Back on track with biweekly round-ups. Maybe. Read on for a recap of the last two week's whatnot, plus some glamorous photography and a preview of next week's Pandamadness™!
The reviews:
- Jules Feiffer's Harry, the Rat with Women (1963) (and the joys of narcissism) [Cheers to Fantagraphics for the shout-out - we felt very cool]
- Bret Harte's The Queen of Pirate Isle (1855) (and California twee)
- Jeff Noon's Channel SK1N (2012) (and hyper-reality television)
- Herbert Redgrove's Alchemy: Ancient and Modern (1920) (and a new look at a very old subject)
- The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1905) (and using SF to present a political argument)
[Average date of publication: 1931. Pornokitsch: on the cutting edge of genre fiction!]
Our Hindsight series - in which authors discuss what they would change in their own books - continued with the legendary Jon Courtenay Grimwood and his debut novel, NeoAddix.
Tor let us give away one of their amazing Babelfish - a USB stick with their entire catalogue (DRM-free!) on it. Lots of folks got into the action of discussing their favourite animal companions. Some brilliant answers in there, so as well as the random drawing (done by our own animal companions) we sent out a few spot prizes. Thanks again for taking part, everyone!
Anne shared some of her favourite superhero films; I snarked about 'great' moments in epic fantasy.
Anne went to the Forbidden Planet launches for Lou Morgan's Blood and Feathers and Tom Pollock's The City's Son. We both went to the (heaving!) Epic Fantasy night at Blackwell's, hosted by the epic crew of Fantasy Faction. It was brilliant catching up with everyone (and stealing all of Laura's The Kraken-infused cupcakes!). Dear Fantasy Faction: many more events, please!
>So, last week, I showed off the books that came from my Arizona holiday. In the interests of full...uh... disclosure, these are the books that showed up in the UK while I was on holiday.
One of the best parts of coming back is opening all the packages...
- Sleight, The Desert of Souls, Communion Town and The Uninvited Guests were all recommendations from friends, family and the Man Booker award (who we consider family, but they never show up to Thanksgiving)
- Blood and Feathers and The City's Son - loot from the signings. No touchy.
- The Brave Little Toaster - one of my favourite movies (don't judge!) via Porcupine Books
- The Knife of Never Letting Go is via Porcupine again, delighted to find this before the upcoming Kitschies event with Mr. Ness
And a few more...
- Two more books by Jay Russell, one of the pioneers of the modern urban fantasy / occult detection craze
- To compensate for a late BSFA publication, the organisation gave every member a free book from NewCon Press. That's quite cool.
- I've never read Mary Gentle. Twitter abused me for it. This is the result.
- Bronies: For The Love of Ponies. THIS EXISTS. I mean, COME ON. Plus, it features a Nebula winner (Kij Johnson's "Ponies") and a Pandemonium author (Osgood Vance with "Long in the Tooth")! BRONIES!
And, BRONIES aside (Ponypunk!), the two highlights:
- The Cosmic Horror Colouring and Activity Book! This is even better than it sounds. Jess Bradley is one of our favourite cartoonists, and our home is very quickly filling up with her stickers, cards and (now) books
- A new John D. MacDonald for the collection (had the book, but this is new cover art - huzzah! Barye Phillips cover, basically cropped out of the 1958 edition)
Next week, we're going a bit Pandemonium crazy. We've got a lot to announce - new chapbooks, new novelettes, new anthologies and new sekrit stuff. Woooooo...
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