Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 127

Author Elimination with Lev Grossman: Eliot Versus the World

Having Evil Monkey'd Lev Grossman re his article in the Wall Street Journal, and having seen a lot of serious stuff thrown around out there, I thought it was only fair to interview Grossman for Amazon–in, er, a less serious vein. I thought he was a very good sport.

Amazon.com: How would you explain James Joyce's Ulysses to a 12-year-old child? Is there a children's book or YA equivalent you could reference?

Lev Grossman: I guess you could get away with saying that it's a story about an Irish...

Brian Evenson's Last Days Limited Edition–Special Offer

If you haven't read Brian Evenson's Last Days…you should. It's a spectacular work of existential noir, mixed with a heaping helping of Grand Guignol and Kafka-esque dream logic. Now there's a hardcover limited edition available, also through Underland Press. Each copy comes individually wrapped, and with a letterpress dust jacket personalized by the author. Brian's written a different passage from the novel on each cover. You can order the limited edition here, and between now and October...

Evil Monkey on Fantasy

Jeff:

I think I have a headache.

Evil Monkey:

Is it because I just hit you with a hammer?

Jeff:

Oddly, no.

Evil Monkey:

Is it because I smashed you in the side of the head with that beer bottle?

Jeff:

Only partially. And please stop that.

Evil Monkey:

You looked at me funny.

Jeff:

You look funny.

Evil Monkey:

So what's hurtin' you, litul guy?

Jeff:

I read this.

Evil Monkey:
I saw that. I didn't pay it no mind. I was too busy building this brick wall in the basement that I'm gonna put you behind when y...

Saturday Night Songs of the Dying Earth Rhapsodic Cockney Remix

I've been meaning to blog about Songs of the Dying Earth, the Jack Vance tribute anthology I contributed "The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod" (eventually "The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod," when I release the director's cut in 2011), and now I find the anthology is sold out on the publisher site, although Amazon lists some copies available "new and used."

In any event, it's a beautiful volume, with the added grace note of a little illustration at the beginning of each story and each...

Friday Links: A New StarShipSofa Sofanauts Podcast, Von Schlegell's Mercury Station, and Kibuishi's Amulet Series

I reviewed Mark Schlegell's very impressive Mercury Station for Bookforum. In some ways it feels a little like Moonshadows or Stepan Chapman's The Troika. It's one of those SF novels criminally overlooked this year, and it deserves your attention. Its ideas on time travel are playful and unique, its take on our future grim but realistic.

"The many delights of Mercury Station include Ryan's jousting with MERKUR qompURE during interrogations about the gaps in his memory, the inclusion of...

Ideal and IT Crowd (with Arctic Monkeys)

Two new comedies on IFC (although old hat to fans of the BBC not living in the U.S.) have had me watching and in stitches for a few weeks now. One features Moz, a drug dealer, the other Moss, an IT guy at a corporation.

Ideal is set mostly in the apartment of Moz, a low-level drug dealer. A succession of bizarre characters, including a guy named Cartoon Head (who has a cartoon head), parade through, seeking a fix, or sometimes something more dangerous. The series is dark humor at its...

Catching Up With Linkage: Moers, Stone Brewing, Apex

Lately on Amazon, I've posted the following:

- Walter Moers returns with more genius-level insanity.

- What book would go best with Stone's 09.09.09 Vertical Ale?

- What are your favorite graphic novels of the year so far?

- Brian Slattery's top ten books that don't get enough respect.

- Matthew Cheney's interview with Samuel R. Delany.

In other news Apex asked me for my top three books and stories that everyone should be reading. Go check it out.

One Book. One Chance. And You.

(Would this be the book you would choose? If so, I am not your friend.)

Here's the scenario: Human civilization is collapsing. There's no guarantee we'll be around much longer. In the chaos, you have the opportunity to put a book in a cannister that might be the only thing that survives–it must contain as much of the totality of human experience as possible. It might be found by aliens or by our successors. Problem is, you've only got novels at hand. Which do you pick? Why?

(No picking your...

Things That Won't Be Happening This Year…

Finch, Booklife, Last Drink Bird Head, some short fiction projects, a humongous book tour upcoming, and any number of other things mean the following Won't Be Happening This Year.

- The Leonardo Variations – a Clarion charity anthology
- Mapping the beast – a best-of the Leviathan series
- Leviathan 5 – reading period postponed
- Borne – the next novel, about a giant ravenous bear
- Beluga! – working title of the text-with-marine-photos SF story book
- Learning French – yes, I planned on learning F...

Writers: Are you a Face-hugger, a Grub, a Maggot, Godzilla, or What?

(The writer Sir Tessa, in a contemplative moment, reciting Proust to a captive audience.)

The Emerging Writer interview I conducted for Clarkesworld had an unexpected side effect–putting writers in mind of how they emerged, or how they would like to emerge; similar in a way to the secret I revealed in this blog post, about how writers molt.

Sir Tessa instigated it, of course, with this interpretation of emerging: "I like the idea of 'emerging'. It puts me in mind of the headhuggers in Alien...