Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 144

Evil Monkey and People for the Ethical Treatment of SF (PETSF)

Evil Monkey:

Are you a mofo?

Jeff:

What? OW!! You hit me with that hammer. Right in the knee!

Evil Monkey:

You didn’t answer quick enuf. I thought you might be ethically challenged.

Jeff:

What in the hell are you talking about?

Evil Monkey:

I am a member of the People for the Ethical Treatment of SF. I go around hitting m@therf*ckers with hammers.

Jeff:

Back the hell up. What the hell is…PETSF?

Evil Monkey:
I dunno but we support nice stuff and I get to go around hitting mofos with hammers. Splinter g

Booklife Excerpt for a Busy Wednesday

I’m busy on a dozen things this week–Last Drink Bird Head, Booklife ARCs, Shared Worlds business, fall book tour schedule, a book review for B&N, an antho proposal, and a book proposal–so bloggin’ will be light. But I thought I’d give you another Booklife excerpt today. I just got the PDF of John Coulthart’s layout, and this will be one writing book that doesn’t just have a functional and useful interior but also a beautiful one.

Oh, and advance blurbage is beginning to come in, like this one fro

Tim Powers: Secret History Super Special Bibliog from PS Publishing

Since it’s on Boing Boing, I hardly think you haven’t heard about it already, but PS Publishing wants everyone to know they have this awesome-looking 600-page bibiography of Tim Powers coming out, and they’re offering a free high-res PDF excerpt. Me, I’m internet poisoned at the moment and so going offline to remember what sunlight looks like, but go check it out on Boing Boing.

Fiction: The Goat Variations Redux from Black Clock 9

This story originally appeared in Black Clock 9, released during the U.S. election season last year. As such it was written while the candidates were on the campaign trail. (I voted for Obama.) For more on Black Clock, visit their website and their blog. “Goat Variations Redux”, describing four absurdist/realistic alt-histories, is a companion piece to “The Goat Variations” published in Other Earths (as mentioned on the Emerging Writers Network today). Please note this story contains bad languag

Finding an Audience: Robert Charles Wilson’s Julian Comstock

Oddly, the letter/press release accompanying Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson seems more like a plea than a pitch:

The decline of general reviewing has sadly left little space for a book like Julian Comstock–that is, a book so original and vibrant with personality, it’s hard to know where it fits and what to do with it. Parts throwback adventure, post-apocalyptic sci-fi, dashing western, prophetic religious text and gloriously subversive political manifesto, [the novel:] is that unique cre

New Weird Reading List

For those who might be looking for more strange books to read, Steven Klotz, who was kind enough to ask our permission, has posted the recommended reading list from our New Weird anthology, along with some other thoughts on the book.

Does New Weird still exist? Did it ever exist? Read the book to get the context to make up your own mind.

Situation on the ground: China Mieville still uses the term, and reviewers still use the term for his work and for the work of others.

Reality regardless: Works ar

Do You Really Know Michael Moorcock?

“It is all quintessential Moorcock — a wild, fascinating batch of stories fairly balancing the fantastic and the nearly ordinary, and showcasing Moorcock’s talent very well, thank you.” - Booklist, starred review

You might think you know Michael Moorcock, but you could be wrong. It’s not just the novels, the nonfiction, the editing, and various other pursuits–it’s also about a body of short fiction that ranges from the realistic to the surrealistic and fantastical, and that has influenced generat

The Brothers Bloom: Another Winner from the Director of Brick

When we rented Brick a couple of years ago, we didn’t know what to expect. What we got was an unsettling and often brilliant dark, dark comedy-drama that seemed pitch-perfect from beginning to end.

Director Rian Johnson is now back with The Brothers Bloom, which is billed as a con men comedy but is actually as sad as it is funny and poses some interesting questions about the nature of identity. Ann and I loved this movie, and I’m a little surprised at the reaction in some quarters to it. No, the

The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: Final TOC

(Cover by John Coulthart; the blurb reads, “What use is this? If ever I were to cook one of these, you know you wouldn’t eat it anyway.” - Bubbe)

We’ve just turned in The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals, subtitled “The Evil Monkey Dialogues.” The cover and interior design will both be by John Coulthart. Each entry in the bestiary will be illustrated with art either selected or created by Coulthart (and we hope to stick in some Ian Miller, too…). Joseph Nigg, author of The Book of Fabulous Beas

Smell Pollution

(Taken from here.)

Maybe it’s just because I’m going slowly deaf in my left ear, but noise pollution doesn’t bother me too much, even though it’s well nigh ubiquitous. Perhaps that’s why–it’s literally white noise, even the worst of it. Smell pollution, on the other hand, bothers me mentally and physically, and often strikes me as a kind of insidious ambush.

Smell pollution for me often has to do with human-made products. Like, we’ll be walking around Lake Ella and two women will pass us, and in