Lawrence.com

Nearly a dozen award-winning authors of science fiction and fantasy will sign copies of their publications Saturday at Oread Books.

The signing is in conjunction with the annual Campbell Conference, sponsored by Kansas University's Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and its John W. Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. The theme of this year's conference, scheduled for Tuesday through Friday, is "Science Fiction Past, Present and Future: How writers, teachers and editors shape science fiction, and where science fiction may be going as a result of these personal influences."

Authors attending the book signing will include: Robin Wayne Bailey, Pat Cadigan, Matthew Candelaria, Bradley Denton, James Gunn, Karen Hellekson, Kij Johnson, Christopher McKitterick, Frederik Pohl and Ann Tonsor Zeddies. They will be joined by the to-be-announced recipient of the 2005 Theodore Sturgeon Award.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be from 12:45 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. in the store, located on level 2 of the Kansas Union.

The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science fiction novel of the year has been presented at KU since 1979; the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of the year has been presented at KU since 1987. The honors will be announced at an Awards Banquet the evening before the signing.

For more details about the Campbell Conference, visit www.ku.edu/~sfcenter/.