ever), with Trek computer games (ditto), and with the fact that re-runs of the various Trek shows will probably be in syndication for years-if not decades-to come. Which raises the odd possibility that the various Star Trek spin-off products may continue to sell vigorously long after there’s no longer an original franchise show running anywhere on television.
Firefly, the much-hyped and much anticipated new “space western” from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, debuted this year, but even the hardest-core Buffy fans hated it, it failed to either carry the Buffy audience or find alternative audiences of its own, the ratings were disastrous, and it was cancelled by mid-season, in spite of all of Whedon’s clout and all the pressure he could bring to bear on network execs to save it. Meanwhile, the end is finally in sight for Buffy, the Vampire Slayer itself, after two years of disappointing episodes and decreasing ratings, with the announcement that Sarah Michelle Geller, who portrays Buffy, is leaving the show at the end of the current seventh season for greener pastures in the film world. There are rumors about another possible Buffy spin-off series, but as I type these words, nobody knows what such a series would be, who would be in it, or, most important, if there’s going to even be one in the first place. It’s also unknown as I type this whether or not the network is going to renew the original Buffy spin-off series, Angel, for another season-too bad if they don’t, Angel has been pretty good this year, better, in fact, than its parent series has been (Angel’s writing seeming to improve in quality as Buffy’s relentlessly declined). Again, it’s interesting to see how quickly these TV franchise empires can fall apart-at the beginning of the year, Whedon’s production company was at the top of the television food-chain, with three shows running at once; by the end of 2003, it’s possible that they’ll have none. (Although Buffy and Angel novels and other franchise products may continue on long after both shows are gone, too, in the same way that the Star Trek products might).
Charmed and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, similar if considerably more lightweight supernatural-themed shows, still seem to be pretty successful, Smallville remains a genuine smash, and The Dead Zone seems to be doing okay, but several new shows such as Birds of Prey and Haunted came and went almost before you could notice them, and The New Twilight Zone is a pale imitation even of the previous remake of the show, let alone the original series.
South Park and The Simpsons, if you consider them to be genre shows, are still around, but I no longer pay much attention to them. The more genre-specific Futurama is gone.
Taken was a big hit in the ratings, and covered very similar ground as Signs, but I don’t approve of shows that pander to and encourage the already too-prevalent UFO-abductee mania, and so I didn’t watch it. Dinotopia failed to find an audience, in spite of some very nice dinosaur effects. And The History Channel produced a very disappointing “history” of science fiction, one that ignored most of the real history of the form to concentrate instead on the history of sci-fi movies, and which left many hours of recorded interviews with actual SF writers on the cutting-room floor. (Let’s hope they do a better job with their other “historical” documentaries!)
Coming up next year, a new version of Mr. Ed, proving that the television execs are every bit as creative as the Hollywood moguls who brought us a remake of Lost in Space and who are in the process of bringing us a big-budget remake of Bewitched.
The 60th World Science Fiction Convention, ConJose, was held in San Jose, California, from August 30- September 3, 2002, and drew an estimated attendance of 5,500. The 2002 Hugo Awards, presented at ConJose, were: Best Novel, American Gods, by Neil Caiman; Best Novella, “Fast Times at Fairmont High,” by Vernor Vinge; Best Novelette, “Hell is the Absence of God,” by Ted Chiang; Best Short Story, “The Dog Said Bow-Wow,” by Michael Swanwick; Best Related Book, The Art of Chesley Bonestell, by Ron Miller and Frederick C. Durant III, with Melvin H. Schuetz; Best Professional Editor, Ellen Datlow; Best Professional Artist, Michael Whelan; Best Dramatic Presentation, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings; Best Semiprozine, Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown; Best Fanzine, Ansible, edited by David Langford; Best Fan Writer, David Langford; Best Fan Artist, Teddy Harvia; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to Jo Walton; and the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award to R. A. Lafferty.
The 2001 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 27, 2002, were: Best Novel, The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro; Best Novella, “The Ultimate Earth,” by Jack Williamson; Best Novelette, “Louise’s Ghost,” by Kelly Link; Best Short Story, “The Cure for Everything,” by Severna Park; Best Script, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, by James Schamus, Kuo Jun Tsai, and Hui-Ling Wang; plus a special Lifetime Achievement Award to Betty Ballantine.
The World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Twenty-Eighth Annual World Fantasy Convention at the Hilton Towers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 3, 2002, were: Best Novel, The Other Wind, by Ursula K. Le Guin; Best Novella, “The Bird Catcher,” by S. P. Somtow; Best Short Fiction, “Queen for a Day,” Albert E. Cowdrey; Best Collection, Skin Folk, by Nalo Hopkinson; Best Anthology, The Museum of Horrors, edited by Dennis Etchison; Best Artist, Allen Koszowski; Special Award (Professional), to Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher (tie); Special Award (Non- Professional), to Raymond Russell and Rosalie Parker; plus the Life Achievement Award to George Scithers and Forrest J. Ackerman.
The 2002 Bram Stoker Awards, presented by the Horror Writers of America during a banquet in Chicago, Illinois, on June 8, 2002, were: Best Novel, American Gods, by Neil Caiman; Best First Novel, Deadliest of the Species, Michael Oliveri; Best Collection, The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists, by Norman Partridge; Best Long Fiction, “In These Final Days of Sales,” by Steve Rasnic Tern; Best Short Story, “Reconstructing Amy,” Tim Lebbon; Nonfiction, Jobs in Hell, edited by Brian Keene; Best Anthology, Extremes 2: Fantasy and Horror from the Ends of the Earth, edited by Brian A. Hopkins; Best Screenplay, Memento, by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan; Best Work for Young Readers, The Willow Files 2, by Yvonne Navarro; Poetry Collection, Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Gray Ashes, by Linda Addison; Best Alternative Forms, Dark Dreaming: Facing the Masters of Fear, by Beth Gwinn and Stanley Winter; plus the Lifetime Achievement Award to John Farris.
The 2001 John W. Campbell Memorial Award was won by Terraforming Earth, by Jack Williamson and The Chronoliths, by Robert Charles Wilson (tie).
The 2001 Theodore Sturgeon Award for Best Short Story was won by “The Chief Designer,” by Andy Duncan.
The 2001 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to Ship of Fools, by Richard Paul Russo.
The 2001 Arthur C. Clarke award was won by Bold as Love, by Gwyneth Jones.
The 2001 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award was won by The Kappa Child, by Hiromi Goto.
Death struck the SF field heavily once again this year. Dead in 2002 or early 2003 were: DAMON KNIGHT, 79, author, editor, critic, anthologist, one of the most influential figures in the history of modern science fiction, editor of the long-running ORBIT anthology series, one of the founders of the Science Fiction Writers of America, author of dozens of classic SF stories such as “The Country of the Kind,” “Stranger Station,” “Dio,” “The Earth Quarter,” “Rule Golden,” “Mary,” and “To Serve Man,” as well as many novels such as The Man in the Tree, Why Do Birds?, and Humptey Dumptey: An Oval, a mentor and a friend to me ever since I entered this field, and an inspiration to generations of new writers; R. A. LAFFERTY, 87, eclectic and utterly individual writer, author of some of the freshest and funniest short stories ever written, such as “Narrow Valley,” “Thus We Frustrate Charlemange,” “Slow Tuesday Night,” “Hog-Belly Honey,” “The Hole on the Corner,” and many others, as well as quirky and challenging novels such as The Reefs of Earth, Past Master, Okla Hannali, The Fall of Rome, and The Devil is Dead, posthumous winner of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award; CHARLES SHEFFIELD, 67, scientist and Hugo-winning writer, author of The Web Between the Worlds, My Brother’s Keeper, Summertide, Transcendence, Cold as Ice, The Mind Pool, and many others, as well as much first-rate short fiction in both the SF and mystery fields, a personal friend; GEORGE ALEC EFFINGER, 55, critically acclaimed and Hugo-winning author of When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss, What Entropy Means to Me, The Nick of Time, The Wolves of Memory, and others, as well as dozens of short stories such as “Two Sadnesses,” “Schrodinger’s Kitten,” “Put Your Hands Together,” “Afternoon Under Glass,” “Everything but Honor,” “Naked to the Invisible Eye,” and many others, a personal friend for more than thirty years; JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY, Jr., 75, British writer who, as RICHARD COWPER, wrote such acclaimed SF novels as The Road to Corlay, A Dream of Kinship, A Tapestry of Time, and The Twilight of Briareus, and short fiction such as “Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” “The Custodians,” and “Out There Where the Big Ships Go”; ROBERT L. FORWARD, 70, scientist and writer, author of Dragon’s Egg, Starquake, The Flight of the Dragonfly, and other novels; LLOYD BIGGLE, Jr., 79, writer and musicologist, author of All the Colors of Darkness, The World Menders, The Angry Espers, The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets, and other novels and stories; CHERRY WILDER, 71, New Zealand-born author of The Luck of Brins Five, Second Nature, The Summer’s King, and other novels, as well as a large amount of eloquent short fiction; LAWRENCE M. JENIFER, 69, SF author whose work appeared in
