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Detroit-area Novelist Up For Major Science Fiction Award

HUNTINGTON WOODS, Mich. (WWJ) - A local novelist could hear his name called when the science fiction world's equivalent of the Oscars are handed out Sunday night. They're the Hugo Awards, and writer Saladin Ahmed is up for one. A huge accomplishment considering he was nominated after just his first full-length book.

"Writing is something where you spend quite a lot of time in isolation, so you are sort of sitting there plugging away at it for years, and maybe you show some of your progress to close friends, other writer colleagues," Ahmed said. "But, the larger world in general doesn't know what you're doing and doesn't care," he added with a laugh.

Crescent MoonAhmed's book, "Throne of the Crescent Moon," is the first in a trilogy, but it's a story that he says can still stand on its own.

"Fantasy readers tend to want to return to the same woes and the same characters once they're hooked, so this is the first novel in a series, and so my kind of pitch is that it's the stand-alone first book in a trilogy. If one wants just a book that they can read in a few days and enjoy as a fun read, there's that. But if you want to get hooked into a new fantasy world, this first book certainly opens the door for a trilogy, which I'm in the midst of writing the second and third books now."

Listen to WWJ Newsradio 950 on Sunday, September 1st, to hear Terri's reports with Ahmed.

Follow Terri on Twitter @TerriJLee

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