The Big Idea about Dogs

Nancy Kress has been Scalzied today in John Scalzi's regular book feature, The Big Idea. The subject is Nancy's newest bio-thriller Dogs, which is now available here, there, and everywhere. Scazi says, "Your sweet adorable pet: What if it was a raging vector of viral infection? Maybe that’s not something you actually want to spend time thinking about, but that’s okay, since Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Nancy Kress already thought about it for you." So let Nancy do your thinking for you and pick up a copy, stat.

Michael Swanwick wins Locus Award

Congratulations to the ever-amazing Mr. Swanwick for winning a Locus Award for "A Small Room in Koboldtown." The story is also nominated for a Hugo Award, which given Michael's track record (an unprecedented five Hugos in six years), he just might win too.

You can read this suspenseful locked-room mystery set in Faery, along with the rest of Michael's recent short fiction, in his third and latest Tachyon collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow. Publishers Weekly said in a starred review, "In addition to their individual quality, the 16 stories in this rollicking collection amply demonstrate Hugo-winner Swanwick's impressive versatility." It includes not one, not two, but *three* of those Hugo Award winning stories.

Plus, if you order now, we'll even give you free Media Mail shipping. You want, need, must have a copy.

Starred Library Journal review for Steampunk

I didn't even know Library Journal *gave* starred reviews...oh wait, they gave one to The New Weird. It's the VanderMagic at work...

Steampunk. Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer.
STARRED REVIEW

Verdict: The editors follow up on their acclaimed sf/fantasy anthology, The New Weird, with another first-rate collection of reprinted stories and excerpts. Serving as both a small reference and a thoughtful yet airship-light story collection, their new volume is highly recommended for all libraries that collect speculative fiction.

Background: In their latest collection, the VanderMeers chronicle steampunk, which raises technical power (steam) in 19th-century Victorian settings while tweaking the era’s social structures (punk). Introductory essays neatly define the subgenre’s history and scope, and stories from Michael Moorcock, James Blaylock, Mary Gentle, Michael Chabon, Paul Di Filippo, and Neal Stephenson don’t disappoint. The highlights are diverse: Joe R. Lansdale’s profane and horrific story recasts H.G. Wells’s time machine inventor in the American West as a nasty vampire battling a frontiersman’s steam-powered giant. The delightful ladies of Molly Brown’s "Selene Gardening Society" shame puttering, walrus-mustached husbands into terraforming the moon with a trash catapult. Ted Chiang’s "Seventy-Two Letters" examines the political implications of robotics and cloning in a period story blending scientifically created golems, reproductive technology, and kabbalists. Stepan Chapman reimagines the Russian Revolution with nanotechnology, spybots, and nuclear weapons.
—Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Starred Library Journal review for Steampunk

I didn't even know Library Journal *gave* starred reviews...oh wait, they gave one to The New Weird. It's the VanderMagic at work...

Steampunk. Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer.
STARRED REVIEW

Verdict: The editors follow up on their acclaimed sf/fantasy anthology, The New Weird, with another first-rate collection of reprinted stories and excerpts. Serving as both a small reference and a thoughtful yet airship-light story collection, their new volume is highly recommended for all libraries that collect speculative fiction.

Background: In their latest collection, the VenderMeers chronicle steampunk, which raises technical power (steam) in 19th-century Victorian settings while tweaking the era’s social structures (punk). Introductory essays neatly define the subgenre’s history and scope, and stories from Michael Moorcock, James Blaylock, Mary Gentle, Michael Chabon, Paul Di Filippo, and Neal Stephenson don’t disappoint. The highlights are diverse: Joe R. Lansdale’s profane and horrific story recasts H.G. Wells’s time machine inventor in the American West as a nasty vampire battling a frontiersman’s steam-powered giant. The delightful ladies of Molly Brown’s "Selene Gardening Society" shame puttering, walrus-mustached husbands into terraforming the moon with a trash catapult. Ted Chiang’s "Seventy-Two Letters" examines the political implications of robotics and cloning in a period story blending scientifically created golems, reproductive technology, and kabbalists. Stepan Chapman reimagines the Russian Revolution with nanotechnology, spybots, and nuclear weapons.
—Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Gimme a B...E...A!

Jacob and Rina and I are off to Book Expo America. Some of you, world-weary (i.e. disinclined to follow that last link), may wonder, "what the heck is Book...whatchmacallit?" Glad you asked. BEA is the very biggest publishing trade show. This weekend around 30,000 book professionals will descend upon the Los Angeles Convention Center, crazy logophiles every one. Finally, my people all together!

If you're coming to BEA, stop by our fine distributor IPG's table and say hi. Schmooze a little. It's good for you, you marvelous bookworm you.

God sighting

If you're in NYC, don't miss God, er, I mean Tom Disch at the at The New York Review of Science Fiction reading series next Tuesday night. He'll be appearing with the very talented author of St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell. Go and be in His Presence. In fact, in The Word of God, Disch reveals several of His stealth miracle cures, including one of the esteemed Michael Moorcock himself. You just never know.

NYRSF Reading Series
Thomas Disch and Karen Russell
Tuesday, June 3rd
The South Street Seaport Museum, Melville Gallery, 213 Water Street
Doors at 6:30 PM, program at 7:00. Suggested donation $5

75-25 (we'll take it)

The latest round of Publishers Weekly reviews are out. Dogs gets an unqualified thumbs up ("a spine-chilling, suspense-laden story of pets turned unwitting killers"); Year's Best Fantasy 8 gets a qualified mezza mezza ("Most readers will enjoy the variety, though aficionados of the genre might be nonplussed at some choices."):

Dogs by Nancy Kress

Hugo- and Nebula-winner Kress (Beggar's Ride) offers a spine-chilling, suspense-laden story of pets turned unwitting killers. Why are previously well-behaved pet dogs in rural Tyler, Md., turning on their owners and biting them? What is it that makes the dog bites so lethal? And what about these random events makes the Feds so touchy? Former FBI agent Tessa Sanderson, a dog owner and recent widow who just moved to Tyler, wants to know, and insists on helping Jess Langstrom, a longtime resident of Tyler and its chief animal control officer, to investigate, even as the FBI begins investigating her for suspected links to terrorist organizations. Together and separately, Tessa and Jess track down the answers to Tyler's frightening human and animal crisis. Kress brings her thorough knowledge of genetics and biology to bear in this nicely creepy thriller.

Year's Best Fantasy 8 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

Renowned editors Hartwell and Cramer return with an enjoyable anthology that nonetheless never quite convinces you these are really the best stories of 2007. The standout selections, such as Darryl Gregory's “Unpossible,” a lost boy's poignant return to a fantasy world, and Laird Barron's “The Forest,” an exquisitely sinister exploration of a Lovecraftian landscape, are far better than those by bigger names, such as Michael Moorcock's bitter, solipsistic “A Portrait in Ivory” or Elizabeth Hand's paint-by-numbers sword and sorcery story “Winter's Wife.” The predictability of Theodora Goss's can-do princess in “Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon” and Tad Williams's morally ambiguous good guy in “The Stranger's Hands” are balanced by the originality of the sprightly metalibrary in Holly Black's “Paper Cuts Scissors” and Fred Chappell's Vance-like fantasia “Dance of Shadows.” Most readers will enjoy the variety, though aficionados of the genre might be nonplussed at some choices.

Going, going...

If for some unfathomable reason you didn't rush out to get your copy of Steampunk, you might actually have to wait a few weeks. Less than fourteen days after the publication date and we're going back to press for a second edition. Our distributor already has hundreds of backorders. I know, it's crazy!

Truth is, we never anticipated how *fast* Steampunk would take off (go ahead and insert your zeppelin/steam-based metaphor here if you must), with recent coverage in the Los Angeles Times, on Boing Boing, at Jake von Slatt's Steampunk Workshop, and of course, in the New York Times (OK, they *almost* mentioned our book). Full props to the hardest working editors in the book-biz, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and to our amazing publicist Matt Staggs.

But really, if you're looking for a sale-priced, signed copy of Steampunk, with *free* Media Mail shipping, illustrated lovingly by the editors with a one-of-a-kind dirigible/zeppelin/blimp/floating beastie (I got a lizard balloon!), you have ONE DAY LEFT to get yours.

Starred Publishers Weekly review and Disch interview

Nice!

The Word of God
*STAR* Satire, sociology, religion and biography get tossed into a blender in New Wave poet and fantasist Disch’s latest roller-coaster ride. Claiming that he himself is God, Disch (Camp Concentration) uses notions of divinity to explore his own, sometimes fictionalized life as well as modern culture, dancing in and out of the narrative and weaving in a short story that underlines and mocks the points made in bursts of biography, poetry and no-holds-barred social commentary. Disch also brings in old grudges with fellow author Philip K. Dick, alternately harsh (condemning the “bitter, burnt-out, alcoholic all-American loser” to a personalized hell) and tongue-in-cheek, but for the most part the narrative avoids getting lost in self-indulgence. The careful reader will tease out many solid truths from the tangle of humor, history, surrealism and speculation. The density of ideas packed into this short book is as impressive as Disch’s mastery of his craft. (July)

Also, there's Adam Knave's companion interview, in which Disch reveals a bit more about his divinity.

Now if Kirkus will be as kind to us when they review Steampunk on the 15th. If it's a starred review, I won't even complain about their bizarre new policy of charging $15 for a tear sheet (a copy of the review). Never seen anyone charge for a tear sheet. Of course you could just buy the issue for $25, which is $12.50 off of the single issue price. I know it's mostly for libraries, but, well, yikes.

Authentically steampunk

I was totally unprepared for the sheer fun madness of Maker Faire, which was both huge and very well attended. The highlight for me was The Heather Gold Show's live webcast on being retaining one's authenticity while being a part of a (sub)culture (in this case, Steampunk). The panel featured some very incisive SP folks who were nice enough to chat with me afterward. There was Jake Von Slatt from The Steampunk Workshop, who exemplifies the Maker spirit and is every bit as sweet as I'd imagined from his online presence; the rather dashing Captain Robert, who fronts the SP band Abney Park; and Libby Bulloff, wildly creative artist and proprietress of Exoskeleton Cabaret, and Steampunk Magazine editor. I also met Steampunk Magazine's highly knowledgeable editor and publisher Magpie, who first published the excellent Rachel Pollack story "Reflected Light," which was reprinted in Steampunk. Magpie is considering moving into book publishing (do it, Magpie!). I got to show off and pass out a few copies of Steampunk (which I smuggled in), and everyone was delighted and impressed by it (naturally).