Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 136
July 7, 2009
Forty-One and Not Dead Yet
(When you're giving someone a high-quality selection of rubber chickens for their birthday, you have to also give them a salmonella microbe–it's just the law. Especially when you, alas, almost share a birthday with George W. Bush…Thanks, Amanda Le!)
"Me, I was at the height of my powers…" – Giant Sand
I'm 41 today, and I've been trying to think through what I wanted to say, given that the last year has been such a strange mixture of the tumultuous and the triumphant. (Here's my post about turning
July 6, 2009
July Updates: Booklife, Finch, Kosher Guide, Last Drink, Steampunk, Etc.
(Yes, I'm chained to them forever, Booklife and Finch, their pub dates so close together that even the ARCs came in around the same time.)
The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals
Out in February of next year, and I'm thrilled to announce that in addition to an introduction by Joseph Nigg and the entries on the imaginary animals, the book will feature a conversation between my wife Ann and Duff Goldman, star of Ace of Cakes, about the best ways to cook some of these beasties. Like, erm, hobbit. Gold
The Ultra Casual VanderMeer Books Received Podcast (early July 2009): Hansen, Niven, Baker, and More
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The Ultra Casual VanderMeer Books Received Podcast for Ea…
Jeff VanderMeer's Podcast
Right, so to give these books received posts a little more firepower, I'm going to start podcasting my initial thoughts about the books–basically providing context and reading a paragraph from each. I'm talking about them in the same order in which the images appear below. Yep, soon this will all be the rage. Probably already is all the rage somewhere I haven't seen it yet. And, yep, this is the
July 5, 2009
War of All Against All: Realism vs Fabulism? Er, No…
J.M. McDermott argues that the non-realistic, near-fantastical approach to crisis in literary fiction bothers him, whereas the non-realistic, near-fantastical approach to crisis in fantasy doesn't bother him. Larry from OF Blog of the Fallen drinks a little bit of the Kool-Aid by trying to find examples of literary fiction that don't fall into this "trap".
I find this discussion bizarre, to be honest. I don't automatically assume that my life is like everyone else's life, or that everyone's react
Oddly Enough: "Colorful Fur Gems of Trading," From Animal Land to Furtown (Right to Crazytown)
In cleaning the office, I came across a book I bought in Minneapolis a few years back, when the kind folks at Rain Taxi had me up there to do my Ambergris multi-media at the Walker Center.
This is a very strange book from the 1934 that tries to make the fur industry whimsical, gallant, and even humorous. I bought because of the eccentricity of it–the weirdness of the narrative voice, at least to modern ears. It's really somewhat macabre, and kinda gross to those of us who love animals. Crazy-town
Work Rooms Gone Wrong & Reference Texts: Wot I Did This Weekend
We've got a pretty good handle on the house most years, despite all of the incoming materials (sometimes up to 40 books a week) except for my office, in part because I'm not wedded to writing in there, so it invariably becomes this kind of catch-all storage space for stuff. And I don't mean the review copies. I mean, the boxes and boxes of books I've written or Ann and I have edited. This past year we had so many darn books published that it overwhelmed us. Finally, finally got caught up, althou
July 3, 2009
It's Good Because It Was Part of My Childhood?
Back when I lived in Fiji as a kid, my sister and I would walk down the hill from our house toward the sea. A little Chinese grocery store stood on the corner. We'd get the usual sweets there, but also these dried prunes covered in salt and a little sugar. They tasted intense, but I loved them. Today I saw them in a store and bought them, although I don't know if these are actually prunes. It'd been a long time since I'd had one.
This is what they look like:
They still had that familiar sharp, fru
Moomin Moomin Moomin Moomin Moomin Moomin!
My Graphic Novel Friday post on the latest Moomin book.
Because of these qualities, there's a pleasure in reading Moomin that's somewhat unique. We're battered all day by various types of white noise and by all kinds of blaring media, from television to video games. Moomin has a restorative, calming effect while never being maudlin, sentimental, or boring. (Indeed, Jansson's eye for satire can be sharp and unforgiving, within the context of her beloved characters.)
The Full-Time Writing Life: If It Doesn't Kill You First, It'll Kill You Second
Recently, two extremely talented writers, Catherynne M. Valente and Tim Pratt, started writing fiction online in return for donations. Although this may indeed be one of the waves of the future for author transactions on the internet, both writers were forced into it by extremities of circumstance. In Valente's case this situation occurred because of many months of unemployment for her partner and other factors. In Pratt's case, the bottom fell out suddenly when his wife lost her job, which also
July 1, 2009
Speak for the Tick, Capybara
I swear I'll stop talking about capybaras on this blog, but someone had mentioned Speak, the capybara on The Tick that The Tick thinks is a dog, until his sidekick Arthur takes Speak to the vet. (Speak only speaks twice in the whole history of the show.)
Here's more from wikipedia that's just too funny. And now I'm done talking about capybaras.
In his own right Speak's appearance was unusual for a capybara in that he appeared to lack any kind of neck and his head was much larger in comparison to h
