I have a lot of readers in Texas, it would seem. Every time I make a book tour or attend a convention or blog about my travels to Europe or Australia or wherever, I get a rush of emails asking, "When are you coming to Texas?"

I can finally give the answer you Texans want to hear: I am coming to Texas NEXT WEEK.

I will be flying in on Thursday, March 21, to College Station, home of Texas A&M University, where my papers and manuscripts and such are all on deposit in Special Collections at Cushing Memorial Library. (A&M has one of the country's great SF and fantasy collections, a treasure trove for scholars of the genre). I'll be doing a reading, a signing, and speaking at a fundraising dinner, and many of my manuscripts and papers and collectibles will be on display.



More information here: http://deeperthanswords.library.tamu.edu/

The library events, scheduled for March 21 and March 22, are all sold out, alas.

However, immediately after "Deeper Than Swords" comes AGGIECON, A&M's storied sf/fantasy convention. I am staying for that one as well, so if you miss me on Thursday and Friday, you can still catch me on Saturday and Sunday.

You can check out the Aggiecon details at http://cephvar.tamu.edu/aggiecon .

Sign up there or at the door. Besides me, Aggiecon 44 (I told you, this is an old and storied convention) will also feature Ernest Cline of READY PLAYER ONE fame, and a number of other great guests. Ty Franck (also known as the back half of James S.A. Corey) will be coming with me, Howard Waldrop says he'll be coming down from Austin, and some of my other Wild Cards writers may turn up too.

Last time I attended an Aggiecon it was... oh, I don't know, 1980 or thereabouts... but I have fond memories of past visits to A&M, most of them involving great Texas barbeque, too much bheer, pretty college girls, and Aggies in uniforms politely but firmly asking me to remove my hat. 'twill be interesting to see if any of that still applies. Somewhere in A&M's student union may be my lost youth... I know I had it the last time I visited...

And for those of you who can't make it to College Station... have no fear, I will be coming back to Texas again this year, for worldcon in San Antonio over Labor Day. It's too late to nominate for the Hugos now, but there's still plenty of time to sign up for LoneStarCon 3, and see them awarded.

We posted an entry last year about an upcoming Game of Thrones social game that was in the works from start-up Disruptor Beam. Well, the Disruptor Beam team has been toiling away over the past year and the fruit of their labor is now live and available for you to play on Facebook.



This is not only the first social game based on the events and characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, but it gives fans an opportunity to live the life of a noble within the world of Westeros – something that you don’t necessarily get to do by just watching the television. From what Disruptor Beam tells me, as a player you make political, military and economic decisions that impact others, as well as the game’s overall storyline.

We've seen the game for demonstrated here at the office and, without knowing that much about social games or Facebook, I can see that the Disruptor Beam team has put great effort into creating an immersive Game of Thrones experience. Players claim their birthright by choosing which of the Great Houses they’ll swear allegiance to, select their lineage, secure their holdings, develop their lands and reputation, and assign sworn swords to quests, while forging alliances.

We were given tons of custom artwork and dialog text to approve (The game is huge, I went through approvals on inventory lists that were infinity long), so Radoff and company seemed to care a great deal about getting the details right.

Check it out at: http://apps.facebook.com/gamethrones

Let us know what you think.

If you're a member of LoneStarCon 3 (this year's worldcon), Loncon (next year's worldcon), or Chicon 7 (last year's worldcon), you are eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards....

... but you need to do it today. March 10 is the deadline for nominations.



The nominating ballot can be found here: http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/

Snowstorm last night, and this morning a power outage. No big thing, power is back on now, but I lost a whole morning of work, and that's not good. I am stressed out enough as is with all the stuff on my plate, and every lost hour hurts. If only I did not need to sleep...

POSTSCRIPT. This post is being misunderstood. I lost hours, not words. With the power out, I could not turn on my computer. (Well, actually, I had a backup power source, so I ran off that for a while, but the outage was long enough so that eventually that shut down as well).

The deadline for Hugo nominations looms ever closer: March 10, for those who have not been paying attention.

There are lots of categories I have not talked about yet. Nor will I, at least not this year. It's a big field, and it is hard to keep up with all the good stuff being produced.

But I will make recommendations in one final category: fan writer.

In the past few years, I have been beating the drum for a number of websites and blogs and podcasts in the Best Fanzine category. The internet has replaced the traditional print fanzine as the heart of fanac, and I felt that it was past time that the best on-line fanzines got some recognition. Alas, that door has now closed, for the most part. Fans of a more traditional bent got together at the last two worldcons to change the rules, so these new forms of fan writing are no longer eligible. Podcasts can be nominated for a Hugo in a new "Best Fancast" category, but websites and blogs are just out of luck. The new rules make it certain that the Best Fanzine Hugo will continue to be contested by the same old style fanzines that have dominated it for the past few decades; new forms need not apply.

(It always astonishes me that a field that is purportedly all about the future, like science fiction, can be so absolutely hidebound and resistant to change where its own fannish traditions are concerned).

Anyway, that's done, so I won't be talking Best Fanzine anymore. Best Fan Writer is another issue, however. While websites and blogs and the like can no longer compete as fanzines, those who write for them are still eligible in the fan writer categories, and I would like to bring a few of them to your attention.

ADAM WHITEHEAD. Also known as "Wert." Proprietor of THE WERTZONE, one of the very best of the fantasy review blogs. And that's no small praise, as there are a number of good ones out there, among them PAT'S FANTASY HOTLIST, the BLOG OF THE FALLEN, DRIBBLE OF INK, STOMPING ON YETI, and THE SPECULATIVE SCOTSMAN. All worthy sites; you might want to take a look at those as well. But Wert's coverage of the field and reviews are amongst the best. He almost made the ballot last year; this year, I hope he will. http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/

JOHN JOS. MILLER. Miller writes a regular column called Creature Features for the website CHEESE MAGNETS, where he is one of half a dozen rotating columnists. He most often concerns himself with old SF and fantasy and horror films, and his commentary is always amusing and often insightful. If you love genre film, even including bad movies, check it out. You can find his latest columns at http://www.cheese-magnet.com/ Would that all fan writing was as much fun.

ADAM ROBERTS. This one might be a bit controversial, as Roberts is actually a professional writer, a well-known British SF novelist... but as Fred Pohl won Best Fan Writer only a few years ago, there's precedent for a pro winning for fan writing. Roberts did his on his blog PUNKADIDDLE http://punkadiddle.blogspot.com/ -- which he closed down, seemingly for good, in June 2012. He is still eligible on the basis of the first half of the year, however. Roberts is a very snarky reviewer and commentator (which seems to be a British tradition), and shows no mercy to books and writers he dislikes (and I get the impression that he's not all that impressed with own stuff, for what it's worth)... but he's always entertaining, and his series of columns on the top-selling books of all time was impressive and engrossing. Well worth a nomination, I think. (Though he probably holds the Hugos in disdain, as he does so much else).

So there you have it. My own choices for Best Fan Writer. All of whom have done great work on-line, none of whom has ever been given any Hugo recognition previously.

Whoever you choose to nominate, in any of these categories, please NOMINATE.

The nominating ballot can be found here: http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/

You have until March 10.

HBO has released an extended version of the Season Three Trailer.

Have a look:




Bart and Brienne! Tyrion and Cersei! Dragons!!! Hot damn.

Only twenty-nine days to go.

Back to the Hugo nominations...

Editors are the unsung heroes of literature, and we're fortunate to have some great ones in the worlds of SF and fantasy. For many decades there was just one Hugo, for Best Editor, which almost always went to a magazine editor. Book editors got little or no recognition. But as with Dramatic Presentation, the category was split a few years back, and we now have two editing awards: Best Editor - Short Form, for editing magazines and anthologies, and Best Editor - Long Form, for book editors.

Short Form tends very much to be a case of rounding up the usual suspects, with the same handful of names appearing year after year after year. (And quite deservedly so, since most of them do great work). Some of you may be thinking of nominating me in Best Editor - Short Form, for my work on the Wild Cards series and the big anthologies I have been co-editing with Gardner Dozois. Don't. Sure, I'd love be nominated as editor one of these years, but not for 2012. I am not eligible. None of my anthologies, WC or non-WC, came out this past year. (2013 should be a different story). However, my sometime partner-in-crime IS eligible, on the strength of his Best of the Year and other solo acts, and I urge you to remember GARDNER DOZOIS when filling out your ballot for Short Form. There's none better.

In Long Form, I have three names to offer. Starting with ANNE LESLEY GROELL, my editor at Bantam Spectra. Anne was nominated for the very first time last year at Chicago, and it was long past due. She did not win (the Hugo went to Betsy Wollheim of DAW, who was also long past due, having done great work for decades without recognition)... but maybe second time will be the charm. Spectra is one of the most distinguished imprints in all of SF and fantasy, and much of that is due to Anne. She has been editing my own books since A GAME OF THRONES first came out in 1996, but has shepherding many another novelist through to publication as well, helping them to make their books better.

For my other two suggestions, you need to look across the pond to England. The Hugo rules do not explicitly limit the award to American editors, but in practice that is the way it all too often works out. As best as can recall (someone correct me if I am wrong), no British editor has ever been nominated for the Hugo, much less won one. And there are two giants in the world of SF publishing laboring over the water, editors and publishers with decades of great work behind them, who have built their respective publishing houses into the dominant UK powers in our genre. I am speaking of JANE JOHNSON of HarperCollins Voyager, and MALCOLM EDWARDS of Gollancz/ Orion. It is WAY past time that these two friendly competitors received some recognition from Hugo voters for all they have contributed to our field. So please do remember their names when making your nominations.

Just six days left to make your Hugo nominations. Nominations close on March 10.

To continue with my own thoughts and recommendations... let's talk about Best Professional Artist.

This is one of the toughest categories, I think. There are so many incredible artists working in our field at present, it is very difficult to winnow the list down to just five.

Let me start, once again, with the same shocked revelation I make every single damned year. Did you know that neither ALAN LEE nor JOHN HOWE has ever won a Hugo? In fact, I don't believe either one has ever even been nominated. To my mind, that's outrageous. These are two of the most important, influential, and talented fantasy artists ever to lift up a paintbrush, whose influence in the field has been enormous. It is long past time they got some recognition.

JOHN PICACIO won last year's Hugo, after umpty-ump years of being a bridesmaid. It was great to see John standing up there clutching a Hugo at long last, and his victory was certainly well deserved. He just keeps getting better and better. I like to think that his amazing work on the 2012 Ice & Fire calendar helped finally put him over the top. This year John did his own calendar, as well as some stunning covers. Check out his website at http://picacio.blogspot.com/ for a review of his body of work for 2012. Some amazing stuff there. Picacio definitely deserves another nomination, in my opinion.

This year's Ice & Fire calendar, the one for 2013, was illustrated by MARC SIMONETTI. Another astonishing artist, and one who had never been nominated for a Hugo. Time he was, I think. In addition to the calendar, Marc has also done several covers for the French editions of my novels from J'ai Lu, covers that were then reused in Brazil, and by various other publishers around the world. It was those covers that first drew him to my attention. Here's one:



Then, of course, there's MICHAEL KOMARCK. My admiration for his work is well known. Komarck did the very first Ice & Fire calendar back in 2009, the ill-fated Dabel Brothers calendar; he has also done some gorgeous Ice & Fire artwork for Fantasy Flight Games and Green Ronin, and of late has established himself as the definitive Wild Cards artist with his covers for Tor's editions of the WC books, both new and old.



Komarck FINALLY got his first Hugo nomination last year, at Chicon. Of course, he went on to lose to Picacio in the final balloting. I plan on nominating him once again. You can see a lot more of his work at his own website: http://www.komarckart.com/

And that's five nominees right there: Alan Lee, John Howe, John Picacio, Marc Simonetti, Michael Komarck. Only five places on the ballot. Alas, there are a lot more than five great artists working in SF and fantasy right now. Among them are MARC FISHMAN and TOM KIDD, two more terrific talents. I've had the privilege of working with both recently. Fishman illustrated the Subterranean Press limited edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, Kidd their limited of DYING OF THE LIGHT. We need more places on the Hugo ballot, I think (no, not really, just trying to make a point). Anyway, take a look at their stuff as well. I believe Tom Kidd has been nominated in the past, though he has never won a Hugo. Fishman has never even made the ballot. They are both worthy of consideration.

This is a hard one, as I said. There's no wrong answer here. The main thing, I think, is to consider ALL the great work being done in the field, instead of just rounding up the usual suspects. All too many times in the past, the ballot for Best Professional Artist has consisted of the same five names, as if no one else was worthy of the award. Nothing could be further than the truth.

Got some exciting news for those of you out there who still use calendars... ((yes, yes, I know we have this interwebbie thing now, nobody needs to hang paper on their wall any more to know what day it is, calendar sales are way way down, I don't care, I am a dinosaur and a proud dinosaur and I LOVE calendars, so there))

The 2013 Ice & Fire calendar, with its spectacular artwork by Marc Simonetti, has done very well indeed, thank you. (And I hope all of you remember Marc when it comes time to make your Hugo nominations for Best Professional Artist).



The 2014 Ice & Fire calendar, illustrated by the amazing Gary Gianni, is almost complete. Those of you who were at Chicon may have seen some of Gianni's paintings at the Brotherhood Without Banners party, since he was kind enough to display half a dozen of them exclusively for the BWB and their guests. He's working on the twelfth and final painting now, and we expect the calendar to debut at this summer's San Diego Comicon.



Which means that is time to get cracking on the 2015 Ice & Fire calendar, and we've done just that. I am absolutely thrilled to announce that the artwork for the 2015 calendar will be provided by a man who truly needs no introduction, the Hugo-award-winning artist extraordinaire DONATO GIANCOLA.

If you are one of the six or seven people in fandom unfamiliar with Donato and his artwork, I suggest you remedy that lack immediately by paying a visit to his website at www.donatoart.com

Needless to say, I am a huge huge fan of his painting. This will not be Donato's first visit to Westeros. Years ago, he did a gorgeous painting of Melisandre of Asshai as the cover for the special Westeros issue of DRAGON magazine. Ever since, I have been wanting him to do more... and now at last it seems I'll get my wish.

Oddly enough, only a week ago or so I was in DC, enjoying the amazing exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite art that has just opened at the National Gallery. Looking over Donato's on-line gallery with that so fresh in mind, it occurs to me that his own paintings could have fit right in with those of Millais, Hunt, Rossetti, and the other stalwarts of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

My friends at Bantam tell me that Donato is already hard at work, "far into reading the entire series, studiously taking notes, making thumbnails, etc." I expect we'll see some gorgeous things from him.

He has some tough acts to follow, of course. But hey, he knew the job was dangerous when he took it. I expect he is equal to the task.

And I must say, I am very pleased and proud with what our annual Ice & Fire calendar has become. Michael Komarck (2009), Ted Namisth (2011), John Picacio (2012), Marc Simonetti (2013), Gary Gianni (2014) and now Donato Giancola... if you love great fantasy art, it doesn't get much better than that.

The first of March already... damn, where does the time go?

Only thirty-one days till the third season debut of GAME OF THRONES on HBO.

And only TEN days till Hugo nominations close! So let me make a few more recommendations for your consideration, boys and gals. Resuming with "the Big One," the Hugo for Best Novel.

I cannot claim any great breath of knowledge of this year's top contenders. While I read constantly and voraciously, my bookshelves contain all sorts of things, not just the current year's SF and fantasy. Looking back, now that Hugo time is at hand, I find I read a lot of history and historical fiction last year, some non-fiction, a number of mysteries, and a bunch of older books, published in 2011 or 2010 or 1999 or 1953 or whenever. None of which are eligible for Hugos. I have also dipped into (but not always finished) a bunch of bound gallerys and ARCs of as-yet-unpublished novels that may be eligible for awards next year, but not this year.

Which is not to say that I did not read anything in the field this year. I did, and some of what I read I liked a lot.

Last year I recommended the first book of James S.A. Corey's Expanse series, LEVIATHAN WAKES... and a lot of people agreed, since LEVIATHAN was nominated for a Hugo (to the evident annoyance of one prominent writer who was not) and actually finished third in the final voting, two places ahead of my own A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, which fact Ty does not hesitate to bring to my attention on a regular basis. (("James S.A. Corey," of course, is actually the pseudonym of my assistant Ty Franck writing in collaboration with my friend Daniel Abraham).

Well, in 2012 the second volume of the Expanse series, CALIBAN'S WAR, was published. And far from being a victim of sophomore slump, that bastard Jimmy Corey seems to have done it again. CALIBAN'S WAR is even better than LEVIATHAN WAKES. It's old-fashioned space opera, the kind of SF that I cut my teeth on, a real page-turner set in a vividly imagined solar system, squarely in the tradition of Heinlein and Asimov and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (lacking only Pinto Vortando), superlatively written. Books like this were what made me an SF fan to begin with. CALIBAN'S WAR was the best pure SF I read in 2012, and I will be nominating it for the Hugo.



I read more fantasy than SF last year. Understandably, as the publishers send me just about every epic fantasy they are putting out for blurbs. This is a golden age for fantasy, and there's some great work being done. 2012 was no exception. I enjoyed Saladin Ahmed's THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON, an old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery adventure with an Arabian Knights flavor, rather than the usual "medieval Europe" setting. There was a new Joe Abercrombie as well, and though I didn't feel RED COUNTRY quite measured up to last year's THE HEROES, Abercrombie is always worth reading. No new Rothfuss last year, though, and nothing by Scott Lynch... or that Martin guy, for that matter.

My favorite fantasy from 2012, all in all, was the second volume of Daniel Abraham's Dragon's Path series, this one entitled THE KING'S BLOOD. Like Jimmy Corey, Abraham just keeps getting better and better. It has been said, and truly, that Dragon's Path is perhaps not so innovative as Daniel's first fantasy series, the Long Price Quartet... but innovation is not the only value worth consideration while weighing a work of art. The world of Dragon's Path is considerably larger, older, and more colorful than that of Long Price, the characters are just as well drawn, the prose as rich and evocative, the plotting full of devious and delightful twists and turns. Abraham belongs in the first rank of today's fantastists, I think, right up there with Abercrombie, Lynch, Rothfuss, Robin Hobb, and the like. And THE KING'S BLOOD deserves a Hugo nomination.



Those are my favorite SF and fantasy novels from last year. What were yours?