News

Member and SFWA Member/Volunteer/Committe Chair Steve Carper posted the news that the nominees for the 2008 Nebula Awards are announced. The announcement says both 2008 and 2009, but in discussion it's mostly resolved that this is the 2009 presentation of the 2008 Awards.

Contributor Frank G. posted the news to the Google Group that Mr. Farmer died on 25 February 2009. Mr. Farmer wrote a wide variety of works but is perhaps best known for the Riverworld series. Others that this poster enjoyed were The World of Tiers and Dayworld, but this list hardly scratches the surface of the body of Mr. Farmer's work. Here is the link Frank posted, which refers to this story on io9, which in turn refers to the official P.J. Famer site provided above.

President Alicia Henn posted a link to this (well-written) article by Roy Blount, Jr., addressing the question of whether authors should receive payment for audio rights as a result of Kindle 2 (and other similar devices) converting text versions of works to speech.

An interesting question. My initial impression is that having your device read your book aloud is no different than having a friend read it to you. That seems like a fair use of the product that you have purchased. However, Blount presents a strong case for author compensation as a result of Kindle readings. Click the title to see why.

We have a Facebook presence, now, thanks to member Pat Rapp. Thank you, Pat!

This was a tough one to categorize, and its for anyone who is in SL. Because of what is being asked, newbies probably won't be able to help, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

Franja Russell, the person in charge of the Talis Sci-Fi & Fantasy Portal, needs help setting up the Portal with the March theme that it, as part of the larger body of Alliance groups, will be adopting. She will be on SL at the following times:

Futurismic.com has compiled a list of free science fiction available on the internet. Happy reading! Thanks to contributor Frank for the tip and link.

The next R-SPEC meeting is March 3, at 7pm, at the Pittsford Barnes and Noble. The topic will be member favorites. Click the headline for more.

Ursula K. Le Guin will read from her novel, "Always Coming Home," in Second Life on Saturday, Feb. 28th, at 3:30 pm in conjunction with Second Life Librarians and the Potlatch 18 Science Fiction Conference in Sunnyvale, California. Click the headline for more.

As visitors may have noticed, it had been a long time since the site had been updated. There were good reasons for that, but events have transpired that have enabled those of us who can to resume updates. Updates across the board will take some time, but we'll have a bit every week.

Huzzah!