Espora
The Newszine of Spanish Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Espora #2

INDEX

CONVENTIONS AND EXHIBITIONS
 

HispaCon 2000 (AsturCon). The next Spanish Convention of SF and fantasy will take place between the 13th and the 16th of July in Gijón (Asturias, northern Spain). The list of foreign guests who have already confirmed their attendance is quite impressive: Lois McMaster Bujold, Pat Cadigan, Ian MacDonald, Tim Powers, David Pringle, Robert Sheckley and Ian Watson. Spanish authors Juan Miguel Aguilera, Elia Barceló, Rafael Marín, Javier Negrete, Javier Redal, Domingo Santos and Angel Torres Quesada will also attend. The planned schedule includes speeches on xenobiology in Babylon 5, Spiderman, the Akasa-Puspa universe (created by Aguilera and Redal), Christianism in fantasy and racism in The Lord of the Rings, among others.

Contact:
Snail mail: Rodolfo Martínez. c/ Celestino Junquera 22, 1 Izda. 33201 Gijón
E-mail: asturcon@drimar.com
Mailing list: astur-con@egroups.com
URL: http://www.drimar.com/asturcon

EstelCon 2000. The annual convention of the Spanish Tolkien Society (STE) will take place fron the 24th to the 30th of July in Galapagar (Madrid). The organizers (the Smial -local group- of Madrid) have planned several activities which include speeches, readings and games about J.R.R. Tolkien´s work.

Contact: Avda. Generalísimo, 87. 28223 - Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid).
URL: http://newton.fis.ucm.es/~elfo/indexb.html

Hobbyland 2000. Between the 17th and the 19th of March three exhibitions on comic-books, role playing games and videogames took place under the name Hobbyland 2000. SF activities included a cinema programme on the views of 2000, and a round-table conference on the state of SF in Spain.

A Hundred years of Borges. The Cervantes Virtuan Center celebrates the centenary of Jorge Luis Borges´ birth with this exhibition, which can be found in the following address:
http://cvc.cervantes.es/actcult/borges/htm

XXIII Children Books Show of Madrid. It took place on December, 1999, and gave special attention to SF literature.

X Week of Fantastic Cinema in San Sebastián. More than 70 films were presented to this contest, which took place on November 1999, and lots of activities and exhibitions were organized around it. Among them, a programme on Spanish fantastic cinema. Some 30.000 people were reckoned to have attended.

IV SF Meeting in Mataró (Barcelona). It took place between the 21st and the 23rd of January and included speeches and debates, along with the Manuel de Pedrolo short story awards. Pere Verdaguer was the guest of honor.

AWARDS
 

The III ASCII contest for SF stories received some 40 contestants and was finally awarded to "Bebé a bordo", by Héctor Rubén. http://www.arquired.es/users/ascii/

The IX Pablo Rido story contest has received 64 stories from Spain, Argentine, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico and Canada. The jury will announce the winner by the end of May.
http://www.arrakis.es/~jndro/prerido.htm

Writer Rafael Marín ("Lágrimas de luz", "La leyenda del navegante") has won the VII José Luis Castillo Puche novella award (300.000 pta.; EU 1.800, USD 1.730) with "La piel que te hice en el aire", about two gay lovers and a ghost. The novella will be published in volume 5 of the Artifex anthologies.
http://centros5.pntic.mec.es/ies.jose.luis.castillo.puche/C-PUCHE10-AcExtr.htm

Writer Félix J. Palma has won the Alberto Lista short story contest (1.000.000 pta.; EU 6.025, USD 6.000) with "Rosas contra el viento", a story about a clerk who receives an unexpected birthday present from his grandfather. http://www.fundelmonte.es/al7.htm

The 1999 UPC Novella Awards were won by Alejandro Mier G. Cadaval (Mexico) with "Homunculus" and by Luis Alonso Noriega Hederich (Barcelona) with "Iménez". They shared the 1.000.000 pta. (EU 6.025, USD 5.770) first prize. Daniel Mares (Madrid) got the 250.000 pta. (EU 1.505, USD 1.440) special prize with "I.A.", and Joaquín Revuelta ("Si pudieras ver Niágara"), Mike Resnick ("Hunting the Snark") and David Rabadá i Vives ("Un deu pels ignorants") were finalists. Canadian author and past winner Robert J. Sawyer gave a speech on the future of science fiction.

Writer César Mallorquí won the XXII Gran Angular novel contest organized by the Santa María foundation with his novel "La Catedral"

PUBLICATIONS
 

Writer Armando Boix will take part with his short story "El niño que no quería ser feliz" in an European anthology that will be presented in the Utopia festival at Futuroscope (Poitiers, France) in October 2000. The anthology will be published in France, Germany an Italy, while an English edition is still under negotiation. Other European writers included are Andreas Eschbach (Germany), Christian Grenier (France), Chistopher Priest (United Kingdom), Nicoletta Vallorani (Italy), Peter Schaap (Netherlands) and Hans Henrik Loyche (Denmark).

Pagés Editors publishing house presented its new collection of Catalonian SF on March 2nd, during the celebration of the Week of the Catalonian Book in Barcelona. Its first titles include "Més enllá de l´equació QWR", by Ricard de la Casa, "Els silencis d´Eslet" by Jordi Solé i Camardons, "Llibre de Tot" by Antoni Munné-Jordá, "Testimoni de Narom" by Miquel Barceló and Pedro Jorge Romero, and "La gesta d´Utnoa", by Abel Montagut.

The amateur publisher Juan José Aroz has added to his Espiral colection the following titles: Los subterráneos, by Carlos F Castrosín, and Crisalida, by Eduardo Gallego y Guillem Sanchez.
http://www.izar.net/~aroz/t.html

Plaza & Janés publishing house has announced the new titles in its new Mundos Imaginarios colection: "Estación de Hawksbill" by Robert Silverberg, "El viaje del Space Beagle" by A.E. Van Vogt and "Las puertas de su cara, las lámparas de su boca" by Roger Zelazny.

Writer Rafael Marín has published his short story "Bibliópolis" in issue 75 of the Cuadernos del Aula de Literatura José Cadalso del Ayuntamiento de San Roque (Cádiz). In this way Marín becomes the first SF writer to join a distinguished list of Spanish authors who have enjoyed the same honour.

Ediciones Sombra has published "Exxo", the first generic SF role playing game of full Spanish made.
http://leo.worldonline.es/edsombra/

Catalogue of pulp Spanish novels is a publication of lists of series from the 40s and 50s which include "El Coyote", "El Encapuchado", "Yuma", "Hombres Audaces", "El Pirata Negro", "El Halcón", etc.
Contact: Jorge Tarancón. c/ Porto Cristo, 6. 28924 Alcorcón (Madrid).

Fanhunter, a Spanish comic-book by Cels Piñol who satirized the world of Spanish SF and comic fans will no longer by published by Planeta-DeAgostini, but will continue as an independent edition.
http://www.barnacity.com/

The País Vasco University has published the second volume of the winners of its Alberto Magno long story contest, containing stories from the 7th to the 10th edition.
http://www.ehu.es/castellano/paginas/deportes/actividades_culturales.htm

Solaris, guía bimestral sobre literatura fantástica. Under this name an new SF magazine has appeared, published by La Factoría de Ideas and edited by writer León Arsenal. Its print-run is of about 10.000 copies, well beyond its nearest competitor, Gigamesh magazine.
http://www.distrimagen.es
factoria@distrimagen.es

Spanish magazine Data (on SF movies) has spawned a new magazine, Nexus, on SF stories.
http://www.interbook.net/personal/garry98/data.htm

Axxon magazine, an electronic publication from Argentina, has published its issue 103 on Spanish authors. It includes the stories "El día que hicimos la transición", by Pedro Jorge Romero and Ricard de la Casa, "El síndrome de Pinocho", by José Miguel Pallarés, and "Ejércitos" by Eduardo Vaquerizo.
http://www.giga.com.ar/axxon/

La Factoría de Ideas has begun the publication of a new SF collection. Its first titles will be "Cambio de esquemas" ("Frameshift") by Robert J. Sawyer, "Darwinia" by Robert Charles Wilson, and a new edition of "Ubik" by Philip K. Dick.

A new fanzine on fantastic modelling has appeared under the name Fantplastic.
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Corridor/4217/
http://pagina.de/fantplastic

The amateur Andromeda collection of SF novels has already published two books and will soon publish the third containing three short stories by Juan Antonio Fernández.

A dictionary on Pyrenaic fantasy by writer and illustrator Chema Gutiérrez Lera has been published by Prames.

L´illa del gran experiment, a classic Catalonian SF novel by Onofre Parés which originally appeared in 1927, has been published by the Catalonian SF and Fantasy Society and the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC).

De King Kong a Einstein. La física en la ciencia ficción is the title of a popular science book on the relation between physics and SF by Jordi José and Manuel Moreno.

The amateur publishing house Silente has published the second volume of the Spanish classic 50s series "La gran saga de los Aznar", by Pascual Enguídanos, and "Tarsis", a spin-off of the series by young author Mario Moreno. http://www.silente.net

Resistencia humana, by Julio Fuentes Serrano, has been published by Plaza & Janés.

Bailarina, by Galician writer Manuel Seixas, has been published by Xerais in its Narrativa collection.

OTHER ACTIVITIES
 

Condor Crux is an computer-animation movie produced jointly by Spain and Argentine to be released later this year.

SF Night in Gijón. As part of the "From Dusk till Dawn" town hall programme to keep youngsters out of the streets at night, a SF Night took place in Gijón (Asturias). It included workshops, films and exhibitions.

Project eLibris. The Electronic Library of the AEFCF, which presents classic Spanish SF in diskettes has entered a new phase under Project eLibris. More information: aefcf_elibris@egroups.com

La Biblioteca de Alejandría, a radio programme on science that is broadcasted nationwide (RNE 1), read some stories published by the AEFCF in its "Visiones" and "Fabricantes de Sueños" anthologies starting in January. http://www.rtve.es/rne/r1/p08/r1p08.htm

Estrella Negra. A new fan club of Babylon 5 was foundes under the name Estrella Negra. It publishes a bimonthly bulletin, schedules meetings to watch chapters that have not yet been broadcasted in Spain, and plans to publish a new fanzine on the series.
http://go.to/estrellanegra
fjaqueti@ctv.es
juanjo_cabrejas@hotmail.com
maria.sierra@ii.uam.es

A new weekly meeting of SF fans has been established in Vigo (Galicia, northwestern Spain) which joins the current surge in meetings all over Spain.

ALFA Cultural Association. Last December a new association was created in Aragon (northeastern Spain) to help push along preparations for the 2001 national convention in Zaragoza.
jochu@ctv.es
saga@arrakis.es

The Catalonian SF and Fantasy Society has recently become independent form the Catalonian Language Writers Association, where it was born two years ago. It hopes nevertheless to keep the collaboration with the Association.
http://www.partal.com/aelc/sccf/flaixos.html
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/7461/

Bibliographic help. At http://qoweb.usc.es/cf/jcc/GalCF.html, in the "arquivos" section, version 2.1 of Ayuda Bibliográfica for Windows can be found. It is a HLP file which contains a list of every book published in the best known Spanish SF collections.

American writer David Brin will be the next lecturer at the UPC Awards ceremony, to be held on November 29th in Barcelona.

Spanish SF writer Rafael Marín joins co-plotter Carlos Pacheco and artist Jose Ladronn in the Marvel comics 4th issue mini-series "The Inhumans", starting April 2000. Starting Fantastic Four 35 (september 2000) Marín and Pacheco will both write and plot Marvel Comic´s flagship, while Pacheco and Jesús Merino will be the artist team.

SOURCES AND OTHER INTERESTING SITES ON SPANISH SF:

http://www.aefcf.es
http://www.drimar.com/asturcon
http://www.cienciaficcion.org
http://193.144.76.38/agasf
http://www.arrakis.es/~jndro/terma.htm
http://usuarios.intercom.es/nacpb/frames.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/7461/
http://www.geocities.com/javromara/
http://www.ciencia-ficcion.com/
http://pagina.de/artifex
http://www.pjorge.com/nessus
http://www.bemmag.com/
http://www.izar.net/~aroz/
http://www.silente.net/
http://qoweb.usc.es/cf/jcc/GalCF.html

* The information in Espora is free for anyone to use, provided that the newszine is mentioned as the source.

* Espora is a newszine distributed by mailing list. To join the list, go to http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/espora. Comments and suggestions should be sent to espora@aefcf.es.

The editor would like to thank Ricard de la Casa, Alejo Cuervo and Julián Díez for their kind help.

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