Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List

Locus Magazine has unveiled its 2009 Recommended Reading List, their must-read picks for books released last year. Six of Tachyon's 2009 titles are recommended on this impressive list.

The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker.







The Best of Michael Moorcock by Michael Moorcock






The Secret History of Science Fiction edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel







We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle







Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow







The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction edited by Gordon Van Gelder

Spotlight: John Coulthart

Here at Tachyon, we work with a lot of wonderful people, and we want to shine the spotlight on some of the many folks who make our books so great.

John Coulthart is the designer behind the gorgeous interiors (and sometimes exteriors) of so many of our latest books, including The Best of Michael Moorcock, Booklife, The Hotel Under the Sand, and The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His personal style is surreal, ornate, and richly detailed. In addition to books, John designs logos, websites, graphics, and CD and DVD packages. He is also a comics illustrator, contributing to HP Lovecraft adaptations and the controversial Lord Horror.

John explained his career choices in a 2009 interview with Innsmouth Free Press: "I never thought of pursuing what’s called a fine art career. Illustration interested me a lot more, not least because it was evident that the surreal imagery I preferred was no longer encouraged in the gallery world, whereas it flourished on book jackets and record sleeves. Illustrators and graphic designers seemed to have a huge audience for their work and also seemed to connect with people who would never visit an art gallery."



Besides Tachyon, John has produced work for Night Shade Books, Savoy Books, and Wyrm Publishing. His designs and illustrations have appeared on record sleeves, CD and DVD packages for Cradle of Filth, Alan Moore & Tim Perkins, Steven Severin, Jon Hassell and more. His own book, The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions, collects his Lovecraft adaptations and comics. He is a contributor to Arthur Magazine.



To see more of John's work, you can visit his website.

John's site
John's blog
John's store

SF in SF - elementary, my dear Watson!

SF in SF - Science Fiction, San Francisco - A Perfect Fit
www.sfinsf.org


Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Variety Preview Room
582 Market St. @ Montgomery
1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.
Doors open at 6:00PM, reading begins at 7:00 PM

SF in SF is pleased to present authors JEDIDIAH BERRY and LAURIE R. KING.

Jedediah Berry was raised in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. His short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best New American Voices and Best American Fantasy. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, and works as the assistant editor of Small Beer Press. The Manual of Detection is his first novel, now available in hardcover and paperback.

While Laurie R. King's fiction falls into several areas, first in the hearts of most readers comes Mary Russell, who becomes first the apprentice of Sherlock Holmes, and then his partner. Over the course of ten books (and more to come!), Russell and Holmes challenge each other to ever-greater feats of detection, traveling the world from Sussex to Simla. King's other series concerns San Francisco homicide inspector Kate Martinelli, her SFPD
partner Al Hawkin, and her life partner Lee Cooper. In the course of her five books, Kate has encountered a female Rembrandt, a modern-day Holy Fool, two difficult teenagers, and a manifestation of the goddess Kali.

Each author will read a selection of their work, followed by Q & A moderated by author Terry Bisson. Booksigning and schmoozing in the lounge afterwards.

Books for sale at event, courtesy of Borderlands Books

Kage Baker 1952-2010

We here at Tachyon and SF in SF were deeply saddened to hear of Kage's passing, due to a rare form of cancer, this past Sunday morning. The community has been weighing in with tributes, accolades for her writing, and expressions of love, good will, and the desire to have changed this history to one with a better outcome. There's no words to express, really, the unfairness of the situation, but as author Charles de Lint wrote, "I have spent many happy hours in her imagination." We have enjoyed happy hours in Kage's company, and at several SF in SF events, and hope you have too. Life can be pretty damn unfair at times. This is one of those times.

She will be greatly missed, and our condolences to her family and tribe. Go read her books. Your life will be the richer for them.

For more information, please view the page set up at at SFWA . I also would like to point readers to Marty Halpern's lovely tribute, and the info her sister has given permission to post at Green Man Review.

SF in SF Reading Night - 1/16 Nancy Etchemendy and Jeff Carlson

SF in SF

Science Fiction. San Francisco. A perfect fit.

Readings by Nancy Etchemendy & Jeff Carlson

Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Variety Preview Room
582 Market St. @ Montgomery
1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.
Doors open at 6:00PM

Join us for readings by authors Nancy Etchemendy and Jeff Carlson. No need to RSVP, simply show up ready to have fun. Seating is limited, and first-come, first-seated. Books for sale at the author events are courtesy of Borderlands Books.

Nancy Etchemendy is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Power of Un. Jeff Carlson is the international bestselling author of the Plague Year trilogy.

Cash Bar - Proceeds to Variety
Readings begin at 7:00PM Followed by Q & A moderated by Terry Bisson
Signing and schmoozing in the lounge afterwords.

Email sfinsfevents@gmail.com for more information

Phone night of event only - 415.225.7445.
Invite your friends - and pass this along!

It's time to get hungry

Are you excited for The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals? You should be! Here are a few appetizers to hold you until its debut next month:

Want a sneak peek at Kosher Guide? Jewcy has got one right here. If it doesn't make your mouth water with anticipation for a tasty Sasquatch, nothing will.

Jewish Humor Central wants to know: Which Dr. Seuss creatures are kosher? While Dan Friedman from the Jewish Daily Forward reminds his audience that kosher isn't just for real animals anymore.

Hungry yet?

SF in SF movie night - 1/9Night of Mayhem (Monty Python!)

SF in SF
Science Fiction. San Francisco. A perfect fit.

Saturday, January 9, 2010
6:00pm - 10:00pm
Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg, 1st Floor, 582 Market St. @ 2nd & Montgomery
San Francisco, CA

Join us for our first film of 2010 - ushering in our 5th year of SF in SF supporting Variety Children's Charity!

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Films will begin about 6:30PM-ish

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (aka "Mønti Pythøn ik den Høli Gräilen" ) directed by Terry Gilliam, 91 minutes

LIFE OF BRIAN (play "Spot the Neil Innes") directed by Terry Jones, 94 minutes

This year we are ramping it up folks! In 2009 we raised close to $6k for the charity, and I've sworn to raise $10k in 2010! Come and help fight the good fight, have a drink and some fun laughing, singing, and saying "Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z'nourrwringmm!"

(Free drink to whoever can say that backwards before having said drink.)

And - a special raffle for a Spam-a-lot goodie basket before the first film!!

Join us - no need to RSVP - by simply showing up ready to have fun. Seating is limited, and first-come, first-seated.

Email sfinsfevents@gmail.com for more information

Phone night of event only - 415.225.7445.
Invite your friends - and pass this along!

Stories from the Aughts for the Ages

I've been kicking around this idea for a while, so...

Here are some of my must-read stories in the last decade of books from Tachyon.

Note: this is *not* a top ten (as perhaps evidenced by the twelve stories).

"Love Is the Plan, The Plan Is Death" by James Tiptree, Jr. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. Atypical Tiptree, yet exemplifies her incredible rapid-fire prose with a touching/horrifying love story between...two spiders?

"Minutes of the Last Meeting" by Stepan Chapman. Steampunk. Highly original World War I steampunk with a sentient communist apparatus, a dying Russian czar, and a race toward global annihilation. Fun!

"Journey into the Kingdom" by M. Rickert. The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology. A young man becomes obsessed with a girl whom he believes might not be alive. This edgy navigation of romantic illusions is perfectly executed and shocking.

"Hell Is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang. Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology. A grief-stricken man's wife is killed by an errant angel, which triggers an irredeemable crisis of faith. I can't begin to do justice to this devastating story.

"The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche" by Peter S. Beagle. The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances. The elegantly-told, impossible friendship that inspired Tachyon's logo, a Chesley Award, and my vast personal stakeholdership in the Kleenex corporation. Gets me every time.

"Human Moments in World War III" by Don DeLillo. The Secret History of Science Fiction. This tale of two astronauts trapped together in orbit around a doomed Earth is vintage DeLillo: interior, melancholy, deliciously unsettling. Undeniably genre-breaking too.

"The War of the Worldviews" by James Morrow. The Cat's Pajamas and Other Stories. Morrow's witty tribute to H. G. Wells, philosophy, and the awesome power of music. Also this: "Do you solicit me as head of the Epistemology Committee, or in my capacity as a paranoid schizophrenic?"

"Beauty and the Opera or The Phantom Beast" by Suzy McKee Charnas. Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms. A stark, psychologically complex portrait of a young singer who turns the tables on a seemingly depraved monster. Perhaps the best reinterpretation of a fairy tale I've ever read.

"Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams. Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. A sweet tale of a childhood wonderland that morphs into a private hell for a teenage boy and the family who brutally betrays him. Strange and full of subtle dark humor.

"Stable Strategies" by Eileen Gunn. Stable Strategies and Others. Drones on the corporate ladder, meet Kafka on steroids. Get ahead or lose your head. Literally. (Thank God Eileen and I got out in time.)

"Sorrel's Heart" by Susan Palwick. The Fate of Mice. A young woman is born with her heart outside of her body and struggles to survive in a cruel world. A starkly vulnerable piece that co-mingles beauty and horror in equal measures.

"Letters to the Editor" by Michael Swanwick. Cigar Box-Faust and Other Miniatures. Swanwick's personal bios for Asimov's detail his escapades as the one true Western Bodhisattva, a guest DJ for Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Germany's most beloved cartoon mouse.

Adventures in SciFi Publishing interviews Jill Roberts

Jonathan Schiefer at Adventures in SciFi Publishing has posted a podcast interview with...me! (Jill) He and I chatted at World Fantasy Convention about Tachyon, what we do, how we work with our authors, and what the future of publishing will be (which, of course, only I know). Many thanks to Jonathan for making me feel at ease and editing me into coherency; who knew being interviewed could be such fun?

Steampunk Reloaded Open for Submissions

Tachyon is very pleased to announce that Ann and Jeff Vandermeer will edit the sequel to one of our favorite anthologies, Steampunk.

If you wish to submit a previously published story for consideration in the anthology, please carefully read the guidelines below.

From the Vanderblog:

STEAMPUNK RELOADED, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and to be published in fall 2010 by Tachyon Publications, announces an open reading period.

The sequel to the World Fantasy Award finalist anthology Steampunk will read submissions between December 15, 2009, and February 15, 2010. Any English-language story previously published in the past decade on a website or print publication is eligible for consideration. Our definition of Steampunk is fairly broad, so if in doubt, send it. Keep in mind that Steampunk has become much more diverse over the past few years, and we are very interested in non-traditional and multi-cultural points of view.

Submissions between 1,500 and 10,000 words should be sent in a Word or RTF document to steampunkII at hotmail.com. We don’t care about margins or format, but please cut-and-paste the first three paragraphs into the body of your email, include prior publication information, but do not include any biographical information about yourself. Alternatively, use snail mail by sending your work to POB 4248, Tallahassee, FL 32315. Snail mail submissions should be marked on the outside of the envelope as for Steampunk Reloaded consideration. No SASE is required if you prefer email response. You can send your email submissions before December 15, but we won’t begin reading them until December 15. All submissions will be responded to no later than February 28; please do not query about a submission prior to that date.

Payment will be on publication, at standard reprint rates of one to two cents per word, against a share of any royalties from the North American or foreign editions, as well as one contributor copy.