Well, my Amazon post on Grant’s Corrupted Science kinda proves its point, with the knee-jerk reaction to it from one poster in the comments thread but also with the very sneaky Amazon reviews of the book by two stealthers. Anyway, it’s a great book and deserves your attention.

Jeff

Writer’s Digest strikes again, with this popular fiction report.

Love this quote from Crawford Kilian, author of Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy:

Kilian notes the rise of traditional (hard) science-fiction writers like Neil Gaiman and Rudy Rucker, but worries that the days of mind-stretching tales are dwindling. “No doubt some agents and editors really are looking for brilliant and innovative newcomers,” he says. “But they’ll be like apprentice chefs, trying to create superb meals for customers who want Domino’s Pizza.”

To which I can only say…”you idiot!” (unless this is a misquote). Such things become self-fulfilling prophesies and are the kinds of generalizations that, over time, can really hurt “brilliant and innovative newcomers”, if you’re really worried about them. Not to mention…Gaiman’s a (hard) SF writer?

Note also this quote:

Among the many distinct sub-genres, however, the most prevalent trend is the return of “urban fantasy,” which Harper Collins Voyager Publishing Director Jane Johnson describes as “the supernatural erupting into the everyday—sexy, tongue-in-cheek, post-modern.” The best example of this resurging genre, says Johnson (aka Jude Fisher), is the work of Kim Harrison.

I hope that’s a misquote, because Harrison is many things, but post-modern is not one of them. That’s not a slam–just a fact.

Jeff

Note: The publisher of Kilian’s book on writing SF/F is sending me a copy. It’s worth noting that a quote in an article doth not a separate book damn…

Lots of Penguin niche mysteries today, including one for quilters and another for gardeners! Just speaks to the popularity of mysteries these days, I think.

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Check out Jake Von Slatt’s post about the special offer on the Steampunk antho.

In addition, books ordered through this offer will arrive signed by the editors. Signed and personalized…they will even draw little zeppelins…

The New York Times has an article on bloggers driven to exhaustion! Although, as they note, two deaths do not a trend make.

Luckily, this doesn’t apply to me. I do blog for money (although not here), but it’s not the kind of thing where I have to constantly get an edge on posting about current news. As for the rates bloggers get…a lot depends on your speed. I have a minimum dollars-per-hour rate in my head that I won’t go below, so if I’m being paid by the post, I simply make sure my time translates, over any given time period, to that minimum or higher. If you’re a slow typist or can’t “write on your feet,” well, yes, unless you’re in the upper-upper echelon, you will in fact be writing for peanuts…

That said, I’ve reached a point where I need to recharge a bit, so blogging this week will be a little lighter, with normal service to resume by next Monday.

Well, you heard it here first–Kevin Brockmeier will be the editor for Best American Fantasy, volume 3 (released in 2009, containing the best of American fantasy from 2008). If you’ve been living in a hut by the beach and don’t know who Brockmeier is, there’s a brief bio below the cut. (News services and news websites, please note: Matt Cheney is sending out a full press release this evening with all of the relevant details).

We’re really pleased about this–we love Brockmeier’s fiction and we feel he’ll do a wonderful job. Ann and I will stay on with BAF doing PR and administrative things, but there will be a wall between us and any editorial decisions. That will be between Matt and each new guest editor. In the meantime, though, we need to finish up selecting the contents of BAF #2!

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Okay, so I’m cheating a little bit. The two AMAZING books by John Grant I bought in the dealer’s room at I-CON this weekend. I’m almost done with Corrupted Science and all I can say is it’s as if Grant wrote this book for me personally. It is absurdist, hilarious, horrifying, intelligent, and has a depth you wouldn’t expect for a book that deals with so much material. I’m going to do a full review of this book by next week. It just blew me away. I’m going to be ordering copies of it and the companion volume for friends for the holidays, I know. More on these books in an Amazon post.

(interior of the green room)

Here’re our I-Con photos, mostly from the dealer’s room. It was an interesting con.

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The SteamPunk Future from Jake von Slatt on Vimeo.

Yep, indeed. Very cool!

So, Ann and I will be at I-Con in New York as of tomorrow (through Sunday). See our schedule under News in the sidebar. Looking forward to meeting a few readers of this blog–and a few non-readers, too! In other news, we just learned Hal Duncan will also be at the Czech con we’re guests at–woo hoo! (Thus, the re-posting above of some memories of Europe…)

In the meantime, this is now officially a Crazy Long Weekend post. You have four options:

(1) Speculate on who the guest editor for Best American Fantasy 3 might be (we’re announcing it next week).

(2) Pimp whatever books, stories, or anything else you want to tell us about.

(3) Explain who would win in a fight: an Emperor Penguin or a Bobcat (or, alternatively, a weasel and a one-legged pirate).

(4) Share your most private thoughts in haiku form. Here’s a start:

I squished the frog on the ground.
Icky icky frog.
Winter comes.

Someone will get a free copy of a book for something posted in the comments. It’s totally arbitrary as to why you’ll get it and what it will be, but it won’t be something offered here before. Let chaos or indifference reign!

jeff