources lack the historian’s benefit of hindsight, they’re often focused on details that seem unimportant to modern readers. Even our own past contains “foreign” biases that may seem alien—compare current attitudes about women to those prior to the triumph of the Women’s Rights movements throughout the 1900s. The foibles of primary sources are also why you should read them, and read deeply, while writing alt-history. Incorporating period attitudes and beliefs into a story allows your words to paint a bold picture on the canvas of history.

Austin Conrad is a full-time writer and game designer best known for his indie RuneQuest publications. His work for other systems has been published by EN Publishing and Menagerie Press. Austin’s most recent release is “Treasures of Glorantha 2,” a compendium of magic items from an age of god-manipulating sorcerers and imperial dragons. You can learn more about Austin’s work on his website, akhelas.com.

The post Writing Alt-History? Read the Primary Sources appeared first on SFWA.

VIDA CRUZ-BORJA is now represented by Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency Ltd.

SCOTT WESTERFELD & JUS­TINE LARBALESTIER sold adult novel The Mortons – “The Secret History meets The Sopranos meets Saltburn,” – and a second book to Jeramie Orton at Pamela Dorman Books at auction via Jill Grinberg of Jill Grinberg Literary Management. UK rights sold to Rosa Schierenberg at Viking UK in a ...Read More

The winners of the 2024 Prix Utopiales and the 2024 Prix Utopiales Jeunesse have been announced. The prizes recognize work in the fantastic genres published or translated into French.

Prix Utopiales (Adult Literature)

• WINNER: Code Ardant, Marge Nantel (Les éditions Mnémos)
• Aux ordres, Louise Carey (L’Atalante)
• Sweet Harmony, Claire North (Le Bélial)
• L’Ost céleste, Olivier Paquet (L’Atalante)
• La Maison des Soleils, Alastair Reynolds (Le Bélial)

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the winners of its annual prize for poetry. Poems were judged in three categories, listed below.

Dwarf Category (10 or fewer lines):

• WINNER: “Whirlpool” by Colleen Anderson
• Second Place: “She Reveals Herself” by Tabor Skreslet
• Third Place: “Perpetual Care” by Christopher Ripley Newell
• Honorable Mentions: “Desert Skies Motor Hotel” by Mark C Childs, “Haiku 6” by Tom Rogers, “dragon child” by

Strange Horizons has announced the launch of a year-long podcast series, SH@25, in celebration of their 25th anniversary.

SH@25 will feature “interviews with authors, artists, poets, and former staff of Strange Horizons, charting the magazine’s 25 year trajectory from being founded in September 2000 to winning a Hugo in August 2024, as well as looking ahead at its future.” The project will be led by podcast editor Kat Kourbeti and ...Read More

The British Fantasy Society (BFS) has announced the winners of the 2024 British Fantasy Awards.

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)

• WINNER: Talonsister, Jen Williams (Titan)

• At Eternity’s Gates, David Green (Eerie River)
• Beyond Sundered Seas, David Green (Eerie River)
• A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury)
• Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi (DAW)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth

Longtime Barnes & Noble head LEONARD RIGGIO, 83, died August 27, 2024 in Manhattan. He had Alzheimer’s.

Leonard Stephen Riggio was born February 28, 1941 in New York, and attended Brooklyn Technical High School. After graduating in 1958, he took night classes at NYU for a while before dropping out. He founded a small book­shop, the Student Book Exchange, in 1965. In 1971, he purchased New York bookshop Barnes ...Read More

Writer and publishing professional Zoe Kaplan, 28, died October 9, 2024 of complications from diabetes.

Kaplan began publishing short fiction of genre interest with “Pink Marble” in 2021, and published several other stories in magazines and anthologies. She also worked in publishing, spending time at Tor before joining Simon & Schuster in 2021, first as a member of the production team, and later as a managing editorial associate, working extensively ...Read More

Results of the 25th Fantastiknovelltävlingen, a Swedish “Fantastic Short Story Competition” organized by writers’ email list SKRIVA, have been announced.

First Place

• “Ormens väg” (“The Way of the Serpent”) by Ellinor Romin

Second Place

• “Tunnelskeende” (“Tunnel Event”) by Lizette Lindskog

Third Place

• “Väktaren på Tunnbindargatan” (“The Guardian of Cooper Street”) by Erika Johansson

Honorable Mentions

• Mattias Kuldkepp
• Camilla Olsson
• Jolina Petrén
• Tobias Robinson

Winners were awarded prizes including cash, shares

Glasgow 2024, the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention, received 3,436 valid ballots (3,431 electronic, five paper), up from 1,674 at Chengdu Worldcon. There were an additional 377 ballots disqualified as fraudu­lent or ‘‘not cast by natural persons.’’ There were 1,720 nominating ballots (1,715 electronic, five paper), down from 1,847.

The procedure for counting nominations re­mains the E Pluribus Hugo, or EPH, system. The rather complicated system gives a single point ...Read More

South Korean author Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” Her novel The Vegetarian was the first Korean language book to win the International Booker Award. The 2024 prize amount is 11 million Swedish kronor, just over $1 million US.

For more information, see the Nobel Prize website.

While you are ...Read More

Scientific American published a list of “Science-Fiction Books Scientific American’s Staff Love.”

“Top Shelf Recommendations” include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Contact by Carl Sagan, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, and series The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

There are a number of other categories featuring works of genre interest, including “Ghastly Thrillers” and “All’s Fair In Love, War And Time Travel.”

For the complete

The United Nations bookshop, located in the Visitors Concourse of the United Nations in the General Assembly Building, held a one-hour “meet the author” event featuring Kim Stanley Robinson on September 21, 2024.

Robinson read from The Ministry for the Future and the following Q&A was moderated by Nanette Braun, director of Public Information at the Department of Global Communications.

The bookshop offers “the latest books published by and about ...Read More

The 2024 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards have been announced. The Science Fiction & Fantasy category winner was a three-way tie: Guardians of the High Pass by Avery Christy (Well Read Coyote), Magical Mushrooms by Kris Neri (Well Read Coyote), and Oceana by E J Randolph (Well Read Coyote).

The award mission is “uncovering and honoring the best in Arizona and New Mexico books.” Each book is judged by members of ...Read More

Matthew Reardon, AKA JRH Lawless, has withdrawn his candidacy for secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) special election. While there are now no official candidates, Steven D. Brewer is a write-in candidate for the position.

SFWA is holding the special election for president and secretary following the resignations of president Jeffe Kennedy and vice-president Chelsea Mueller, among others. Secretary Anthony W. Eichenlaub is currently interim president. ...Read More