/film

January 9, 2018

Tachyon tidbits featuring Brooke Bolander, Joe R. Lansdale, and Jeff VanderMeer

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, annihilation, brooke bolander, fred topel, hap and leonard, hap and leonard: the two bear mambo, housing works bookstore cafe, jacob weisman, jeff vandermeer, jennifer jason leigh, Joe R. Lansdale, melanie mcfarland, peter s beagle, salon, sundanceTV', the new voices of fantasy, the only harmless great thing

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

Brooke Bolander (photo: Scott Edelman), Joe R. Lansdale (Karen Lansdale), and Jeff VanderMeer (Kyle Cassidy)

Brooke Bolander, best known for her acclaimed short fiction including the extraordinary “Tornado’s Siren” in Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman’s THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY, celebrates her first book The Only Harmless Great Thing with a forthcoming New York City event.

January 25th, 7:00 PM
RSVP here: Rage and Radioactivity: “The Only Harmless Great Thing”
Brooke Bolander with THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY contributors Maria Dahvana Headley and Amal El-Mohtar
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby St, New York, New York 10012

Melanie McFarland on SALON includes the new season of HAP AND LEONARD among 13 reasons why … we can look forward to TV in 2018.

One of TV’s unsung gems about lasting partnership and loyalty, the new season is an adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s novel “The Two-Bear Mambo” and features Louis Gossett Jr., Corbin Bernsen and Andrew Dice Clay. We’ll forgive the producers on that last one. 10 p.m. Wednesday, March 7 on Sundance TV.

On /FILM, Fred Topel reports that Jennifer Jason Leigh found Shooting ‘Annihilation’ Was An ”Insane” Experience.

For those unaware of Annihilation, the film is based on the first novel in Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Natalie Portman stars as a biologist who enters The Shimmer with a group of female soldiers and scientists (including Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tessa Thompson) to find out what her husband contracted there on a previous mission. What they discover is a mystery to science with frightening animal hybrids appearing out of nowhere. To get a better idea of what the movie is like, you can watch the trailer. But Leigh was happy to talk about the time she spent on set.

“It was an insane experience but really fun and great group of women,” Leigh said. “We were in these forests behind Pinewood with these heavy, heavy guns and heavy, heavy backpacks. The trailer is like a half a mile away so we’d all stay under this one tent. Pretty much everyone but me was vegan so we were subsisting on oat crackers, nuts, raisins and things.”

“Walking through the mud with all this gear and then seeing all these incredible special effects that were so beautifully woven into the actual environment that it was surreal,” Leigh said. “[Writer/director] Alex [Garland] is really lovely and it was really just a great group of women. It was a great experience. I just can’t talk that much about the story because I don’t know yet what is giving something away and what isn’t.”

For more info about THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Camille André

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

October 11, 2016

Tachyon tidbits featuring Lauren Beukes, Daryl Gregory, and STRANGE HORIZONS

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, alastair reynolds, central station, Charlie Jane Anders, collection, daryl gregory, dreams of distant shores, Ellen Datlow, essays, fundraiser, horror, john denardo, kirkus, lauren beukes, lavie tidhar, michael swanwick, not so much said the cat, patricia a mckillip, podcast, review, science fiction, six months three days, slipping, slipping: stories essays & other writing, slow bullets, speculate, strange horizons, the monstrous, we are all completely fine

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

Lauren Beukes and Daryl Gregory

In episode 170 of SPECULATE!, the gang discusses Lauren Beukes’ debut collection SLIPPING: STORIES, ESSAYS, & OTHER WRITING.

Welcome to Episode 170 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers, and Fans. In this episode we talk about our schedule through the end of 2016 before getting into the show proper, a discussion of Lauren Beukes‘s upcoming short story collection (due out in November) Slipping: Stories, Essays, & Other Writing, focusing in particular on the stories “Algebra,” “Unathi Battles The Black Hairballs” (it’s as good as it sounds!), and the essay “All The Pretty Corpses.” We talk about Lauren’s irreverent, unsparing, sometimes brutal writing style, her honesty in rendering her characters and themes, and her commitment to justice both in real life and in her fiction–and even make a couple of suggestions about how authors can apply some of her strategies to their own work.

At KIRKUS, John DeNardo included Darly Gregory’s WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE in his Unsettling Horror Books that Have Already Been Optioned for TV & Film.

Described as a “post-horror horror” story, WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE is about a group of people – survivors of events straight out of horror films – whose stories are only believed by the psychotherapist who brings them together to form a most unusual support group. In attempting to help her patients, the psychologist, Dr. Jan Sayer, unwittingly unleashes the evils of the past.

If award wins are any indication of a book’s viability as a successful adaptation, then WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE would be a perfect candidate; it won both the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. Sadly, Wes Craven – the director behind the Nightmare on Elm Street films who was developing Gregory’s chilling novella into a television series for the SyFy channel – passed away recently. However, his production company still has plans to adapt this into a show.

The fine folks over at STRANGE HORIZONS are in the midst of their annual fundraising drive.

Since its launch in 2000, STRANGE HORIZONS has pursued a number of goals. We want to publish great stories and poems that expand the possibilities of speculative fiction; we want to provide a space for in-depth discussions that help us to understand and extend those possibilities. We want to encourage and support new writers of SF from all backgrounds, and pay them professional rates for their fiction. And we want to continue to make all of our content available free of charge, without being dependent on advertisers or corporate sponsorship.

We are a non-profit organization, staffed entirely by volunteers, and so a huge part of our success has been down to you, our readers. STRANGE HORIZONS relies on your donations to stay open.

In our sixteen years, we’ve been proud to publish work by writers such as Saladin Ahmed, Eleanor Arnason, Charlie Jane Anders, Christopher Barzak, Matthew Cheney, John Clute, L. Timmel Duchamp, Hal Duncan, Amal El-Mohtar, Carol Emshwiller, Molly Gloss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, N. K. Jemisin, John Kessel, Ann Leckie, Kelly Link, Ken Liu, David Moles, Nnedi Okorafor, Yukimi Ogawa, Robert Reed, Adam Roberts, Sofia Samatar, John Scalzi, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh, Lavie Tidhar, Genevieve Valentine, Jo Walton, Alyssa Wong, Jane Yolen, and too many others to list.

Everyone who donates is entered into the prize draw, featuring an array of books, artwork, and other goodies. Among the prizes are the Tachyon titles Ellen Datlow’s THE MONSTROUS, Michael Swanwick’s NOT SO MUCH, SAID THE CAT, Patricia A. McKillip’s DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES, Charlie Jane Anders’ SIX MONTHS, THREE DAYS, Alastair Reynolds’ SLOW BULLETS, and Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION.

For more information about SLIPPING: STORIES, ESSAYS, & OTHER WRITING, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Clara Bacou

Design by Elizabeth Story

For information on WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

May 31, 2016

Get Ellen Datlow’s outstanding anthology THE CUTTING ROOM for $1.99!

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, a c wise, anthology, david morrell, dennis etchison, douglas e. winter, ed bryant, Ellen Datlow, f. paul wilson, garry kilworth, gary a. braunbeck, gary mcmahon, Gemma Files, genevieve valentine, horror, howard waldrop, ian watson, joel lane, kdd, kindle daily deal, lucy a. snyder, movies, nicholas royle, peter straub, robert sherman, short stories, stephen j. barringer, steve nagy, the cutting room, the cutting room: dark reflections of the silver screen

Ellen Datlow’s acclaimed anthology THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN is a Kindle Daily Deal for Tuesday, May 31st.

For today only, the ebook is available for just $1.99!

A Kirkus Excellent Horror Read for October

“This themed anthology revolves around the idea that the separation between what is real and what we see on film is not as clear as we’d like to think it is. What if, for example, the Wicked Witch of the West didn’t stay in Oz? What if James Dean got a second chance at life? These are just some of the weird-but-cool ideas explored in this tempting volume of stories from renowned editor Ellen Datlow, who collects 23 scary tales by the likes of Peter Straub, Genevieve Valentine, Robert Shearman, Laird Barron and more.”
—Kirkus

A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week

STARRED REVIEW “Superstar editor Datlow makes no missteps in this reprint collection of dark tales involving movies and moviemaking. The one original piece, Stephen Graham Jones’s “Tenderizer,” is a haunting exploration of tragedy on both a personal and national level. A.C. Wise’s “Final Girl Theory,” about a cult film that’s an “infection, whispered from mouth to mouth in the dark,” is disturbing and gory without fetishizing its horrors. Kim Newman’s brilliant “Illimitable Dominion” tells an alternate history of Edgar Allen Poe, Roger Corman, and American International Pictures that’s particularly suited to film buffs who will probably spot the (initially) subtle changes to the time line. Film critic and author Genevieve Valentine provides both an entertaining story (“She Drives the Men to Crimes of Passion!”) and an enlightening introduction, while even Douglas E. Winter’s “Bright Lights, Big Zombie”—the literary target of which has long faded—still holds up reasonably well. Strong stories by Gary McMahon and Gary A. Braunbeck, as well as poems by Lucy A. Snyder and Daphne Gottlieb, are also worth noting, but really, the entire volume is outstanding.”
—Publishers Weekly

The credits have rolled, but the lights are still off. Something is lurking on the other side of the screen. There are dark secrets, starving monsters, and haunted survivors who refuse to be left on the cutting room floor. But that’s okay, right? After all, everybody loves the movies…. Here are twenty-three terrifying tales, dark reflections of the silver screen from both sides of the camera. James Dean gets a second chance at life—and death. The Wicked Witch is out of Oz and she’s made some unlucky friends. When God decides reality needs an editor, what—and who—gets cut? These award-winning, bestselling authors will take you to the darkest depths of the theater and beyond.

“This collection of 23 stories should appeal to fans of horror and SF primarily, though noir and hard-boiled-mystery readers should feel welcome too…. Definitely worth checking out.”
—Booklist

“It’s pretty much a given that an Ellen Datlow anthology will at least be good, if not great… ‘The Cutting Room’ is no exception.”
—Bookshots

“Horror cinephiles and bibliophiles will have extra cause to rejoice this Halloween: The Cutting Room, a literary anthology, is an October treat.”
—Diabolique

Introduction by Genevieve Valentine
Preface by Ellen Datlow
“The Cutter” by Edward Bryant
“The Hanged Man of Oz” by Steve Nagy
“Deadspace” by Dennis Etchison
“Cuts” by F. Paul Wilson
“Final Girl Theory” by A. C. Wise
“Lapland, or Film Noir” by Peter Straub
“The Thousand Cuts” by Ian Watson
“Occam’s Ducks” by Howard Waldrop
“Dead Image” by David Morrell
“The Constantinople Archives” by Robert Shearman
“each thing I show you is a piece of my death” by Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer
“Cinder Images” by Gary McMahon
“The Pied Piper of Hammersmith” by Nicholas Royle
“Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of Fitzcarraldo” by Garry Kilworth
“Onlookers” by Gary A. Braunbeck
“Recreation” by Lucy A. Snyder
“Bright Lights, Big Zombie” by Douglas E. Winter
“She Drives the Men to Crimes of Passion!” by Genevieve Valentine
“Even the Pawn” by Joel Lane
“Tenderizer” by Stephen Graham Jones
“Ardor” by Laird Barron
“Final Girl II: the Frame” by Daphne Gottlieb
“Illimitable Dominion” by Kim Newman

“I personally feel that short fiction is the ideal format for horror and dark fantasy literature and the theme of film/film-making is absolutely brilliant and Datlow collects a very nice assortment. This collection is highly recommended.”
—Looking for a Good Book

“The Cutting Room is a ton of fun….”
—LitReactor

“Horror stories about the cinema in some capacity. There was no way I wouldn’t like this book, regardless of whether I was a horror and film buff or not. Datlow’s pretty much the master of the anthology, and it shows here.” —LitReactor‘s favorite reads of 2014

For more info about THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman

June 1, 2015

THE CUTTING ROOM is a must-read collection for horror fans

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, anthology, Ellen Datlow, horror, josh beatman, los angeles public library, movies, review, short stories, the cutting room, the cutting room: dark reflections of the silver screen

For the Los Angeles Public Library, librarian Daryl M. recommends Ellen Datlow’s THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN.

In The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of The Silver Screen, short story collection editor extraordinaire Ellen Datlow has gathered a collection of motion picture-related horror stories that put film and the film industry center stage; shining lights into the darkened corners of studio lots and sound stages; and bringing things often best left unseen into the clear view of the reader.

<snip>

This is a must-read collection for horror fans, especially those who are film buffs, or who work in the entertainment industry! But be warned–this is a collection you’ll want to read with the lights on bright and, if possible, at least a bit before you have to go to sleep!

Read the rest of Daryl’s review at Los Angeles Public Library.

For more info about THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman.

March 13, 2015

THE CUTTING ROOM expounds on why films make excellent subjects for horror stories

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, anthology, black static, Ellen Datlow, horror, josh beatman, movies, Peter Tennant, review, the cutting room, the cutting room: dark reflections of the silver screen

In BLACK STATIC #45, Peter Tennant reviews award-winning, superstar editor Ellen Datlow’s THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN.

First up we have THE CUTTING ROOM (Tachyon pb, 384pp, $16.95) and, with one exception, the contents of this film based anthology are reprints. After introductions by Genevieve Valentine and the editor expounding on our love of films and why they are such excellent subjects for horror stories, we get right into it with ‘The Cutter’ by Edward Bryant. It’s told from the viewpoint of a man looking back on his childhood when he worked in a movie theatre and the owner claimed to have cut various films so that they were different from how the director intended, this leading into a tragic and fatal attempt to edit life itself. A sad story and rich in nostalgia, it’s a piece that plays games with memory and reality, the interface between the two serving as a touchstone for the narrative, ending on a bittersweet note that makes you wonder if somebody is possessed of a secret power or simply insane.

<snip>

The one original story in the book, ‘Tenderizer’ by Stephen Graham Jones presents an overview of the career of a controversial film maker and then focuses on his latest project, deftly treading the line between audience expectation and artistic motivation, blurring the barrier between fact and fiction. Ultimately it’s a piece that examines not just the motivation of the character, but also our own as consumers and readers, the documentary style adding to this feeling that something more than a story is being offered. ‘Ardor’ is the title of a film, a porn version of Dracula, and the protagonist of Laird Barron’s story is hired to learn the fate of an actress who disappeared after starring in it, but what he learns leads to madness and death. It’s a convoluted and clever story, one in which ancient myth and the occult blend together and play off of each other, adding juice to what would otherwise be a routine detective story with hard boiled undertones. ‘Final Girl II: the Frame’ is a poem by Daphne Gottlieb expounding the role of the final girl and with asides on how to survive a horror movie, cleverly sending up the conventions of the genre.

In addition to those discussed here, the anthology also contains excellent stories by A. C. Wise, Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer, Gary McMahon, and Kim Newman, which I have omitted as I already reviewed them when they first appeared in other publications.

Read the rest of Tennant’s review, which includes coverage of every story save the four mention above, in BLACK STATIC #45.

And speaking of the four missing reviews, BLACK STATIC offers the four reviews on their website.

In Black Static #45 (out now) I review The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen, an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow, but didn’t comment on four of the stories as I had already reviewed them previously.

For the sake of completeness, I’ve decided to post my reviews of those stories as they originally appeared.

From my Black Static #33 review of The Best Horror of the Year Volume Four, edited by Ellen Datlow:-

‘Final Girl Theory’ by A.C. Wise details a man’s fascination with a horror film and what happens when he meets the woman who starred in it, the barrier between fiction and reality neatly dissected by the way in which the story is told, so that at times it almost reads like an essay in film criticism.

From my Black Static #19 review of The Best Horror of the Year Volume Two, edited by Ellen Datlow:-

The influence of Ringu is obvious in ‘each thing I show you is a piece of my death’ by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer, with film makers discovering what appears to be a suicide or murder tape and the transferral of a mystery figure to all video, even television programmes. Written in a variety of forms, including interviews, memorandum, correspondence etc., this is an intriguing story with a wealth of detail and invention, and at its heart the fear of what our modern communication media may be doing to us, both their ability to shock and also to insulate and deaden our emotions. Technically the most ambitious of the stories, with the exception of John Langan’s marvellous ‘Technicolor’ (which I considered when reviewing the anthology Poe) I’d rate this the absolute best of what’s on offer here.

Read the rest of the reviews at BLACK STATIC.

For more info about THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman.

February 19, 2015

The subdued and strange BAR TALK from the mind of Joe R. Lansdale

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, bar talk, bubba ho-tep, cold in july, elizabeth story, hap and leonard, incident on and off a mountain road, joe lansdale, Joe R. Lansdale, lowell northrop, masters of horror, movie, movie tie-in, short film, the bottoms

The short film BAR TALK, based on a story by Joe R. Lansdale (COLD IN JULY) and directed by Lowell Northrop, is now available for all to see.

In a dusty Texas bar, a chatty stranger insists on striking up a
conversation with the man sitting next to him. The more this
out-of-towner talks, the more obvious it is he’s not from ‘round here.
Heck, he’s not even from this planet! Based on the short story by
legendary author Joe R. Lansdale (“Bubba Ho-Tep”, “Cold in July”).

This is not the first Lansdale story to be filmed. Just last summer COLD IN JULY, directed by Jim Mickle and starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam
Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), garnered
abundant praise. It is currently featured on the Showtime networks.

His novella “Bubba Ho-Tep” was the basis for the cult film of the same name, directed by Don Coscarelli and starring Bruce Campbell as
Elvis. Coscarelli also helmed “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” for
the MASTERS OF HORROR series.

A movie based on the
Edgar award winning novel THE BOTTOMS is scheduled to begin production
this spring as is the Sundance Channel’s show HAP AND LEONARD, which is
based on the popular series of crime novels.

For more about COLD IN JULY, visit the Tachyon page.

Book cover design by Elizabeth Story.

HAP AND LEONARD cover by Elizabeth Story.

January 26, 2015

Jan. 22, 1989: Kinsella book being made into movie

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, baseball, canada, collection, Edmonton Journal, elizabeth story, field of dreams, movie, shoeless joe, shoeless joe jackson comes to iowa, short stories, the essential w. p. kinsella, this day in journal history, Thomas Canty, w. p. kinsella

As part of their This Day in Journal History series, the Edmonton Journal revisited W. P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe and the film Field of Dreams.

The screenplay of Edmonton-born author W.P. (Bill) Kinsella’s award-winning novel, Shoeless Joe, moved off 20th Century-Fox’s option shelf and into Universal Studio’s production rooms.

The film, Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, was released in the spring. It was the latest in an all-star lineup of 1980s baseball movies including Bull Durham, The Natural, and Major League.

<snip>

The movie regularly makes the list of 10 best baseball films and introduced the line “If you build it, he will come.” into popular speech.

The 1982 novel, the first and most widely read of Kinsella’s popular baseball stories, was named best novel of the year by the Canadian Authors Association. It’s the story of a man who builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield to realize his dream of luring former baseball stars to play there.

Read the rest of the article at the Edmonton Journal.

The original story “Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes To Iowa” that served as the impetus for the novel Shoeless Joe appears in The Essential W. P. Kinsella.

For more info about The Essential W. P. Kinsella, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Thomas Canty.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story.

January 14, 2015

Get Tachyon titles to review from NetGalley

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, anthology, baseball, collection, daryl gregory, Ellen Datlow, fantasy, horror, kate elliott, movies, Nancy Kress, netgalley, novella, science fiction, short stories, the cutting room, the cutting room: dark reflections of the silver screen, the essential w. p. kinsella, the very best of kate elliott, w. p. kinsella, we are all completely fine, yesterday's kin

Five Tachyon titles are always available for perusal by booksellers, reviewers, and librarians at NetGalley. Current selections include The Essential W. P. Kinsella, The Very Best of Kate Elliott, The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen edited by Ellen Datlow, Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress, and We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory.

To learn how to access these books for review, visit NetGalley.

The complete list of Tachyon titles available through NetGalley can be viewed on our catalog page.

January 9, 2015

Vote for THE CUTTING ROOM!

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, anthology, award, Ellen Datlow, horror, josh beatman, movies, nomination, the cutting room, the cutting room: dark reflections of the silver screen, this is horror, vote

This Is Horror has announced the nominees for their annual best of the year awards and are seeking your votes. Ellen Datlow’s The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen is nominated for the best anthology of the year.

Check out the complete list of categories and nominations at This Is Horror.

Remember: Vote early and often!

For information on The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman.

December 16, 2014

THE CUTTING ROOM is one of the best books of 2014

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized /film, anthology, best of 2014, christopher shultz, Ellen Datlow, horror, josh beatman, Lit Reactor, movies, short stories, the cutting room, the cutting room: dark reflections of the silver screen

Lit Reactor columnist Christopher Shultz declares Ellen Datlow’s The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen as one of the best books of the year.

Horror stories about the cinema in some capacity. There was no way I wouldn’t like this book, regardless of whether I was a horror and film buff or not. Datlow’s pretty much the master of the anthology, and it shows here.

Check out the rest of the selections at Lit Reactor.

For information on The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Josh Beatman.

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