The Weeks that Were
Sunday, December 18, 2011
There's a lot happening right now, so starting with the ongoing (and time-limited) excitement:
- You can win a hand-crafted Slake Moth by Deadly Knitshade in our "Nightmare Creatures" competition. (Ends Wednesday, 21 December.)
- We're looking for stories for our next collection, Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke. The anthology collects short SF/F about London and inspired by Charles Dickens. The details are here. (Ends 31 December.)
- Submissions are about to close for the 2011 Kitschies. If you're an author, publisher or artist and you haven't submitted your titles for consideration, now's the time to panic and contact us. (Submissions close on 31 December.)
The Pandemonium Stocking Stuffer was released on Friday. This holiday treat contains three new stories from Archie Black, Den Patrick and Oz Vance - comic fantasies packed with sex, violence and Tesla rifles. The adorable cover is by the amazing Sarah Anne Langton. Best of all? It is on sale for a whopping eighty-six pence.
(Speaking of sales, did you know that Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse was still only £2.49?)
All that out of the way, let's take a trip down memory lane, and see what the past two weeks have brought...
The reviews:
- Lawrence Block and Jill Emerson's Getting Off (2011) (and avoiding the anticipated conclusions of a serial killer narrative)
- George Ralphson's Boy Scouts Beyond the Arctic Circle (1913) (and how enthusiasm alone doth not a thriller make)
- Lavie Tidhar's Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (2011) (and the expansion of fairytale kingdoms)
- Stanley Weyman's "A House on the Wall" from In Kings' Byways (1902) (and the roots of treason)
- Sam Wilson's "The Walled Garden" (2010) (and the price of eternal vigilance)
If we seem like we're avoiding recent SF/F titles, it is because, well... we are. We're up to our knees in 2011 speculative & fantastic titles for The Kitschies, but we're trying to avoid talking about anything that's been submitted. In January, we'll be reviewing The Kitschies' shortlists, which will go a long way towards catching up. In the mean time, we hope you're enjoying our looks at vintage fiction and recent short stories.
Features and other fun:
- Chatting with Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians (a 2009 Kitschies finalist) and The Magician King
- A look at the genre titles included in A Thousand of the Best Novels (1919)
- Over at The Girls' Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse, the Pandemonium authors contributed a two part entry to the "Ask the Experts" series. Part One features Lauren Beukes, Archie Black, Sarah Lotz and Lou Morgan. Part Two stars Chrys Balis, Kim Lakin-Smith and Sophia McDougall.
- Jared also had the chance to talk about "Causing Pandemonium" for Tate Britain's Great British Art Debate.
- We were interviewed by Charles Tan of The World SF Blog and revealed all sorts of scintillating trivia about hairdressers, The Kitschies and the difference between fantasy in the American and British markets.
Last but not least, Thursday, 8 December was The Kitschies' Steampunk Evening, the first in a series of loosely curated genre examinations (a fancy way of saying "themed events") brought to you by The Kitschies, Blackwell's and The Kraken Rum. The list of featured guests and their work can be found here and some great wrap-ups can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.
We're hashing out the details of the next event now, and the best way to keep on top of things is to keep reading, well, us. (And Like The Kitschies' Facebook page. That's helpful too.)