Correction



I've since found out we do actually have a couple of genre entries in the new Waterstone's Prize-Winning Books campaign. Chris Priest's The Seperation which won both the BSFA and the Arthur C Clarke award last year (only third time that has happened) is in there and a couple of Crime Writers Association Dagger winners. I hadn't noticed because there is a colour leaflet goign along with the campaign with details of the books featured. these ain't in there. So we do have some genre winners in there, we just want to keep it quiet...



It gets better though - Alex told me about a head office bulletin where someone was asking why the Seperation was in there and what the hell did it win? Now it is a little on the lamentable side that professional bookseller wouldn't know this - but then again most of our head office aren't booksellers anymore - but each year I send the shortlist for the BSFA and the Arthur C Clarke nominees to our bulletin people so everyone gets to hear about it and then the winners when announced. Nice to know these idiots totally ignore that information... Oh well, their loss - we sell very well from our SF awards shortlist displays; it's a great chance to highlight the top quality writing in the genre and I've always found our regulars respond favourably to the display. It's also nice to see a lot of the nominees each year are titles we've previously had in our SF Recommends, so we're obviously on the button (smug mode engaged).



Not on any shortlist I know of, but extremely enjoyable nonetheless if the new Rob Grant - he of Red Dwarf fame - novel, Incompetence. Partly a detective tale, it is really an excuse for Rob to have a damend good rant about the things that are bugging him - EU legislation, railways timetables and stupidity in general. Somewhere between a humorous noir (if there is such a thing) and Grumpy Old Men - I think I've annoyed msot of my colleagues as I laughed my arse off reading it at lunch. Roll on Thursday and our return visit from Rob.