Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 71
January 16, 2011
Global Warming on This American Life
Listening to a naysayer to global warming on NPR today was profounding depressing. Basically, this teenage girl was never going to be convinced by any scientific evidence, despite being presented with plenty of such evidence. It's a learned response, through indoctrination both deliberate and societal.
We have a world rapidly being contaminated by plastic, ecosystems being degraded, species dying out, overpopulation, pollution that creates accelerated cancer rates, and a host of other problems attributable to human activities, behavior, or inventions.
Even if you took global warming off the table–poof, global warming doesn't exist–we would need to make major changes in our values, our attitude, our daily lives to maintain a liveable world.
So the questions are really
—Can we take the risk that, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, global warming isn't occurring and isn't mostly created by humans? I.e., if it is true, we're headed toward catastrophe, so why take the risk of not taking action?
—Wouldn't we want to reduce pollution levels, find alternatives to fossil fuels, reduce our population supersaturation, and protect ecosystems even if there were no such thing as global warming?
Related questions I keep asking myself are:
—Are we now so divorced from the natural world and our place in it that we can conceive of existence on an Earth without complex ecosystems, without non-degraded air and water?
—Are we so far gone that we cannot come around to a position in which we value animal life more, and therefore the natural settings they need to live? (All of which affects our own quality of life.)
Global Warming on This American Life originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 16, 2011.
January 14, 2011
Current Reading…and Last Day for Translation Award Donations
Being kinda sick and having mined out On Demand movies to the point that I'm down to Care Bears Birthday 3 and Chucky Goes Hollywood…I've been switching over to reading I Hotel and sampling Surrealist Subversions and The House of Fear (Leonora Carrington) with Savage Detectives up after I Hotel. By the way, I Hotel…thus far it is one of the best political novels I've read, in how it interweaves history and personal lives, how it manages to be didactic at times, but in ways that are playful, imaginative, and, yes, entertaining. Great stuff.
PLEASE NOTE: Today is the last day for donations to fund the new genre translations awards founded by Cheryl Morgan et al—if you want to be in the running for lots of great prizes, including a signed copy of my novel Finch.
Current Reading…and Last Day for Translation Award Donations originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 14, 2011.
January 13, 2011
Anil Menon's Beast–and Tamil Pulp Fiction
Anil Menon's The Beast with Nine Million Feet came in the mail yesterday. (I think I lost the first copy the publisher sent.) I'm a big fan of Menon's nonfiction, so am curious to sample the fiction. Menon also was kind enough to send me Tamil Pulp Fiction, which looks fascinating. In addition to short stories, it also features deliriously awesome color plates of various pulp books or publications. Here are just a few examples. Please note the fish or eel coming out of the eye. Please note the crazy cat.
Anil Menon's Beast–and Tamil Pulp Fiction originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 13, 2011.
January 12, 2011
Leviathan 5: The Next Wave–Translation Funding Through Third Bear / Monstrous Creatures (with Free PDF)
(Read more about the Leviathan anthology series here. You can also still order Leviathan 3, which includes great fiction by Carol Emshwiller, L. Timmel Duchamp, Zoran Zivkovic, Rikki Ducornet, Jeffrey Ford, James Sallis, and more.)
Want to support this project? Spread the word—signal boost appreciated.
Ann and I have finalized most of our plans for Leviathan 5: The Next Wave, which will be published by the awesome folks at ChiZine Publications. This anthology, the latest in the World Fantasy Award winning and PKD award finalist series, will focus on weird fiction and fantasy from newer writers, probably defined as writers with two or fewer books published in English. We are going to do something fairly unprecedented in the history of genre and have between 15 and 20 associate/foreign language editors in other countries so that many writers who do not write in English would be able to submit. Up to 30,000 words of the 100,000 words might be fiction newly translated for Leviathan 5.
But to ensure we have a budget that allows for paying a decent wage to translators, and to cover anything unexpected that comes up, we will be doing a couple of fund-raisers. ChiZine is already providing a solid budget, but to do this anthology "pure"—with no solicitations from established writers–this extra step is necessary. I would note that Ann and I are not taking any editorial fee upfront–this is a labor of love and something we feel is necessary to further spotlight new writers and international writers.
The first "fund-raiser" is simply this: 100% any royalties received from my forthcoming nonfiction collection Monstrous Creatures or my 2010 short story collection The Third Bear will go toward funding Leviathan 5. This is no idle threat since the advances for both were low enough that royalties will kick in soon.
Monkey Brain Books has also been kind enough to provide a free PDF of my prior nonfiction collection, currently on the order page for Monstrous Creatures. If you download that PDF, consider buying Monstrous or making a direct donation. Any direct donations for this project can be sent to me via paypal at vanderworld at hotmail.com with "For Leviathan 5″ as the subject line. If you would like to become a major investor, ping me as well.
Right now, the plan is for an open reading period for Leviathan 5 starting in late 2011 and extending into the spring of 2012, for publication in spring of 2013. Projects like this require a long lead time. Payment and firm reading period information will be forthcoming once we've finalized our plans.
PS For those wondering, the "best of Leviathan" volume will probably come out prior to Leviathan 5.
Leviathan 5: The Next Wave–Translation Funding Through Third Bear / Monstrous Creatures (with Free PDF) originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 12, 2011.
Monstrous Creatures Table of Contents
Out in March from Guide Dog Books, Monstrous Creatures collects the best of my nonfiction from the past five years, around the theme of the "monstrous." SF Signal has just posted the full table of contents.
Monstrous Creatures Table of Contents originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 12, 2011.
January 10, 2011
Wow! Brazilian "A Situação" Looks Awesome!
Stunning cover for the Brazilian edition of The Situation! And check out this illo, which I assume is either interior art or associational PR. The book will be published in March. Very excited–my first South American publisher. (Thanks to Fabio Fernandes, btw, for his belief in my work and to the publisher for such a great-looking edition.)
Wow! Brazilian "A Situação" Looks Awesome! originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 10, 2011.
Finch on ALA RUSA 2011 Reading List
Rather happy to note that the ALA has honored my novel Finch by placing it on the short list in the fantasy category. Here's the full list in that section:
Winner: "Under Heaven" by Guy Gavriel Kay
Shortlist:
"Finch" by Jeff VanderMeer, Underland Press
"The Half-Made World" by Felix Gilman, Tor Books
"The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms" by N.K. Jemisin, Orbit
"Nights of Villjamur" by Mark Charan Newton, Spectra
Finch on ALA RUSA 2011 Reading List originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 10, 2011.
January 9, 2011
Facebook Status Updates
[facebook status message reclamation program initiated...]
MORD GLIDE ACROSS THE DARK. STARS ABOVE LIGHTS BELOW. STARS BELOW LIGHTS ABOVE. NEVER STOPPING NEVER ENDING. ACROSS CITIES. ACROSS FORESTS. UP MOUNTAINS, THROUGH DESERTS. OVER SEAS. SAD AND WATCHING.
MORD NOT UNDERSTAND HUMAN BEINGS.
Two non-aligned moderates having a discussion.
I'm sorry, but far right Republicans, talk radio, and tea party members have a responsibility to tone down their rhetoric and stop demonizing opponents or using metaphors related to gun violence. They had this responsibility regardless of the motives of the AZ shooter today. It's a problem associated primarily with those groups.
Added some Dario Argento to the Netflix cue…never seen his films.
Titles of stories unwritten and now fading into the fog of distance: Memories of Others, Belugatown, Mormeck, and Juan Mandible Sick Eyes. Oh well.
You can probably expect four years of Evil Monkey on Rick Scott's case.
Hmmm. Jonah Hex was okay but it wasn't the cat's pajamas, either.
Look, it's a natural fact like the fact a horse will beat a fern in a foot race: LSU is gonna whoop Texas A & M tonight.
creak creak *pop* owww creak creak bend *pop* creak
If I post here I'm going to the gym to shove a thousand pounds with my legs, then I'll do it. Right? Cause what I really want to do is curl up on the couch and watch Criminal Minds.
I'm not sure but I think some of the peeps working here at the coffee shop I frequent were whispering "squid" over and over.
Next up for "the three blind bloggers"–me, Larry, and Paul–is the comic Elmer, followed by a full-on review/overview of as many of Eric Basso's books as possible.
Ann: "John Boehner doesn't even cry right."
Do readers not get irony any more, or the idea that a writer may write about people whose views are antithetical to his or her own? Or that a writer may express an opinion by showing its opposite? Or that some writers–gasp!–dont believe in the idea of moral fiction or of fiction being anything other than a construct.
Facebook Status Updates originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 9, 2011.
January 8, 2011
All Hail Emperor Rick Scott, Supreme Ruler of All the Floridas
For those of you who might have missed it, our bountiful state of Florida has in its infinite wisdom seen the ascension to power of Emperor Rick Scott. Scott is Florida's first emperor and has already issued such decrees of intent as "regulations? what regulations" and "agencies? what agencies?" as well as "fired? you're not fired—I need you for two more months, and then you may leave my Presence."
Most of these pronouncements have taken the form of Bulls***s rather than Holy Bulls as the Emperor has been sanctified and ordained by another source entirely, one south of even Florida, if you look at the depth charts.
It's hot down here, but it's about to get even hotter.
All Hail Emperor Rick Scott!
Sincerely,
Evil Monkey
P.S. Please remember when saying the name of His Excellency: His first name begins with a not-so-silent "P".
All Hail Emperor Rick Scott, Supreme Ruler of All the Floridas originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 8, 2011.
January 6, 2011
Seven Views of Michael Cisco's The Narrator
This is the last of a troika-plus-one of reviews simultaneously posted, without prior discussion, on this blog, on The OF Blog, Empty Your Heart of Its Mortal Dream, and by by guest commentator J.M. McDermott on the Apex blog, with an additional post on Omnivoracious, the Amazon book blog.
In Michael Cisco's The Narrator, the narrator Low is conscripted into an army to fight against the "blackbirds," who possess lighter-than-air armor. But first, our hero must play a waiting game in a city of cannibal queens and uncanny dead things, with priests for both the living and the dead. The Edak, strange remnants of a mighty imperial power, must be avoided at all costs. Once mobilized, he sets off on a journey that is by turns absurd, surreal, deadly, and one of the great feats of the imagination thus far in this new century. The novel is possibly also the most neglected of the year. Michael Cisco, the Amerikan Kafka, deserves your attention.
1—As a Series of Brilliant Scenes, Paragraphs, and Sentences. I've rarely marked so many pages in a novel because of unexpected turns of phrase, images, snippets of dialogue, and unconventional set-pieces.
I've rarely come across so many instances where I was simultaneously in the moment of the novel but also recognizing that I was encountering images, snippets, set-pieces unlike any I'd ever read before. Cannibal Queens, sleepwalkers that bruise the surface of reality as they glide past, assailants who skim the surface of the water in armor that's lighter than air, conjurings with unexpected consequences, refugees from an insane asylum who assemble as soldiers. "It's as if a giant were pushing us along the road, blithering to itself."
2— As the Nightmare Answer to a Question From a Film. Bonant looms like a cliff out of the water, "projecting suddenly above them, too high to see. It's like a black egg with an opening in the front—it sweeps toward them, as oblivious to them as a passing god, but the men are suddenly quailing and dizzy. They vomit, collapse clutching their chests and abdomens. Blood drips from their skin, smears their teeth as the gums burst, and they die under the influence of that black ship's mere proximity." …And inside, the answer to the riddle of a giant skeleton in the captain's chair in A—-, "naked with long heavy white limbs. His massive body sits, like a sack of grain, on a marble cenotaph….bleached muscle, wanly shadowed with a lace of veins and arteries." There are connections that make no sense at all and yet by dint of the power of the imagination and the communicative property of art…make sense. (G + A + MC = absurd heresy)
3—As an Extended Treatise on the Negation of Meaning that Is War. "An army is a horror. It's a horrible thing." There are many battle sequences in The Narrator, and they all translate as action without meaning, sometimes so chaotic that even individual action is hard to discern within the movements. As near as is possible in text, Cisco conveys the jerky, roving, incomprehensible experience of men on foot shooting at each other across broken, often hilly ground. The individual meaninglessness of it and the group rationalization of it. (Group rationalization undercut by the lack of an Order from On High later in the novel, which would've driven the point home better.) The result is to come close to conveying the derangement required to wage war…while simultaneously demonstrating that the more a writer repeats battle scenes, the more the result becomes boredom and skipping of pages. That the more you invest in too many similar scenes, the more the meaninglessness recedes and the more purposelessness closes in on the reader, until what was pointed before seems like kids playing with rifles in the backyard. To retreat from purposelessness would mean to advance toward tighter editing. But where to cut?
4—As a Series of Experiments in Narration, Eel-Slippery. The narrator of The Narrator may not be the narrator of the entire novel. Where does his narration really begin and end? What to make of the asides between chapters? Of meeting another narrator, who in a sense begins to narrate the tale in a different way. What of the accounts of others, which the narrator narrates by adding notes like "an unhurried, slow inhalation" and "Her voice dropped there." And "She caressed the air by her knees with stiff old hands, seeming to coax the guillotine blade out of the sparkling air so that I for a moment saw it." Should we be worried? Should we care?
5—As the Most Surreal Science Fiction Novel Ever. A place that alters all who enter it. Flying things that seem intelligent. A cathedral like a science lab or…something else? The drone of a tower, that can kill. "Those aren't people. Their guns aren't guns."
6—As the Tale of the Ride of the Valkyries, Through the Exploits of Saskia. "Here comes from somewhere behind the asylum, a woman all in armor. She has a short sword with a basket hilt on her right side and a flapped holster on her left hip…A pleasing, and weirdly familiar face. I could say she looks like da Vinci's 'Lady with Ermine' if there had ever been such a thing. Strange thing to think." If there's a hero of The Narrator, it is this battle-tested woman who joins the narrator's army and never falters in her bravery under fire. She's a deliberate counterpoint to the senselessness of war—an entity with a tactical purpose who brings order by simple focus. "From the window I see Saskia herself darting across the water. The [soldiers] are shooting at her. She zig-zags with astounding speed and in the next moment is right alongside them. She whirls around toward the rear of the boat, gesticulating wildly, then suddenly hurtles back toward us in fantastic back-and-forth curves, her legs pumping." Saskia is perhaps the only character who remains consistent from beginning to end, and in a sense she gains her own agency as narrator because of it.
7—As an Extended Dream From Which You Will Not Awaken. "In the distance, a white something bobs in the water asleep. It slobbers and mutters…Its slobberings wriggle through the water like black eels. In a vision no one present can see, the ocean turns to fluid mirror, like mirage, where it crashes over the white figure, the mirror froth rolls away across the surface of the water like mercury and Low's outstretched hand draws the black saliva from the glistening antiseptic mouth of the sleeper to form elegant, calligraphic loops and ornate signatures of unreal sharpness on the reflecting surface. A down of phosphorescent ash spins from them as they move, forming glowing coils that sink into the black below the silver, whirring and snapping like whips. They seem to drag Low's arm to and fro. Who is narrating this?"
Saskia. Makemin. Low. Nardac. Punkinflake. Thrushchurl. You'll remember all of them. By the end, the book will be buried in your skull.
Seven Views of Michael Cisco's The Narrator originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on January 6, 2011.
