A recipient of the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Eaton awards, David G. Hartwell was a senior editor at Tor/Forge Books and the publisher ofThe New York Review of Science Fiction. He chaired the board of directors for the World Fantasy Convention and founded the Philip K. Dick Award. Though Hartwell wrote the sci-fi insider account Age of Wonders (1984), he’s best remembered for his nearly 50 acclaimed anthologies which included The Dark Descent (1987), The World Treasury of Science Fiction (1989), The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994; with Kathryn Cramer), Northern Suns (1999; with Glenn Grant), The Science Fiction Century (2006), The Hard SF Renaissance (2012; with Cramer), THE SWORD & SORCERY ANTHOLOGY (2012; with Jacob Weisman), and Twenty-First Century Science Fiction (2013; with Patrick Nielsen Hayden). From 1996-2013, Hartwell edited 18 volumes of Year’s Best SF (11 with Cramer) and with Cramer, eight volumes of YEAR’S BEST FANTASY (2001-2009).
After time at Signet and Berkley, Hartwell moved onto Pocket Books, where he founded the Timescape imprint and created the Pocket Books Star Trek publishing line. He edited the best-novel Nebula Award-winners Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980), The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe (1981), and No Enemy But Time by Michael Bishop (1982), as well as the best-novel Hugo Award-winner Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer (2002).
Following a severe head injury, Hartwell passed away in 2016. The editorial genius with the bright ties is missed.
July 12 is the first annual Caribbean Literature Day. Honor the celebration with Jamaican Nalo Hopkinson’s acclaimed FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS.
The House of Nehesi Publishers, on the occasion of the 18th annual St. Martin Book Fair, is hereby inviting all writers, aspiring writers, literary festivals, book clubs, journals, creative writing programs, and all creative artists, institutions, and media of the Caribbean region; all Caribbean peoples; and all lovers of Caribbean writings, authors, and books, from everywhere in the world, to join us in celebrating: July 12 as Caribbean Literature Day.
House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP) full statement calling for Caribbean Literature Day to be celebrated on July 12, 2020, throughout the Caribbean region and beyond.
We envision this day as the first pan-Caribbean literature day, celebrating the roots, range, and excellence of writings and books across the language zones of our region.
Celebrate the day by reading the works of your favorite Caribbean authors; buying Caribbean books, published in the Caribbean and beyond, and by Caribbean authors; and presenting Caribbean books as gifts. Celebrate the day with books, recitals, and with discussions about books, of poetry, fiction, drama, art, music, and all the other genres by Caribbean writers.
458 years ago, on July 12, 1562, the Spanish Franciscan priest and bishop of Yucatán, Diego de Landa, with soldiers and colonial authorities in attendance, burned the sacred books of the Maya people. As July 12 marked the destruction of the first known books and library containing knowledge spanning millennia in the widest space of this region, we are inviting all of you to grace this day with the attributes of the Maya Itzamna’s creative force of writing, of Legba, the opener of the gates of languages, of a brilliant phoenix, and now celebrate Caribbean literature, one of the world’s youngest and most resilient literatures, which continues to flourish within the same region that had at its most ancient recorded foundation, encoded and written in books, the orature and literature of a great people.
Have a happy Caribbean Literature Day, to everyone in every Caribbean country and territory, to everyone in what George Lamming called the Caribbean’s external frontiers and around the world.
Long live Caribbean Literature!
Acclaimed science, science fiction, and historical fiction writer Ellen Klages wrote The Green Glass Sea (2006), which won the prestigious Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and its sequel, White Sands, Red Menace (2008), which garnered her the California Book Award. Other works include the Nebula and Hugo Award nominee TIME GYPSY (1999), the Nebula Award winner “Basement Magic” (2003), the World Fantasy Award winner Wakulla Springs (2013; with Andy Duncan), World Fantasy and British Fantasy Award winner Passing Strange (2017), and Children’s History Book Prize winner Out of Left Field (2018). Her many short stories have been collected in the World Fantasy Award Finalists PORTABLE CHILDHOODS (2007) and WICKED WONDERS (2017). Klages emcees a popular auction at Wiscon that raises money for the Otherwise Award.
Her numerous non-fiction works include Harbin Hot Springs: Healing Waters, Sacred Land (1991), The Science Explorer (1996 with Pat Murphy and Linda Shore), The Science Explorer Out and About (1997 with Pat Murphy and Linda Shore), The Brain Explorer: Puzzles, Riddles, Illusions and Other Mental Adventures (1999 with Pat Murphy, Linda Shore, and Pearl Tesler), and The Scary Ham (2014).
All of us at Tachyon wish the extraordinary Ellen a happy birthday.
We are proud to announce the inclusion of Nalo Hopkinson’s acclaimed collection FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS as part of Humble Bundle’s Be the Change Bundle.
Today, Humble Bundle, a company specializing in digital goods bundles and video game sales, announced that they released their Be the Change Bundle. This bundle represents a common interest from several comic creators to help support the Black Lives Matter movement. Humble Bundle worked with them to curate a unique selection of audiobooks, books, and comics both about and from people of color. A portion of the proceeds from this bundle benefits three charities that are also dedicated to helping support Black lives: The Bail Project, The Carl Brandon Society, and the National Urban League.
“We’re thrilled that Humble Bundle committed to this inclusive project and asked us [to] curate this list of exceptional stories by incredibly talented creators.”
-Karama, TheBlerdGurl
“This was the perfect opportunity to bring attention to a virtual universe of Black art and talent and show just how important it is to have representation both on and off the page.”
-LL McKinney
“We wanted to highlight the array of Black talent in the industry and help support organizations that contribute to access to opportunities!”
-Mikki Kendall
“For me, the most exciting part of this is the incredible range of material here, everything from kids’ books to hard-hitting adventure, to thrilling tales of heroes both imaginary and historic. This is an instant library of gorgeous reads.”
-Gail Simone
The Be the Change Bundle released today, Wednesday, July 8, 2020, at 1PM Pacific and officially ends on Wednesday, July 22, 2020, at 12:59PM Pacific. The total MSRP value for this bundle is over $1,000USD.
Richard K. Morgan, on his eponymous site, recommends Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND.
Even among Tidhar’s award winning body of work, UNHOLY LAND stands out as something special. Here you’ll find the same anarchic rage and rebellion as elsewhere in his fiction, but tamped right down in favour of a deeply humane, melancholic meditation on human potential, longing and loss.
SPARKLYPRETTYBRIIIIGHT feels much the same.
Tidhar shows a supreme mastery of the idea of alternate universes from the get-go, giving not only the obvious exploration of worlds that are stunningly the same as ours but just different enough to send people into a uncanny valley of unease.
Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction has made a call for papers for Decolonising Science Fiction. Within the description they cite Tidhar’s award-winning novel CENTRAL STATION.
In the wake of the worldwide protests after the killing of George Floyd, and the toppling of statues implicated in the legacy of the slave trade, we propose a special issue of Foundation on the topic of ‘decolonising science fiction’. As John Rieder and others have argued, the emergence of sf as a genre is embedded in colonial discourses of the late nineteenth century. The pursuit of new frontiers in outer space, within the Earth or under the oceans not only mirrored ‘the scramble for Africa’ but was also informed by the racialist and pseudo-scientific ideologies of the period. In more recent years, authors such as N.K. Jemisin, Jeannette Ng and Tade Thompson have sought to confront sf with the racist legacy of its origins. Afrofuturism, expressed popularly in films such as Black Panther and the music of Janelle Monáe, is only one of the ways in which artists of the African diaspora are reimagining sf. We argue, though, that the decolonisation of sf goes beyond Afrofuturism and necessitates other indigenous futurisms. At the same time, we also need to consider the work of white authors (Gwyneth Jones’ White Queen, Geoff Ryman’s Air or Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION) who are engaged in critiquing the Anglo-American tradition. Lastly, the intersectionality of critical race studies necessitates that we also consider decolonisation not only in terms of race but also in the intersections with gender, sexuality, class and the (dis)abled body.
Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following:
In a STARRED review for FOREWORD, Danielle Ballantyne praises R. B. Lemberg’s forthcoming THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES (not due until September, but available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon).
R. B. Lemberg spins a world of singing gods, desert nomads, and magic humming in the wind in THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES . . . Impressive world building renders the shifting hues of the desert sands and the cold stone of The Collector’s palace in tight prose. Social structures and customs are relayed with the same deft hand; the free, accepting atmosphere of the desert and its people ends at Iyar’s stifling walls.
ANXIOUS NACHOS includes the book among 30 Days of Pride: The rise of the queer novella.
This book is publishing in September this year and I am very excited to have an ARC for it. This is a trans epic fantasy, set in a world with very strict gender roles and a man who has changed between them and struggles to embody the masculinity required of his new role after years performing the life of a woman.
THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE is excited as well.
September sees the release of the first full-length Birdverse story by Rose Lemberg, which I’m very excited about: The Four Profound Weaves is a desert-set fairytale of identity, death and (obviously) weaving.
Roughly one month from publication (but available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon), interest in Marie Brennan’s DRIFTWOOD ramps up.
At NERDS OF A FEATHER, FLOCK TOGETHER, Paul Weimer praises the book.
And what brings worlds there in the first place to that doom isn’t the point, and as we learn in the stories, the slow destruction isn’t the point, either. The point is what the people of these worlds do with the time that they have. In the time of the Coronavirus, that’s a lesson worth remembering.
In a self-interview, Stephen Theaker on his THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION reveals his thoughts on the novel.
What are you reading? – Reading Glasses Facebook group
DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan, about a place where what seem to be the ghosts of dead planets cluster before disappearing forever. Very good.
SIMPLY A BOOK DRUNKARD also thought highly of the work.
It took me a few chapters to get into this, the lack of main plot line confusing me. But then I was absolutely hooked on this fascinating setting with its diversity in people. It is a shorter read, one I easily got through in a few hours. It is so worth it though, because it is interesting and unique.
I really hope more books will be set in this world. I had a great time with it and highly recommend picking this one up.
THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE deems the forthcoming book as squee-worthy.
August squeeing keeps right on going with Driftwood, introducing a new post-apocalyptic universe – ‘where worlds go to die’ – from Marie Brennan.
A REFUGE FROM LIFE includes DRIFTWOOD among Most Anticipated Books of the 2nd Half of 2020.
The New York Times bestselling writer, editor, teacher, and publisher, Jeff VanderMeer has won the Rhysling Award, British Fantasy Award, BSFA Award, the World Fantasy Award three times, Nebula Award, and Shirley Jackson Award. His acclaimed novels include Dradin, in Love (1996), Veniss Underground (2003), Shriek: An Afterword (2006), South China Sea (2008), Finch (2009), The Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation [2014], Authority [2014] and Acceptance [2014]), Borne (2017), The Strange Bird (2017), Dead Astronauts (2019), and A Peculiar Peril (2020). The film Annihilation, directed by Alex Garland and starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tessa Thompson and based on the VanderMeer novel, premiered in 2018 to rave reviews.
Many of his shorter works have been collected in The Book of Frog (1989), Lyric of the Highway Mariner: A Collection of Poems (1991), The Book of Lost Places (1996), City of Saints and Madmen (2001), The Day Dali Died (2003), Secret Life (2004), Ein Herz für Lukretia [German] (2007), Secret Lives (2008), The Surgeon’s Tale and Other Stories (2007; with Cat Rambo), THE THIRD BEAR (2010), Balzac’s War (2011), and The Compass of his Bones and Other Stories (2011).
VanderMeer co-edited (unless otherwise noted all alongside award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer) several groundbreaking and popular anthologies including Leviathan, Volume One: Into the Gray (1996 with Luke O’Grady), Leviathan 2 (1998 with Rose Secrest), Leviathan 3 (2002 with Forrest Aguirre), The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide To Eccentric & Discredited Diseases (2003; with Mark Roberts), Best American Fantasy (2007; Vol 2 2008), Fast Ships, Black Sails (2008), THE NEW WEIRD (2008), STEAMPUNK (2008), Last Drink Bird Head: Flash Fiction for Charity (2009), STEAMPUNK II: STEAMPUNK RELOADED (2010), ODD? (2011), The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (2011), The Weird (2011), The Time Traveler’s Almanac (2013), Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015), The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016), and The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (2019). Also with Ann, he created THE KOSHER GUIDE TO IMAGINARY ANIMALS (2010).
Among his numerous nonfiction volumes are the acclaimed Why Should I Cut Your Throat? Excursions in the World of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror (2004), BOOKLIFE: STRATEGIES AND SURVIVAL TIPS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY WRITER (2009), Monstrous Creatures: Explorations of Fantasy through Essays, Articles and Reviews (2011), The Steampunk Bible (2011; with S. J. Chambers), and Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction (2013), and The Steampunk User’s Manual: An Illustrated Practical and Whimsical Guide to Creating Retro-Futurist Dreams (2014 with Desirina Boskovich).
All of us at Tachyon wish the multi-faceted Jeff a squidastic birthday, full of fungi and other things that creep in the darkness.
