Nominate Wrestling With Gods: Tesseracts Eighteen, edited by Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart, for an Aurora Award for Best Related Work - English

Calling all Canadians citizens at home and abroad and permanent residents of Canada: our national science fiction awards, the Aurora Awards, are now open for nominations. 

Wrestling With Gods: Tesseracts Eighteen, is the latest of the Tesseracts anthologies from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. This is the first one with the theme of religion in science fiction and fantasy. The stories are diverse and at times profound and give readers a chance to see faith from the believer to the skeptic in worlds where what you believe is a matter of life, deth, and afterlife.

Since the Kindle e-book edition was released in November 2014, Wrestling With Gods and all its stories are eligible for the 2015 Aurora Awards. 

The Kindle edition is already available on Amazon, and the print edition will be out in March 15, 2015.

To learn more about the Aurora Awards and to nominate stories and individuals, visit:

 http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) charges an annual $10 membership fee, so both new and returning members will be asked to pay $10 by Paypal. Renewing members can access the membership portal and make nominations after paying the membership fee. New members will receive a Society number by email and can go back to the Aurora Awards website and submit nominations. Nominees do not get any sort of monetary gain from the fees. The CSFFA is a non-profit organization, and its small budget, raised by the membership and voting fees, goes to administer the awards program and produce the trophies. $10 is a low price to promote national pride in our science fiction and to give a small reward to your favourite authors, artists, and fan organizers.

The online nomination deadline is April 25, 2015, 11:59:59 PM EDT.

Nominate Ricepaper Speculative Fiction Issue 19.3 for an Aurora Award for Best Related Work - English

Calling all Canadians citizens at home and abroad and permanent residents of Canada: our national science fiction awards, the Aurora Awards, are now open for nominations. 

Ricepaper magazine's Speculative Fiction Issue 19.3, edited by Derwin Mak and JF Garrard, is eligible to be nominated for an Aurora Award for Best Related Work - English. Ricepaper is Canada's Asian Canadian literary magazine, and issue 19.3 was its first issue devoted to fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

You can purchase copies of Ricepaper's Speculative Fiction issue here: http://ricepapermagazine.ca/19-3-issue/

To learn more about the Aurora Awards and to nominate stories and individuals, visit:

 http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) charges an annual $10 membership fee, so both new and returning members will be asked to pay $10 by Paypal. Renewing members can access the membership portal and make nominations after paying the membership fee. New members will receive a Society number by email and can go back to the Aurora Awards website and submit nominations. Nominees do not get any sort of monetary gain from the fees. The CSFFA is a non-profit organization, and its small budget, raised by the membership and voting fees, goes to administer the awards program and produce the trophies. $10 is a low price to promote national pride in our science fiction and to give a small reward to your favourite authors, artists, and fan organizers.

The online nomination deadline is April 25, 2015, 11:59:59 PM EDT.

Nominate "Mecha-Jesus" for a 2015 Aurora Award for Best Short Fiction - English

Calling all Canadians citizens at home and abroad and permanent residents of Canada: our national science fiction awards, the Aurora Awards, are now open for nominations. This year, my short story "Mecha-Jesus" is eligible to be nominated in the category of Best Short Fiction - English.

"Mecha-Jesus" was published in the anthology Wrestling With Gods: Tesseracts Eighteen, edited by Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart, from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. Since the Kindle e-book edition was released in November 2014, Wrestling With Gods and all its stories are eligible for the 2015 Aurora Awards. 

During the nomination period, "Mecha-Jesus" will be available free on my website at http://www.derwinmaksf.com/Mecha-Jesus.html

 To learn more about the Aurora Awards and to nominate stories and individuals, visit:

 http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) charges an annual $10 membership fee, so both new and returning members will be asked to pay $10 by Paypal. Renewing members can access the membership portal and make nominations after paying the membership fee. New members will receive a Society number by email and can go back to the Aurora Awards website and submit nominations. Nominees do not get any sort of monetary gain from the fees. The CSFFA is a non-profit organization, and its small budget, raised by the membership and voting fees, goes to administer the awards program and produce the trophies. $10 is a low price to promote national pride in our science fiction and to give a small reward to your favourite authors, artists, and fan organizers.

The online nomination deadline is April 25, 2015, 11:59:59 PM EDT.

Wrestling With Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen): "Mecha-Jesus" is the Lead Story

 

 

My story "Mecha-Jesus" is the first story in the anthology Wrestling With Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen), edited by Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart. This is the latest of the Tesseracts series of anthologies of Canadian science fiction and fantasy.

 

"Mecha-Jesus" is about a Japanese town that uses an android of Jesus as a tourist attraction at its Christ Festival, where the locals, none of whom are Christian, celebrate the life of Jesus, the Israeli rebel who escaped crucifixion and became a rice farmer in Japan.

 

Wrestling With Gods' theme is religion in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The stories draw from a wide variety of inspirations. A sample of the stories includes the myths of cuttlefish, a vampire in residential schools, a Muslim woman who wants to get closer, surgically, to her god, the demons of outer space, the downside of Nirvana. Wrestling with Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) take their faith and religion into the future, into the weird and comic and thought-provoking spaces where science fiction and fantasy has really always gone, struggling with higher powers, gods, the limits of technology, the limits of spiritual experience.
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At times profound, these speculative offerings give readers a chance to see faith from the believer and the skeptic in worlds where what you believe is a matter of life, death, and afterlife.
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The stories are by: Derwin Mak, Robert J. Sawyer, Tony Pi, S. L. Nickerson, Janet K. Nicolson, John Park, Mary-Jean Harris, David Clink, Mary Pletsch, Jennifer Rahn, Alyxandra Harvey, Halli Lilburn, John Bell, David Jón Fuller, Carla Richards, Matthew Hughes, J. M. Frey, Steve Stanton, Erling Friis-Baastad, James Bambury, Savithri Machiraju, Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki, David Fraser, Suzanne M. McNabb, and Megan Fennell. 

Wrestling With Gods is already available as a Kindle edition from Amazon:

Wrestling With Gods
Other e-book editions will be available in February 2015, and the print edition will be available in Canada in March 2015 and in the United States in April 2015.

There will be a book launch at the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy in Toronto on Thursday, April 30, 2015. Stay tuned for more information.

Because the Kindle edition was released in 2014, "Mecha-Jesus" will be eligible to be nominated for the Aurora Award for Best Short Story for 2014. Please read it and consider nominating it for the Aurora Award.

Constellation Awards and the Starlost Reunion at Polaris Science Fiction Convention, July 6-7, 2012

The cast of The Starlost, left to right: Robin Ward, Gay Rowan, Keir Dullea.

I'll be presenting a Constellation Award at the Constellation Awards ceremony at Polaris Science Fiction Convention at the Sheraton Parkway North Toronto Hotel and Convention Centre on Friday, July 6, 2012. Emily Alatalo, the actress from Canadian science fiction and horror movies Dead Genesis, If A Tree Falls, and Neverlost, will be presenting the award with me.

Also at the Constellation Awards ceremony will be Gay Rowan and Robin Ward, two of the stars of the cult Canadian science fiction TV series The Starlost. This is the first time that they have appeared at a science fiction convention together, so this will be the long-awaited Starlost Reunion. I will be moderating their panel discussion about The Starlost on Saturday, July 7, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. in the King City Room, lower convention level. They'll have an autograph session in that same room from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. If you're a Starlost fan, come with your questions and your photos and DVD's.

Review: J.M. Frey's Triptych Deserves an Aurora Nomination

J.M. Frey's first novel, Triptych, reminds me of the stories of Walter Tevis. Tevis, the author of The Man Who Fell to Earth and Mockingbird, did not write hard sci-fi, with its intricate technology and scientific theories. He came from the school of science fiction that examined the social sciences and societal and cultural issues. Among those writers, he was a master in depicting human relationships, personal drama, and loneliness and other emotions. Triptych reminds me of a Walter Tevis novel in style and theme. But despite the similarities, J.M. Frey is not imitating Tevis. She has a distinct style of her own.

In short, Triptych is about Kalp, one of many aliens who have arrived on Earth after their home planet has died. The government assigns several humans, including Gwen and Basil, to assist the aliens to integrate into life on Earth. One thing leads to another, and Kalp, Gwen, and Basil form a threesome where Kalp is husband to both Gwen and Basil, Basil is husband to both Kalp and Gwen, and Gwen is wife to both Kalp and Basil. You get the idea.

But not everyone is at peace with this type of future. Someone goes back in time to kill young Gwen, and someone is out to get Kalp.

I enjoyed Triptych's development of the relationships. Kalp, Gwen, and Basil are hardly the ideal lovers from a category romance, but they're not the usual dysfunctional couple/threesome that many writers use when they want to appear profound.

J.M. Frey divides the book into sections told from each of the main character's viewpoints. The characters are all well-developed and have distinct personalities and voices. Kalp's memories of his old world and its destruction are especially haunting.

And kudos to J.M. Frey for not portraying the main characters' enemies as easy straw dogs, for example, the Christians, Republicans, white Alabamans, and other stock characters that usually exist only in "fundamentalist" flavour in science fiction. It has become de rigeur in Canadian science fiction to stereotype and demonize so-called fundies and conservatives, but Triptych doesn't follow the trend. Frey, thankfully, wrote a novel about real people.

By the way, Aurora Award nominations for 2012 are open until March 31 (see http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/Membership/). Let's encourage the small presses like Dragon Moon to publish more books like Triptych. Get Triptych, read it, and if you like it, nominate it for Best Novel - English.