Pimping my nominations for this year's 'Best Related Work' Hugo Award
Patrick Moore & David A. Hardy, Futures: 50 Years in Space (AAPPL, 2004)
Peter Weston, With Stars in My Eyes (NESFA, 2004)
Futures: 50 Years in Space shows off all the reasons why David Hardy is at the forefront of astronomical illustration: strong colour, an often sparing and elemental sense of composition, and imagination tempered with an awareness of current scientific knowledge.
Despite its having mostly astronomical subject matter Futures is also a relevant book to science fiction because of its lineage. As a young artist in the 1960s Hardy was inspired by Chesley Bonestell, and after Patrick Moore began presenting the BBC series The Sky at Night (something he is still presenting to this day) Moore gave Hardy his big break. Their association has since lasted as long as humanity has had a presence in space, and the greatest success of this collaboration was their 1972 illustrated book Challenge of the Stars. The number of young people that Moore & Hardy's must have influenced in various ways - either to take up science, art (myself included), or just to interest them in space exploration or just to liberate their imaginations with science fiction itself - must be enormous. It was one of those landmark books on the imagining of space, and now its descendant Futures is both a retrospective and an updating of that 1972 original. Expanded with over eighty new illustrations along with up-to-date text from Moore (with the exception, of course, of the latest about Saturn's moon Titan) it is easily digestible providing encapsulated and lively discussion about the solar system, assorted stellar phenomena and the galaxy as a whole. But the important ingredient on show is the imagination: while Hardy strives for scientific accuracy, his paintings - some computer enhanced - are not dry photographic depictions, they do have that necessary 'sensawunda' to make you look again and think beyond what you're seeing.
As recognition for being one of the world's most renowned space artists, Hardy also had an asteroid named after him in 2003. He also continues to illustrate SF magazines and book covers for PS Publishing among others, and had an excellent Paper Tiger retrospective of his work, Hardyware, published in 2001. Futures ought to inspire a new generation of space enthusiasts in the same way Challenge of the Stars did for me, therefore it's one of the two books I'm nominating for this year's 'Best Related Work' Hugo Award at Interaction, the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, in Glasgow in September.
The other book I'm nominating is Peter Weston's very enjoyable With Stars in My Eyes, an autobiographical look at British fandom in the 1960s and 70s (which also contains a lively appendix tagged onto the end from long-haired fishlifter). It's always good to learn what went on further upstream when you step into the river, so I found it very illuminating to learn about all of British fandom's various factions and feuds at a time when I was still in short trousers. Pete Weston's long-running fanzine Speculation probably also doubled as the British SF magazine of its day, and how he pulled it all together for every issue with, by today's standards, such limited resources seems rather extraordinary to a new fan-ed such as myself. A useful read indeed.
Many attending fans don't bother to nominate and just wait to vote on the shortlist, but without sufficient nominations a book or person may never make it to that stage. If you're attending Interaction get your nominations in soon!