Interzones Best of the year reader poll.

Roy

Readers vote UK author the tops.

Interzone is the only British professional SF, science fiction, magazine focused on publishing original fiction short stories. The May 08 issue, number 216, contains Martin McGrath’s analysis of the favourite stories, by reader’s votes, from the six 2007 issues of Interzone.

UK author, Gareth Lyn Powell, topped the poll with an Australian in 2nd place, though it was close as deciding votes arrived on the last day of polling.

Second placed Australian Grace Dugan was top female entrant in overall, a result where one vote kept her from the top. Women authors provided 25% of the top 20 stories.

Interzone alumni, now a major SF novelist, Alastair Reynolds was third. Steven Francis Murphy, the US author and historian, renowned for intemperate (and invective heavy) Internet postings, made 4th place. French author Aliette de Bodard had two ‘top 10’ stories.

Top ten stories were
1 Ack-Ack Macaque Gareth Lyn Powell
2 Knowledge Grace Dugan
3 The Sledge-maker’s Daughter Alastair Reynolds
4 Tearing Down Tuesday Steven Francis Murphy
5 Molly and the Red Hat Benjamin Rosenbaum
6 The Lost Xuyan Bride Aliette de Bodard
7 Deer Flight Aliette de Bodard
8 Exvisible Carlos Hernandez
9 Metal Dragon Year Chris Roberson
10 Toke Tim Akers

The readers also vote on the magazine’s artwork and most popular in 2007 was Kenn Brown’s cover for Metal Dragon Year’ in issue 213. Jim Burns’ Sphaira (209 cover) was second and Richard Marchand’s Lunar Flare (211 cover) third.

Bristol writer Gareth Lyn Powell's winning story Ack-Ack Macaque, features a one-eyed, cigar-smoking monkey wreaking havoc in Bristol, and appeared in September's Interzone, number 212 with black & white illustrations by SMS. You can see the intended colour image at SMS’s website as Interzone returned to monotone internal illustrations with that issue.

Gareth was born in Bristol and has always lived either there or North Somerset, apart from a period at the University of Glamorgan. He writes both short fiction and novels.
On the strength of his publication in Interzone in Gareth Lyn Powell has progressed to two book deals; one for a novel (Silversands - Pendragon Press due 2009) and the other for a collection of short stories (The Last Reef - Elastic Press due Aug 2008).
So he is beginning to follow the footsteps of earlier Interzone alumni like Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter and Greg Egan. Gareth aims to make the science at least plausible in his SF so it is no surprise that one of his influences is Somerset's famed son, Sir Arthur C Clarke.
He has a wife and two young daughters to fill any spare time between writing and his day job with a business software company.
His web site details his writing career to date and provides links to the places where his work can be seen.

Grace Dugan
Born in Melbourne but raised in Queensland, Grace began writing her first novel The Silver Road, Penguin 2005, while still in high school, and continued working on it while studying a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland.

Grace also writes short fiction, and these have been published in anthologies and ‘Strange Horizons’.

After serious illness in 2006, Grace developed an interest in medicine and is currently studying to be a doctor at the University of Queensland. She lives in a ‘sharehouse’ in Brisbane and enjoys gardening, cooking, and reading in her spare time.

Her next novel is The Motherland Garden.

Alastair Reynolds
Alastair was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966 but spent his early years in Cornwall before returning to Wales and school. After gaining a degree in astronomy at Newcastle and a PhD in the same subject at St Andrews he left the UK and spent sixteen years working in the Netherlands, mostly for the European Space Agency, although he also did a stint as a postdoctoral worker in Utrecht. He returned to Wales in 2008 and now lives in Glamorgan, not far from Cardiff.
Alastair is married; his wife is French and they like horse riding, birds, long walks in the woods, good curries and old films.

Alastair has authored eight novels and many short stories since his first publication in Interzone. (1990) His first novel, Revelation Space (2000), was shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association and Arthur C Clarke awards. His second, Chasm City, won the BSFA award in 2002. Other Reynolds novels and stories have subsequently been shortlisted for the BSFA and Clarke awards. Two collections of his short stories, ‘Zima Blue’ (US) and Galactic North(UK) appeared late in 2006. His latest novel, House Of Suns, appeared in the UK in April.
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Fiction magazines: Interzone, Black Static & Crimewave, (E Reader editions at 'Fictionwise')
thefix-online and transmissionsfrombeyond.com are TTA Press ventures.

Guest · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject:

Cool, these are some good names, Roy.