M.M. Buckner wins the Philip K. Dick Award!!

M.M. Buckner has won the 2006 Philip K. Dick Award for her novel War Surf. I am so proud of her, I can barely type these words.

So what is the Philip K. Dick Award?

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented each year to the best science fiction book published originally as a paperback. Philip K. Dick, himself, was a science fiction writer who was largely unrecognized throughout most of his career, but fame finally hunted him down. He is the author of such classics as The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the inspiration for the movie Bladerunner.


So who is M.M. Buckner?

M.M. Buckner is well, my friend Mary. I know her because of a shared interest in whitewater kayaking. She is a very accomplished paddler and her husband, Jack Lyle, is a hair-boater of some reknown, when he’s not out skydiving.

Despite being a very pretty lady, Mary is one of those people that you might miss in a crowded room. She hardly ever says anything and anyway she would probably be sitting in a corner reading a book. I don’t think that she’s shy so much as that she just has better things to do.

I was a Buckner fan long before she ever got published. Because I am a technophile and a scientist and because she puts a lot of nanotechnology in her novels, she lets me read her work first to make sure she gets the science part of sci-fi right. She is a consummate professional. Mary works very, very hard. Sometimes the good guy (gal) does win.

Reading Mary’s stuff for the first time was like finding out that your buddy from the Daily Planet, good old Clark Kent, was not Superman in his spare time, but Franz Kafka. How could this demure little lady possibly have this kind of stuff going on in her head? How could Mary be M.M. Buckner? It boggles the mind.

M.M. Buckner is the author of three published novels now, Hyperthought, Neurolink and War Surf. A fourth is on the way and I will get to read it long before you do. Eat your heart out.