So, we got our copies of the Kosher Guide the other day. It looks beautiful. Tachyon did a great job with it. It should be available at online sources and in bookstores by April 1st, at the latest.

It’s a fun, deeply silly little book that’s not meant as anything at all serious, but it does pack a lot into 96 pages. Not only Evil Monkey’s discussions with Ann, but an intro by Joseph Nigg, who did the OED’s definitive book on fantastical beasts, an ending section where Ann and Ace of Cakes’ Duff Goldman talk about recipes for imaginary animals, and, of course, descriptions of 34 different creatures, from ET to a headless mule, Sea Monkeys to the Pope Lick Monster. All of this given vision and style by master designer John Coulthart. (We even slipped in an Ian Miller illustration.)

Io9, Bibliophile Stalker, Jewcy.com, SF Site, and Foreword Magazine have all done nice features. It also appears the Jerusalem Post will do a review of the book.

There’s also talk of a very short-run, 34-copy limited edition from Tachyon, for those who collect books.

Gregory Bossert
Stacie Brown
John Chu
William Farrar
Erin Gonzales
Jessica Hilt
Jennifer Hsyu
Adam Israel
Dustin Monk
Tamsyn Muir
Laura Praytor
LaTisha Redding
Dallas Taylor
Leah Thomas
Karin Tidbeck
Tom Underberg
Kali Wallace
Kai Ashante Wilson

I’d just like to point people to the Locus Online compilation of international SF/Fantasy recommendations I’ve coordinated, which was completed and slotted well before the Spinrad controversy this week. These are largely not books yet translated into English–in fact, 90% of them aren’t–and so in addition to being a tantalizing look at what we’re missing out on, it’s of potential use to US and UK publishers.

Please spread the link–it would be nice to get enough interest in this feature to be able to keep repeating it yearly. It’s a labor of love and of necessity incomplete this year due to time constraints, among other factors. The plan would be to keep expanding it until most countries were covered to some extent. Major thanks to Locus Online’s Mark Kelly, who spent a lot of time finding most of the images and hand-coding foreign-language symbols.

In the meantime, anyone should feel free to add recommendations from 2009 from countries not covered (or covered), preferably with descriptions, either to the Locus Online article or here.

Secondly, a relatively new translation award has announced the winners.

Thirdly, John Klima is trying to start a magazine to showcase under-represented cultures. Go help him.

Finally, I should have Nisi Shawl’s post “Writing and Racial Identity vs. the Spinrave” up on Booklifenow by the late afternoon, EST.

Clearly a mock-up–note “Vendermeer”–but an interesting approach, found on Amazon UK. Out in July. (Other 2010 UK releases: Finch in August and the big book of weird, co-edited with Ann, in November, both from Atlantic/Corvus.)

Meanwhile, as the anchor instructors for Clarion San Diego, we’ve been helping read applicant submissions. This week the final decisions will be made, including invites for the 18 slots and those of talent who are added to the wait list. Quite frankly, it’s been tough as heck to reach final decisions–there were so many worthy applicants that instead of inviting the maximum of 18, there could’ve been 30 invites without a dip in quality. Anyone who makes it in or makes it to the waiting list should be proud of that accomplishment. I know that the competition wasn’t nearly this tough the year I went, in 1992. (I also have to say that I was incredibly impressed by the fairness and structure of the selection process–kudos to Clarion San Diego for that.)

Finally, it looks like the big book of weird may be downsized by a couple hundred thousand words. Still waiting for the final word on that. Regardless, it’ll still be a huge anthology. (And we’ll have some new book announcements soon.)

Well, we’ve reloaded Steampunk Reloaded, adding a few things at the last minute that were too cool to pass up. I’ll summarize the additions here, but I’ve also included the entire updated TOC below the cut for those who would like it in context. The anthology, out in October, is now almost completely unbearable amazingness as far as we’re concerned.

What have we added, besides our intro?

—A reprint of Tanith Lee’s “The Persecution Machine,” a Steampunk story originally published in Weird Tales.

—A “Future of Steampunk” roundtable interview with Libby Bulloff, S.J. Chambers, Jaymee Goh, Margaret “Magpie” Killjoy, Jess Nevins, Mike Perschon, and Diana M. Pho (Ay-leen the Peacemaker)

—A reprint of Sydney Padua’s comic strip “Lovelace and Babbage in ‘Origins (with Salamander)’”

—Extensive additions to the already awesome section “A Secret History of Steampunk,” which forms a unified story out of several pieces of fiction, nonfiction, and art, the new bits including:

>>A 5k frame story by the Mecha-Ostrich, Steampunk heretic

>>L.L. Hannett and Angela Slatter’s “The Curious Case of Physically-Manifested ‘Bed-Sheet Mania,” along with related letters and diary entries.

>>Felix Gilman’s “An Ode, on Encountering a Mecha-Ostrich.”

>>Jess Nevin’s “Unpublished Pages from the Encyclopedia of Victoriana.”

>>Additional snippets of text by Rikki Ducornet and Mary Shelley, as well as excerpts from Albert Robida’s “Railroad Wars” and the 1800s Edisonade “Electric Bob’s Big Black Ostrich”.

A comparison of the TOC below and the original one will also reveal that we’ve re-contextualized a few things. Finally, I cannot confirm or deny that I am the Mecha-Ostrich.

STEAMPUNK RELOADED: Steampunk 2
Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, from Tachyon, Oct. 2010
Interior design by John Coulthart, the genius behind The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, et al.

This lavishly illustrated anthology edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer builds on the strengths of the World Fantasy Award nominated first volume, presenting 160,000 words of rich and varied Steampunk stories, nonfiction, and art that plays off the idea of Steampunk not just in the context of dirigibles and other antiquated technology but also as connected to the maker movement and other aspects of the Steampunk subculture that have begun to infiltrate the literature. It includes the William Gibson story that inspired the Steampunk offshoot called “Raygun Gothic”.

Original Art:
Ramona Szczerba (three collages)
John Coulthart (illustrations, design, and several facsimiles)
Eric Orchard (matching frontis and end pieces)

Original nonfiction:
—”Steampunk: Facts & History” – Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
—”Which is Mightier, the Pen or the Parasol?” Gail Carriger, author of Soulless
—”At the Intersection of Technology & Romance,” Jake von Slatt of the Steampunk Workshop
—”The Future,” a roundrobin interview featuring Libby Bulloff, S.J. Chambers, Jaymee Goh, Margaret “Magpie” Killjoy, Jess Nevins, Mike Perschon, and Diana M. Pho (Ay-leen the Peacemaker)

Original fiction:

Jeffrey Ford, “Dr. Lash Remembers” – A harrowing tale of Steampunk disease that will make you think twice about jumping into an airship.

Ramsey Shehadeh, “The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe” – A fast-paced, riveting tale of time slips and the perils of colonialism, featuring the enigmatic Dromedons, rebellion, and a very strange train ride.

Vilhelm Bergsoe, “Flying Fish (Prometheus)”, translated by Dwight R. Decker – A novelette from 1869 previously unpublished in English, by a Danish writer. This progressive tale of the dirigible Flying Fish, written in the form of a letter from the future to the past, will dazzle you with its Steampunk stylings and its prescient knowledge of a genre that would not be named for more than another century!

“A Secret History of Steampunk” featuring the following originals:

Mecha-Ostrich’s frame story “An Account of XY and XX: Legacy Robbed, Information Suppressed, Darkness Victorious” (all other materials in this section discovered in the package Mecha-Ostrich sent to the editors prior to the mysterious explosion)

L.L. Hannett and Angela Slatter’s “Notes & Queries: The Curious Case of Physically-Manifested ‘Bed-Sheet Mania’” with related interrogatories on “The Prisoner Queen,” “The Great Air Ferry Disaster,” and Oyster Rime Spores, and including correspondence related to the Mecha-Ostrich’s inquiries. (Note that “Notes & Queries,” first published in the 1800s, appears to have been the inspiration for Ford’s “Dr. Lash Remembers” (see below).

Felix Gilman’s “An Ode, on Encountering a Mecha-Ostrich: Excerpt from a Strange Children’s story.” Children will never be the same after encountering this piece…

Ekaterina Sedia’s “Two Short Excerpts from the Russian Book of the Improbable” – Eclipses and lunar seas collide with robots and airships in these delightful Russian clockwork concoctions presented in their original context as pages from the heretical (and possibly theoretical) Russian Book of the Improbable.

Matthew Cheney’s “Confessions and Complaints of a True Man” – Incontrovertible evidence of Steampunk invention in the time of the American transcendentalists, including mechanized elephants.

Ivica Stevanovic’s “Illustrations from the Serbian Comic Strip ‘American Tinker Under the Influence of Absinthe’”.

Jess Nevin’s “Unpublished Pages from the Encyclopedia of Victoriana,” featuring three failed Steampunk inventions.

Featuring further contributions (reprints) and cameos by Fabio Fernandes, Brian Stableford, Rikki Ducornet, Mary Shelley, Albert Robida’s “Railroad Wars,” and the 1800s Edisonade “Electric Bob’s Big Black Ostrich”.

Amazing Reprint Stories Culled from Broadsheets Far and Wide:

Daniel Abraham, “Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance”
Stephen Baxter, “The Unblinking Eye”
G.D. Falksen, “The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday”
William Gibson, “The Gernsback Continuum”
Samantha Henderson, “Wild Copper”
Caitlín R. Kiernan “The Steam Dancer (1896)”
Andrew Knighton, “The Cast-Iron Kid”
Marc Laidlaw, “Great Breakthroughs in Darkness”
Margo Lanagan, “Machine Maid”
Tanith Lee, “The Persecution Machine”
Lisa Mantchev & James Grant, “As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers”
Shweta Narayan, “The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar”
David Erik Nelson, “The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond”
Sydney Padua, “Lovelace and Babbage in Origins (with Salamander)” [comic]
Cherie Priest “Tanglefoot”
Chris Roberson, “O One”
Margaret Ronald, “A Serpent in the Gears”
Ramona Szczerba, “The Unlikely Career of Portia Dreadnought,” “Artemesia’s Absinthe,” and “Obadiah Theremin, MD”
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Anachronist’s Cookbook”

Web Exclusives: (in October)

—Jacques Barcia’s story from a Brazilian steampunk antho last year, translated from the Portuguese
–Mike Perschon’s short essay on the future of Steampunk

That thar is the catalog image for the big book of weird fiction Ann and I are putting together for Atlantic/Corvus, to be turned in around May 1st and published in November. It may turn out to be a placeholder, but I find it oddly comforting and comfortable. Heh.

The catalog page has us both even more excited about the project, although it’s crazy in a sense to see the catalog page while we’re still working on it and have only begun to contact agents and the like for the first batch of acceptances. Still working on the title of the book, too.

Without further pomp or ceremony, we present our latest anthology’s full contents. We’re both extremely happy with how it turned out–including materials original to the book and some great reprints at its heart.

UPDATE 2/24: We’ve confirmed that we’ll also reproduce an installment of Sydney Padua’s Lovelace and Babbage comic in the anthology. – Ann & Jeff

STEAMPUNK RELOADED: Steampunk 2
Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, from Tachyon, Oct. 2010
Interior design by John Coulthart, the genius behind The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, et al.

This lavishly illustrated anthology edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer builds on the strengths of the World Fantasy Award nominated first volume, presenting 155,000 words of rich and varied Steampunk stories, nonfiction, and art that plays off the idea of Steampunk not just in the context of dirigibles and other antiquated technology but also as connected to the maker movement and other aspects of the Steampunk subculture that have begun to infiltrate the literature. It includes the William Gibson story that inspired the Steampunk offshoot of “Raygun Gothic”.

Original Art by:
Winona Cookie
John Coulthart
Eric Orchard
Ivica Stevanovic

Original nonfiction by:
Gail Carriger, author of Soulless (fashion and fiction)
Jake Von Slatt of the Steampunk Workshop (maker movement)

Along with thoughts on the future of Steampunk by Mike Perschon, the Steampunk Scholar, and others.

Original fiction by:

Ramsey Shehadeh, “The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe” – A fast-paced, riveting tale of time slips and the perils of colonialism, featuring the enigmatic Dromedons, rebellion, and a very strange train ride.

Vilhelm Bergsoe, “Flying Fish (Prometheus)”, translated by Dwight R. Decker – A novelette from 1869 previously unpublished in English, by a Danish writer. This progressive tale of the dirigible Flying Fish, written in the form of a letter from the future to the past, will dazzle you with its Steampunk stylings and its prescient knowledge of a genre that would not be named for more than another century!

“A Secret History of Steampunk” featuring further originals by:

Ekaterina Sedia “Two Short Excerpts from the Russian Book of the Improbable” – Eclipses and lunar seas collide with robots and airships in these delightful Russian clockwork concoctions presented in their original context as pages from the heretical (and possibly theoretical) Russian Book of the Improbable.

Jeffrey Ford, “Dr. Lash Remembers” – A harrowing tale of Steampunk disease that will make you think twice about jumping into an airship. It was recently discovered by Dr. Ford in a trunk whilst cleaning out his attic, and most probably penned by one of his forebears. Its original context as an extended fold-out broadsheet from the 1800s will be represented by facsimile.

Matthew Cheney, “Confessions and Complaints of a True Man” – Incontrovertible evidence of Steampunk invention in the time of the American transcendentalists, including mechanized elephants.

As well as contributions by Fabio Fernandes, Brian Stableford, Jess Nevins, and the Steampunk heretic known only as “The Mecha-Ostrich.”

Amazing Reprint Stories Culled from Broadsheets Far and Wide:

Daniel Abraham, “Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance”
Stephen Baxter, “The Unblinking Eye”
Winona Cookie, “The Unlikely Career of Portia Dreadnought,” “Artemesia’s Absinthe,” and “Obadiah Theremin, MD”
G.D. Falksen, “The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday”
William Gibson, “The Gernsback Continuum”
Samantha Henderson, “Wild Copper”
Caitlín R. Kiernan “The Steam Dancer (1896)”
Andrew Knighton, “The Cast-Iron Kid”
Marc Laidlaw, “Great Breakthroughs in Darkness”
Margo Lanagan, “Machine Maid”
Lisa Mantchev & James Grant, “As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers”
Shweta Narayan, “The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar”
David Erik Nelson, “The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond”
Cherie Priest “Tanglefoot”
Chris Roberson, “O One”
Margaret Ronald, “A Serpent in the Gears”
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Anachronist’s Cookbook”

The TOC to The Third Bear, my first major story collection since Secret Life in 2004, has been finalized…finally. This includes the 9,000-word story “The Quickening,” which is original to the book, and which I turned in this morning. I’ll be writing some end matter and someone’s doing an introduction. Another new story, “Komodo,” has been dropped from the TOC because it’s still in progress and it might top out at thirty or forty thousand words. Not sure yet.

The Third Bear
The Quickening
Finding Sonoria
Lost
The Situation
Predecessor
Fixing Hanover
Shark God Versus Octopus God
Errata
The Goat Variations
Three Days in a Border Town
The Secret Life of Shane Hamill
The Surgeon’s Tale (with Cat Rambo)
Appoggiatura

I’m especially happy to see crazy-ass brilliant work like the Kij Johnson up in the story category, and that, in general, the ballot more accurately reflects the landscape of short fiction (see Clarkesworld’s showing, for example).

Okay, back to reading weird fiction and finalizing Steampunk Reloaded and finishing off that Lovecraft-Borges reunion story.