2008 World Fantasy Awards

Life Achievement to: Leo & Diane Dillon, Patricia McKillip.
Novel to: Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay;
Novella to: Illyria by Elizabeth Hand;
Short Story: "Singing of Mount Abora" by Theodora Goss; Anthology to: Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural by Ellen Datlow, Editor;
Collection to :Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman.

Studs Terkel, Voice of Chicago, Dies

The author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago symbol died last Friday. He was 96 years young. "My epitaph? My epitaph will be 'Curiosity did not kill this cat,'" he once said. "Studs Terkel was part of a great Chicago literary tradition that stretched from Theodore Dreiser to Richard Wright to Nelson Algren to Mike Royko," Mayor Richard M. Daley said Friday. "In his many books, Studs captured the eloquence of the common men and women whose hard work and strong values built the America we enjoy today. He was also an excellent interviewer, and his WFMT radio show was an important part of Chicago's cultural landscape for more than 40 years."

Author Michael Crichton Dead at 66

Michael Crichton, the visionary physician author, died Tuesday. He wrote numerous books, including, The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Airframe, and Sphere. He started writing as a means to pay his way through medical school, but he switched to writing full time because "the writing was more interesting than the medicine." He also created the popular TV series ER. In the New York Times, Charles McGrath described Crichton as "a kind of cyborg, tirelessly turning out novels that were intricately engineered entertainment systems. No one--except possibly Mr. Crichton himself--ever confused them with great literature, but very few readers who started a Crichton novel ever put it down."