Happy birthday to National Book Award finalist Michael Cadnum
The author of more than thirty books for adults, teens and children, Michael Cadnum is perhaps best know for his adult suspense fiction and young adult fiction based on myths, legends, and historical figures. His acclaimed novels include Calling Home (1991 Edgar Award nominee), Breaking The Fall (1992 Edgar Award nominee), The Crusader trilogy (The Book Of The Lion [2000, National Book Award finalist, a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, and an Owl Creek Book Award winner], The Leopard Sword [2002], The Dragon Throne [2005]), Flash (2010), and Seize The Storm (2012).
His numerous short fiction has been collected in CAN’T CATCH ME AND OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES (2006) and Earthquake Murder (2018). A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the Helen Bullis Prize for his poetry, Cadnum’s many books of poems include This Early Dark (2016), The Woman Who Discovered Math (2001), By Evening (1992), and Long Afternoons (1986). His short stories “Daphne” and “Can’t Catch Me” were both performed as one-act plays.
All of us at Tachyon wish Michael a very happy birthday.
Win a copy of the inimitable Daniel Pinkwater’s ludicrous romp CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE
With the help of the fine folks at GOODREADS, we’re giving away a copy of the legendary Daniel Pinkwater’s new middle-grade adventure CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
The Pinkwaterverse is a place of delight and camaraderie, wordplay and weirdness, magic and epic sojourns. Each Pinkwater novel is a novelty and unmistakably part of his vast literary legacy. CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE is a trip to whale heaven, an afterlife that we can all aspire to.
—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother
The inimitable Daniel Pinkwater (The Big Orange Splot; The Hoboken Chicken Emergency) brings his zany wit and wisdom to a gentle middle-grade adventure following a kid’s off-the-beaten-path journey, featuring an unfocused spiritual guide, a not-quite-dwarf, a graffiti “artist,” a ghost whale, and mystical shenanigans galore.
CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE is a ludicrous romp reminiscent of the Muppets! This is a book that will make you laugh, grin, and maybe look for more whimsy in your own world.
—Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger
Mick is a good kid, but maybe he can use just a little guidance. But it’s unclear who will be guiding whom, because Mick’s brother came home from Tibet with the self-proclaimed Guru Lumpo Smythe-Finkel and his dog Lhasa―and then promptly settled both of them in Mick’s bedroom.
(The thing about this kind of guru is that he doesn’t seem to know exactly what he’s trying to do. He sure does seem to be hungry, though.)
Anyway, Mick agrees to something like a quest, roaming the suburbs with the oddest group of misfits: Lumpo and Lhasa; graffiti-fanatic Verne; and Verne’s unusual friend Molly. Molly is a Dwergish girl―don’t worry if you don’t know what that is yet―and she seems to be going off the rails a bit.
Along the way, the gang will get invited to a rollicking ghost party, consult a very strange little king, and actually discover the truth about Heaven. Or a version of the truth anyway, because in a Daniel Pinkwater tale, the truth is never the slightest bit like what you’re expecting.
Mick returns home from summer camp to find ‘a little old man’ named Guru Lumpu Smythe-Finkel occupying his bedroom in Pinkwater’s (ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL) jovial novel. Though Mick’s older brother Maurice brought Lumpu and his dog Lhasa home from his trip to the Himalayas, the guru takes Mick on as his apprentice. During their daily hikes, Lumpu—who insists that destiny led him to Poughkeepsie, N.Y.—teaches Mick to appreciate the innate oddness of his hometown. The pair are joined by Vern, Mick’s environmental activist friend from summer camp, and Molly, a new arrival from the Catskill Mountains who describes herself as ‘crazy… I’m not myself.’ After encountering a ghost whale named Luna, the group embarks on a quest to guide the cetacean to her final resting place at the “whaley pearly gates.” . . . . This caper offers comical adventure, and Renier’s b&w illustrations exude classic comic strip aesthetics, admirably complementing Pinkwater’s straightforwardly told absurdist humor.
—Publishers Weekly
Celebrate the release of the new middle-grade adventure CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE with the famed Daniel Pinkwater and acclaimed Aaron Renier
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
The legendary writer Daniel Pinkwater and popular artist Aaron Reiner will be participating in a pair of celebratory virtual events for the release of their new book CRAZY IN POUGHKEEPSIE.
May 10
4PM PT
May 15
1PM CT
Book Cellar
PLEASE RSVP
Happy birthday to Leonard Pine, the ultimate bad ass
Photo Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/SundanceTV
Vietnam vet, sometimes private investigator, sometimes bouncer, and all around bad ass, Leonard Pine is a gay, politically conservative black man from LaBorde, TX. Alongside his “brother” Hap Collins, who is straight, white, and liberal, Pine challenges the seedier and more unpleasant elements of East Texas. The, at times, bumbling duo has fought the Klan, the Dixie Mafia, murders, kidnappers, and all sorts of other notorious hombres.
Pine has zero tolerance for racist or anti-gay slurs and will challenge the offenders with strong fists and a barbed tongue. His aggressive nature has led to many encounters with the law, most notably regarding his repeated torching of neighborhood crackhouses.
Beginning with Savage Season (1990), Joe R. Lansdale used his adventures with Collins, as the basis for the popular Hap and Leonard series. The 25 published books include five titles currently available from Tachyon Publications: HAP AND LEONARD (2016), THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD (2018), HAP AND LEONARD: BLOOD AND LEMONADE (2018), OF MICE AND MINESTRONE (2020), and BORN FOR TROUBLE: THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF HAP AND LEONARD (2022). The pair’s life also inspired the TV series, Hap and Leonard, which is currently available on Netflix.
All of us at Tachyon wish a happy birthday to Leonard, our favorite cantankerous moral enforcer. May your day be filled with vanilla cookies and Dr. Pepper.
Golden Age great A. E. van Vogt was born 109 years ago
Born April 26, 1912, the popular and influential writer A. E. van Vogt began his long and illustrious career writing for “true confession” style pulps. Shortly after, he decided to pursue a career as a science fiction writer. Van Vogt’s first sci fi short “The Black Destroyer” appeared in the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The story remained one of his most popular stories, often cited as a source for the film Alien. In 1980, he was honored with Prix Aurora Award Life Achievement and in 1996, named a Nebula Grand Master.
In a career that spanned five decades, van Vogt produced numerous legendary and acclaimed novels including Slan (1946; 2016 Retro Hugo), The Weapon Makers (1947; 2005 Prometheus Hall of Fame), The World of Null-A (1948), The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950), and The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951). Out of the Unknown (1948), which featured stories co-written with his wife E. Mayne Hull, was the first of his many short story collections.
Tachyon was honored to publish FUTURES PAST: THE BEST SHORT FICTION OF A. E. VAN VOGT (1999), the last of his books to see print before the author’s death in 2000.
The extraordinary Avram Davidson was born 99 years ago
Born on April 23, 1923, Avram Davidson was a medic in the Navy during World War II, fought with the Israeli Army in the 1948 war for independence, and began writing in the early 1950s as a Talmudic scholar. He eventually produced nineteen acclaim novels including Joyleg (1962 with Ward Moore), Mutiny in Space (1964), Kar-Chee [Rogue Dragon [1965], The Kar-Chee Reign [1966]) , a pair of mysterious as by Ellery Queen (And on the Eighth Day [1964] and The Fourth Side of the Triangle [1965]), Clash of Star-Kings (1966), Vergil Magus (The Phoenix in The Mirror [1969], Vergil in Averno [1987], The Scarlet Fig ; or, Slowly through a Land of Stone [2005]), The Island Under the Earth (1969), Peregrine (Peregrine: Primus [1971], Peregrine: Secundus [1981]), Ursus of Ultima Thule (1973), and THE BOSS IN THE WALL (1998 with Grania Davis).
His more than two hundred short stories and essays were collected inCrimes & Chaos (1962), Or All the Seas with Oysters (1962), What Strange Stars and Skies (1965), Strange Seas and Shores(1971), The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy (1975; World Fantasy Award Winner), Polly Charms, The Sleeping Woman (1977), The Redward Edward Papers (1978), The Best of Avram Davidson (1979), Avram Davidson: Collected Fantasies (1982), And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose (1986), Weird Tales no. 293 (Winter 1988-1989, special Avram Davidson issue), The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy (1990), Adventures in Unhistory (1993), The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998), The Investigations of Avram Davidson (1999), The Last Wizard; with A Letter of Explanation (1999), El Vilvoy de las Islas (2000), Everybody Has Somebody in Heaven (2000), The Other Nineteenth Century (2001), The Beasts of the Elysian Fields by Conrad Amber (2001), ¡Limekiller! (2003), and David & Son: Peregrine Parentus and Other Tales (2016). Produced by the official Avram Davidson site, The Avram Davidson Universe podcast features a reading of many of these shorter works alongside a discussion of with a special guest.
While at the helm of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964, Davidson also edited three volumes of The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction (13-15) and later Magic for Sale (1983).
His work garnered Davidson two Hugo (1958 Best Short Story “Or All the Seas with Oysters”; 1963 Best Professional Magazine The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) two World Fantasy (1976 Best Anthology/Collection The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy; 1979 Best Short Fiction “Naples”), and an Edgar (1962 Best Short Story “Affair at Lahore Cantonment) award. In 1986, he was given the prestigious World Fantasy Award For Life Achievement.
Lavie Tidhar’s THE ESCAPEMENT is honored with a 2022 Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation
At Norwescon 44 in SeaTac, Washington, the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award was announced with Dead Space by Kali Wallace winning the award and Lavie Tidhar’s THE ESCAPEMENT garnering a special citation.
Congratulations to the honorees.
The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society.
Philip K. Dick Award
Happy birthday to the incomparable grandmaster Peter S. Beagle
A recipient of the prestigious World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award and creator of the iconic The Last Unicorn (1968), Peter S. Beagle’s has thrilled and entertained multiple generations of fans. His other book length works include A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE (1960), The Folk of the Air (1986, winner of the Mythopoeic Award), The Innkeeper’s Song (1993, winner of the Locus Poll Award), The Unicorn Sonata (1996), Tamsin (1999, winner of the Mythopoeic Award), SUMMERLONG (2016), IN CALABRIA (2017), and THE LAST UNICORN: THE LOST JOURNEY (2018).
Design by Elizabeth Story
Beagle’s numerous award-winning short fiction have been collected in Giant Bones (1997), THE RHINOCEROS WHO QUOTED NIETZSCHE AND OTHER ODD ACQUAINTANCES (1997), THE LINE BETWEEN (2006), Strange Roads (2008), WE NEVER TALK ABOUT MY BROTHER (2009), Mirror Kingdoms: The Best or Peter S. Beagle (2010), SLEIGHT OF HAND (2011), and THE OVERNEATH (2017). The story “My Son Heydari and the Karkadann” was published alongside ”The Unicorn Triangle” by Patricia A. McKillip in the limited edition chapbook THE KARKADANN TRIANGLE (2018).
He began working in TV and film by writing episodes of Thirty-Minute Theater (1967 “Come Death”) and Apple’s Way (1974 “The Zoo”) and the feature films The Dove (1974 with Adam Kennedy, based on the book by Robin Lee Graham and Derek Gill) and The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened (1977; based on the book by Don Robertson). Beagle followed up the screenplay (with Chris Conkling) for the Ralph Bakshi-helmed Lord of the Rings (1978) with his own script for The Last Unicorn (1982), the Bass and Rankin interpretation of the beloved book. Among Beagle’s other writing credits are teleplays for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1990; “Sarek,” one of the most influential and acclaimed episodes of the popular series) and The Little Mermaid TV series (1992). The film adaption of his story “The Bridge Partner” (shot in 2015) was included in the anthology film Grave Intentions (2020).
Beagle has edited several acclaimed anthologies: Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (1995 with Janet Berliner and Martin H. Greenberg), THE SECRET HISTORY OF FANTASY (2010), THE URBAN FANTASY ANTHOLOGY (2011 with Joe R. Lansdale), THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY (2017 with Jacob Weisman; winner of the World Fantasy Award), and THE UNICORN ANTHOLOGY (2019 with Weisman).
Everyone at Tachyon wishes the beloved Peter a happy birthday. May it be magical.
Happy birthday to the irreverent, award-winning author David Ebenbach
The author of eight books, David Ebenbach‘s output runs the gamut from fiction, poetry, to non-fiction. His first book, the collection Between Camelots (2005), won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the GLCA New Writers Award in Fiction. This established a pattern as he garnered awards for four of the next six published works: Into the Wilderness (2012; Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize), We Were the People Who Moved (2015; Patricia Bibby Award), The Guy We Didn’t Invite to the Orgy (2017; Juniper Prize for Fiction), and Miss Portland (2017; Orison Fiction Prize). His other critically acclaimed titles include The Artist’s Torah: A Spiritual Guide to the Creative Process (2012), Some Unimaginable Animal (2019), and his first science fiction novel HOW TO MARS (2021).
He currently works at Georgetown University, teaching creative writing and literature at the Center for Jewish Civilization and promoting student-centered teaching at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. In 2015. Ebenbach founded the AGNI blog, the companion to the influential literary magazine, which he edited until 2019.
Everyone at Tachyon wishes the witty David a happy birthday! May your dreams be full of Martian vistas and the conundrums thereof.