pornokitsch

Post-script: Collect, collect, collect...

Honestly, guv, I haven't been buying books lately. They just fell into my pockets. I don't even know where they came from!

This latest stack of books is pretty much attuned 100% to me. Everything here is Type I or II - either part of an actual collection or becoming very, very close to one.

Michael Coney's Monitor Found in Orbit is a gift (or perhaps a loan-that-may-never-be-returned) from Mark Charan Newton, who cites Coney as a huge influence. I'm only a couple stories in, but I'm seeing the parallel. Sneaky, socially-conscious SF. It is a bit more one-twist, Golden Age magaziney than I normally read, but I like it so far. Plus, DAW paperbacks are definiteily a Type II collection. Especially with Kelly Freas art.*

*Fun fact! I once bought some scraps of Freas art at an auction - literally, just doodles and scrawls and whatnot. I had a mad scheme of identifying what book the art connected to, putting it all together, etc. Two problems: Freas illustrated a billion books and in detail, they're all kind of identical. Oh well.

As something by China Miéville, London's Overthrow is 100% part of a proper collection. Penny (@galoot) got this for us at the Edinburgh conference and I promptly misplaced it. I just found it yesterday whilst going through the infinite boxes of books that are piling up on the landing. Huzzah!

The Weeks that Were, Causing Pandemonium and Kitschiesness

First up - just one week from today: Invisible Cities at Foyles. With Kate Griffin, Tom Pollock and Mark Charan Newton. Ms. Griffin's written a cracking guest post for London Calling to get the ball rolling. We can't wait for this event!

On the Pandemonium front, we're creeping closer and closer to our launch dates for Thy Kingdom Come and A Town Called Pandemonium. 1853 is wrapping up as well, and we're even - knock on wood - looking ahead to next year. (Plus, the first two reviews of Lost Souls have been great. Whew.)

Quickly rounding up the last month's reviews:

More Shopping: Hardboiled Jewish Fantasy and Collecting Robert Chambers

Some lovely prizes this week. Anne 'needed' to go to Cecil Court for work and my bibliophile mom is in town and keen to hit all the shops. (My father, the only sensible one of us, is also visiting, but he hides in the pub with a newspaper while the rest of us plunder bookstores.)

Anyway:

The Weeks that Were, Causing Pandemonium and more book porn

The last proper recap of blog content was apparently in mid-August. If this blog's series scheduling were any more erratic, we'd be network television. (ZING!)

I'll spare you the full recap, but here's what we reviewed in September:

• James M. Cain's The Cocktail Waitress (2012) (and how to be the best at what you do)
• Kristin Cashore Bitterblue (2011) (and the fantasy of reconstruction)
• S.L. Grey's The Ward (2012) (and redefining hell)
• Johan Harstad's 172 Hours on the Moon (2012) (and how to scare the crap out of children)
• John O'Hara's The Farmers Hotel (1951) (and the 1% of action)
• John D. MacDonald's Condominium (1977) (and mailing in the disaster epic)
• Ian Sales' Adrift on the Sea of Rains (2012) (and how to write a hard SF book that I'll adore)
• Jeff Salyards' Scourge of the Betrayer (2012) (and observer bias)
• Gaie Sebold's Babylon Steel (2011) (and new-old-pulp)
• George Tomkyns' The Battle of Dorking (1871) (and the dawn of the what-if)
• Mary Wilkins' Understudies (1901) (and how animals have souls too)

We had a few guest posts in as well, including Penny Schenk on the Edinburgh Festival, Jeff Norton on 10 inventions that we're still waiting for and guest reviews by Tom Pollock for Alan Garner's Boneland and  Lizzie Barrett for Rae Carson's Fire and Thorns and Benedict Jacka's Fated.

An update on our Pandemonium projects under the jump - plus a little more book porn...

Strange wolves, the old pulp and other happenings

The Rebellion crew (behind Abaddon and Solaris) have entered young adult territory with the launch of the Ravenstone imprint. It looks like their goal is quality, not quantity - they're projecting one book a season, but the launch title, John Carter Cash's Lupus Rex, sounds fantastic. Watership Down (by way of Brian Jacques) with quail battling the wolf who would be king.

Meanwhile, Strange Horizons have begun their annual fund drive. This year, they've added a Kickstarter-style approach - if you donate at certain levels, you'll see the tangible results of your donation in the form of 'sponsored' reviews, articles or stories. Strange Horizons is one of the internet's most insightful publications - home to intelligent, articulate and provocate reviews and fiction. Definitely a cause worth supporting.

And another event close to my heart: The Paperback and Pulp Bookfair will be on Sunday, 28th October (10 am - 3 pm, The Park Plaza Hotel, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Road, SW1V 1EQ). This is my favourite book sale every year, with thousands of vintage paperbacks and lost treasures all on display. Crime, SF, Romance, Fantasy, Westerns... all well-represented in an infinity of cardboard boxes. (It isn't the largest venue, but it is stuffed to the gills.)

Free Woolly German Stockings for Your Apocalyptic Hobbit China

Sometimes the titles just write themselves. 

German-readers delight, both Lavie Tidhar's Osama and S.L. Grey's The Mall are coming to the land of sausage and precision engineering. Reviews are here and here (reviews in English).

The British Library is celebrating 75 years of The Hobbit tonight, including a talk from Adam Roberts and other stuff from people that aren't Adam Roberts. We'll be there - pipes, fuzzy feet and all (Smaug costume wouldn't fit through the door).

The first audio from The Kitschies' Social Change event is up. China Miéville's dulcet tones, reading a brand new story: "Three Moments of an Explosion".

Last year's Stocking Stuffer, with three funny fantasies from Den Patrick, Archie Black and Osgood Vance, is currently free. That saves you a whopping 80p (99 cents) if you snaffle it today. Go forth and snaffle. (Here's a review of it, also in English.)

In just over a month, Stories of the Apocalypse goes off sale - never to return (eek!). We've got some festivities planned in October. We're going to miss this book, a lot. Don't forget, proceeds go to help out the Clarke Award!

Tomorrow, Knit the City (and Kitschies judge, Lauren O'Farrell) are yarnstorming Tate Britain, bringing fuzzy goodness to the wilds of Pimlico. We'll be there (the Smaug costume should fit through the doors).

Also, Spec Ops 3 went live. So, if you'll excuse me, I need to go farm command points. 

The Weeks that Were (and the books that came with them)

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.

The Weeks that Were

Wow. It has been almost three months since we last did a round-up. Yikes. 

Brushing most of the summer under the carpet, a few recent highlights include guest posts from Tom Pollock, Jeff Norton and Lauren Beukes. Our latest Friday Five guests have included Lou Morgan and Sara Westrop (on angels) and Den Patrick (on game worlds). 

Sarah Lotz and Mark Charan Newton both went under the gun in our new "Hindsights" feature - explaining what they'd change in their own books. This series has been a lot of fun. (Highlight so far may be Ms. Lotz's editor dropping by in the comments...)

Also, we interviewed KJ Parker. Eep.

Causing Pandemonium

As well as our bi-weekly round-ups of Pornokitsch and The Kitschies' news, we're also going to start throwing in occasional updates on the Pandemonium projects.

Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse received a lovely shout-out from Tom Hunter, the Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He even brandished a copy of the limited edition at the ACCA ceremony. ("Mao-like", noted one audience member.) Everything Tom said on the night is true. It is an amazing collection and proceeds from it do go towards supporting the prize. The collection still lurks around at a mere £2.49 on Amazon.

We're not the only publisher (tiny or otherwise) supporting the prize - NewCon Press' gorgeous Fables from the Fountain also donates to the Clarke Award and is a lovely book - definitely worth checking out.

The first reviews of Stories of the Smoke have been trickling through and have been, as Dickens would say, "amazeballs". "A strong anthology", quoth The Fantastical Librarian and "a major success" wisely pronounces Stuff & Nonsense.

More Smoke news is in the pipeline, you'll hear it when it happens (that was a hint). The limited edition of Smoke is long sold out, but the ebook is available on Amazon.

Our next collection – Lost Souls – is on track for its August release. The final artwork is in from the astounding Vincent Sammy. "Amanda Todd" is shown here, and there are a few other previews on the Panda site. We first saw Vincent's work in an issue of Something Wicked and were immediately blown away. Pre-orders for the limited edition of Lost Souls will open in June.

We're received the first two stories for our fall collection, A Town Called Pandemonium. Will Hill does truly terrible things to a family of miners and Archie Black has turned in a Roshomon-style stagecoach robbery gone terribly wrong (do they ever go right?).

Meanwhile, we've opened submissions for two new Pandemonium chapbooks: Crossroads and 1853. Crossroads' deadline is 1 June, so, if you're not scribbling away, now's a good time to start. 

To wrap up on a cryptic note, we have not one but two more 2012 titles that we haven't announced yet. These are a new direction for Pandemonium - not anthologies, but something slightly different. 

As alway, if you're interested in receiving the latest news of sales, submissions and release dates, we suggest the Pandemonium mailing list. 

The Weeks that Were

First, a huge congratulations to Jane Rogers and The Testament of Jessie Lamb - a Kitschies' Red Tentacle finalist and 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Award winner! Ms. Rogers is an amazing writer and we're delighted by the ACCA's decision. 

The Kitschies are taking part in the Society of Author's Worlds of Tomorrow at Foyles (22 May, a few tickets still left - go!). To support the event, we'll be dedicating the next two weeks of the blog to a discussion of children's books (also, young adult books, adult books for kids, kids' books for adults and everything in-between). We've got a great line-up of guests and features, and it promises to be a blast.

The adorable tentacles (you can see them on the left) were drawn by Sarah McIntyre, one of the event's hosts and organisers. We love them.

Meanwhile... the last two weeks' reviews:

• Matthew Bradley's Adultery in Suburbia (1964) (and how hell is other people – in Ohio)
• William King's Blood of Aenarion (2011) (and world-building the fall of empire)
• Helen Lowe's The Heir of Night (2011) (and making the hard things easy [with magical rangers])
• Peter Orullian's The Unremembered (2011) (and how quantity doesn't mean quality, especially with Chosen Ones)
• Brandon Sanderson's The Alloy of Law (2011) (and the difference between 'very good' and 'great')

We wrapped up our reviews of the David Gemmell Legend Awards' shortlists on Friday with some concluding thoughts. The discussion in the comments is great; how do you think epic fantasy should be represented in awards?

In film, Anne reviewed The Avengers and Catherine Hemelryk, curator, roller derby wunderkind and 2011 Kitschies judge, swung by to help us pick our favourite TV Themes.