The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 29

Ian McDonald.

The 2011 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best Short Story was won by “The Sultan of the Clouds,” by Geoffrey A. Landis.

The 2011 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, by Mark Hodder.

The 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award was won by Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes.

The 2011 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award was won by Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, by Dubravka Ugresic.

The 2011 Sidewise Award went to When Angels Wept, by Eric G. Swedin (Long Form) and “A Clash of Eagles,” by Alan Smale (Short Form).

The Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award went to Katherine MacLean.

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Dead in 2011 or early 2012 were: Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee and SFWA Grandmaster Anne McCaffery, 85, the first woman to win a Hugo and Nebula Award, author of more than a hundred books, including the famous and bestselling Pern series, whose best-known works are probably “Weyr Search,” “Dragonriders,” and The White Dragon, the first SF novel to make the New York Times Best Seller List, a friend; Hugo, Nebula, and Tiptree award-winner

Joanna Russ, 74, SF writer and critic, author of such acclaimed books as The Female Man, Picnic on Paradise, and And Chaos Died, as well as much short fiction years ahead of its time, such as “Nobody’s Home,” “When It Changed,” “Souls,” and the Alyx stories, and also of many books of critical essays, a friend; distinguished fantasist

Diana Wynne Jones, 76, winner of the World Fantasy Convention’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and author of forty books, including the Chrestomanci series, Archer’s Goon, Howl’s Moving Castle, which was later made into an animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, and satirical nonfiction work, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland;

Russell Hoban, 86, author of more than fifty children’s books, including a long-running series about Frances the badger, perhaps best known to genre audiences for his adult SF novel Riddley Walker, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Ditmar Award;

Thomas J. Bassler, 79, who wrote SF as T. J. BASS, best known for his work in the 1970s such as the SF novels Half Past Human and The Godwhale;

horror writer and editor Alan Ryan, 68, World Fantasy Award-winning author of many short stories that were collected in books such as The Bones Wizard, a friend;

prolific SF writer Larry Tritten, 72, particularly known for his humorous short stories;

Brian Jacques, 71, children’s fantasist, author of the well-known twenty-volume Redwall series;

prominent Australian fantasy author Sara Warneke, 54, who wrote many bestselling novels as Sara Douglass;

prominent German SF writer, agent, and editor Hans Joachim Alpers, 67;

British writer Euan Harvey, 38, a frequent contributor to Realms of Fantasy and elsewhere;

Gilbert Adair, 66, Scottish writer, critic and translator;

Colin Harvey, 51, British SF writer, author of six novels and more than thirty short stories;

William Sleator, 66, children’s and YA novelist;

Juan Carlos Planells, 61, Spanish author and critic;

Leslie Esdaile Banks, 51, popular urban fantasy author who published as L. A. Banks;

Joel Rosenberg, 57, SF and mystery author;

John Frederick Burke, 89, British SF and mystery author who wrote as Jonathan Burke; Vittorio Curtoni, 61, Italian SF writer, editor, and translator;

Minoru Komatsu, 80, Japanese SF writer, screenwriter, and essayist, who wrote under the name Sakyo Komatsu;

Ion Hobana, 80, Romanian SF writer;

Moacyr Scliar, 73, Brazilian fantasy author;

John Glasby, 82, British SF and fantasy author;

Wim Stolk, 61, Dutch fantasy artist and writer who wrote as W. J. Maryson;

Lisa Wolfson, 47, YA and SF author who wrote as L. K. Madigan;

John M. Iggulden, 93, Australian SF author;

British SF writer Lionel Percy Wright, 87, who wrote as Lan Wright;

Richard Bessiere, 88, French SF author;

Louis Thirion, 88, French SF author;

Thierry Martens, 69, Belgian author, editor, anthologist, and comics historian;

Mark Shepherd, 49, SF author;

Les Daniels, 68, comics historian and author of Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, who also wrote a series of vampire novels;

Glenn Lord, 80, U.S. agent for the Howard estate, author of The Last Celt: A Bio-Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard;

Theodore Roszak, 77, SF writer and essayist, author of The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society;

H.R.F. Keating, 84, mystery writer who also occasionally wrote SF;

Craig Thomas, 69, Welsh technothriller writer of Firefox, which was later made into a well-known movie;

Martin Woodhouse, 78, British author and screenwriter;

Robert C. W. Ettinger, 92, cryonics advocate and occasional SF writer, author of the nonfiction books The Prospect of Immortality and Man into Superman;

Martin H. Greenberg, 70, prolific anthologist and academic, involved in the editing of more than a thousand anthologies, founder of the book-packaging company Tekno Books;

Margaret K. McElderry, 98, children’s editor and publisher, founder of children’s imprint Margaret K. McElderry Books;

Philip Rahman, 59, cofounder of the weird fiction publisher Fedogan and Bremer;

Malcolm M. Ferguson, 91, writer, bookseller, librarian, and collector;

Darrell K. Sweet, 77, one of the most acclaimed SF and fantasy cover artists of modern times;

Jeffrey Catherine Jones, 67, prominent fantasy cover artist;

Gene Szafran, 69, SF cover artist and illustrator;

Cliff Robertson, 88, movie and TV actor, probably best known to genre audiences as the lead in Charly, the film version of “Flowers for Algernon,” and for his role as Uncle Ben in the Spider-Man movies;

Harry Morgan, 96, movie and TV actor probably best known to everybody as ‘Colonel Potter’ from the TV show M*A*S*H, but who also appeared in many films, including Inherit the Wind and The Ox-Bow Incident;

Peter Falk, 83, film and television actor probably best known for his long-running role as the rumpled detective in Columbo, but who will also be familiar to genre audiences for roles in The Princess Bride, Murder by Death, and