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Going Down to Geffen
27/10/2003 . Source: Jessica Martin 
The 'Geffens', Israel's annual Science Fiction and Fantasy awards, are presented in Tel Aviv by author Orson Scott Card. The fifth Geffen award ceremony took place on Thursday, October 16th, in Tel Aviv. The Geffen award is Israel's main Science Fiction and Fantasy award. The award is given on behalf of the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, and is presented each year during ICon, Israel's biggest Science Fiction and Fantasy convention.
This year the awards in the Best Israeli Science Fiction novel and Best Israeli Science Fiction short story were given by Mr. Orson Scott Card ("Ender's Game") who was the convention's guest of honor.
This years winners are: "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman that won the best fantasy novel for 2003 (the other nominees in that category were: "Coraline", also by Neil Gaiman, "The Golden Compass" by Phillip Pullman, "Jehereg" by Steven Brust, "Last Call" by Tim Powers, and "Fevre Dream" by George R Martin).
The Best science fiction award for 2003 was won by Stanislav Lem's classic re-issue of "Solaris" (the other nominees in this category were: "In the Garden of Iden" by Kage Baker, "Belarus" by Lee Hogan, "The Telling" by Ursula K. Le Guin, and "Passage" by Connie Willis).
"Sometimes It's Different" by Vered Tuchterman won the category of Best Israeli Science Fiction novel for 2003. "Sometimes It's Different" by Ms. Tuchterman is a collection of short stories that deals with the strange moments of reality. Some are set in our own reality and others are set in futuristic and strange realities.
The other nominees in the Best Israeli Science Fiction novel category for 2003 were: "The Road to Heaven" by Gyle Haareven - a collection of short stories set in dreamlike realities, "The Guide of the Perplexed" by Gilad Azmon, set 30 years in the future after the destruction of the state of Israel, "Hatchling" by Guy Hasson, a novel by one of Israel's young and promising Science Fiction writers, and "Red Night" by Gal Amir, an original vampires novel set during the last 500 years in Israel.
"All-of-Me(TM)"
by Guy Hasson won the category of Best Israeli Science Fiction short story for 2003. Mr. Card presented the award for both winners in those categories.
"All-of-Me(TM)" by Guy Hasson deals with the possible ramifications of personality duplication.
The other nominees in the category of Best Israeli Science Fiction short story were: "I Carry You" by Hamutal Levin, the story of a brilliant young girl who lives in a reality where human intelligence is degrading, "Serach" by Ilan Eshkoli tells the story of an old woman who lives in a Kibutz in modern day Israel since biblical times, "All Men In Peace and Harmony" by Vered Tuchterman tells the story of two fighting military units: one Israeli and the other Palestinian, when suddenly a hostile alien spaceship lands and both Israeli and Palestinian have to unite against the common enemy.
"One time cutlery" by Asaf Ashery is the story about a confrontation over a one time cutlery between an strange software engineer who cant deal with silverware and environmental fanatic that recycle takes a surprising turn.
In the second part of the Geffen Award ceremony Mr. Card hosted a workshop with the audience titled "1001 Ideas in One Hour".
Icon 2003 was organized by the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, Starbase 972, and the Israeli Society for Role-playing, took place in Tel Aviv between the 14th and the 16th of October 2003, and was the seventh ICon since 1997.
The convention's guest of honor was SF writer Orson Scott Card ("Ender's Game") - rather well received by thousands of fans that packed many of the events in which he participated. The line of fans waiting over five hours for the author to sign his novels caught the attention of Israel's national press.
ICon 2003 was also the biggest Science Fiction and Fantasy convention ever to take place in Israel. It was spread over three different adjoining sites in the heart of Tel Aviv's nightlife area. Events started on each of the three days of the con at 10.00am, lasting until 3.00am the next day.
Among the events was a talk by Mr. Card on leadership in general, and the way it reflects in the Ender novels in particular. Another event was a panel in which Mr. Card's body of literature work was discussed.
Mr. David Chanoch, the Science Fiction and Fantasy editor of Modan publishing (formerly, the editor at Opus Press, the Israeli publisher of the Hebrew versions of Mr. Card's novels) hosted the panel of which the other participants were Mr. Asaf Ashery, the current Science Fiction and Fantasy editor at Opus Press, Ms. Noa Menhaim, a literary critic at one of Israel's leading newspapers and Mr. Card himself.
Other notable events were an active screening of "Once More, With Feeling", the famous musical episode from "Buffy", and sneak previews of "Below" and "Equilibrium". Anime fans were given a rare opportunity to watch Miyazaki's 1986 film "Castle in the Sky" on a big screen.
A huge arena was set up in front of the Tel Aviv Cinemateque, where most of the con's films were screened, while a 12-hour role playing games session took place each day.
Many stands were located at the long corridors of the convention buildings, among them an exhibition by Avi Katz, Israel's leading SF artist.
Apart from participating in Icon, OSC also took time to travel in Israel, visiting Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee, and declared himself impressed with the country and its active SFF community.
When asked, Orson noted that there are not many non-English speaking countries able to nominate five local nominees in SFF categories.
:wink:
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