World Fantasy Award Winner Announced
Thraxas by Martin Scott, published by Orbit in the UK, has been announced winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel of 1999 at the World Fantasy Convention in Texas. The World Fantasy Awards are 25 years old (one year younger than Orbit), and the most prestigious in the field. The award has prompted author Martin Scott to reveal he is in fact the very successful cult author Martin Millar. Millar wrote the novelisation of the film Tank Girl, co-wrote a play with Doon MacKichan (from the UK cult comedy Smack The Pony), as well as six novels under this name.
Thraxas is a comic fantasy set in the magical city of Turai, where the only people more corrupt than the politicians are the Royal Family. Murder, mayhem and ruthless criminal brotherhoods reign, and the civic guards are incapable of keeping order. It's left to men like Thraxas to do what they can.
Miller's most recent title, Thraxas and the Elvish Isles - published August 2000 - is his fourth Thraxas novel as Martin Scott.
The other titles in the series are: Thraxas, Thraxas and the Warrior Monks, and Thraxas at the Races. Martin is currently working on a fifth Thraxas novel, which Orbit plan to publish in autumn 2001.

The full awards list as as follows:
Novel: Thraxas by Martin Scott
Novella: A tie - The Transformation of Martin Lake by Jeff VanderMeer (Palace Corbie 8), and Sky Eyes by Laurel Winter (F&SF March 1999)
Short Story: The Chop Gir by lIan R.MacLeod (Asimov's, December 1999)
Anthology: Silver Birch Blood Moon edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
Collection: Moonlight and Vines by Charles de Lint, and Reave the Just by Stephen R.Donaldson
Artist: Jason Van Hollander
Special/Professional Award: Gordon Van Gelder for editing (St. Martin's, _F&SF_)
Non Professional Award: The British Fantasy Society.

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
Fans of Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time will be pleased to learn Book Nine, Winter's Heart, is on sale in the US from 7 November, with a UK on sale date 23 November, All the series' favourite characters are back. Rand and Min are fleeing from the evil Cadsuane. Meanwhile, Faile is imprisoned, Mazrim Taim is caught lying, and Perrin's army is on the move. How will the Daughter of the Nine Moons affect the Seanchan? How will the White Tower withstand rebel attack?
The Wheel of Time has proved to be one of the most significant and biggest-selling fantasy series of recent years, its popularity and importance hgrwoing with each new novel. SF magazine Locus called it "A great read... the volumes only get richer as they go along."

Buy the book from Amazon: • UK • US
Newcomers to the Wheel of Time series should start with Book One, The Eye of the World. • UK (paperback) • US (hardcover)

Silverberg comes to Bookface
Robert Silverberg has been a major influence on the world of science fiction since his first professional sale in 1953. An architect of the genre, Silverberg is the author of over 100 SF and fantasy novels. Now Silverberg has agreed to bring Up the Line, an out-of-print classic back to life via the read-only booksite, Bookface.com. A novel of clandestine sexual escapades throughout history, Up the Line is a clever look at all the trouble a more-than-healthy libido can get a time-traveller into.
External Links: Robert Silverberg on Bookface • Up the Line
• The Robert Silverberg Quasi-Official Homepage

Sansato Press launches
Ansible reports that Sansato Press launches this month (October) with 88 Gray's Inn Road, comprising an unpublished SF novel plus shorter work by William F.Temple, introduced by his old flatmate (at the title address) Arthur C.Clarke. Contact: Cold Tonnage, 22 Kings Lane, Windlesham, Surrey, GU20 6JQ

Bookface adds more SF
Ben Bova's Moonrise has just been added to the online library over at bookface.com. Bova has been a hard science fiction writer for decades, and he's still going strong. Moonrise is his near-future tale of a former astronaut striving to turn a handful of leftover government moon shelters into a full-fledged moonbase, but to do so he'll have to fight off some very powerful corporate entities.
Another gem on the site is Paul Cornell's The Greys, an excellent and eerie tale of alien abduction.

Science Fiction Foundation Online
The records of books held by the Science Fiction Foundation collection in special Collections and Archives, Sydney Jones Library, are now available on-line. The catalogue is currently in two parts, and to get a full picture of their holdings it is necessary to search both. Part 1 consists of over 19,000 records of fiction books catalogued 1995-1997 on a stand-alone ProCite database under a project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council of England. They are now available via the Cheshire II WWW Search Interface. "This is still in prototype form, so please bear with us if there are anomalies in the records," says Librarian Andy Sawyer. "We are currently working on transferring these records to: Part 2 This consists of all non-fiction records, and fiction added to the Science Fiction Foundation Collection since 1997.
So far, 4,000 records are now accessible through the University Library's on-line public access catalogue.
Catalogue Search: Go

News from Earthlight
John Jarrold has acquired a historical fantasy novel by Freda Warrington, whose Jewelfire trilogy is presently being published by Earthlight, Simon & Schuster UK's SF and Fantasy imprint (The Sapphire Throne was published in April). The new novel, Guiltless Blood, features Richard III. "This is not the psychopathic hunchback of the Shakespeare play," said Jarrold, "but neither is it a whitewash job. Richard is a real character, and I can't wait to see the final script." The book will be published in Spring 2002, and Jarrold acquired the title from John Parker at the MBA Literary Agency.
John Jarrold has also acquired a first SF novel from Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, co-authors with Terry Pratchett of the bestselling The Science of Discworld. Well-known scientists in their own right - Stewart is a mathematician and Cohen is a reproductive biologist - the authors, who are both with the University of Warwick, have now written Wheelers.
"If you want Big Science Fiction, look no further," said Jarrold. "As you might expect from two such eminent brains, the concepts are fabulous, but the characters are also terrific - fascinating and infuriating in equal measure. I'd expect this to be the first of many novels from this team."
Between them, the authors have published around 20 previous books, including their joint title The Collapse of Chaos, which Penguin recently reissued. Jarrold acquired the novel from Ashley Grayson in the US. Earthlight will publish Wheelers in summer 2001.