The British Library is hosting a special event called: Heartwood: Telling the Matter of Britain, from 18.30 – 20.00 on Friday, 2 September 2011, in the Conference Centre – Main Auditorium, 96 Euston Road, London.

In his extraordinary books Mythago Wood, Lavondyss and many others, the late Robert Holdstock explored a mythic landscape of this land; using the tools of science fiction and fantasy at timeless depths and earning him acclaim as an heir to Tolkien or Ursula Le Guin. His work will be the starting point for an evening of exploration, discussion and readings with authors Brian Aldiss, Stephen Baxter and Lisa Tuttle, scholar Donald E. Morse (editor of The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock) and other special guests. The evening will be chaired by Graham Sleight.

Tickets cost £7.50 / £5 concessions and can be purchased online.

Tags: British Library, discussion, Heartwood, Mythago Wood, panel, the Matter of Britain
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Petr Recieves the award on behalf of Rob from František Novotný

On Saturday, at the Book Fair in Prague, the Czech Akademie Science Fiction, Fantasy a Hororu bestowed its 2010 Best Fantasy and Horror award on Rob’s last Mythago novel, Avilion.

Rob’s friend and translator Petr Kotrle was on hand to receive the award on behalf of Rob and his publisher, Polaris.

František Novotný, a well-known Czech SF writer, gave a warm speech about Rob’s imagination and legacy of books.

Rob would have been pleased!

Tags: Avilion, foreign, novels, translations
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The Czech Akademie Science Fiction, Fantasy a Hororu has announced its list of nominations for its annual Academy Awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror 2010.

Rob’s novel Avilion has been nominated in the Best Fantasy and Horror category.

Here’s the prestigious short-list:

• Joe Abercrombie: Best Served Cold (Polaris)
• Hal Duncan: Ink (Laser-books)
• Robert Holdstock: Avilion (Polaris)
• China Miéville: Kraken (Laser-books)
• Dan Simmons: The Black Hills (Pleiades Publishing)

Rob’s friend and translator Petr Kotrle is also nominated in the ‘Best Translator’ category – Rob would have been delighted for him.

Rob won the Akademie’s Best Novel Award in 2002 for The Iron Grail.

Tags: av, Avilion, Awards, news, nomination
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McFarland has published a collection of essays analysing Rob’s prose work, which is called The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical Essays on the Fiction.

It’s edited by Donald E. Morse and Kálmán Matolcsy. It’s part of McFarland’s Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy series, which is edited by Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III. A foreword to the book is written by Brian Aldiss.

About the Book
Robert Holdstock was a prolific writer whose oeuvre included horror, fantasy, mystery and the novelization of films, often published under pseudonyms. These twelve critical essays explore Holdstock’s varied output by displaying his works against the backdrop of folk and fairy tales, dissecting their spatiotemporal order, and examining them as psychic fantasies of our unconscious life or as exempla of the sublime. The individual novels of the Mythago Wood sequence are explored, as is Holdstock’s early science fiction and the Merlin Codex series.

About the Editors
Donald E. Morse is a professor at the University of Debrecen, in Hungary, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Oakland in Michigan. He is the author of a dozen books and over 100 scholarly articles. Kálmán Matolcsy is a translator, poet, composer, and a professor at the University of Debrecen. He has written numerous scholarly articles on the literature of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He lives in Greenville. C.W. Sullivan III is a professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University and a full member of the Welsh Academy. He is the author of numerous books and the on-line journal Celtic Cultural Studies.

Tags: academia, analysis, essays, news
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