Nick Mamatas on The Anarchy of Translation

Over at the Haikasoru Blog, Nick Mamatas talks about translation: We get similar issues cropping up all the time with Haikasoru titles. If a character has a family name that translates into “Thermometer” for example—and no, it’s not a standard Japanese family name—do we call the character “Ms. Thermometer?” Even if the book is about...

Short Story Highlight: “Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra” by Vandana Singh (Strange Horizons)

Part of what we're trying to do with the WSNB is highlight individual short stories by international writers as they're being published. You can click on both the 2010 stories or the short story highlight tags to see previous posts. The latest story we wanted to turn your attention to is Somadeva: A Sky River...

Short Story Highlight: Hi Bugan ya Hi Kinggawan by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (Fantasy Magazine)

Netherlands-based Filipino writer Rochita Loenen-Ruiz has a new short story up at Fantasy Magazine entitled "Hi Bugan ya Hi Kinggawan". Here's an excerpt: If not for the Mama-oh’s quick actions, you would have grown up without a mother. With a bamboo tube, and a woven blanket, she captured your mother’s spirit just as it was leaving...

Imaginales 2010 Website is Up

The Imaginales 2010 (a French convention) website is now up. It's in French though, so maybe our French readers can enlighten us about the lineup?

Fabio Fernandes on Brazil in International SF – of presences and absences

Earlier this month, Fabio Fernandes was pondering on Brazil's presence in Science Fiction, over at his blog Post-Weird Thoughts: The Quiet War - Paul McAuley's novel presents us a kind of old-fashioned space opera where Earth is mostly dominated by Greater Brazil, a sort of mega-country that seems to occupy all the Americas and then...

Science Fiction World Editor Criticized

Here's what I'd label the biggest science fiction controversy you've never heard of. The editors of Science Fiction World unanimously wrote an open letter asking its editor-in-chief to be fired. You can read the entire story at China Daily. Here's an excerpt: Editors with the nation's most popular science fiction magazine have issued an open...

Pancha Diaz on Ooku

Over at the Haikasoru blog, Pancha Diaz elaborates more on the James Tiptree Jr.-winning manga Ooku. Ôoku just won the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and this is exciting for me on a number of levels. It’s always wonderful when a title I work on is nominated for an award, and even more so when it...

Original Content: Hungarian Post-Communist Science Fiction

Hungarian fantasy writer and editor Csilla Kleinheincz submitted to us this essay on Hungarian Post-Communist Science Fiction, which was originally published in Czech magazine Ikarie. Here's a trimmed down and translated version of that piece: In the eighties there were already signs of the change that came in 1989 - in these years new authors...

Bulgarian Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2009

Valentin Ivanov has a blog entry entitled Bulgarian Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2009 and highlights some publications. Here's an excerpt: - "Слънце недосегаемо" (Sun Intangible) by Nikolay Tellalov, this is the fourth book by an unique hard SF - Fantasy cross over series, the first Bulgarian speculative fiction epics. The volumes alternate genres between...

James Tiptree, Jr. Award 2009 Winners.

This year has two James Tiptree, Jr. Award Winners and one of them happens to be manga! Here's their official statement: We chose Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ooku, Volumes 1 and 2 as our Tiptree winner with some trepidation. No one on the jury has read much manga; no one is an expert in Japanese history. What...