To Write Like a Woman - Joanna Russ (Indiana)
Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years - Edited by Pamela Sargent (Hardcort Brace)
The Complete Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens - Edited by Peter Haining (Watts)
I've been looking for The Complete Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens since working on John Langan's House of Windows, so I was delighted to stumble onto it.
Then, on our way home, we wandered into the library sale at the Petaluma Library. Where I snapped up the following:
The Classic Philip Jose Farmer 1964-1973 (Crown SF Classics)
Metropolitan - Walter Jon Williams (HarperPrism)
Tales of Old Earth - Michael Swanwick (Frog, Ltd/Tachyon)
The Fantasy Hall of Fame - Edited by Robert Silverburg (HarperPrism)
Philip K. Dick In His Own Words - Gregg Rickman, Forward by Roger Zelazny (Fragments West/The Valentine Press)
And I checked out Diana Wynne Jones's Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories (Greenwillow).
So I've been reading bits and pieces: "Nad and Dan adn Quaffy" in the Jones collection (I'd seen it referenced in the comments on Jo Walton's "What is it with coffee?" at Tor.com, and had to read it; I may need to re-read it, as I'm not completely sure I "got" it), and "On the Fascination of Horror Stories, Including Lovecraft's" and "A Boy and His Dog: The Final Solution" in Russ (the latter of which is a classic bit of SF criticism, a bit hysterical perhaps, but with plenty of valid points, yet had me watching nostalgically L. Q. Jones's adaptation of Harlan Ellison's most mean-spirited apocalypse this morning, the opposite intent, I'm sure, of Russ's thesis.).
And, as Jeremy recently noted, Eclipse Three has been named one of the ten best SF books of the year on Amazon.com. And yet, it has no reviews! So here's your challenge: Be the first one to review Eclipse Three at Amazon and you win a prize. Any takers?
(And don't you just love that Richard Powers cover?)
Short answer: CHAOS!
Last Thursday, the decree came down from the top. We were moving. That weekend. Wheels had been in motion for weeks, leases signed, notices given. We knew we would be moving, but the announcement was still a bit of surprise, coming immediately after Jason recovered from World Fantasy (the flu, I believe, but an entirely Jason-centric mutation). Books would be moved over the course of the weekend; office pack-up, I assumed, would start on Monday. I left that evening after reserving a 24' truck for the occasion, and feeling like I was leaving the move in more capable hands.
Monday, sure enough, Jason's garage was empty. Maddie sniffed around at the Styrofoam scraps scattered around the emptiness as we wandered back to the office, where she settled in to her bed under my desk and I booted up my laptop. While we settled in for the day, Hannah the Intern arrived. We chatted for a few minutes, then I checked my e-mail. A quickly-typed message from Jeremy, subject line: MOVING AND SHIT. "Warehouse is a disaster," it read. "I need you and Hannah to head over."
I considered bashing my head against the keyboard. Instead, I said, "Looks like we're headed over to the new digs, Hannah."
I loaded Maddie into the car, then drove across town, talking music, city life, science fiction, and academia with Hannah, wondering just what we'd gotten ourselves into.
Needless to say, the place was a mess. One garage and two storage units worth of carton after carton of science fiction, fantasy, and horror hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and mass markets, loaded onto a truck, then unloaded in nearly random order. Our mission: Sort the books onto pallets, like titles together. My back ached to think about it. A few hours of tossing around twenty-to-thirty-pound boxes of books, and all the weird similarities of genre fiction titles titles become painfully obvious. We navigated our way through piles of PRADOR MOON FLIGHTS, climbed stacks of PRECIOUS DRAGON NEVER SLEEPS, and eventually we'd made a dent. We called it a day. I loaded Maddie back into the car, gave Hannah a ride to where she'd left her bicycle, then drove home, sore, dirty, and exhausted.
Maddie wasn't terribly happy working in the warehouse on Monday. She complained about the cold concrete floors and noise all the way home, so she stayed home today.
( More behind the cut. )
But first: The suit! Kitted up on Sunday for the World Fantasy Awards banquet.
( More to see behind the cut! )
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-b) Did the latest issue of Electric Velocipede show up?
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11) Load the car, hope for the best.
12) Kiss Jennifer goodnight. Tell her I'm sorry I'll be missing our tenth anniversary, but duty calls. And that I'm looking forward to the next ten years. And twenty. And thirty. And so on.
While I'm (loosely) on the subject of pseudonyms, the brand new Graham Joyce novel, How to Make Friends with Demons, showed up at the Night Shade warehouse on Monday. This novel was originally published in the UK as the faux-memoir, Memoirs of a Master Forger, by "William Heaney" (the novel's protagonist). It was a real pleasure to be able to work on the Night Shade US edition, and it's even better to (finally) get this one out into the wild and into readers' hands. It's a great book, intelligent, literary, topical, and fantastic, and I highly recommend it to all of you.
Amazingly enough, we even managed to get all the HTMFWD preorders shipped out yesterday afternoon (thanks to Hannah the Intern!). Ah, it's great being caught up on shipping. Here's a quick glance at my copy of the book, hanging out before I bothered to shelve it last night.
Looks great, eh? If I do say so myself (and I will), it's even better (and less blurry) in person. All the elements came together. Eugene Wang's jacket design, spine stamp, and title logo work hand-in-hand with Mike Dringenberg's artwork. And I'm really happy with how the layout comes across; why the margins are wide enough that I doubt even Jeff VanderMeer could find something to kvetch about this time around (then again, why jinx myself?). Why even the boards of the book itself, cased in red with matching header caps, look awesome. Major shout-out to Michael Lee, NSB's Production Guy, for pulling this one together.
But enough about the book-as-physical-object. I know what you're saying: "Why should I read this book? And what's up with that title; is this a self help book?" Consider this: Charles de Lint says, "Anyone who isn't reading Graham Joyce is doing themselves a huge disservice"; The Guardian calls it "an ultimately uplifting feat of storytelling which grips the reader to the very last page"; SFRevu says that How to Make Friends with Demons "stands as a model example of the craft, a master class in novel construction and character development."
Better yet, consider these comments in praise of "An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen," the O. Henry Award-winning excerpt (originally published in The Paris Review) from the novel:
"The thing I admire most about this tale is the pace, the rhythm, the economy of incident and the accuracy of the words. Each sentence adds something to the world being described. It looks simple and easy, and is in fact controlled and crafted." - A. S. Byatt, author of Possession.
"There is so much to admire, and so much to love... that I'm daunted by the task of doing justice to this beautifully shaped, immaculately pitched, and scarily convincing - as nightmares are convincing... story." - Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried
Still not convinced? My very good friend, Maddiezilla, High Demon of the Seventh Realm, says: "Buy this book, or I'll swallow your soul!"
House of Windows, by John Langan. Jacket illustration by Santiago Caruso, jacket design by Michael Gin.
I've been a fan of John Langan's fiction for quite a while. His contributions to John Joseph Adams' Night Shade anthologies, Wastelands ("Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers"), The Living Dead ("How the Day Runs Down"), and By Blood We Live ("The Wide, Carnivorous Sky") represent some of the most finely-crafted stories in the genre. His collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters is an easy recommendation. So it was a joy to be able to work on his debut novel, House of Windows.
House of Windows is a contemporary ghost story with roots that reach back to Poe, Lovecraft, James (both of 'em), and Dickens, and it's a helluva read. But don't take my word for it, read the jacket copy:
When a young writer finds himself cornered by a beautiful widow in the waning hours of a late-night cocktail party, he seeks at first to escape, to return to his wife and infant son. But the tale she weaves, of her missing husband, a renowned English professor, and her lost stepson, a soldier killed on a battlefield on the other side of the world, and of phantasmal visions, a family curse, and a house... the Belvedere House, a striking mansion whose features suggest a face hidden just out of view, draws him in, capturing him.
What follows is a deeply psychological ghost story of memory and malediction, loss and remorse. This unnerving tour de force, exploring the literary haunted house, from Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft to today, incorporates family trauma, abstract art, literary criticism, the occult Dickens, and the war in Afghanistan. From John Langan (Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters) comes House of Windows, a chilling novel in the tradition of Peter Straub, Joe Hill, and Laird Barron.
House of Windows is shipping November 1. We will have the book in hand for World Fantasy, NSB will be shipping preorders once we get back from San Jose, and the book will be available at the usual online merchants and at better bookstores near you.
The Windup Girl is the brand-new dystopian thriller from Paolo Bacigalupi. If you don't know Paolo's work, you should. Paolo's fiction deals unflinchingly with environmental and sustainability issues that many authors are afraid to touch. The science is cutting-edge, the settings grim and evocative, the prose resonant. At the same time, Paolo's writing is character driven, lush, and captivating, with an impassioned emotional core.
But don't take my word for it. I'll be the first to admit I'm biased. Read a couple of Paolo's short stories. Read an interview or two. And check out this jacket copy and awesome cover image:
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of "The Calorie Man" (Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and "Yellow Card Man" (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.
Now go track down a copy of The Windup Girl for yourself. We've got 'em in stock at Night Shade Books, so you can order directly from us, or you can get it through the usual suspects like Amazon.com (and while you're ordering The Windup Girl, don't forget to pick up Paolo's collection, Pump Six and Other Stories), Borderlands ,Borders, Barnes and Noble, Copperfield's, and your better local independent booksellers. And if they don't have it in stock, demand they order it through Diamond Books, Ingram, or directly from NSB). And don't forget to recommend it to your friends.
And I'm just beat. Once I'm home, I plan to spend the entirety of Wednesday recovering.
But food is complicated. Menus are in French, and these folks do love their meat. I may end up losing weight this con.
But other than that, am having fun. And missing Jennifer and Maddie.
Hopefully I'll reach 100% recharge soon, since the Brotherhood without Banners (or is that Badgers?) is having their party tonight, and I'd hate to miss it. Seriously, GRRM has some awesome fans.
Arrived late last night, then joined the editors' pub crawl.
Today: We have a table, but no books.
Jeremy's off touring the printer.
Makes setup difficult.
Back to the hotel; check UPS.
Half scheduled to arrive today, half tomorrow.
Fun, fun, fun.
...more later.
Needless to day, I'll be posting pictures throughout the week (Will I manage to get any embarrassing pictures of Neil Gaiman playing quarters in a hotel restroom? Stay tuned!). And thoroughly missing Jennifer and Maddie. And cursing Rogers Communications for imposing a $.69/minute roaming charge on my cell phone.
But on the plus side, at least Maddie and I don't have to do any shipping for the next few days.
"Can I come along?" asked Maddie. "I'd fit in your suitcase, if you get rid of most of those clothes. And I'd be a lot of help at the table. When people come over and say 'What a cute little dog,' you can sell them books. What do you say?"
"Nope," I answered, shaking my head. "You've got to take care of Jennifer this week."
"Maybe she can fit in your suitcase too."
I scratched Maddie's ears. "Ain't gonna happen," I said.
"Oh, phooey!" said Maddie.
(Geek points if you get the reference in the subject line. Bonus geek points if you're singing along.)
In other words, By Blood We Live is finally out! You remember, right? The John Joseph Adams-edited vampire anthology I gave you a sneak preview of back in March, the one featuring a quarter-million words of the best of the last thirty years of vampire short fiction? The one with stories by John Langan, Robert J. Sawyer, Elizabeth Bear, and Lilith Saintcrow (not to mention Neil Gaiman, Anne Rice, Harry Turtledove, Stephen King, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Sergei Lukyanenko, Tanith Lee, Joe Hill, Kevin J. Anderson, L. A. Banks, and Catherynne M. Valente, among others)? The one that includes a definitive vampire fiction bibliography for further reading. The one vampire anthology you absolutely need on your bookshelf.
It's out! And in-stock* at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other e-tailers, and very likely on the shelves at a better bookstore near you (and if it isn't, make 'em order you one).
So what are you waiting for? Go get it!
And don't forget to click on the cover above and check out the official website, with free samples, author interviews, and much, much more.
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* However, we are still waiting for stock to show up at the 'Shade.
Recently, I had a chance to sit down and chat with Nathalie Mallet, author of the Prince Amir mysteries, Princes of the Golden Cage and its recently-released sequel, The King’s Daughters, about real-world inspirations, worldbuilding without maps, literary influences, and writing across genres. So take a few minutes, click on through, and read the Night Shade Interview with Nathalie Mallet.
Hang on, I know what you’re going to say. Hear me out. As I read thread-after-thread on this highly emotional topic, I thought to myself, Orwell’s dead, I get that, and I get the whole free culture thing, and I fully realize that the entire iPod business model is based on compatibility with your illegally downloaded music library, but what if this was a new book, by working authors? What if this was a book by a bunch of professionals expecting, and in many cases just plain hoping, to get paid? What if this was a Night Shade book? What if this was, say, THE LIVING DEAD?
And not more than an hour later, I found myself sending DCMA takedown notices to two of the biggest file hosting and blog hosting companies out there, all because some knucklehead had made a bootleg version of that very book (THE LIVING DEAD) available on his blog. And I fully expect that link to be gone by tomorrow morning, because I’ve had to do this before. A few months ago I had to do the same for John Joseph Adams’s previous Night Shade anthology, WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE and I won’t be a bit surprised when I have to do it again in a few months for BY BLOOD WE LIVE and THE IMPROBABLE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
Because that’s what a responsible publisher does. When you agree to publish someone’s book, you are purchasing from them the exclusive right to distribute that work, this is a limited, legal monopoly, and it’s up to you as the publisher to make sure that not only is the author not getting ripped off by the existence of bootleg copies, but also that those copies out there represent the work in the best way possible. Bootlegs are shoddy, error-ridden affairs (but then again, so are many e-books, but that's another matter entirely), beyond the control of author and publisher; the recipient of a bootleg book might be reading another book entirely!
Amazon did the right thing, because these versions of 1984 and ANIMAL FARM were unauthorized editions. Straight-up stolen. No amount of righteous indignation can convince me otherwise. Unlike Amazon, if you downloaded THE LIVING DEAD, I'm not going to come over to your house and delete it from your computer. I'll leave that up to you and your conscience. And ultimately, it’s not like 1984 itself has disappeared down the aforementioned “memory hole.” The Virginia M. Woolf Foundation have an “extra large print” edition available for Kindle download. Just four bucks. Order yours today.
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And no, I don't own a Kindle. But if someone from Amazon.com is reading this, feel free to send me one for review.
Anyway, here's a quick run-down of our recent arrivals (available NOW at better bookstores near you):
The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Volume Four: The Maze of the Enchanter
The Shadow Pavilion, by Liz Williams
The Lees of Laughter's End, by Steven Erikson
Mall of Cthulhu, by Seamus Cooper
Bar None, by Tim Lebbon
Prador Moon, by Neal Asher
Precious Dragon, by Liz Williams
The King's Daughters, by Nathalie Mallet
Moon Flights, by Elizabeth Moon
Mass Market Paperbacks!
Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams
Passage at Arms, by Glen Cook
After the Downfall, by Harry Turtledove
Balefires, by David Drake
All our Mass Market Paperbacks to date (spines up):
Ice, Iron and Gold, by S. M. Stirling
Lightbreaker, by Mark Teppo
The Demon and the City, by Liz Williams
Snake Agent, by Liz Williams
Balefires, by David Drake
Passage at Arms, by Glen Cook
Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams
The Princes of the Golden Cage, by Nathalie Mallet
The King's Daughters, by Nathalie Mallet
Moon Flights, by Elizabeth Moon
Precious Dragon, by Liz Williams
Prador Moon, by Neal Asher
After the Downfall, by Harry Turtledove
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Three, edited by Jonathan Strahan
Incandescence, by Greg Egan*
The Swordbearer, by Glen Cook
"So what are you waiting for?" wonders Maddie. "Go buy some books!"
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* Wow, I posted about the hardcover release of Incandescence exactly one year ago. This Trade Paperback edition features all-new cover copy, and we were able to fix a couple of the hardcover's glitches.
The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith Volume 4: The Maze of the Enchanter will be shipping right around the end of June, continuing our five-volume Collected Fantasies series. Today, the Bard of Auburn is best known as a writer of weird fiction, one of Weird Tales' most prolific contributors, and a contemporary of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. But he was also a poet (one reviewer dubbed Smith "the Keats of the Pacific"), sculptor, and painter, in short, a twentieth-century renaissance man. To learn more about Smith (and see photographs of his art), we encourage you to visit Boyd Pearson's excellent website, The Eldritch Dark. The Maze of the Enchanter includes, in chronological order, all of Smith's stories from "The Mandrakes" (February, 1933) to "The Flower-Women" (May, 1935), extensive story notes by editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, and an introduction by the inimitable Gahan Wilson.
And remember, The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith Volume 4: The Maze of the Enchanter is just one of the many titles eligible for our annual 50% off sale, which runs through June 17. Just add four or more books to your shopping cart, then enter coupon code 50NSB2009 at checkout, and we’ll knock your final price in half! If you've been looking for an excuse to order the entire five-volume Clark Ashton Smith series, now is the time!
At long last, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 3 has a cover! And with Fred Gambino's beautiful artwork and design by Eugene Wang, what a great cover it is! With all of my favorite short stories from the last year (Seriously, Jonathan Strahan has picked out an amazing collection of stories here. Lots of editors know what stories you'll enjoy reading; Jonathan Strahan, on the other hand knows the stories you NEED TO READ!), including ones by Paolo Bacigalupi, Elizabeth Bear, Ted Chiang, Holly Black, Peter S. Beagle, Michael Swanwick, and Kelly Link (not to mention some guy from Maine that you might have heard of), The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 3 shows why Night Shade Books has, in my totally unbiased* opinion, the must-buy "best of" of the year. Seriously, if you aren't reading Bacigalupi, Bear, Chiang, and Link, you might as well not be reading at all.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 3 is headed to the printer this week, so it will be shipping right around the end of June (and showing up at better bookstores near you in early-to-mid July). But do you know what's even cooler that that cover? The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 3 is just one of the items included in the annual Night Shade Books 50% off sale! That's less than thirty five cents per story! Just order the book along with three other titles, then put in coupon code 50NSB2009 at checkout, and we'll knock your final price in half! How easy is that?
Not completely convinced? Then read the jacket copy and lineup:
An alien world with an argon atmosphere serves as the stage for the ultimate self-examination; an African-American scientist dissects a Lovecraftian slave race while fascism rears its head on the other side of the world; an elderly Jewish artist attracts a celestial muse; a doomed village of scavengers discovers the scattered pieces of a metal man; a stalwart reporter gambles on an interview with the power to alter the world; a steel monkey defends a young girl from a rival family's assassins; a 19th Century country gentleman's curious daughter meets the enigmatic Dr. Viktor Frankenstein; a rivalry between brothers complicates the interpretation of a message from the stars; two girls discover that the cruel social rituals of adolescence apply differently in fact than fiction...
The depth and breadth of science fiction and fantasy fiction continues to change with every passing year. The 29 stories chosen for this book by award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan carefully map this evolution, giving readers a captivating and always-entertaining look at the very best the genre has to offer.
Jonathan Strahan has edited more than twenty anthologies and collections, including The Locus Awards, The New Space Opera, and The Jack Vance Treasury. He has won the Ditmar, William J Atheling Jr. and Peter McNamara Awards for his work as an anthologist and reviewer. Strahan is currently the reviews editor for Locus.
Contents:
Introduction - Jonathan Strahan
Exhalation - Ted Chiang
Shoggoths in Bloom - Elizabeth Bear
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel - Peter S. Beagle
Fixing Hanover - Jeff VanderMeer
The Gambler - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Dust Assassin - Ian McDonald
Virgin - Holly Black
Pride and Prometheus - John Kessel
The Thought War - Paul McAuley
Beyond the Sea Gates of the Scholar Pirates of Sarskoe - Garth Nix
The Small Door - Holly Phillips
Turing's Apples - Stephen Baxter
The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates - Stephen King
Five Thrillers - Robert Reed
The Magician's House - Megan McCarron
Goblin Music - Joan Aiken
Machine Maid - Margo Lanagan
The Art of Alchemy - Ted Kosmatka
26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss - Kij Johnson
Marry the Sun - Rachel Swirsky
Crystal Nights - Greg Egan
His Master's Voice - Hannu Rajaniemi
Special Economics - Maureen McHugh
Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment - M Rickert
From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled... - Michael Swanwick
If Angels Fight - Rick Bowes
The Doom of Love in Small Spaces - Ken Scholes
Pretty Monsters - Kelly Link
Trade Paperback 978-1-59780-149-2
479 Pages $19.95
Still here? Go buy the book, already.
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* Okay, sure. Maybe I'm just a little bit biased. But only a little bit.
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