News of the Week

Van Gelder to take helm of F&SF

ordon Van Gelder, currently an editor at St. Martin's Press, will replace Kristine Kathryn Rusch as editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Van Gelder will officially take over from Rusch -- who is leaving the magazine to pursue her own writing career -- in January 1997.

Van Gelder said he will remain at St. Martin's in a slightly diminished capacity. "Basically I'm cutting my list down to about a book a month," he said.

Although Rusch and Van Gelder will be working together through the end of the year, neither will be reading manuscripts until the changeover is complete. F&FS publisher Ed Ferman said that writers previously published in the magazine are free to continue submitting manuscripts during the transition, but all other writers should hold submissions until the new year.

Nimoy, de Lancie join Alien Voices project

eteran Star Trek actors Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie have signed on to Simon & Schuster's latest audio book line, called Alien Voices. The "books" are actually dramatized adaptations of classic science fiction tales, much like the famous Invasion from Mars broadcast heard each Halloween on National Public Radio.

The first two titles in the Alien Voices series will be H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. In addition to Nimoy and de Lancie, cast members include Susan Bay, Roxann Dawson, Richard Doyle, Armin Shimerman and many other Star Trek alumni. This project will reportedly mark the first time actors from all Star Trek "generations" will perform together in a single production.

The Time Machine -- the first title of the new line -- will be published in April 1997 on both cassette and compact disk.

Priest captures Best Novel at World Fantasy Awards

n an afternoon when Gene Wolfe was honored with a life achievement award for his work in fantasy, Christopher Priest earned the coveted Best Novel award for his book The Prestige, and Gwyneth Jones walked away with two awards for her collection, Seven Tales and a Fable.

The awards were given out at a banquet ceremony held Nov. 3 at the World Fantasy Convention in Schaumburg, Ill. The award were determined by a panel of five judges, with nominations coming from both the judges and fans. The complete list of this year's winners:

Life achievement
Gene Wolfe

Best Novel
Christopher Priest, The Prestige (Simon & Schuster UK; St. Martin's US)

Best Novella
Michael Swanwick, "Radio Waves" (Omni Winter '95)

Best Short Fiction
Gwyneth Jones, "The Grass Princess" (Seven Tales and a Fable)

Best Anthology
A. Susan William & Richard Glyn Jones, eds, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women (Viking)

Best Collection
Gwyneth Jones, Seven Tales and a Fable (Edgewood Press)

Best Artist
Gahan Wilson

Special award, professional
Richard Evans (for contributions to the genre)

Special award, nonprofessional
Marc Michaud (for Necronomicon Press)

They don't come around Sphere no more...

ast month Warner Bros. set the town of Vallejo, Calif., on edge when it fired more than 200 local workers from the construction site of an underwater set being created for the upcoming science fiction movie Sphere, based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. The workers were reportedly "fired" for two to three weeks because construction at their work site was going faster than elsewhere, and Warner wanted to get things back in sync.

Although Warner assured workers that they would be rehired shortly, Variety reported the incident would set production on the film back at least two weeks. Sphere is currently in preproduction and is now expected to start filming by the end of January 1997.

tomorrow moves to electronic format

acing dwindling circulation and poor revenues, Editor and Publisher Algis Budrys said his newsstand magazine tomorrow will switch to a completely electronic format in 1997. The magazine will publish its twenty-fourth and final print issue later this month.

"There isn't a newsstand magazine out there that is gaining circulation," Budrys explained. "Every one of them is losing. I know I've been losing money, and it's time for a change."

Budrys said he is not sure yet if tomorrow will try its luck on the World Wide Web or with one of the proprietary on-line services. He said tentative plans call for tomorrow to publish its first electronic edition in mid-January 1997.

Stout joins Del Rey

reelance writer and editor Amy Stout has joined Del Rey books as a consulting editor, where her primary role will be to acquire new titles and shepherd them through the editorial process. Stout, who recently left Roc Books to pursue a writing career, first gained attention as an editor at Bantam Books, where she handled many top-selling authors.

"I've known Amy for a long time, and I have great respect for her editorial abilities," Del Rey Executive Editor Shelly Shapiro said. "We've been wanting to expand our editorial horizons for quite a while, and the timing of Amy's announcement of her new freelance status couldn't have been more serendipitous."

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