Reading and cramming

The posts have been a bit thin as I've been cramming for placement tests to go back to school (algebra is NOT like riding a bike) and now am cramming for voting on the Hugos. Want to join me, just for fun? Get the list of nominated works on the Renovation site.

See if your picks make it. I'll include a Hugo awards announcement in my con report for Worldcon.

Speaking of awards, at Readercon in Massachusetts last weekend, the Shirley Jackson awards (recognizing outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense and dark fantasy) were handed out as follows:

Novel

• Mr. Shivers, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
  
• Dark Matter, Michelle Paver (Orion)
  
• A Dark Matter, Peter Straub (Doubleday)
  
• Feed, Mira Grant (Orbit)
  
• The Reapers Are the Angels, Alden Bell (Holt)
  
• The Silent Land, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)
  

Novella

• Mysterium Tremendum, Laird Barron (Occultation)
  
• The Broken Man, Michael Byers (PS)
  
• Chasing the Dragon, Nicholas Kaufmann (ChiZine)
  
• One Bloody Thing After Another, Joey Comeau (ECW)
  
• Subtle Bodies, Peter Dubé (Lethe)
  
• The Thief of Broken Toys, Tim Lebbon (ChiZine)
  

Novelette

• 
  “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains”, Neil Gaiman (Stories)
  
• “–30–”, Laird Barron (Occultation)
  
• “The Broadsword”, Laird Barron (Black Wings)
  
• “Holderhaven”, Richard Butner (Crimewave 11: Ghosts)
  
• “The Redfield Girls”, Laird Barron (Haunted Legends)
  

Short Story

• “The Things”, Peter Watts (Clarkesworld 1/10)
  
• “As Red as Red”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Haunted Legends)
  
• “Booth’s Ghost”, Karen Joy Fowlder (What I Didn’t See and Other Stories)
  
• “The Foxes”, Lily Hoang (Haunted Legends)
  
• “six six six”, Laird Barron (Occultation)
  

Single-Author Collection

• Occultation, Laird Barron (Night Shade)
  
• The Ones That Got Away, Stephen Graham Jones (Prime)
  
• The Third Bear, Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon)
  
• What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler (Small Beer)
  
• What Will Come After, Scott Edelman (PS)
  

Edited Anthology

• Stories, Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio, eds. (Morrow)
  Black Wings, S.T. Joshi, ed, (PS)
  Haunted Legends, Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas, eds. (Tor)
  My Mother, She Killed Me, My Father, He Ate Me, Kate Bernheimer, ed. (Penguin)
  Swords & Dark Magic, Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders, eds. (HarperCollins)
  

A Board of Directors special award went to Joyce Carol Oates.


You probably know by now that Borders is dead in the water, completely liquidating. It's time to support your local bookstores. ebooks are great, but they bypass that familiar tactile relationship we have with our books.


So, are you smarter than an ape? If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can get a new app that will pit you against simian intelligence. Sounds like a fun way to monkey around. Or maybe they're just bananas. See for yourself at ApesWillRise.com.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes comes to theaters on August 5th.