StarShipSofa‘s latest podcast (#252) is available now with fiction from Adam Roberts along with a look at the anthology Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

Download the podcast HERE

Meanwhile, Tales To Terrify have a new podcast ready for download (#32) containing works by Steven Savile and Laurel Winter.

The BFS is sad to learn that legendary science fiction writer Harry Harrison has died at the age of 87. The award-winning author penned numerous novels throughout his career, including The Stainless Steel Rat series and the Deathworld series.

You can read Christopher Priest’s tribute to him in the Guardian HERE

New audio podcasts are available from both StarShipSofa (science fiction) and Tales to Terrify (horror).

StarShipSofa #250 includes fiction by Bruce Sterling, and Tales to Terrify #30 has fiction from Lawrence Santoro.

To download StarShipSofa go HERE and for Tales To Terrify go HERE

Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library has announced Betty Ballantine’s gift of a collection of books and papers relating the work of her and her late husband Ian in their long and distinguished careers in publishing.

The gift includes a nearly complete run of Penguin titles in pristine condition, along with a full set of Ballantine and Bantam paperbacks, in equally fine condition, as well as an archive of the Ballantines’ work as an independent publishing team after the sale of their company to Random House.

Ballantine Books revolutionized the paperback industry, sparking a new mass market in publishing. They were one of the earliest publishers of science fiction paperbacks; they published the first authorized paperback editions of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s books in the ’60s.

The Ballantines sold their business to Random House in 1973 but continued as independent agents, editors, and publishers for another twenty years.

The gift of books and archives strengthens the Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s considerable resource collection in the areas of publishing and book history.

Read the full news item HERE

Chris Marker, the French film-maker whose short film La Jetée (The Jetty) inspired several leading science fiction authors and film-makers, has died at the age of 91.

His 1962 dystopian short inspired authors such as William Gibson and J.G. Ballard. Terry Gilliam‘s 1995 film 12 Monkeys was also directly inspired by La Jetée.

You can read tributes to the film-maker HERE and HERE

SFScope reports that Fredric Brown has been announced as this year’s Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award winner. The Award is given to “a science fiction or fantasy writer whose work displays unusual originality, embodies the spirit of Cordwainer Smith’s fiction, and deserves renewed attention or ‘Rediscovery’.” The announcement was made at the recent Readercon. Previous winners have included Olaf Stapledon, R.A. Lafferty, Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, William Hope Hodgson and Mark Clifton.

Read the full report HERE

In a press release from Tor UK it has been announced as follows:

‘Bella Pagan, Senior Commissioning Editor at Tor UK, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to two new books by Peter F. Hamilton. The agent is Antony Harwood.

Peter will begin writing what is provisionally titled The Chronicle of the Fallers in 2013, with the first book ready for publication in 2014. It’s a return to his Commonwealth Universe, set in the time before the bestselling Void Trilogy, and will tell the story of Nigel Sheldon and what happened when he broke into the Void.

Peter F. Hamilton said “After delivering Great North Road (to be published September 2012), Macmillan offered me an excellent two book deal which I was extremely happy to accept.  They have been my publisher for two decades now, and have never let any of my books go out of print, which is quite remarkable in this day and age, so continuing that relationship with them is important to me.”

Jeremy Trevathan, publisher for the adult lists at Pan Macmillan, said “Peter is one of the country’s bestselling Science Fiction writers and a long-standing Macmillan author, I’m delighted that our relationship is set to continue and look forward to continuing success with the new books. It’s rare to have a twenty year history with an author and it is an honour for us to have that with a writer of such acclaim as Peter.” ‘

SFScope have reported that the winners of this year’s Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award (for best short science fiction story published in 2011) and John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for best science-fiction novel of 2011) are as follows:

Campbell Award:
1st (joint): The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
1st (joint): The Highest Frontier by Joan Slonczewski (Tor)
3rd: Embassytown by China Miéville (Ballantine/Del Rey)
Honorable Mention: Osama by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Sturgeon Award:
1st: The Choice by Paul McAuley (Asimov’s)
2nd: Six Months Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
3rd: The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)

Steve Davidson will be relaunching Amazing Stories – the world’s first science fiction magazine – on 1 July 2012. It returns with the publication of Volume 0, Number 1, the Relaunch Prelaunch issue.

This special issue is composed of content generously donated by contributors. It will feature reminiscences about Amazing Stories by Robert Silverberg, Barry Malzberg and Patrick L. Price (reprinted from earlier incarnations of the magazine), fiction by Jack Clemons (previously published in Amazing Stories) and a round-table style interview series with 13 authors from The Book View Cafe Authors Co-op, including Maya Bohnhoff, Brenda Clough, Chris Dolley, Katharine E. Kimbriel, Sue Lange, Vonda McIntyre, Linda Nagata, Pati Nagle, Phyllis Radford, Deborah J. Ross, Sarah Smith, Jennifer Stevenson, Judith Tarr and Dave Trowbridge.

For further information and announcements about the planned future direction of Amazing Stories please visit the website HERE

A new magazine of speculative fiction, Plasma Frequency Magazine, is launching soon and is seeking submissions. They are looking for stories ranging from 100 words to 7,500 words (stories under 5,000 words preferred) in all aspects of speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy and horror. They state: “We don’t care much for typical clichéd plots and characters with little depth. We want a story that engages us from start to finish.”

Plasma Frequency Magazine is a paying market, paying 1 US cent per word for fiction. They are also seeking cover and interior artwork and books for review.

Full details can be found HERE