*Yes, that’s a rule change: in the past, anyone could nominate but only members could vote. This year, you must be a member to nominate, as well.

Ah, it’s my favorite time of the year, a time when this column practically writes itself. It’s Ig Nobel Prize time.

The Ig Nobel Prizes are presented by the science comedy magazine Annals of Improbable Research, to honour achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.”

At the ceremony, genuine (and “genuinely bemused”) Nobel Laureates present the prizes. There are also other delights, such as mini-operas (this year’s: “Chemist in a Coffee Shop”) and, most notably, the 24/7 lectures, in which noted scientists explain their subject twice, offering a complete technical description in 24 seconds, followed by a concise summary anyone can understand in seven words (this year’s topics: Stress Responses, Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes, Chemistry and Vagina pH). The ceremony can be watched online.

And now, without further ado, this year’s winners:

The physiology prize went to a quartet of scientists from various countries for their riveting study, “No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise,” which I find intriguing mainly because it seems to indicate there is non-contagious yawning in red-footed tortoises (tortii?).(Of course, if it took me that long to get wherever I was going, I’d be yawning before I got there, too.)

The coveted chemistry prize (this year’s ceremony theme was chemistry) was won by researchers from Japan who figured out the ideal density of airborne wasabi needed to wake sleepers up in the case of an emergency, and then used that knowledge to invent their patented wasabi alarm. Buy now and get a free side-order of sushi! Supplies are limited, and operators are standing by!

The medicine prize went to researchers from the Netherlands, Belgium, the U.S. and Australia, for demonstrating in two separate studies that people make better decisions about some things, but worse decisions about other things, when they have a strong need to urinate.

Which reminds me, I’ll be right back.

Much relieved, let us carry on. The psychology prize was won by Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, for his study “Is a Sigh ‘Just a Sigh’? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task.”

Sigh.

Then there was the literature prize (near and dear to my heart), which went to John Perry of Stanford University for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which states that to be a high achiever, you should work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that’s even more important. This is exactly my method of procrastination, assuming you consider playing word games on Facebook important.

The biology prize went to what may be the finest piece of Australian research ever: Darry Gwynne and David Rentz’s discovery that a certain kind of beetle mistakes stubby beer bottles for female beetles, making them, if you’ll pardon the expression, bottle-boinking beetles. And they don’t even consume the contents first.

The prize for physics was won by researchers from France and the Netherlands for determining why discus throwers become dizzy and hammer throwers don’t. Alas, no demonstration was forthcoming at the ceremony.

The mathematics prize went to a distinguished group who have collectively taught the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations, namely Dorothy Martin of the U.S. (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the U.S. (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the U.S. (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of Korea (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994, and when that didn’t happen, predicted the world will end on October 21, 2011).

The peace prize was awarded to the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, one Arturas Zuokas, who demonstrated on video that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved quite easily by running over them with a tank. Mr. Zuokas was even present to receive his award in person.

And finally, a Canadian winner! John Sanders of the University of Toronto won the public safety prize for a series of safety experiments he conducted (back in the mid-1960s; it can take time for the brilliance of research to be properly noted) in which a person drove an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flapped down over his face, blinding him.

And there you have it. Research to make you laugh, make you think…and make you hide your beer bottles. I look forward to next year’s Ig Nobel prizes.

Assuming the world doesn’t end on October 21, of course.

***

Theodore Sturgeon

Ever heard of Sturgeon’s Law? It does not, as you might think at first glance, regulate the caviar industry in Russia; rather, it is a general description of the world around us. Formulated by the late science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, it is usually paraphrased as, “Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap. Ninety percent of everything is crap!”

This poses a challenge to anyone who wishes to seek out the best of anything, whether movies, music…or science fiction. And if you’re just thinking of taking the plunge into the speculative fiction genres, the deluge of titles on display in bookstores, online or off, can be intimidating.

That’s where awards can be useful. Beyond making authors feel good when they win one (not that there’s anything wrong with that), they help bring worthwhile books to the attention of readers everywhere.

In science fiction and fantasy, as in literary, historical and other genres, there are a plethora of awards, but they are not all created equal: some are more respected and valued than others.

The granddaddy of all the science fiction awards, and the most coveted by writers, is the Hugo, presented continuously since 1955. It gets its name from Hugo Gernsback, considered the father of science fiction (although he called it “scientifiction”) because he founded the first magazine devoted to the genre, Amazing Stories, in 1926.  In movie-award terms, the Hugos are the People’s Choice Awards of the field: books are nominated for, and voted on, by members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention.

Categories include various short forms, dramatic presentation and fan writing, but the biggy is the award for best novel. The 2009 winner of the iconic rocket-ship trophy, presented in Montreal, was The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a YA fantasy about a boy raised by ghosts. Unusually, three of the five finalists were YA books: Little Brother by Canada’s own Cory Doctorow and Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi were also on the list. Rounding out the finalists were Anathem by Neal Stephenson (which I thought should have won) and Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross.

In Melbourne, Australia, in 2010, two novels tied for the Best Novel Hugo: The City & The City by China Miéville and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Two Canadian books were among the finalists: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer and Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson. Rounding out the nominees were Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente.

(Note: the print version of this column elided the 2009 and 2010 Hugo results. I’ve corrected that here and will put a correction into my next print column in Freelance.)

The second-most prestigious awards are the Nebulas. To continue the movie analogy, they’re like the Academy Awards, nominated for and voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Sometimes there’s quite a bit of overlap between Hugos and Nebulas, but not last year, when the Nebula for best novel went to The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Other nominees included The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak, Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman, The City & The City by China Miéville, Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, and Finch by Jeff VanderMeer.

One way to find good books is to look for those that appear on more than one award ballot, and the finalists for the World Fantasy Award, a juried award presented at the World Fantasy Convention every October, included a couple of Nebula nominees, one of which was the winner, The City & The City by China Miéville; the other was Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch. Other finalists were Blood of Ambrose by James Enge, The Red Tree by Caitlín R. Kiernan, and In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield.

But perhaps, as a patriotic Canadian, you are more interested in works by your fellow citizens. Well, Canada, too, has its science fiction and fantasy awards. The Sunburst Award is a juried award named after the 1964 novel by the late, great Canadian SF author Phyllis Gotlieb. I had the honor of serving on the Sunburst jury last year.

In the adult category, we chose Indigo Springs, by A.M. Dellamonica; in the young adult category, our choice was Half World, by Hiromi Goto. Other finalists in the adult category were The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint, Makers by Cory Doctorow, The Sunless Countries by Karl Schroeder and Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson. The YA finalists included one name very familiar to Saskatchewan readers: Arthur Slade, for The Hunchback Assignments. Other finalists were Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe, Amy By Any Other Name by Maureen Garvie and Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston.

Finally, there are the Prix Aurora Awards. Any Canadian resident or citizen can nominate for them, and they’re voted on by members of CanVention, the Canadian national SF convention. Last year’s English-language best novel winner was Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer. The other finalists were The Amulet of Amon-Ra, a YA book by Leslie Carmichael; Druids by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston; Steel Whispers by Hayden Trenholm, and Terra Insegura, by some guy named Edward Willett.

If you’re looking for a place to start reading science fiction and fantasy, the award-nominees I’ve listed offer everything from young adult fantasy-adventure to psychological adult horror, from alternative history to far-future space opera to near-future technological prognostication.

With these books, at least, Sturgeon’s Law does not apply.

Here are this year’s nominees and winners. I’ve arranged the list with the winners at the top of each category, starred and bolded:

BEST NOVEL IN ENGLISH :

*WAKE, Robert J. Sawyer, Penguin Canada

THE AMULET OF AMON-RA, by Leslie Carmichael, CBAY Books

DRUIDS, by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

STEEL WHISPERS, Hayden Trenholm, Bundoran Press

TERRA INSEGURA, Edward Willett, DAW Books

MEILLEUR ROMAN EN FRANÇAIS ( Best Novel In French ):

*Suprématie. Laurent McAllister, (Bragelonne)

Le protocole Reston. Mathieu Fortin, (Coups de tête)

La Quête de Chaaas (L’axe de Koudriss). Michèle Laframboise, Médiaspaul

Un tour en Arkadie. Francine Pelletier, Alire

Filles de lune 3. Le talisman de Maxandre. Élisabeth Tremblay, (De Mortagne)

BEST SHORT-FORM WORK IN ENGLISH:

*”PAWNS DREAMING OF ROSES”, Eileen Bell, Women of the Apocalypse. Absolute Xpress

“HERE THERE BE MONSTERS” Brad Carson, Ages of Wonder, (DAW) (story)

“LITTLE DEATHS” Ivan Dorin, Tesseracts Thirteen

“RADIO NOWHERE” Douglas Smith, Campus Chills

“THE WORLD MORE FULL OF WEEPING” Robert J. Wiersema, ChiZine Publications

MEILLEURE NOUVELLE EN FRANÇAIS ( Best Short-Form In French )

*« Ors blancs » Alain Bergeron, (Solaris 171)

« De l’amour dans l’air » Claude Bolduc, (Solaris 172)

« La vie des douze Jésus » Luc Dagenais, (Solaris 172)

« Billet de faveur » Michèle Laframboise, (Galaxies 41)

« Grains de silice » Mario Tessier, (Solaris 170)

« La mort aux dés » Élisabeth Vonarburg, (Solaris 171)

BEST WORK IN ENGLISH (OTHER) :

*WOMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (the Apocalyptic Four) Editor, Absolute Xpress

AGES OF WONDER Julie E. Czerneda, & Rob St. Martin, Editors, DAW Books

NEO-OPSIS MAGAZINE, Karl Johanson, Editor

ON SPEC MAGAZINE, Diane Walton, Managing Editor, The Copper Pig Writers’ Society

DISTANT EARLY WARNINGS: CANADA’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION Robert J. Sawyer, Editor, Robert J. Sawyer books

MEILLEUR OUVRAGE EN FRANÇAIS (AUTRE) / (Best Work In French (Other):

*Revue. Joel Champetier, éditeur, Solaris

Critiques. Jérôme-Olivier Allard, (Solaris 169-172)

Le jardin du general, Manga. Michele Laframboise, ,Fichtre, Montréal

Rien à voir avec la fantasy. Thibaud Sallé, (Solaris 169)

Chronique «Les Carnets du Futurible». Mario Tessier, (Solaris 169-171)

ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT :

*Dan O’Driscoll, Cover of Steel Whispers, Bundoran Press

Kari-Ann Anderson, for cover of “Nina Kimberly the Merciless”,Dragon Moon Press

Jim Beveridge, “Xenobiology 101: Field Trip” Neo-opsis #16

Lar de Souza, “Looking for Group” online Comic

Tarol Hunt, “Goblins”. Webcomic

FAN ACCOMPLISHMENT (Fanzine):

*Richard Graeme Cameron,.WCFSAZine

Jeff Boman, The Original Universe

Dale Speirs, Opuntia

Guillaume Voisine, éd. Brins d’Éternité

Felicity Walker, BCSFAzine

FAN ACCOMPLISHMENT (Organization) :

*David Hayman, organization Filk Hall of Fame

Renée Benett, for “In Spaces Between” at Con-Version 25

Robbie Bourget, and René Walling, Chairs of “Anticipation”, the 67 th WorldCon

Roy Miles, work on USS Hudson Bay Executive

Kirstin Morrell, Programming for Con-Version 25

FAN ACCOMPLISHMENT (Other) :

*Ray Badgerow, Astronomy Lecture at USS Hudson Bay

Ivan Dorin, “Gods Anonymous” (Con-Version 25 radio play)

Judith Hayman and Peggi Warner-Lalonde organization, Filk track @Anticipation

Tom Jeffers and Sue Posteraro, Filk Concert, Anticipation

Lloyd Penney, Fanwriting

The other finalists are Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer, Steel Whispers by Hayden Trenholm, Druids by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston, and The Amulet of Amon-Ra by Leslie Carmichael. I know every one of these authors. It should be a great evening at KeyCon in Winnipeg in May when the winners are announced.

Voting will begin soon, once the complete shortlist has been announced. Keep on eye on the Aurora Award website.

The Aurora Awards, for the best Canadian works of science fiction and fantasy, are nominated and voted on by fans. Any Canadian citizen or permanent resident can nominate up to three works or individuals in a range of categories in both English and French. The five works with the most nominations go on the final ballot and are voted on by members of CanVention, the annual national SF convention. It costs nothing to nominate but there is a fee for voting on the final ballot. The mail-in and on-line nomination forms are here.

My novel Marseguro (DAW Books) won the Aurora Award for best long-form work in English last year, and its sequel, Terra Insegura, is eligible this year. You can read the first two chapters of Terra Insegura (or listen to me read them) online here.

If you consider my work worthy of a nomination this year, and you’re a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, I hope you’ll take the time to do so. But I hope you’ll also take the time to nominate others. There’s a partial list of other eligible work at the Canadian SF database.

Remember, nominating is free! And it only takes a couple of minutes.

I agree with him, of course. It really is a terrific cover. Shaun writes:

The artwork for Terra Insegura is stunning, as are all of Martiniere’s paintings. A big plus is the cover actually matches what is in the book. What more can I say? Just look at it!

However, I must take issue with some of Shaun’s other comments in his list of awards for 2009, particularly the notion that you should refuse to buy books from someone whose opinions you disagree with, a position Shaun espouses with regard to John C. Wright and Orson Scott Card.

Buy or don’t buy books because you like or don’t like them, not because you do or don’t like something the author said. (Same thing holds for movies and music. Lots of great actors, musicians and artists are awful, awful people…but their work is still tremendous and still capable of offering value to the viewer or listener.)

In my own case, I don’t agree with anyone about everything–and the more strongly someone expresses an opinion the more likely I am to want to argue with it. Many, many writers whose work I enjoy hold political opinions I find ludicrous, annoying, and potentially harmful to society if held by enough people, but so what? Their work, as committed to the page, stands or falls on its own merits,  as far as I’m concerned.

I suspect Shaun wouldn’t agree with many of my opinions (I’m a liberally progressive  libertarian conservative, or possibly a conservatively progressive liberal libertarian, if you must know), but he likes my books. That’s because I mostly keep political opinions to myself, or only share them with very close friends, and as a result he’s probably unaware of all the things we disagree on.

Why don’t I talk about politics more? Because the waters of political discourse are poisonous, soul-sucking whirlpools today. Express a strong opinion on either side of any contoversial topic, and invite a deluge of nasty emails, personal attacks, and name-calling. And to what end? You’ll change no one’s mind, and (if you’re a writer) you’re likely to alienate potential readers.

I’d like readers of all political persuasions to read my books. They can disagree with them, hate them, love them, whatever–but I want that decision to be made based on what’s in the books, not what I might have posted elsewhere on, say, abortion, gun control, gay rights, or the abysmal record of this or that politician.

I’m glad there are plenty of writers who don’t share my reticence and are willing to jump into political discussion with both feet. I enjoy reading many of them. But I don’t plan to be one of them any time soon…and I don’t plan to boycott anyone for their expression of opinion, no matter how much I might personally disagree with it, either.

Any Canadian citizen, whether or not they live in Canada, or any permanent resident of Canada may nominate for the Prix Aurora Awards. The categories have been re-named slightly and are now Best Novel In English, Best Novel In French, Best Short-Form Work In English,  Best Short-Form Work In French, Best Work In English (Other), Best Work In French (Other), Artistic Achievement, Fan Achievement (Fanzine), Fan Achievement (Organizational), and Fan Achievement (Other).

My novel Terra Insegura, sequel to Marseguro, is eligible this year in the Best Novel in English category, and I’d be honored if you think it worthy of nomination, but whether you do or not, if you read Canadian science fiction and fantasy, I hope you’ll consider nominating your favorite works from the past year.

You can do so online or via printed-and-mailed PDF form, here.

6. Terra Insegura by Edward Willett
One of the few science fiction novels I reviewed and loved this year, Willett’s sequel to Marseguro is exactly what science fiction needs: action, awesome ideas, and good characterization. No more good vs. bad plots. There’s so much grey in Willett’s book that it makes you really think about everything, from what occurred in the previous novel to what happens by the end. It’s absolutely a must for science fiction fans.

Shaun’s review of Terra Insegura is here; his review of Marseguro is here.

And I think I must begin with the Public Health Prize, which went to Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, who on August 14, 2007, received U.S. patent #7255627 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”

What that patent title doesn’t tell you is that the “garment device” in question is a brassiere that can be turned into two face masks, one for the wearer of the brassiere (presumably) and the other for a needy bystander of the brassiere wearer’s choice.

The official website features a photo of Dr. Bodnar demonstrating her invention with the help of Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle, Orhan Pamuk and Paul Krugman, all of whom look quite fetching in their individual half-brassiere masks.

But, as usual, there were so many wonderful awards presented it’s hard to fit them into the limited space of this column—not if I want to make wisecracks about them.

Speaking of wise cracks (ba-DUM-dum), the Medicine prize went to Dr. Donald L. Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, for his investigation of whether or not knuckle cracking leads to arthritis of the fingers. Unger, an allergist, investigated in the most straightforward way possible: for more than 60 years, starting in his teens, he diligently cracked the knuckles of his left hand—but never his right—every single day.

His results were published in 1998: he found no arthritis in either hand. Which, you have to admit, is swell. (Get it? Arthritis? Swell? Swelling? Oh, never mind.)

Mooooving on (that’s going to be really funny in a second), we come to the Veterinary Medicine prize, which went to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University in the U.K. for discovering that cows who have names give more milk than nameless cows. (The time or two I’ve had to herd cows I called them many names myself, but I doubt the names I used boosted milk production.)

People who drink too much beer are said to be “smashed.” A quintet of researchers from the University of Bern investigated the smashing qualities of beer in a different way, winning the Peace prize for determining, by experiment (in a drop tower, not a bar) whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or an empty one. Their conclusion? It is better not to be smashed over the head at all, because full or empty, a bottle of beer can break your skull. But full bottles break at a lower energy than empty ones, so in your next bar brawl, be sure to ask your assailant to use a full one.

Space is short, so let’s totter ahead to the Physics prize, given to U.S. researchers who analytically determined why pregnant women don’t tip over, and the Chemistry prize, which went to Mexican researchers who created diamonds from tequila (and no, they didn’t just notice the crystals on the edge of their sixth margarita and suddenly decide they were diamonds).

Ireland’s police service received the Literature prize for writing and presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country, Prawo Jazdy—Polish for Driving License.

The Economics prize was given to the “directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks” for demonstrating “that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa—and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy,” and Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, received the Mathematics prize “for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers” by printing bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent to 100 trillion dollars.

And last, but certainly not least, a trio of Japanese researchers received the Biology prize for “demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.”

Science is grueling work, you know. By the time they finished their research, I’ll bet they were all pooped out.