pornokitsch

The Kitschies: Submissions & 2013 Judges

The Kitschies, presented by The Kraken Rum, are very proud to announce the 2013 judging panels. These ten individuals will be searching for the most progressive, intelligent and entertaining books containing elements of the speculative or fantastic.

Red & Golden Tentacle judges (Novel & Debut):

• Kate Griffin
• Nick Harkaway
• Will Hill
• Anab Jain
• Annabel Wright

Inky Tentacle judges (Cover Art):

• Craig Kennedy
• Sarah Anne Langton
• Barry Nugent
• Hazel Thompson
• Emma Vieceli

More detail on the judges and their backgrounds can be found here. We owe a huge thank you to last year's judges - Patrick Ness, Rebecca Levene, Ed Warren, Lauren O'Farrell and Gary Northfield. They worked extremely hard and did an exceptional job. Bex and I [Jared] have been judges for several years now and we are both saddened (and slightly relieved) to be stepping down.

Submissions for 2013 titles are now open. There are a few changes from previous years. Most notably, Inky submissions now need to come in separately (books will no longer be considered for Cover Art automatically) and the prize no longer requires physical copies of books - eBooks are welcome. Please read the submissions requirements carefully. Even if you have submitted in the past, we strongly suggest taking a few minutes to look them over.

And, as with previous years, the judges ask for the books to arrive "early and often", rather than in one giant crate in November.

We wish the best of luck to everyone!

Underground Reading: The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

This is the latest installment in our scheme to review each and every Hard Case Crime publication, one every week. You can follow along here. After a slight hiatus, we're back with #13 - Stephen King's The Colorado Kid.

This is going to be a very structured review - a bit like a middle school book report. Here's how it'll go:

• What happens in The Colorado Kid
• What I like about it
• What I don't like about it
• The greater significance 

There's a method to my madness (or, to be more accurate, a madness to the method), in that I've got a fairly complicated emotional relationship with it. Not that, like, this book once shot my dog, but that, between the author and publisher, there are a lot of big weighty "brands" here, and it is important to (try to) treat the text itself as a discrete entity.

So, here we go. What happens in The Colorado Kid?

Well, without being funny, not much. The Colorado Kid is a story within a story. A young reporter, Stephanie, fresh out of college, has the unenvious position of intern to a local paper on a tiny island off of Maine. It is now late in the summer and, much to her surprise, she's fallen in love with the town and the two elderly goofballs that run the paper.  

During the course of one day, Dave and Vince (the goofballs) test Stephanie on her powers of observation and deduction. Why don't they tip the waitress more? Why didn't the visitor from Boston trust them? Etc. Stephanie impresses them (she's clearly impressed them the whole summer), so they reward her with a real story - an unsolved mystery that took place on the island in 1980.

The Lowest Heaven - Limited Edition

The Lowest Heaven is our new anthology of original fiction, published to coincide with the Visions of the Universe exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. It contains seventeen new stories of (vaguely) science fiction, each inspired by one of our closest celestial neighbours.

For added fun, the anthology is illustrated with photography and artwork from the archives of the Royal Museums Greenwich - and we've found some amazing (and eclectic) treasures. 

The whole thing is wrapped up in gorgeous art from Joey Hi-Fi. As well as the cover, he's designed a fold-out map of the Solar System that's included in the 100-copy hardcover limited edition. Joey talks about his work on The Lowest Heaven in a new interview over at the Royal Maritime Museum's Collections blog. 

The limited edition is on sale exclusively through the Royal Observatory - and you can pre-order your copy now.

As a quick reminder, the book includes stories from Sophia McDougall, Alastair Reynolds, Archie Black, Maria Dahvana Headley, Adam Roberts, Simon Morden, E. J. Swift, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Mark Charan Newton, Kaaron Warren, Lavie Tidhar, Esther Saxey, David Bryher, S. L. Grey, Kameron Hurley, Matt Jones and James Smythe.

The Lowest Heaven (in all its various formats) is released on 13 June. 

Items from the Royal Observatory’s collection of astronomical photography will also be on display as part of Visions of the Universe, alongside images from world-class telescopes and recent space missions. The exhibition opens in June at the National Maritime Museum.

Post-script: Upgrades

The occasional list of recent purchases...

Well, that was a week - two panels, an awards ceremony, a launch and an AMA! All of it, well, bonkers and delightful. And that's not counting the stuff we missed: book launches by Gary Northfield and Al Ewing, talks by Lauren Beukes and Benjamin Percy, SCI-FI LONDON mayhem and the inaugural Write the Future. That's one geeky, geeky seven days.

[Psst. As always, if you were at "Storytelling without limits" with Lauren Beukes, Ben Percy and Warren Ellis - email us any photos and please, please share any feedback, suggestions or advice!]

But, you know what we get out of week like this? Upgraded books. Rather goofily, that's what I like to think about books that I've already collected that now I get to take to the next level (Elzar style - and yes, I use that clip a lot. But seriously, BAM! Spiceweasel!). 

This week, that meant transforming proofs and first editions into signed proofs and first editions:

- The Shining Girls (Our box of South African editions showed up as well. If our flat shined any more, it'd be radioactive. We're a shine shrine.) So we've now got... signed SA paperbacks & hardbacks, a signed UK proof, a signed viewfinder promo thing (idea stolen from Adam Christopher, who did it first and made me jealous) and... an unsigned UK first edition. Because in all the chaos, that's the one obvious thing and we never got it done. Hrmph.

- Red Moon (harkening back to Tuesday night, I've never wanted an audiobook before, but now that I know Ben Percy reads his own? And, in hindsight, we should've asked him to read the text on The Shining Girls' trailer. THE GIRL THAT WOULD NOT DIE. GOODNIGHT PONIES.) Incidentally, Mr. Percy draws pretty adorable wolves in his book. Thumbs up.

- Gun Machine. Twice! The UK proof and the US first edition. Both of which are simply lovely. Again, somehow failed to get the UK first edition signed. Because... why do the obvious thing?

- The Snow. You don't realise exactly how many books - good books - that Adam Roberts has written until you know he's at an upcoming panel and scan your shelves for something to bring and realise that you could easily fill two bags... 

- Fly By Night. We're all die-hard Hardinge (die-hardinge?) fans now. Managed to find a proof of this book, and I'm delighted that Ms. Hardinge signed it. With a goose, of course. We'll have to keep it away from Red Moon, as I'm pretty sure Saracen could take a wolf in a fair fight.

Dark Societies and AMA

Anne's hanging out with Kitschies' finalists Frances Hardinge, Adam Roberts at Dark Societies tonight. Starts at 6.30 pm and costs £5 at the door (£3 if you're a member of the Post-Apocalyptic Book Club). Other panelists include Tom Hunter (Clarke Award), Rob Grant (Clarke Award and SCI-FI London) and author Jeff Norton. Should be a fun and provocative panel.

Later, I'll be doing an AMA with Justin Landon for Speculative Fiction 2012. Many of the contributors should be there as well, so should be a very good time. I've never used Reddit before, Justin's a terrible influence on me and I'll be up way past my bedtime (kicks off at midnight, UK time). Thankfully, this is the internet, so no one will ever see it. Right?

Stories of the Smoke: Going, going...

Stories of the Smoke will only be available for the next 24 hours, then it will disappear from the Amazon and Kobo stores for good.

Part of our shtick is that all our anthologies - including the ebooks - are "limited edition". In the case of the digital formats, it means that they're only on sale for one year. And, as of tomorrow, Smoke's year is up. If you own Smoke, it won't be magically removed from your Kindle - you'll own it forever. But, there will no longer be opportunities to purchase it. 

What's Smoke about? The anthology's core theme - stories about London and inspired by Charles Dickens - is broad enough to contain a bit of everything, and we're pleased that reviewers from the Guardian to A Fantastical Librarian have said nice things about it. In hindsight, we should've slapped "steampunk" in the title somewhere (however inaccurate) and watched it become a best-seller. And certainly there are steampunk stories in here. But there's also cyberpunk. And horror. And hard SF. And literary fiction. And dark comedy. And a walrus.  

Smoke contains stories from Sarah Lotz, Archie Black, Aliette de Bodard, Alexis Kennedy, Esther Saxey, David Thomas Moore (twice!), Jonathan Green, Rebecca Levene, Jenni van der Merwe, Glen Mehn, Kaaron Warren, Michelle Goldsmith, James Wallis, Charles Dickens, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Anne Langton and Adam Roberts. The introduction is by Christopher Fowler and the illustrations are done by the amazing Gary Northfield.

Proceeds from Stories of the Smoke benefit English PEN. Dickens would approve.

Amazon.com ($4.99)

Amazon.co.uk (£3.99)

Kobo (£3.99)

Review Round-up: Vintage Classics (and Not-So-Classics)

We've just returned from a long weekend in Lyme Regis, our favourite escape. Dinosaurs and literary landmarks! Bakeries on every corner! We spent most of our stay buying delicious foodstuffs and eating them on the terrace (which had a sea view if you stood on the table). Occasionally inclement weather forced us to nap. It was exhausting. To make things worse, the trip was bracketed by train rides to and from London, during which we could only... read. 

Lyme Regis has an amazing bookshop, and after 4? 5? vaguely-annual visits, I think the owner kind of recognises me. At the very least, he sees me walking out with most of his "Pulps" section every year. This year was the perfect sort of bookish travel: go down with a Kindle and an empty bag, come back with a few dozen new treasures. (A future Post-Scripts, I think.)

Anyway, my travel slides aside ("click-click" Here's us at the pub! "click-click"), a long list of short reviews follows:

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920). Before this year, the only Fitzgerald I'd read was The Great Gatsby, and that was high school and I've already forgotten it. Recently, prompted by some book research, I've been plowing through all the Fitzgerald I can find and loving it. Sarcastic, funny, touching, witty, straight-forward language and wonderfully complex eddies under the surface - pretty much made to order for My Taste. Who knew? This Side of Paradise is Fitzgerald's debut which a) bloody hell and b) like the vast proportion of debut novels is b1) a little too much about the author, b2) clearly based on post-event philosophical rendering of the author's own experiences and b3) slightly wanky. That said, back to a) - bloody hell. Astounding book and a fascinating look at an era and class that I don't know anything at all about. An amazing combination with all the Westerns I've been reading lately - hard to think of all this happening in the same country at the same time. 

The Fox by Conrad Williams (2013). A really nice little chapbook from the folks at This is Horror, who, understandably, know their horror. A family go camping and things start to get creepy. There's a long slow build and then the reveal and payoff all hit at the same time - as a mystery, it is a bit clunky. As an atmospheric bit of horror, it is smothering (in a good way). You just know horrible things are happening, pitter-patting around in the background, and the bits of mundane detail only make it worse when it finally kicks off. I'm glad it ends when it does, a bit of a new Scary Story to Read in the Dark, rather than any sort of greater parable. A nice book, and well worth a fiver.

[Seventeen more after the jump!]

Everywhere but here...

Really very much not here, as we're off to hunt dinosaurs while our friends move in and spoil the cats for us.

Lots of fun stuff lately, with Adventure Rocketship and Speculative Fiction 2012. 

Stories of the Smoke is entering its last week before dissipating, so strike now if you ever want to read amazing stories of talking cities, walking cities, trolls, walruses, angry spirits and the secret history of London's best pubs. 

Upcoming books: just approved the proof for Reading Between the Lines. Next steps, printing and signing, but it looks like they'll be shipped in the first half of May. The Lowest Heaven is looking amazing - we've got the (gorgeous) cover from Joey Hi-Fi and have spent the past few weeks mucking about in the image archives of the Royal Observatory Greenwich with the help of Dr Marek Kukula, the Public Astronomer. It is been just about the coolest thing ever. 

We're just waiting on contract stuff, but should be announcing the 2014 titles in then next few weeks. Eep.

As for bloggery, I've got my weekly spot on Tor.com, espousing the virtues of The Folding Knife and Anne contributes to a guest post for author Liz de Jager, waxing poetic about notebooks.

And next week? Next week is crazy. Clarke Award, Kitschies event, Lauren Beukes is in town, Apocalypse panels, Teeny Tinysaurs... (psst... read The Shining Girls yet?)

Speculative Fiction 2012: Out now!

We interrupt a week of imaginary musings for something very real - Speculative Fiction 2012 is now available on Amazon. 

This collection contains over fifty of the year's best online essays and reviews, from Tansy Rayner Roberts on Supergirl to Lavie Tidhar on China Miéville to Aishwarya Subramanian on My Little Pony to Joe Abercrombie on, er, himself. It is a diverse collection of some of last year's best and most interesting writing. We fully expect - and hope - it will cause discussion, debate and a bit of a ruckus.

The book also contains a foreword from Mur Lafferty, an introduction from this year's editors (Justin Landon and myself) and an afterword from the 2012 editors, Ana Grilo and Thea James of The Booksmugglers.

All proceeds from sales of this book are donated to Room to Read, supporting literacy and gender equality in education around the world.

Paperbacks are available now:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Createspace

And Kindle versions will be coming shortly.

(Please note that the physical versions do come with exclusive, print-only content: the back cover.)

This has been a learning experience, a labour of love, and, most importantly, a lot of fun. Everyone involved was an absolute pleasure to work with, proving once and for all that blogging does make you a better person.

The 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Shortlist: An Imaginary Judgement

There are lots of great pieces already about the Clarke Award. Strange Horizons has done a round-up or two that highlights some of this year's discussion. I think Chris Gerwel's piece comparing the Clarke discussion to the Hugo discussion is particularly interesting. To brutally summarise what I took out of it: for the Hugo awards, people blame the award. For the Clarke, people blame everything else.

I've already written about the Hugo awards, my imaginary ballot and why I, as a non-voter, need to shoulder a share of the 'blame' - although I do generally sympathise with the conclusion that there are some greater issues with the award as well.

For the Clarke, although I do agree that the world (that is, the universe of UK publishing) is badly flawed - and, for this discussion that means, "not publishing enough books by female authors" - I simply don't see how that excuses the judges from somehow generating an all-male shortlist. 

Before I get further in, please understand that I think the Arthur C. Clarke Award is the most prestigious prize in science fiction and, without a doubt, it does an amazing job of promoting science fiction to genre and non-genre readers. I like the fact that, not only does it provoke conversations like this, but it also encourages them. If I come across as more critical of the Clarke than I am of other awards, it is because I hold it to a higher standard.

I have read - and appreciated - many of the arguments that have been presented. That is: publishers, agents, readers, reviewers, authors, editors and retailers are all to blame for the lack of a single female author on the shortlist.

Yet... I still hold the judges responsible.