The Weeks that Were
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Two busy weeks on Pornokitsch and the other tentacles in our brand-squid.
Our second collection, Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke, is now open for submissions. We're looking for stories about London, inspired by Charles Dickens. The details can be found over on the Pandemonium site. If you haven't read it yet, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse is currently half price for the holidays - 18 original stories of the end of the world for £2.49 (or $2.99, depending on geography).
The Kitschies have an event coming up on Thursday night - the award is hosting a Steampunk Evening at Blackwell's Charing Cross. Entry is free and the guest list includes authors, artists and plastic squid. We've also been curating a series of guest posts on the Blackwell's blog, authors and bloggers sharing their thoughts on the genre.
Meanwhile, back on the blog, we got to reviewing again:
- John Abbott's Scimitar (1992) (and the loneliness of the pre-9/11 thriller)
- Melvin Burgess' Loving April (1995) (and hating Tony)
- Kirsten Cashore's Fire (2010) (and a leer at unapproachable beauty; a guest post from Lizzie Barrett)
- Hope Dahle Jordan's Take Me To My Friend (1962) (and aging ungracefully)
- Joe Lansdale's A Fine Dark Line (2002) (and coming of age in noir)
- Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon (2006) (and the fusion of cleverness and character)
- Jonny Porkpie's The Corpse Wore Pasties (2009) (and undressing the traditional mystery)
Our Friday Fives were suitably festive, with a heated debate over our favorite pies and a thirst-quenching discussion of our ideal imaginary drinking buddies.
Finally, Magnus Anderson mused about gatherings of gamers (a click of gamers?) ahead of this weekend's London Gaming Con. You'll be hearing more from him as well.
The next weeks promise to be busy ones - we have more from Pandemonium and The Kitschies, more reviews, more guests and maybe even a couple of interviews. Ooooh. Aaah.
Agatha the Ombudscat is delighted that we're reviewing again, but is confused about our backlist bias. Where are the 2011 titles?