the freeze frame revolution

June 29, 2019

Happy birthday to Tachyon’s sensational managing editor Jill Roberts

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized alexander nanitchkov, birthday, brandon sanderson, central station, daryl gregory, elizabeth story, hannes hummel, her smoke rose up forever, james tiptree jr, jill roberts, John Picacio, lavie tidhar, Peter Watts, sarah anne langton, the emperor's soul, the freeze frame revolution, the very best of caitlin r kiernan, we are all completely fine

Since joining Tachyon in 2002 as the managing editor, Jill Roberts has overseen the remaking of the press from one that originally published 2-3 titles a year and only sold to specialty bookstores into its present incarnation of 8-10 books a year and mainstream distribution. Tachyon tiles under her watch have won Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, Campbell, Neukom, Sturgeon, and Locus awards and routinely make “best of the year” lists. Among the numerous acclaimed titles Roberts oversaw include HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER by James Tiptree Jr., THE EMPEROR’S SOUL by Brandon Sanderson, WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE by Daryl Gregory, STEAMPUNK edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, CENTRAL STATION by Lavie Tidhar, THE HOTEL UNDER THE SAND by Kage Baker, THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION by Peter Watts, and THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN.

Prior to Tachyon, Roberts worked within the gaming, fashion, and health industries. She has been a columnist for Books to Watch Out For and the Thirteenth Moon, as well as a consulting editor at the nonprofit writing program Streetside Stories.

Everyone at Tachyon wishes the amazing Jill a happy birthday. And not just because we’re scared of her.

For more about THE EMPEROR’S SOUL, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Alexander Nanitchkov
Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about HER SMOKE ROSE UP FOREVER, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Picacio

For info about WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about CENTRAL STATION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

For more info about THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Hannes Hummel
Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

June 4, 2019

Fascinating and dark, Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION was one of the best SF books of 2018

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized elizabeth story, jonathan cowie, Locus, Peter Watts, review, rich horton, the freeze frame revolution, the science fact & science fiction (sf²) concatenation, vmac

In LOCUS (April 2019), Rich Horton praised Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

Fascinating work, and very, very dark in its implications, as with pretty much everything by Watts.

Jonathan Cowie for THE SCIENCE FACT & SCIENCE FICTION (SF²) CONCATENATION recommends the book.

This book’s first paperback edition comes from the US, specialist SF imprint, Tachyon: it is not yet out in Britain (we desperately need more of Watts over here in Blighty) but Europeans can find it, as I did, in larger bookshops as well as genre specialist ones. Or you can, if you are prepared to sink that low, get it from Amazon. The Tachyon first edition paperback also comes with a neat interior design by Elizabeth Story. Almost every other page has a word with one letter printed in red: it is as if the publisher or author wishes to send a message to the reader without anyone else knowing…

So, THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is not yet (early 2019) out in Europe. But it is , I assure you, worth seeking out as an import. Some SF² Concatenation team members nominated The Freeze-Frame Revolution as one of the best SF books of 2018: I simply had to see what all the fuss was about. What the fuss is about is a tightly written, SFnal gem, and it really is possibly one of the best SF books of 2018!

VMAC.CH enjoys the story.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION by Peter Watts was a book proposed by Amazon. The plot description sounded excellent and captivating, and I’ve tried the free reading example. I had some issues to get into the story and understand what’s going on, but once I passed this, the book was terrific, a good idea and perfect execution of it.

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

May 8, 2019

Lavie Tidhar, Peter Watts, Jo Walton, Jane Yolen, and Tachyon itself are all Locus Award finalists

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized elizabeth story, how to fracture a fairy tale, Jane Yolen, jo walton, lavie tidhar, locus awards, Peter Watts, sarah anne langton, starlings, the freeze frame revolution, unholy land

The finalists for the 2018 Locus Awards were announced. Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND, Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, Jo Walton’s STARLINGS (as well as An Informal
History of the Hugos), Jane Yolen’s HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE (as well as Mapping the Bones), and Tachyon Publications itself all received nominations. Many Tachyon authors, editors, and artists received notice including John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Daryl Gregory, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nancy Kress, John Picacio, Alastair Reynolds, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, Charles Vess, Michael Whelan, and Sheila Williams.

Congratulations to all the finalists.

SCIENCE FICTION
NOVEL

Record of a
Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US; Hodder &
Stoughton)
The Calculating
Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
If Tomorrow
Comes, Nancy Kress (Tor)
Revenant Gun,
Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
Blackfish City,
Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)
Embers of War,
Gareth L. Powell (Titan US; Titan UK)
Elysium Fire,
Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz; Orbit US)
Red Moon, Kim
Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
UNHOLY
LAND, Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon)
Space Opera,
Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)

FANTASY NOVEL

Lies Sleeping,
Ben Aaronovitch (DAW; Gollancz)
Foundryside,
Robert Jackson Bennett (Crown; Jo Fletcher)
The Monster Baru
Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (Tor)
Deep Roots,
Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com Publishing)
Ahab’s Return,
Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
European Travel
for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, Theodora Goss (Saga)
The Mere Wife,
Maria Dahvana Headley (MCD)
The Wonder
Engine, T. Kingfisher (Argyll Productions)
Spinning Silver,
Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Creatures of Want
and Ruin, Molly Tanzer (John Joseph Adams)

HORROR NOVEL

In the Night
Wood, Dale Bailey (John Joseph Adams)
Unlanguage,
Michael Cisco (Eraserhead)
We Sold Our
Souls, Grady Hendrix (Quirk)
Coyote Songs,
Gabino Iglesias (Broken River)
The Hunger,
Alma Katsu (Putnam; Bantam Press UK)
The Outsider,
Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
The Listener,
Robert McCammon (Cemetery Dance)
Cross Her Heart,
Sarah Pinborough (HarperCollins UK/Morrow)
The Cabin at the
End of the World, Paul Tremblay (Morrow; Titan UK)
Tide of Stone,
Kaaron Warren (Omnium Gatherum)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

The Gone Away
Place, Christopher Barzak (Knopf)
The Cruel Prince,
Holly Black (Little, Brown; Hot Key)
The Belles,
Dhonielle Clayton (Freeform; Gollancz)
Tess of the Road,
Rachel Hartman (Random House)
Dread Nation,
Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
Cross Fire,
Fonda Lee (Scholastic)
The Agony House,
Cherie Priest & Tara O’Connor (Levine)
Half-Witch,
John Schoffstall (Big Mouth House)
Impostors,
Scott Westerfeld (Scholastic US; Scholastic UK)
Mapping the
Bones, Jane Yolen (Philomel)

FIRST NOVEL

Children of Blood
and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan)
Semiosis, Sue
Burke (Tor)
Armed in Her
Fashion, Kate Heartfield (ChiZine)
The Poppy War,
R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
The Quantum
Magician, Derek Künsken (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
Annex, Rich
Larson (Orbit US)
Severance,
Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
Witchmark,
C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)
Trail of
Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)
Empire of Sand,
Tasha Suri (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

NOVELLA

The Black God’s
Drums, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
The Tea Master
and the Detective, Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean)
“Umbernight“,
Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld 2/18)
Black
Helicopters, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Tor.com Publishing)
Time Was, Ian
McDonald (Tor.com Publishing)
Gods, Monsters,
and the Lucky Peach, Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
THE
FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, Peter Watts (Tachyon)
Artificial
Condition, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
Rogue Protocol,
Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
The Descent of
Monsters, JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)

NOVELETTE

“The Donner
Party”, Dale Bailey (F&SF 1–2/18)
“Okay, Glory”,
Elizabeth Bear (Twelve Tomorrows)
“No Flight Without
the Shatter“, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com 8/15/18)
The Only Harmless
Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
“The Last Banquet
of Temporal Confections“, Tina Connolly (Tor.com 7/11/18)
“An Agent of
Utopia”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)
“Queen Lily“,
Theodora Goss (Lightspeed 11/18)
“Nine Last Days on
Planet Earth“, Daryl Gregory (Tor.com 9/19/18)
“Quality Time”,
Ken Liu (Robots vs Fairies)
“How to Swallow
the Moon“, Isabel Yap (Uncanny 11–12/18)

SHORT STORY

“The Secret Lives
of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington“, Phenderson Djèlí
Clark (Fireside 2/18)
“The Bookcase
Expedition”, Jeffrey Ford (Robots vs Fairies)
“STET“, Sarah
Gailey (Fireside 10/18)
“A Witch’s Guide
to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies“, Alix E.
Harrow (Apex 2/6/18)
“Cuisine des
Mémoires”, N.K. Jemisin (How Long ’til Black Future Month?)
“The Storyteller’s
Replacement”, N.K. Jemisin (How Long ’til Black Future Month?)
“Firelight“,
Ursula K. Le Guin (Paris Review Summer ’18)
“The Starship and
the Temple Cat“, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies
2/1/18)
“Mother of
Invention“, Nnedi Okorafor (Future Tense)
“The Court
Magician“, Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed 1/18)

ANTHOLOGY

The Best
Horror of the Year Volume Ten, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Night Shade)
The Book of
Magic, Gardner Dozois, ed. (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
The Year’s Best
Science Fiction: Thirty-fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois,
ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Worlds Seen in
Passing, Irene Gallo, ed. (Tor.com Publishing)
The Best
American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, N.K. Jemisin &
John Joseph Adams, eds. (Mariner)
Robots vs
Fairies, Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe, eds. (Saga)
The Best Science
Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Volume Twelve, Jonathan
Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
Infinity’s End,
Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)
The Underwater
Ballroom Society, Tiffany Trent & Stephanie Burgis, eds.
(Five Fathoms)
The Future Is
Female!, Lisa Yaszek, ed. (Library of America)

COLLECTION

The Tangled
Lands, Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell (Saga)
Brief Cases,
Jim Butcher (Ace; Orbit UK)
An Agent of
Utopia, Andy Duncan (Small Beer)
How Long ’til
Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Dinosaur
Tourist, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
Fire & Blood,
George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
All the Fabulous
Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow)
The Future Is
Blue, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
STARLINGS,
Jo Walton (Tachyon)
HOW
TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, Jane Yolen (Tachyon)

MAGAZINE

Analog
Asimov’s
Beneath Ceaseless
Skies
Clarkesworld
F&SF
Fireside
Lightspeed
Strange Horizons
Tor.com
Uncanny

PUBLISHER

Angry Robot
Baen
DAW
Gollancz
Orbit
Saga
Small Beer
Subterranean
Tachyon
Tor

EDITOR

John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Gardner Dozois
C.C. Finlay
Jonathan Strahan
Lynne M. Thomas &
Michael Damian Thomas
Ann & Jeff
VanderMeer
Sheila Williams
Navah Wolfe

ARTIST

Kinuko Y. Craft
Galen Dara
Julie Dillon
Leo & Diane
Dillon
Bob Eggleton
Victo Ngai
John Picacio
Shaun Tan
Charles Vess
Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

Space Odyssey:
Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece,
Michael Benson (Simon & Schuster)
Sense of Wonder:
Short Fiction Reviews (2009-2017), Gardner Dozois (ReAnimus)
Strange Stars,
Jason Heller (Melville House)
Dreams Must
Explain Themselves: The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin,
Ursula K. Le Guin (Gollancz)
Ursula K. Le
Guin: Conversations on Writing, Ursula K. Le Guin & David
Naimon (Tin House)
Old Futures:
Speculative Fiction and Queer Possibility, Alexis Lothian (NYU
Press)
Tolkien: Maker of
Middle-earth, Catherine McIlwaine, ed. (Bodleian Library)
Astounding: John
W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and
the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street)
None of This Is
Normal: The Fiction of Jeff VanderMeer, Benjamin J. Robertson
(University of Minnesota Press)
An Informal
History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards,
1953-2000, Jo Walton (Tor)

ART BOOK

Yoshitaka Amano,
Yoshitaka Amano: The Illustrated Biography – Beyond the Fantasy,
Florent Gorges (Les Éditions Pix’n Love 2015; Dark Horse)
Spectrum 25: The
Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, John Fleskes, ed. (Flesk)
John Howe, A
Middle-earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt; HarperCollins UK)
Jeffrey Alan Love,
The Thousand Demon Tree (Flesk)
Simon Stålenhag,
The Electric State (Fria Ligan ’17; Skybound)
Shaun Tan, Cicada
(Lothian; Levine ’19)
Charles Vess, The
Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, Ursula K. Le
Guin (Saga)
Michael Whelan,
Beyond Science Fiction: The Alternative Realism of Michael Whelan
(Baby Tattoo)
Dungeons &
Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History, Michael Witwer, Kyle
Newman, Jon Peterson, & Sam Witwer (Ten Speed)
Lisbeth Zwerger, The
Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling (Levine)

For more info on UNHOLY LAND, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

April 30, 2019

PETER WATTS IS AN ANGRY SENTIENT TUMOR: REVENGE FANTASIES AND ESSAYS slithers your way this November

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized beyond the rift, elizabeth story, Hugh Sicotte, no moods ads or cutesy fucking icons, peter watts is an angry sentient tumor: revenge fantasies and essays, russian, the freeze frame revolution, vk

PETER WATTS IS AN ANGRY SENTIENT TUMOR: REVENGE FANTASIES AND ESSAYS delivers a collection of rants and essays, potentially ranging from climate change to colonoscopies to cats, but really, who knows what might might come from the eclectic mind of Peter Watts.

Which of the following is true?

Peter Watts is banned from the U.S.
Watts almost died from flesh-eating bacteria.
A schizophrenic man living in Watts’ backyard almost set the house on fire.
Watts was raised by Baptists who really sucked at giving presents.
Peter Watts said to read this book. Or else.

In these unpredictable essays and revenge fantasies, Hugo Award-winning author, former marine biologist, and angry, sentient tumor, Peter Watts is the savage dystopian optimist that you can’t look away from. Even when you probably should.

Watt’s himself chimes in on his No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons blog:

My suggestion was simply “Revenge Fantasies”, but apparently in the #MeToo era such a phrase, in isolation, is too evocative of “revenge porn”. I believe the whole sentient tumor thing was originally coined by Analee Newitz.

As titles go, I admit that it rocks.

I’m surprised to be bringing this up so early. I don’t even know what the collection is going to contain— Tachyon gave me a ballpark word count and I sent them over twice that, leaving them to decide what makes the cut.

A few months back Tachyon‘s Jacob Weisman pitched me the idea of an essay collection. My initial reaction was, I suspect, similar to yours: In God’s name, why? My essays are already available; I’ve been writing them on this very ‘crawl for somewhere around 15 years now. I’ve been writing them for Nowa Fantastyka over in Poland. I’ve even done occasional prestige gigs at places like Aeon and The Daily (generally when someone far hotter than me is struck with flesh-eating disease, and the media needs a memoir from someone who isn’t currently in a medically-induced coma). Hell, even my lectures are sprinkled online here and there.

But apparently THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION continues to do well (so they tell me, anyway), and so did BEYOND THE RIFT in its day (which also packaged old wine in new bottles to good effect, now that I think of it). So Tachyon is interested in keeping me out there. And if John Scalzi can get away with anthologizing his blog posts, why not me? (I’m a lot less virtuous than Scalzi, of course. Hopefully at least some will regard that not as a bug, but a feature.)

The book has already garnered some international excitement as evident from the Russian site VK.

Tachyon Publications will publish a collection of Peter Watts articles and essays entitled “Peter Watts Is An Angry Sentient Tumor: Essays and Revenge Fantasies” I really hope that the collection in Russian will also be released.

Translation from Russian courtesy of Google

For more info on PETER WATTS IS AN ANGRY SENTIENT TUMOR: REVENGE FANTASIES AND ESSAYS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info on BEYOND THE RIFT, visit the Tachyon page

Cover art by Hugh Sicotte
Design by Elizabeth Story

April 4, 2019

Tachyon tidbits featuring Peter Watts, Peter S. Beagle, Jacob Weisman, Jo Walton, and Jeff VanderMeer

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized c s e cooney, erika franza, jacob weisman, jeff vandermeer, jo walton, lela e buis, national book award, national book foundation, peter s beagle, Peter Watts, review, starlings, the freeze frame revolution, the new voices of fantasy

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

Peter Watts, Jacob Wesiman & Peter S. Beagle (photo: Jill Roberts), Jo Walton
(Ada Palmer), and Jeff VanderMeer (Kyle Cassidy)

Lela E. Buis, on their eponymous site, praises Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

So, this is pretty brilliant. I see the book advertised as hard SF, and it does have that feel. In the acknowledgements, Watts notes that anything this far in the future is basically “handwavium,” but that he made serious efforts at research to make it sound like it was real science. He’s made that rare effort, real projection of what humanity might be up to millions of years into the future, and actually managed to produce the traditionalist’s sense of wonder about the vastness of Spacetime. The characters and setting here are well-developed, and the plot has a lot of depth. Item of note, Eri is an Africa group of the Igbo people, and their founder was supposed to come to earth in a spacecraft to teach civilization to the people.

Five stars.

Erika Franz, on her eponymous site, delivers a critique and analysis of Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman’s World Fantasy Award winning THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY.

All of this brings me to Weisman and Beagle’s respective introductions. Weisman’s comes first. He writes that all of the works in the collection are published after 2010 and reveals that Beagle’s last anthology, THE SECRET HISTORY OF FANTASY, published in 2010, “explored the merging of genre fantasy and so called mainstream markets into a new form of literary fantasy. This anthology constitutes something of a sequel, leaping ahead to examine the work of a brand-new generation of writers working along similar lines.” It is, and I am paraphrasing loosely here, unabashed signal boosting of a new cadre of writers, most of them racking up awards as the collection was being compiled.

In all of this, I am leaving out Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Husband Stitch,” playing on campfire tales and tellings of casual horror between men and women; Brooke Bolander’s lovelorn tornado seeking to impress and love a human woman who’s struggles to be normal and fit in only leave her disappointed; Max Galdstone’s modern Dracula story, an oddly charming Dracula story—as opposed to a charming Dracula, thank God; and Amal El-Mohtar’s mysterious, mystical story of love as it is when written out for us; plus so many more.

In the end, I appreciate this new fantasy a great deal—I even write it sometimes. It is made up of different cultural norms that are still real even if I am a stranger to them. It is queer. It’s peopled with women. It is told by individuals with names I have known how to pronounce since preschool and ones I suspect get flagged unjustly by TSA for extra harassment when flying. It is interesting and different and exciting, whether it is being published in “literary” lit mags or “genre” lit mags. I’m here for it.

Voice actor C.S.E. Cooney relates their excitement about being asked to co-narrate the audiobook version of Jo Walton’s STARLINGS.

In fact I might have said, very solemnly, that it would be my honor, and that Jo Walton is one of the scions of our genre.

Yes, I said “scion” to the casting director. I don’t know what came over me. JO WALTON!

So, come the end of December 2018–the 26th to be exact–I commuted my usual three hours to the studio in Old Saybrook, and spent three intensely delicious days mouth-deep in Walton’s prose.

One of my favorite things about STARLINGS is that it is less like your typical single-author short story collection and more like a writer’s workshop–tool box, wood shavings, concept art and all–spread out in front of you for your pleasure and perusal. Structure experiments, POV experiments, form poetry, a play, short stories that were more like extended jokes, short stories that might have been the seeds of novels, and some stories that cut so deep they are with me still.

I felt like the collection was an act of generosity on the author’s part, as if Walton were telling us: “Here are some things I made. Here’s a bit about how I made them. Hey, isn’t this poem fun? And yes, Cooney, I’m afraid you DO have to narrate a 90 minute play with GREAT DOZENS of mythic characters ALL by yourself, just as if you were Mel Blanc in a Looney Toons cartoon–have FUN!”

Okay, maybe she didn’t say that last bit. Maybe that was more what my brain said to me. Maybe a little TOO gleefully, truth be told.

The National Book Foundation announced that Jeff VanderMeer is one of the judges for their 2019 award.

On March 13, the National Book Foundation announced the opening of submissions for the 70th National Book Awards. The Foundation also announces its 25 judges for this year’s Awards, in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Young People’s Literature, and Translated Literature, a category added in 2018, to be awarded for the second time in 2019.

“Serving on the judging panels for the National Book Awards is no small undertaking, and one that must be approached with the utmost care and enthusiasm,” said David Steinberger, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation. “We have full confidence that these 25 exceptional readers all bring the necessary expertise and acuity to a tradition of excellence as the National Book Awards enters its 70th year.”

This year’s judges include writers, booksellers, academics, editors, critics, and translators from across the country. Panelists include National Book Awards Finalists and Longlisted authors; a winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence; recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships, a Windham-Campbell Prize, a Whiting Award, a Michael A. Printz Award, and a National Magazine Award; directors of literary organizations; professors, bookstore owners, and librarians.

<snip>

Fiction panel: Dorothy Allison, Ruth Dickey, Javier Ramirez, Danzy Senna (Chair), Jeff VanderMeer

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

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

Cover art by Camille André

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

February 11, 2019

Recently recommended and nominated Tachyon titles

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized bsfa, elizabeth story, how to fracture a fairy tale, Jane Yolen, jo walton, lavie tidhar, Locus, Peter Watts, sarah anne langton, scka, starlings, the freeze frame revolution, unholy land

The annual LOCUS Recommended Reading List features Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND, Jo Walton’s STARLINGS, Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, and Jane Yolen’s HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE.

Both Tidhar and Watts received SCKA 2019 nominations.

While THE FREEZE FRAME REVOLUTION and UNHOLY LAND both made the BSFA Awards Longlist, only one of them was actually for Watts. Sarah Anne Langton received notice for her marvelous UNHOLY LAND cover.

For more info on HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on UNHOLY LAND, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

January 25, 2019

Happy birthday to the extraordinary Hugo Award winner Peter Watts

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized au-delà du gouffre, beyond the rift, birthday, elizabeth story, Hugh Sicotte, Peter Watts, the freeze frame revolution

A former marine biologist and according to the US Department of Homeland Security, a convicted felon and terrorist, Peter Watts’ acclaimed debut novel Starfish (1999) was named a New York Times Notable Book. He followed that success with the next three volumes of the Rifters series: Maelstrom (2001), Behemoth: B-Max (2004), and Behemoth: Seppuku (2005). Blindsight (2006) has become a core text in diverse undergraduate courses ranging from philosophy to neuropsych. The sidequel Echopraxia appeared in 2014. Crysis: Legion(2011) novelized the game Crysis 2.

His numerous award-winning shorter works have been collected in Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (2001), BEYOND THE RIFT (2013), the Polish Odtrutka na optymizm (2013), and the French Au-delà du gouffre (2016). For the Spring 2000 issue of On Spec, Watts produced the frontispiece “Alien Intents.”

Starting with the Hugo Award-winning “The Island” (2009), Watts began the Sunflower Cycle about the voyage of a jump gate-building ship Eriophora. Their stories continued in “Hotshot” (2014), “Giants” (2014), and 2018′s acclaimed THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

All of us at Tachyon wish the amazing Peter a happy birthday!

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info about BEYOND THE RIFT, visit the Tachyon page

Cover art by Hugh Sicotte

Design by Elizabeth Story

December 24, 2018

Happy birthday to the fantastic Elizabeth Story

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized birthday, elizabeth story, how to fracture a fairy tale, Jane Yolen, jo walton, Peter Watts, starlings, the freeze frame revolution

Photo by Jacob Weisman

The aptly named Elizabeth Story, Tachyon’s lead designer, is that rare and wondrous unicorn who combines artistic, technical, and verbal skills.

2018 Holiday Card

She came to Tachyon in 2009 as an editorial intern, having graduated with honors from the Creative Writing department at UC Santa Cruz. Her prior experience included creating motivational posters, newsletters, and comic strips for a children’s tutoring center; editing a campus literary magazine; and assisting in a perfumery.

Once Story dashed off some impromptu promotional materials in Photoshop, it became clear that she was destined to work as Tachyon as an artist instead of an editor. Since that time, Story has designed many of Tachyon’s most creative book covers and interiors, press kits, holiday cards, and catalogs.

2016 Holiday Card

Even after earning her M.F.A., Story still sleeps very little and remains wittier than most people you know. It is said that she locked her first novel, which may or may not have been illustrated, in a drawer because it tried to bite her.

Tachyon wishes the incredible Elizabeth a very happy birthday, and hopes that she doesn’t get cheated of Christmas presents just because she was born on the wrong day.

For more info on HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

December 3, 2018

Tachyon tidbits featuring Jane Yolen, Nalo Hopkinson, Peter Watts, Rudy Rucker, and Gregory Norman Bossert

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized boswell book company, camille acker, chuma hill, electric lit, elizabeth story, falling in love with hominids, gregory norman bossert, how to fracture a fairy tale, Jane Yolen, lashawn m wanak, lightspeed, nalo hopkinson, Peter Watts, review, rudy rucker, SF in SF, soma fm, the freeze frame revolution

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

Jane Yolen (photo: Jason Stemple), Nalo Hopkinson (David Findlay), Peter Watts, Rudy Rucker, and Gregory Norman Bossert

At LIGHTSPEED, LaShawan M. Wanak praises Jane Yolen’s HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE.

Yolen starts off with advice on how to actually fracture a fairy tale, which is useful for writers wishing to try their hand at retelling tales. She then dives into the tales themselves, mainly retellings of folk tales, but with a couple familiar Grimm’s tales among them. The story of Cinderella, for instance, which Yolen reimagines into “The Moon Ribbon,” about a girl who escapes her stepmother with a ribbon from her dead mother, and “Cinder Elephant,” which tells the story from a fat-positive point of view.

Some stories are just straightforward tales that have very little changed in them, such as her telling of Asian folktales “One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King” and “The Foxwife.” Some are rearranged in ways you don’t expect. “Happy Dens or a Day in the Old Wolves Home” has all the wolves in folklore now residing in an Old Wolves Home and tell their own versions on what happened to them. “Sleeping Ugly,” a riff on Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, is a hilarious tale with a testy fairy godmother who deserves her own story.

There are also a couple of tales that draw directly from Yolen’s Jewish heritage. “Slipping Sideways Through Eternity” is a sobering read connecting the Hebrew version of Elijah with the Holocaust, whereas “Granny Rumple” is an actual tale within Yolen’s family told on the framework of Rumpelstiltskin, and it is not a cheerful story. Indeed, several stories in this collection are rather bleak, but so well told that they sit and make you think.

Camille Acker at ELECTRIC LIT includes Nalo Hopkinson’s FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS in A Reading List of Short Story Collections by Black Women Writers.

Rest assured: black women writers aren’t only writing realist fiction. Octavia Butler and Nnedi Okorafor both have bodies of work that include short stories in addition to the speculative worlds of their novels. Likewise, Nalo Hopkinson builds worlds on the large scale of the novel and on the small scale in her short story collections Skin Folk, Report From Planet Midnight, and her 2015 collection FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS. Hopkinson remixes canonical texts, from fairy tales to Shakespeare, and infuses them with an Afro-Caribbean perspective. Adults become monstrous consumers of flesh and a free society of former slaves is infused with magical realism. Samuel Delany once noted that science fiction is particularly important “for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they — and all of us — have to be able to think about a world that works differently.” Hopkinson is doing just that.

Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION hits the Boswell Book Company bestseller list and is the selection for their Sci-Fi Book Club on December 10.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Hotel Silence, by Auður Ava Olafsdottir
2. Less, by Andrew Sean Greer
3. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman
4. The Life We Bury, by Allen Eskens
5. The Drifter, by Nick Petrie
6. Alternate Side, by Anna Quindlen
7. The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway
8. THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, by Peter Watts
9. The Music Shop, by Rachel Joyce
10. Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward

SOMA FM publishes the podcast of the October SF IN SF with Rudy Rucker and Gregory Norman Bossert.

Readings and discussions with Rudy Rucker and Greg Bossert.

Rudy Rucker is a writer and a mathematician who worked for twenty years as a Silicon Valley computer science professor. He received the Philip K. Dick award for his early cyberpunk novel Software, and again for his Wetware. Software (1982) was perhaps the first SF novel where a human’s personality (the “software”) is transferred into a robot. His forty published books include novels, collections, and non-fiction books on the fourth dimension, infinity, and the meaning of computation. Rucker’s ground-breaking cyberpunk Ware series was republished in 2010 as The Ware Tetralogy, which can also be obtained as a free Creative Commons ebook online. Rucker’s 2007 novel, Postsingular was something of a return to the cyberpunk style.

Gregory Norman Bossert won the World Fantasy Award for his short story “The Telling” in 2012; his story “Bloom” from Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2013, was a finalist for the 2014 Theodore Sturgeon Award. He lives in Marin County, California and works at Industrial Light & Magic.

For more info on HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more information on FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Chuma Hill

Design by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and design by Elizabeth Story

October 9, 2018

Peter Watts’ fascinating THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is a masterpiece

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized breach, daryl gregory, david stephens, elizabeth story, geek dad, interview, jonathan h liu, Peter Watts, review, the curious sff reader, the freeze frame revolution

For GEEK DAD, Jonathan H. Liu praises Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is a slim book, but a fascinating read. I loved the creative ways the resistance came up with to communicate with each other right under the AI’s nose, not to mention the technology involved in the spaceship itself.

THE CURIOUS SFF READER recommends the book.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is set in Watts’s Sunflower cycle which is a series composed of several shorter works. I haven’t read any of them before reading this novella and I’m pretty sure you don’t have to either to understand it. It probably gives a bit more insight into this world but Freeze-Frame works perfectly fine as a standalone story.

Being a novella, this work is quite short, however it doesn’t mean that it isn’t packed with fascinating ideas and concepts. The worldbuilding is very detailed which is pretty impressive considering the length. I read this book in July and I still vividly remember a couple of scenes such as the moment Sunday sees Chimp dancing, how she banters with it and her descriptions of the ship. The atmosphere of this story is quite peculiar since the members of the crew have mixed feelings toward Chimp and their mission and how pointless their travel appears to be. Most of them feel lost as they haven’t had news from Earth in millions of years: humanity could be extinct and they wouldn’t know it. They are without a place to go back to and they have to keep on building gates to make space travel easier when they don’t know if anyone will be able to ever use them.

THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION is quite different from The Rifters trilogy but it’s a masterpiece in its own right. It’s complex, detailed, impactful and much more stronger than a lot of novels. I would recommend it to any science fiction lover, even those you don’t usually like novellas because it’s so accomplished that it doesn’t feel like one at all (not to say novellas are bad by any means, they just feel a bit too short sometimes). I definitely want more stories set in this world so I will check out some of the other stories set in this universe for sure!

Highly recommended.

4.5 stars.

Australian author David Stevens in an interview at BREACH mentions Peter Watts and Daryl Gregory..

What books are beside your bed right now?

Too many! Now that I have a long commute again each day, I am getting through a lot. I have just read and really enjoyed THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION by Peter Watts (Blindsight was a favourite of mine, perhaps I should add it to the list of excellent vampire books); Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky (with an unexpected appearance of my old work place, the International Criminal Court); and Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory.

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and design by Elizabeth Story

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