Lee and Marco respond to Kaaron Warren's Ditmar award

The latest Angry Robot podcast will be posted soon. In the meantime, here’s an extra treat.

I got to hang out with Kaaron Warren in Melbourne last month. We crashed the SFWA suite and took some of their gin and vodka and talked about the Ditmar-award-winning Slights, dentists, drinking from the Ganges, parenting, and many other things.

Congrats again, Kaaron!

In the show we mention the Hugo Awards and Cheryl Morgan’s new magazine, Salon Futura.

Our contest this month is for a special treat from the Angry Robot Cupboard of Win (it’s a mystery!) Listen to find out how you can win!

Theme song courtesy of John Anealio, find more of his awesome science fiction-themed music at SciFi Songs.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS feed or via iTunes.

Direct download of podcast.

The podcast competition ends October 10.

For those of you who are eligible to vote in this year’s Hugos, this is the list of Angry Robot people and titles that are eligible for consideration.

Best Novel
* Slights by Kaaron Warren
* Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson
* Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner
* Kell’s Legend by Andy Remic
* Angel of Death by J Robert King
* Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero by Dan Abnett
* Winter Song by Colin Harvey
* Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon
note: Moxyland isn’t eligible this year as it was originally published in South Africa in 2008, though it will become eligible again next year (following its US release).

and for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer
(not a Hugo, but presented with the Hugos):
* Lauren Beukes (for Moxyland)
* Mike Shevdon (for Sixty-One Nails)

and Best Editor (Long Form)
* Marc Gascoigne for:
Slights
Book of Secrets
Nekropolis
Kell’s Legend
Angel of Death
Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero
Winter Song
Sixty-One Nails

and the following artists:

* Joey Hi-Fi for Moxyland
* Stephan Kopinski for Slights
* Vincent Chong for Nekropolis
* Head Design for Angel of Death
* Adrian Smith for Kell’s Legend
* Chris Moore for Winter Song
* Larry Rostant for Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero
* Argh! Nottingham for Sixty-One Nails and Book of Secrets

examples of all these covers (and links to larger versions) can be found in the far right column.

Look left – I’m sure you’ll agree this one looks particularly angry. Well, I wouldn’t want to cross him!

The winner was Devin Harrigan and his magnificent creation, “Atomic Robot and the Thing From Beyond WorldCon”.

Devin wins a copy of every one of our books in our first year of publishing, an Angry Robot trophy and our undying admiration!

1) Get to know her – and get much more information on the upcoming AR novels – courtesy Marshall Payne’s thorough interview over at Bibliophile Stalker.

2) Read some of Aliette’s stories for free, right now, on her own website.

3) For the very latest Aliette news, including the revelation that she missed out on winning the Campbell by three (!!) votes, and links to some more recent stories, see her lively blog.

Angstrom the Angry Robot has had his anger chip removed, though as part of a mad experiment, and we have installed a gigolo chip installed, instead. This is him chatting with author Lauren Beukes at the tremendous Angry Robot party at WorldCon in Montreal last night.

Lauren left the party early, and coincidentally, Angstrom left a discreet 10 minutes later. No insinuations – just sayin’…

We had enormous fun at the party with the robot, and you’ll see a few more clips over the coming weeks. Immense thanks to Steve, who chauffered the robot from his cyber-lair in Toronto, and did a fantastic job helping to keep our guests entertained. Head over to Steve and the robot’s home (they’re just good friends) over at Robot Promotions.

And double thanks to everyone who made it to the first Angry Robot Worldcon Party. It was a blast. First, we had a real live Angry Robot. Look, there he is, cheerfully insulting Colin Harvey. Massive cheers to Steve who brought along Angstrom the Angry Robot, and allowing him to demonstrate that even the angriest of robots can be great fun. In short, hell yes we had a real talking, moving, gag-making, song-murdering robot at our party. We rock.

Second, well, it’s true, we got busted by the Man and were told to shut down the party… because the Con organisers had allocated us a party room on a non-party floor. Er yeah, real helpful. Bit of a cock-up on the common sense front there, people. But huzzah to everyone at our do, who just grabbed a couple of bottles each and relocated us to another room. (Extra thanks to new Robot friends, the Tor crew, for volunteering use of their room.) In the end, it just brought us to a whole new crowd of happy people, and gave Angstrom a new audience for his increasingly wild responses. Thanks to all, though.

And finally to close tonight with another reason to celebrate, we just learned that Chris “Book of Secrets” Roberson won the Sidewise Award for alternate history earlier tonight, for his fine Solaris novel The Dragon’s Nine Sons. Congratulations, Mr R, very well deserved.

Phew.

And feel free to share this with anyone or everyone. If the beer runs out, we’ll just decamp to your place.

While we’re there, we’re hosting an Angry Robot Launch Party on the Friday night, and at some time between 7.00pm and 8.00pm, the mighty Neil Gaiman will be dropping by to give a little talk to our guests, along with an additional, mystery guest! Believe me, if you’re at WorldCon next weekend, you won’t want to miss this one!

We’ll be in Suite 2231 from 7.00pm. Be there, or be carré.

[edit: July 31] Due to a heavy WorldCon schedule, Neil Gaiman might not be able to attend, however, come along and meet our other very special guest star!