It’s been a busy few weeks, and I’ve gotten behind, but before the World Fantasy Awards this coming weekend, I wanted to say a few words about John Coulthart.

Coulthart is a nominee for best artist, and I was astounded to learn that this was the first time. John’s body of work is fairly vast at this point, and his art has appeared with projects by Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore, in addition to for his own projects. He is also the genius behind the wonderful art and design of every book by Savoy.

Indeed, I can’t conceive of my own City of Saints & Madmen, or our editing projects The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Lambshead Cabinet, Steampunk 2 and 3, The Steampunk Bible, or The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals without his contributions.

So kudos to the judges this year in singling out John for some well-deserved and long-overdue attention. He’s one of the best.

John maintains a brilliant blog you really should be reading, and he recently released his 2013 Cthulhu calendar.

As mentioned earlier, Ann and I have sold The Time Traveler’s Almanac to Nic Cheetham at Head of Zeus (a new commercial UK publisher; US publisher yet to be announced). It’s going to be a 600,000-word anthology covering about 100 years of time travel fiction. Also included will be illustrations and some fanciful nonfiction about time travel. We’re excited because many of the stories we want to use have, oddly enough, never been reprinted in a time travel anthology before. We also believe this will be one of the largest time travel anthologies ever published. (Sick of the words “time travel” yet?) Publication is scheduled for next year.

Although the space for unsolicited reprints will be small, we are committed to having an open reading period for The Time Traveler’s Almanac. The reading period will occur sometime after the World Fantasy convention, so most likely November 15 through the end of the year. (Watch this space.) It will be for reprints only.

I’m judging a fiction contest for Omnidawn, with the winner getting a $1,000 prize and publication in chapbook form.

There can be only one winner here, so it’s stiff competition, but we always take note of interesting writers and many times wind up using them for other projects.

Two new book sales to report, as a stop-gap blog post as I work on deadlines…

The Steampunk User’s Manual, to be written with co-author S.J. Chambers. It’s a follow up to The Steampunk Bible but will focus on the bleeding edge across a variety of media. Neither of us expected to do another steampunk coffee table book, but the concept was too mind-blowing (details later) not to pitch. Our editor will be the most excellent David Cashion at Abrams Image.

The Time Traveler’s Almanac, edited by me and Ann VanderMeer, is a reprint anthology almost as large as The Weird, covering the breadth and width of time travel fiction from the last century or more. We will have an open reading period for reprints for this anthology in November. Our editor will be the magnificently amibitious Nic Cheetham at the new major UK publisher Head of Zeus.

Thanks very much to our agent Sally Harding and to her UK counterpart Ron Eckel, at the Cooke Agency. More information on both books in a month or so as everything comes more and more into focus.

In other news, we will have updates on the ODD anthology series and the feminist speculative fiction anthology shortly. If you submitted fiction to the feminist anthology, please note we haven’t yet made any decisions—it might be another month to six weeks.

Through October 1, you can pre-order the e-books of not just the stunning Jagannath but also the forthcoming Don’t Pay Bad for Bad, and Tainaron for one low price of $13.00. At this time, we are not offering these books for pre-order separately. Add Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month (see listing here) for just $2.00 more.

You can order directly through paypal to vanderworld at hotmail.com, noting whether you prefer epub (Nook, etc.) or mobi (Kindle) formats. You can also mail a check made out to Jeff VanderMeer, to POB 4248, Tallahassee, FL 32315 USA. Make sure to include your email address with the check. When the titles are available, they will be emailed to you.

Some information on the forthcoming titles…

Don’t Pay Bad for Bad & Other Stories by Amos Tutuola—A selection of previously uncollected and rare tales by the Nigerian master storyteller. Introduction by Tutuola’s son and afterword by Matthew Cheney. (E-book only.) “Tutuola’s work is under-celebrated, overwhelming, deliciously mad and many times just plain hilarious. In his worlds, Death isn’t even safe from misfortune. His tales are both local and universal. If you are a fan of speculative literature, Don’t Pay Bad for Bad is required reading.” – World Fantasy Award winner Nnedi Okorafor (E-book only; $4.99 when to be released in October)

Tainaron by Leena Krohn—This World Fantasy Award finalist short novel by one of Finland’s most highly regarded writers is a personal favorite of ours, detailing an anonymous narrator’s trip to a strange city whose inhabitants consist of intelligent insects. “Krohn is a writer of the first rank—comparable to Kafka, or a more generous Lem. The novel contains scenes of startling beauty and strangeness that change how the reader sees the world.” – Locus Online, year’s best article (E-book only; $4.99 when released in October)

And, of course…

JAGANNATH BY KARIN TIDBECK
Introduction by Elizabeth Hand
Afterword by the author

E-book (available in October; see pre-order special deal above; will retail for $6.99)
Trade paperback (available in November)

“I have never read anything like Jagannath. Karin Tidbeck’s imagination is recognizably Nordic, but otherwise unclassifiable–quietly, intelligently, unutterably strange. And various. And ominous. And funny. And mysteriously tender. These are wonderful stories.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

“Restrained and vivid, poised and strange, Tidbeck, with her impossible harmonies, is a vital voice.” – China Miéville

Enter the strange and wonderful world of Swedish sensation Karin Tidbeck with this feast of darkly fantastical stories. Whether through the falsified historical record of the uniquely weird Swedish creature known as the “Pyret” or the title story, “Jagannath,” about a biological ark in the far future, Tidbeck’s unique imagination will enthrall, amuse, and unsettle you. How else to describe a collection that includes “Cloudberry Jam,” a story that opens with the line “I made you in a tin can”? Marvels, quirky character studies, and outright surreal monstrosities await you in what is likely to be one of the most talked-about short story collections of the year.

Tidbeck is a rising star in her native country, having published a collection there in Swedish, won a prestigious literary grant, and just sold her first novel to Sweden’s largest publisher. A graduate of the iconic Clarion Writer’s Workshop at the University of California, San Diego, in 2010, her publication history includes Weird Tales, Shimmer Magazine, Unstuck Annual and the anthology Odd.

“In these wonderful, subtle stories, magic arrives quietly. It comes from the forests or the earth or was always there in your own family or maybe exists in another realm entirely…leaving you slightly dazed and more than a little enchanted.” – Karen Joy Fowler

“Jagannath heralds the arrival of a bold and brilliant new voice, which I see too few of these days. You must read Karin Tidbeck.” – Caitlín R. Kiernan

“In Karin Tidbeck’s collection Jagannath, the mundane becomes strange and the strange familiar with near-Hitchcockian subtlety. I loved Tidbeck’s clean, classic prose. It creates beautifully eerie music for a twilight domain.” – Karen Lord

“I can’t think of when I last read a collection that blew me away the way that Jagannath has, or one that’s left me somewhat at a loss to describe just how strange and beautiful and haunting these tales are.” – Elizabeth Hand (from her introduction)

Hal Duncan, the juggernaut responsible for Ink and Vellum, is storybusking. Go help him out–he’s a great writer. And in solidarity with him, here’s an excerpt from a novel I’m working on, The Book Murderer. If you like what you read, go donate something to Hal.

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The news just broke at Tor.com that my wife, Ann VanderMeer, will be consulting fiction editor for the website. Which I believe is among the highest-paying markets in SF/F. She will be acquiring short fiction for Tor.

“She brings a sharp eye for adventurous fiction to all of her projects, and we look forward to the stories and authors she’ll bring to Tor.com.”

This is richly deserved and only poetic or karmic justice in many ways. I’m really thrilled for her!

Dean Francis Alfar is an excellent short story writer whose second collection How to Traverse Terra Incognitais now available on Amazon and elsewhere in e-book form. The book comes with blurbs from such luminaries as Hugo Award winners Ann VanderMeer and Lynne M. Thomas, among others.

Not familiar with Alfar? Here’s what you need to know.

Alfar is a Filipino playwright, novelist and writer of speculative fiction. His plays have been performed in venues across the country, while his articles and fiction have been published both in his native Philippines and abroad, such as in Strange Horizons, Rabid Transit, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and the Exotic Gothic series. His literary awards include the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and then Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Award. He is an advocate of the literature of the fantastic, editing the Philippine Speculative Fiction series, as well as a comic book creator and a blogger. Alfar is also an entrepreneur who runs several businesses. He lives in Manila with his wife, fictionist Nikki Alfar and their two daughters.

So here’s a proposition for you, since I’m a big fan of Alfar’s work. Below the cut, Alfar is allowing me to post “Enkantong-bato,” his entry from the bestiary anthology Ann and I are editing—totally new fiction, not found in the collection, free for you to read. Exclusive to this blog post and only available here for the next month. BUT, if you read and enjoy it, please do me favor and go buy How to Traverse Terra Incognita. The fact is, you’ll actually be doing yourself a favor!

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(Art by Jeremy Zerfoss)

It’s been a great few weeks at Weirdfictionreview.com—we’ve been posting a ton of amazing content. This week we’re featuring the Finnish writer Johanna Sinisalo, but also check out wonderful material by Edward Gauvin, Matthew Pridham, Nancy Hightower, and Rochita Loenin-Ruiz. (Many thanks to our managing editor, Adam Mills, for making this all happen.)

An essay on Finnish Weird
A significant section of the people who do not read books in these styles have a surprisingly narrow understanding of what these genres entail. For them, the mere mention of the word ‘fantasy’ conjures up visions of a pseudo-Dark Age world inhabited by fairies, spirits, dwarves and dragons and where people used magic swords to fight against the powers of darkness.

An excerpt from her award-winning novel Troll
In the studio I take Pessi in my arms then whisk the Stalkers on to his back legs with a single pull?—?knowing I’d not manage it at a second shot. If Pessi had thought of spreading his hind claws, the jeans wouldn’t have slipped on: the legs would have been torn to shreds. A size to fit a three-foot-six-inch child suits him stunningly. I’ve got the zip and metal button fastened and have twitched his tail through the hole I’ve made in the Stalker backside before he realizes he’s been diddled. Then I throw Pessi?—?now a hissing, whirling ball bristling with razor-sharp claws?—?in front of the backdrop, and I start the automatic camera rolling.

A new, exclusive interview with the author
If I’m brutally honest, I have to mention Carl Barks and his classic Donald Duck comics. Barks had an enormous talent of entertaining with the tools of exaggeration, mystery, bizarre characters and unlimited?–?sometimes very, very weird?–?imagination. In my honest opinion, Carl Barks was one of the greatest writers of 20th century. I have learned to read leafing through Donald Duck comics, and whenever I encounter some of the old stories I first read when I was four or five, I get goosebumps, because I can still recall the excitement and thrill of the first reading in detail.

Also new on the site:

—Nancy Hightower on the art of Chris Mars
—Edward Gauvin on “Echoes”
—Matthew Pridham on the movie The Last Winter

Did you miss it? Rochita Loenin-Ruiz’s fiction and nonfiction:

Hunting for Stories in the Philippines
One thing I immediately learned was this: horror is alive and well in Filipino language publications. I found tales of hauntings and possessions. Murdered spirits come back to avenge their deaths, beautiful white ladies turn into monsters, and creatures of the night feed on innocent flesh. These stories are familiar to every Filipino, for who doesn’t know of the aswang or the tikbalang? What Filipino is unfamiliar with the kapre and the nuno sa punso? Who hasn’t heard of hauntings and blood dripping down the walls?

Of the Liwat’ang Yawa, the Litok-litok and their Prey
In the same year as Dimaano’s book came out, a series of killings took place in the towns of Kalaygo and Layog. The killings resembled those described in Dimaano’s book, and pushed the book further into the spotlight. His thesis was embraced as canon and became the source book for shows like Guni-guni and Mameng Taleng’s Nightside Tales.

My 2006 novel Shriek: An Afterword had a soundtrack by the Australian band The Church, and now three of the tracks are on YouTube. I really love what they did with the novel, and the Bannerville one…well, Steve Kilbey did a great job conveying the emotion of that scene—he’s reading from the novel directly. You can buy the CD direct from The Church here.

I’ve got some hardcovers of the novel I need to get out of the house—we’re getting rid of some clutter—so email me at vanderworld@hotmail.com if you want one signed with an illustration. $6 plus $3 shipping anywhere in the US. Anywhere else, query first. This is still the novel I’m most proud of, and the one I keep getting emails about. In fact, one couple told me part of their marriage vows came from Shriek.

Description:

An epic yet personal look at several decades of life, love, and death in the imaginary city of Ambergris–previously chronicled in Jeff VanderMeer’s acclaimed City of Saints & Madmen–Shriek: An Afterword relates the scandalous, heartbreaking, and horrifying secret history of two squabbling siblings and their confidantes, protectors, and enemies.

Narrated with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions by ex-society figure Janice Shriek, this afterword presents a vivid gallery of characters and events, emphasizing the adventures of Janice’s brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a secret that may kill or transform him; a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever; and the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies who have been waiting underground for their chance to mold the future of the city.

Part academic treatise, part tell-all biography, after this introduction to the Family Shriek, you’ll never look at history in quite the same way again.