Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 44
October 4, 2011
Cheeky Frawg Presents…Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month
Ann and I are proud to announce our latest release, and the first of many Cheeky Frawg titles not by us: Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month! We've added it to the temporary Cheeky Frawg website (new site coming soon), and updated the information on our other books.
You can buy The Honey Month at:
Weightless Books
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble
For the print version visit the publisher's website.
Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month, with an introduction by Danielle Sucher, ranks among the year's most exquisite treasures. This beautiful volume of short fictions and poems takes as its inspiration the author's tasting of 28 different kinds of honey, one per day. Each tasting leads to a different literary creation, each entry beginning with a description of the honey in terms that will be familiar to wine connoisseurs: "Day 3–Sag Harbor, NY, Early Spring Honey," which has a color "pale and clear as snowmelt" and the smell "cool sugar crystals," but also brings to mind "a stingless jellyfish I once held in my hand in Oman." The taste? "…like the end of winter…[when] you can still see clumps of snow on the ground and the air is heavy with damp…" The differences between the types of honey allow El-Mohtar to move back and forth between the poetic and the more casually contemporary, with the experiment of the tasting as the unifying structure. A perfect gift, a hidden treasure, a delight for the senses.
Amal El-Mohtar is an Ottawa-born child of the Mediterranean, currently pursuing a PhD in English literature at the Cornwall campus of the University of Exeter. She has been nominated for the Nebula award, and is a two-time winner of the Rhysling award for Best Short Poem. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and in print, including Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Cabinet des Fées, Sybil's Garage, Mythic Delirium, and Ideomancer, as well as in the anthologies Welcome to Bordertown and The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. She also co-edits Goblin Fruit, an online quarterly dedicated to fantastical poetry, with Jessica P. Wick.
Cheeky Frawg Presents…Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on October 4, 2011.
The Journals of Doctor Mormeck (Mountain)–Entry #21
Note: Been reading this serialized long story/novella? Please support a full-time writer. Paypal to vanderworld at hotmail.com—much appreciated! Donations above $21 will entitle you to a free copy of initial anthology or stand-alone book appearance.
Living on a far-distant planet, Doctor Mormeck works for strange beings that might or might not be angels by conducting surveillance across a hundred thousand alt-Earths. Complicating things are a transdimensional race of intelligent komodos wreaking chaos throughout the worlds. When an avatar of Mormeck is sent to a war-torn winter city to investigate a mysterious Presence, the doctor will become embroiled an ever-widening conflict.
Archive is here, Journals of Mormeck, and first entry is here. The full-on 34,000 words before this entry is compiled in one place, here–save for the entry before this one, which you can find here.
"Crabapple—your arms are like adroit armadillos scintillating in mists of microscopic levitating rabid monkeys. Your eyes are tidal pools filled with carnivorous cancerous aquatic feline distemper robots that twitch like brine shrimp in a hot pot. Your toes are like cherry tomatoes radiating out across all the lands and squashing what they please. Love, Dupp Thanager."
Any organism can die, even a mountain. For a person it might be a spore in the eye that burrows into the brain, or a paper cut that creates an opening for more serious infection. For a mountain it might be love unreturned. Love that the recipient, even the recipient's doppelganger, perceives as repugnant or wrong.
Dear Journal: I found the love letter from Dupp to Crabapple in the angels' library. I don't think it's very good, but it's the first one I chanced upon. There were more. I must have drunk in hundreds of them. I don't know why the first one stuck with me. It's awful to this mountain, but then I don't have much experience with love letters.
The ghost frogs surround this avatar now, as I write in this hidden place, every now and again stealing a glance up at the vast expanse of…me. The white glow of them is tinged with lavender-and-emerald, fading in the dusk against the darker green of vines and the brown of tree bark. They are an odd comfort in their bobbing incomprehensibility, like some sign of a greater power or god, beyond the influence of angels or of intelligent mountains. They're also much bigger and yet less numerous, which has led me to the odd thought that they are growing by absorbing their brethren. Maybe one day there will be just one, and it will be as big as me. They stare at me as if waiting for me to do something. But I've already done something and I'm not sure it's gotten me anywhere.
Marty on the shore with the Grim Lighthouse looming over us, me in my moth-man suit she in her cartigan, but still shivering a bit: "The angels came toward the end—because this is the end, isn't it? And they did nothing. They just watched in an unnerving way They watched people die and sometimes they seemed to take notes. Then they left. Who are you, really?"
Marty's questions were like that. I was already off-balance, but her questions came sudden and brisk and tunneled in at me sideways. It took a moment to respond.
"An intelligent mountain, if you want me to be precise. An enormous creature. I might look like a monster to you."
A thin smile in the shadows. "That might work both ways. Do I look monstrous to you?"
I shook my head, dislodging a few luna moths. "No. You don't." What can a mountain want from a human woman? What could a mountain possibly expect in return?
She looked out at the roiling waves. "Well, you're not a monster to me. You're oddly comforting."
Soaring rush of some unfamiliar emotion. "I'm glad."
But the terrible thing? I was a monster, using her to find the key to my Marty. I was worse than any angel, but I couldn't stop. She had given me permission not to stop.
"Why are you here, Mormeck?"
"I am…obsessed with you…the you in another reality, one where there is no Grim Lighthouse, no dying earth. There's a real sun there and a moon that isn't scarred."
"Then why aren't you with that Marty," but even as she said it I could see she had guessed. Still, I had to say it.
"I'm afraid to. I'm afraid she won't understand. That she'll be scared or angry or…"
Marty laughed out loud. "You've come here to practice on me. You've come to this godforsaken place because you're shy. Oh, that's rich." She was almost doubled-over for a second.
"If I'm honest, this…attachment…probably isn't real," I said. "I've thought about it, and it's probably because I'm lonely and she is the only person I really know…you're the only person I really know."
Marty sobered, and an expression I still can't quite identify spread across her face. Some combination of melancholy and affection and anger. "There are worse reasons. Worse things."
Maybe so. But I knew this at least: an irrational part of me believed I was talking to my Marty. Somehow. Some way. "Crabapple—your arms are like adroit armadillos scintillating in mists of microscopic levitating rabid monkeys." What is love but a comical and criminal derangement?
Marty stood up. "I can't help you with your Marty," she said. "I'm a different Marty. We're all different. You should know that already. But I want to show you something, in the Grim Lighthouse."
"I don't want to go," I said.
"I think you owe it to me," she said, and her glance was so penetrating and serious that I shut up and I went with her.
***
…I'm sitting here amongst the ghost frogs trying to get all of this down, and suddenly I don't want any of this. I don't want to be a mountain. I don't want to be in love with Marty. I don't want to talk to Gabriel again. I want to be my lost avatar, somewhere out there on an alt-Earth. I want to become a stranger even to myself and disappear into the perspective of distance: that wavering figure on the horizon, that dot moving up the hillside that never resolves into anything, that odd smudge on the binoculars that just turns out to be a bit of dirt, easily wiped off.
I'm not sure I want to tell you or anyone about the Grim Lighthouse. Somehow once I get it all down, I will have to do something about it. Somehow if it's bottled up in my brain, it isn't real. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. "Your eyes are tidal pools filled with carnivorous cancerous aquatic feline distemper robots that twitch like brine shrimp in a hot pot." (And yet, if I don't write it down, I'm locked in a cell with It for the rest of my life.)
Why is it that despite being so large every new thing I discover makes me feel smaller and smaller?
The Journals of Doctor Mormeck (Mountain)–Entry #21 originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on October 4, 2011.
October 2, 2011
The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: The Tell-All Slideshow
io9 has kindly posted our slideshow with text describing some of the back-stories behind the Lambshead Cabinet anthology. Go check it out! Please spread the joy.
Here's an excerpt:
"On our first visit to Prague, we wanted to meet the famous Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer, known for his stop-gap animation version of "Alice in Wonderland," among others. We managed to track the filmmaker down to his closed Gambra gallery, but even with repeated banging on the door he would not come out. So we shoved a copy of one of our anthologies, with a note and email address, inside of a cracked window pane. We realized later that this might not be as legitimate and trust-invoking method of communication as we had thought at the time. (Here's one of us posing in front of the gallery.)"
The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: The Tell-All Slideshow originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on October 2, 2011.
October 1, 2011
Evil Monkey and Terra Nova Cain
Evil Monkey:
I think it's so cool there's a new TV series with dragons!
Jeff:
They. Are. Not. Dragons. Like I told you, they are dinosaurs.
Evil Monkey:
I do think it's sad the dragons don't have wings. It's poignant. Wingless dragons.
Jeff:
Right. Dinosaurs. DINO-SAURS, Evil.
Evil Monkey:
And it's such a great premise. Going back in time to get a do-over, because in this future we're pretty much fucked. I was planning on learning to imitate a cockroach or a bacteria to survive the coming eco-pocalypse.
Jeff:
Yes, it's a pretty fairy tale. With pre-fab housing in the past.
Evil Monkey:
It's wonderful! I'm already arranging to be cryogenically frozen so I can be revived in 2050 and go back to the past–with dragons!
Jeff:
Dinosaurs…which brings up an interesting point. Why didn't they write the show so they go back to the time period of edible friendly fluffy mammals…rather than dinosaurs?
Evil Monkey:
You're so cynical.
Jeff:
Evil. I have to ask. This is so unlike you…are you on something?
Evil Monkey:
Just life…and this Caol Ila single malt.
Jeff:
Sigh. I thought so. Look. Terra Nova is an awful show.
Evil Monkey:
No it's not! They get to go back to the past!
Jeff:
Yeah, well, this family is so selfish they have an extra kid even though Earth is dying from over-population, but they're portrayed as somehow heroic for doing that.
Evil Monkey:
Awful government! Restricting kid-making!
Jeff:
Yeah, because Earth won't survive otherwise. And then, to make it worse, the dad not only escapes some maximum security prison but then penetrates the maximum security of the time portal! With a knapsack full of kid!
Evil Monkey:
You're so cynical, Jeff. So cynical. Can't you just learn to love and accept life the way it is.
Jeff:
It's insulting. It's an awful show with dinosaurs.
Evil Monkey:
Dragons, dude. Dragons.
Jeff:
It's like if Jersey Shore came up with a Lost rip-off.
Evil Monkey:
But it was heroic the way the leader of the enclave back in the past went out in a kind of armored dune buggy to save a few moon-shine-makin' teenagers from some clearly kinda tiny-brained carnivorous dinosaurs that were there just to provide mobile danger music but not really threaten the main courses…I mean characters. That was great!
Jeff:
No real leader slash commander in chief goes out in the damn armored dune buggy. Otherwise, he wouldn't be leader for very long. He'd be dead.
Evil Monkey:
No, man. It was brave of him.
Jeff:
And what the goddamn name of Jesus were those teenagers doing making moonshine out in the middle of nowhere in dinosaur-infested terrain? WTF? What brain-dead moron does that? No one. No effing one. Not a single freakin' one.
Evil Monkey:
Teenagers. What're you going to do?
Jeff:
Argggh! No, it's bad writing. It's terrible stupid writing.
Evil Monkey:
It was brave and exciting!
Jeff:
It's boring and predictable and stupid.
Evil Monkey:
So cynical…and oooh! There's a secret plot about why they're really there and where they actually are. Oooooh. So much mystery.
Jeff:
So let me ask you, Evil. If I were to build a time machine and then go back in time to make sure I could get a certain kind of coffee that's discontinued in my time period, would I be a hero?
Evil Monkey:
Well, pal, that's just stoopid talk, my friend, my better quarter.
Jeff:
So you go back in time and in the very first episode most of the time is spent dramatically documenting a home-made still and the stupidity of teenagers. What would you conclude?
Evil Monkey:
That it's a great show about dragons!
Jeff:
No! You'd conclude it's something made of cardboard with a cardboard center. I hope the dinosaurs eat every last one of them and evolve to replace us.
Evil Monkey:
Now, Jeff, that's overkill, isn't it? To wish the extinction of the human species and the exhaltation of the dragon species just because you don't like a TV show.
Jeff:
I'm 43. I'm probably more than half-way through my life. I don't need no time-wasting Terra Nova-Cain.
Evil Monkey:
You don't get it. While we watch Terra Nova, animals and plants are irrevocably dying…but while we watch we can pretend that not only does the future not matter–we can escape into the past! Or we don't even have to think! We can just sit there and drool!
Jeff:
You disgust me.
Evil Monkey:
Thank you! You disgust me, too!
Jeff:
There will be blood.
Evil Monkey:
You never really did understand me, did you? Terra Nova is about species of intelligent wingless dragons whose world is invaded by intelligent ape-things and their heroic if half-assed resistance movement. Viva la dragonistas! Viva la dragonistas!
Jeff:
I'm fairly sure you're mangling not just a language but a plural.
Evil Monkey:
Plural shmural, Jeff! This is the future! This is the future of wingless dragons! Embrace it!
Jeff:
I am never letting you drink whisky again.
Evil Monkey and Terra Nova Cain originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on October 1, 2011.
September 30, 2011
John Chu's "Thirty Seconds From Now" at the Boston Review
Thrilled that John Chu, one of our Clarion students in 2010, has a story published by the Boston Review. It's a favorite of ours–a unique and wonderful and somewhat poignant time travel story. Go read it!
John Chu's "Thirty Seconds From Now" at the Boston Review originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on September 30, 2011.
September 29, 2011
There Will Be Blood, Evil Monkey, There Will be Blood
Evil Monkey:
"There will be blood", Jeff. There will be blood.
Jeff:
There will be blood, Evil Monkey. There will be blood.
Evil Monkey:
It might not be your blood. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. It might be yesterday. But there will be blood.
Jeff:
I'm pretty sure it will be your blood—and it will be today.
Evil Monkey:
I'd much prefer it be your blood. Much, much more than my blood. But: there will be blood!
Jeff:
Blood there will be.
Evil Monkey:
Will be blood, there.
Jeff:
There. Blood. Be will.
Evil Monkey:
Blood. There.
Jeff:
Blood will.
Evil Monkey:
Do you have a will?
Jeff:
No. I have blood.
Evil Monkey:
You should have a will.
Jeff:
Why?
Evil Monkey:
There will be blood!
Jeff:
But it will be your blood.
Evil Monkey:
My blood isn't your blood type so if there is blood and it is your blood, I will not be able to save you with my blood.
Jeff:
If it is your blood and I have a chance to save you with my blood, I will save my blood for a time when there will be blood and it will be my blood.
Evil Monkey:
Keep your blood, knave. Keep your goddamn effing blood.
Jeff:
I will, sir. I will keep my goddamn effing blood. Do you know why?
Evil Monkey:
Because it is your blood and not mine and it may be that there will be blood one day…and it will be yours?
Jeff:
No. Because in 40 years there will be no electricity, we will be sharpening sticks for swords, and any electronic book will have disappeared magically…like magic.
Evil Monkey:
Signed "the curmudgeon"…in blood.
Jeff:
Your blood.
There Will Be Blood, Evil Monkey, There Will be Blood originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on September 29, 2011.
New and Forthcoming Books: Atwood, Richard Morgan, Creatures, Latin American SF, and More
Books have been flowing into the house as usual. Here's a selection of recent titles that I've found particularly interesting…
John Grant's investigations of weirdness, illogic, and more in the field of science are top-notch, and this new book promises to be just as good. The Atwood, meanwhile, is likely to raise some eyebrows given the perception of her stance toward science fiction. The Latin American SF title promises to be fascinating!
—Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War Against Reality by John Grant
—In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
—The Emergence of Latin American Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction)
Steve Rasnic Tem has been on the verge of finishing up his gothic novel for awhile, and a dip into the advance reading copy indicates its been worth the wait. If you like Edward Gorey and Shirley Jackson, this is one for you. As for Creatures, I'm a little biased since my third bear story is in there, but I really think it's a high-quality and entertaining reprint anthology. When She Woke, meanwhile, conjures up comparisons to Atwood's dystopias but seems fairly original.
—Deadfall Hotel by Steve Rasnic Tem
—Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters
—When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
Richard Morgan is a fearless writer who manages a swagger that's matched by sophistication in everything he writes, so the new anti-heroic fantasy novel he's got coming out is near the top of my list. Sarah Monette is a perennially underrated writer who I always find interesting. And Meta-Maus is a wonderful enhanced version of the classic original.
—The Cold Commands by Richard K. Morgan
—Somewhere Beneath Those Waves by Sarah Monette
—MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus by Art Spiegelman
The first title here, In the Time of the Blue Ball by Manuela Draeger, is translated from the French by Brian Evenson and blurbed by China Mieville and Shelley Jackson. Surreal, dreamlike stories. The hard-to-classify dark fantasy by Sweet is a gorgeously designed trade paperback—the publisher, ChiZine, has really come into their own. As for the last title, a first novel by Rosen…I'm pretty jaded about Steampunk but this looks like a potential breath of fresh air…
—In the Time of the Blue Ball by Manuela Draeger
—The Pattern Scars by Caitlin Sweet
—All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen
New and Forthcoming Books: Atwood, Richard Morgan, Creatures, Latin American SF, and More originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on September 29, 2011.
September 28, 2011
VanderMeer Story Critique Service Available
I am taking on some critique work on a limited basis, for those who are interested. If you have a novel or short story you'd like critiqued, just email me at vanderworld at hotmail.com for my rates. Since I'm working on a creative writing book for Abrams Image, you'll get the bonus of some free sneak peeks. This is a limited time offer. When you email, please give me some sense of the subject matter and length of the story or novel and what you hope to get out of a critique. My critiques are intended to help you not just with the piece of fiction you give me but more generally, across all of your writing.
VanderMeer Story Critique Service Available originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on September 28, 2011.
The Revelator Returns! With Special Twins!
Those mis-matched twins (one tall, one shor–…I mean, not as tall) Eric Schaller and Matthew Cheney have re-launched the famed Revelator Magazine, the first time it's been published via the intertubes. Go check it out—this is the real deal. All kinds of interesting fiction, nonfiction, art, comics. Go support the resurrection of an institution.
The Revelator Returns! With Special Twins! originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on September 28, 2011.
