In the British Commonwealth, the Queen’s New Year’s honours list has been released. Among this year’s honorees, those with connections to sf/f/h include:
Actor Patrick Stewart will receive an OBE, Knight Bachelor (see the full list on this page)
Actress Margaret Maud Tyzack will receive a CBE, Order of the British Empire (full list is here).
Writer and translator Anthea Bell will receive an OBE, as will children’s author Ronald Gordon King-Smith, better known as Dick King-Smith (full list is here).
Stewart, born in 1940, is best known in sf circles for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he is also a well-known Shakespearean actor, and famously performed all the characters in a one-man version of A Christmas Carol. His other genre roles include: Professor X in the X-Men series of movies, starring in the short-lived series Eleventh Hour (2006), and roles in Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage (2010), TMNT (2007), Chicken Little (2005), Mysterious Island (2005), The Last Dragon (2004), Back to Gaya (2004), Suchimuboi (2004, Steamboy), Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001), If We Had No Moon (1999), The Canterville Ghost (1996), The Pagemaster (1994), The Doctor and the Devils (1985), Lifeforce (1985), Dune (1984), Kaze no tani no Naushika (1984, Warriors of the Wind), and Excalibur (1981).
Tyzack, born in 1931, is a stage and Emmy-nominated television actress who was first awarded an OBE in 1970. Her genre roles include: Scoop (2006), The Thief Lord (2006), Until Death (2002), Quatermass (1979), The Legacy (1978), an eleven-episode run in Jackanory (1970), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and The End Begins (1956).
Bell, born in 1936, is best known for co-translating the French Asterix comics into English (along with her co-translator, Derek Hockridge).
King-Smith, born in 1922, is a prolific children’s author best known for The Sheep-Pig (1983), which was renamed Babe the Gallant Pig in the US, and adapted into a live-action film as Babe in 1995. Wikipedia lists his extensive bibliography on this page.
The New Year’s honours list is assembled by a committee within the British Cabinet Office. It is one of two annual lists (the other being released at the Queen’s birthday, in June). Queen Elizabeth II awards the honours to recipients in ceremonies at Buckingham Palace.