Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 102

Kornbluth Cover: Squidalicious

(Cover depicts a character from his insane Mind-Worm story)

Okay, is that a cool cover or what? I mean, I look at most of the covers in the SF/F section and I am bored beyond belief. But this? I'd buy that in a second.

Weirdly Funny

(Funny? FUNNY?!)

Before I forget, Maurice Broaddus gave me some great answers about his forthcoming anthology, Dark Faith. It's also the UK launch date for his first novel, from Angry Robot. So go check out the feature. Go pre-order Dark Faith. Go buy his novel. Both books look really interesting.

Now, to the main order of business: the fact that there's funny—and I don't mean "Hmm. That seems funny–why is that thar door to the basement open and why is there a cleaver in my forehead?"–in...

O True Deceiver, How I Loves Thy Flowery Rabbits

I'm much taken by rabbits these days, whether it's smorkin' labbits or the demented rabbit of Donnie Darko, my own Sensio or the dream-derived rabbit of Sexy Beast–or even the rabbits of our friends in Berlin (one of which I swear looks like a tiny bison, its wooly brown ears flopping down to cover the eyes in just the right way). So I ask: Is it wrong of me that one reason I liked Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver is because of the rabbits? The book's about a contest of wills between two...

Testing the Weird

I might as well give up and admit it–chances are there are going to be a lot of posts on weird fiction here while Ann and I work on this big book of, erm, weird fiction. It's a good outlet for what's an intense, satisfying, at times frustrating, and epiphanal project. The book will cover roughly a century, from about 1910 to the present-day. I see it as primarily post-WWI to 2009, but there may be some slight slippage. It's not a best-of, per se, in that a true best-of for a century seems to ...

Bring Me the Head of Leopoldo Lugones' Bloat-Toad!

Sigh. That there could be a story called "The Bloat-Toad" and I have no read it. But must order a story collection to read it. What if it turns out to be bloat and toad in name only? What if it is feh?

Random Thoughts for a Monday

(Some of the more interesting stuff encountered or re-read in the last few days while working on the big book of weird fiction; couldn't find the Jamaica Kincaid collection to add it to the shot.)

I'm sick of internet kerfuffle, so I'm avoiding it this week. It's not for lack of sympathy, but for lack of time and lack of energy and also because it's getting more and more depressing for me personally to emphasize the negative when there is a lot of non-polarizing positive out there that needs ...

Books You Find While Rooting Around for Weird Fiction…

…and would like to read or re-read but can't because you've got to read weird short fiction…and pretend to be a Mecha-Ostrich…and things of that nature… (Wild Women has a great great story by Nadine Gordimer in the form of a letter to Kafka from his father; great William Trevor story in the Manguel antho.)

Snippets of the Hunt for Weird

Dear Diary: Today encountered 77th supposedly classic iteration of the formula in which, on the very last page, the supernatural makes its entrance on the wings of the following: "Why, I was delighted to meet and have a splendid conversation with your mother/father/wife/son/daughter/brother/sister/gardener/plumber/ consierge/frog the other day in that little abandoned room far from all the light fixtures!" "What? Why my mother/father/wife/son/daughter/brother/sister/gardener/plumber...

Compendium of Weird

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...

Forbidden Planet Blog Celebrates Five Years

I don't believe I've ever met Joe Gordon, the chief mastermind behind the Forbidden planet blog. We correspond via email, though, and I know when I do finally meet him it'll be like meeting an old friend. And now that old friend's blog has turned five! Joe's written over 5,000 posts in the last five years for the blog. It's one of my favorites–I visit it a few times a week. Highly recommended. And congrats for turning five!