VanderMeers to Edit New Tachyon Anthology: Squidpunk!
(Squidpunk promotional video above; new website here; scroll down for advance blurbs, etc.)
Ann and I are thrilled to announce a new antho for 2009, through Jacob Weisman’s Tachyon Publications: SQUIDPUNK! You’ll note I mentioned this before here, and now, because of the excellent sales of New Weird and Steampunk, readers are going to get it! A rich diversity of fiction from the likes of Stephen Baxter, Michael Moorcock, Sarah Monette, Paul Witcover, Jay Lake, John Scalzi, Cat Rambo, Matt Staggs, Elizabeth Hand, and many, many more (we’re still compiling the contents).
But we really have to thank Jill Roberts, managing editor at Tachyon for this opportunity, though. She’s wanted to do a Squidpunk anthology for several years, but the timing just wasn’t right.
Henry Kaiser contributed guitar images to the video above, while Danny Fontaine and the Horns of Fury contributed music. There’s also a new website (which you should really check out; thanks Luis!), and here’s the cover (design by Luis Rodrigues and guitar by Henry Kaiser):
March 31, 2008 at 10:47 pm
That may be the single greatest cover blurb ever. I pray that in some alternate realm of possibility where I actually produce publishable fiction (did you know that most editors demand this thing called ‘plot’?) that I receive a blurb like that… or perhaps something along the lines of “This single piece of work drove me to take a gun to work. KNOW MY HORROR!”
Alas, I have no work involving squid. Just an oft rejected tale about a gang of octopi stealing a war head from a long neglected Russian Sub for an oddly well connected angler fence… Damn me for picking the wrong type of many limbed ocean fauna.
March 31, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Surely you’ve also found the wonderful squid piece by Francisco Colonna. If only his typeface for squid languages had survived the original printing.
There was also that video with Paris Hilton and the dredged Vampyroteuthis infernalis, but you might not want to include Borges’ essay about it. I found it both deeply disturbing and life-changing.
March 31, 2008 at 11:00 pm
H.P. Lovecraft and Jackie Collins!? Together? Definite buy from me. Of course, Jewel is just icing on the whole squidtacular cake. Unless that squid is in the final throes of eating her, hence the misplaced guitar.
March 31, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I smell something fishy. And yet, this little voice in my head says, “I’d actually buy that”.
March 31, 2008 at 11:24 pm
If this be real enough to merit an actual copy (I especially want to read what Johnny Depp and Jewel would come up with), I will do my best not to “break” any reviewing rules that may or may not be established and will even refrain from comparing said anthology to that based on calamari. Fair enough?
March 31, 2008 at 11:38 pm
[...] Vandermeers to edit new tachyon anthology: squidpunk [...]
April 1, 2008 at 1:46 am
Awesome. Definitely worth getting back into reviewing for. I am considering co-authoring with Nigella Lawson, as this is a book that has to be tasted as well as read.
Is it true that Paul Kincaid is denying that Squidpunk is a valid movement?
April 1, 2008 at 2:46 am
oh if only this were true
April 1, 2008 at 3:06 am
And who is not listed on that cover? Me! Jeff VanderMeer is trying to frantically cover up what really happened, but alas for him I have revealed all over on my blog! Take that, mister squid man!
http://d1sc0r0b0t.blogspot.com/2008/04/revealed-origins-of-my-feud-with-jeff.html
April 1, 2008 at 3:27 am
Video is hilarious.
April 1, 2008 at 3:34 am
[...] April 1, 2008 · No Comments In which the Vandermeers’ seeming boundless energy, creativity and inventiveness that has brought the world so many neat anthologies in recent times (Steampunk / The New Weird / FastShips, Black Sails) finally made them jump the shark…erm, squid. [...]
April 1, 2008 at 6:30 am
Jewel? Like Jewel Kilcher the singer?
Aaaaaaaah hahahahahahha!
“Anne McCaffrey and 92 others….”
Golly.
April 1, 2008 at 7:00 am
Where oh where did you get the adorable plush squid?
And yeah, I’d totally buy it…
April 1, 2008 at 7:27 am
That vid gave me a very good morning laugh; thank you, Jeff, thank you!
April 1, 2008 at 9:12 am
Awesome! I feel slimy already.
Of course, if I buy a copy my Japanese mother in law is quite likely to eat it. I hope it’s suitably chewy.
April 1, 2008 at 10:25 am
Squidpunk makes it to the TV
April 1, 2008 at 11:18 am
The sea down by the docks was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
“It’s not like I’m using,” Case heard someone say, as he slithered his way out of the water and through the door of the Chat. “It’s like my body’s developed this massive drug deficiency.” It was a Squid voice and a Squid joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional invertebrates; you could drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese.
Ratz was tending bar, his prosthetic tentacle jerking monotonously. . .
April 1, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Ha!
Some more comments on squidpunk in my next post.
Cheryl–Paul Kincaid is an unabashed squidhead.
JV
April 1, 2008 at 2:12 pm
This has forever changed the way I look at squid. lolz.
April 1, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Jeff, I just have to ask. Where is Henry these days?
April 1, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I’m almost ready with my ChipmunkPunk Anthro, btw.
April 1, 2008 at 4:49 pm
You guys are way off. While you’re all still writing about squids, I’ve got an aquarium full of squids that I’m teaching how to write. We’re just days away from the first autobiographical squidpunk.
They even supply their own ink.
April 1, 2008 at 5:12 pm
[...] "Potter", Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of the Kings stirs controversy, and, finally, some weirdo in a squid hat tries to start a new literary movement from his living room. Enjoy! And feel free to link to more [...]
April 1, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Henry?
April 2, 2008 at 9:59 am
Kaiser.
April 2, 2008 at 10:00 am
Oh duh! He’s in San Fran, I think. I know he’s working on the music to some TV show. But I just sent him this link, so he’s likely to pop up and say for himself!
JV
April 3, 2008 at 10:25 am
[...] "Potter", Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of the Kings stirs controversy, and, finally, some weirdo in a squid hat tries to start a new literary movement from his living room. Enjoy! And feel free to link to more [...]
April 3, 2008 at 10:25 am
[...] "Potter", Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of the Kings stirs controversy, and, finally, some weirdo in a squid hat tries to start a new literary movement from his living room. Enjoy! And feel free to link to more [...]
April 16, 2008 at 6:56 am
[...] from Ann & Jeff Vandermeer’s new anthology featured here - whoo hoo [...]