The classic fanzine Ansible, which is available happily in an emailed edition, has just released it's 300th issue, which is available here. Have a look!

One of the coolest book trailers I have ever seen is for the book Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. This is a simple video - all it does is show the amazing illustrations by Keith Thompson and add a little animation. It is interesting that the cover for Leviathan does not highlight the Thompson illustrations. Instead, like most YA covers, it uses a photoshopped mosaic of images that includes manipulated photos.

For the April meeting, Gary Jonas will be our guest. Gary is the author of the novels MODERN SORCERY (first in the Jonathan Shade series) and ONE-WAY TICKET TO MIDNIGHT as well as the short story collection QUICK SHOTS. They are available as e-books and as trade paperbacks. The second Jonathan Shade fantasy novel, ACHERON HIGHWAY, is currently scheduled for a September 2012 release. In addition to novels and stories, Gary has also written screenplays.

Just ran across this on File 770's blog. A majority of both the Novella and Novelette nominees are available on the internet... showing once again how much publishing is changing. Here are the Novellas, and as well Here are the Novelettes. Apparently the Chicon 7 team are working on coming up with the voter packet, but this lets you get in and start your reading early.

As you may know, it's become custom recently for the folks who have memberships (attending or not) to the upcoming Worldcon to get free copies of most of the nominees, so that they can all be checked out before it's time for voting. Even better this year, however, is that all five of the nominees for the Short Story Hugo are already free on the web, so why not have a look and enjoy?

“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011)

For the April meeting, we will be welcoming Wil McCarthy, who will read from his latest writing project and perhaps field questions on some of his other endeavors.

The March Dead Dog at our place went fairly well with a good turnout. I unfortunately did not make the April Movie Alternate as I was still recovering from the sprint at work to launch the YSL exhibition... but I trust it was mazing as always!

The Hugo Awards for 2012, which will be given out at Chicon 7, have had their nominations released. I could list the whole thing here, but it seems a bit of a mistake to, when the site for the Hugos will have all the details and will be updated in case of some minor error. But, I did have a few thoughts on them, which I thought I'd share.

Here's an interesting essay by Ursula K. Le Guin about the Death of the Book. In short, she doesn't think the book is going to die at all, and she seems quite optimistic on the future of the written word.

http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/2012/03/26/the-death-of-the-book/

For the March meeting, it’s the return of Name That Sci-Fi Tune! Come to compete, or simply be amazed! Tim Simpson has kindly agreed to MC the program.

The February Dead Dog at Jim’s was a lot of fun and a fair number of people attended. I ended up in the back playing games much of the evening, but things seemed lively all over. I wasn’t able to make the alternate, but hope things went well. This month, Dave and I are hosting the Dead Dog – plan to stop by after the meeting!

And the week after DASFA it’s AnomalyCon 2 (March 23-25; http://anomalycon.com)

For the February meeting, we will have a panel of three authors, moderated by Mario Acevedo. The subject is “Salty Language is In Effect: The Outré in Genre Fiction.” On the panel will be Jesse Bullington (The Enterprise of Death), Jason Heller (Taft 2012) and Stephen Graham Jones (Zombie Bake-Off and MileHiCon 44 Toastmaster). Don’t miss it!