Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 98

Ridley Scott and "Alien" Prequel

Director Ridley Scott talked to MTV about his plans for an Alien prequel that will explain the space jockey. As Scott puts it, "Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that?"

I read that as somewhat sarcastic, especially when Scott goes on to say, "They've squeezed the franchise dry. The first one will always ...

The Shared Worlds Bestiary: Cory Doctorow, Nnedi Okorafor, Lev Grossman, Elizabeth Hand, and More!

To get the word out on Shared Worlds, a unique two-week SF/Fantasy writing camp for teens, Wofford College has hosted a fantastical bestiary–original imaginary animals created by a mix of some of the best writers out there. Go check it out. This is a very generous contribution by the writers, and the students will not only draw some of the beasts, they'll also riff off of the descriptions.

Here's more info on the camp, for which I am the asistant director. I can tell you in all honesty that w...

Creative Mimicry Across Book Projects (and small books)

"Steal don't borrow" as advice is about using the inspiration of someone else's creativity as part of the spark of something original using your own creativity.

One area in which this can be especially potent is book design, including the format of a project, which can either affect the text or reflect existing text's properties.

In my case, contributing to Canongate's marvelous The Libraries of Thought & Imagination (2001) woke up my interest in small books. The production values, including f...

Finch Up For Locus Award

I'm glad this happened, because I've got nuthin' to say this week. LOL.

Happy to be in that company for best fantasy novel. Cheers.

The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)

Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)

Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)

Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)

Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)

In other news, the Heretic limited edition of Finch is just about sold out, so visit Underland if you want one.

Lovecraft's War Against the Ravens

…to be continued…

(c) jv

Digging Out Toward the Subterranean to Reach the Tunnel Leading to the Light

What you don't know about the transdimensional properties of the komodo dragon can kill you in more than one place. They can scent your wound through time, through space, sporling out before them like a mist that curls and beckons. While you, you're more like a rabbit with a pocketwatch who's been stuffed with sawdust, and it's falling out of you in chunks, and you're feeling more and more like part of the scenery. Everything's receding. Except the komodo. The komodo's getting closer and...

Weird Reading Update

For the book of weird fiction (which I may have alluded to once or twice here) Ann and I are now in that phase of further testing that comes before final and last decisions, with over six hundred thousand words chosen.

The interesting thing is how "the weird" as opposed to just "weird" has manifested itself and guided our choices. This isn't to say there isn't just plain old "weird" fiction in the anthology, but that the dominant tracks we are collecting do first and foremost deal with "the w...

ROOAAAAARRRRR!

(Image from Matt Staggs; eye-beams courtesy JV.)

Evil Monkey: Is that the new ska album you and Ann have been working on?

Jeff: Yes.

….O_O….

Deadlines are kicking my butt, so this space will be quiet until Monday. (I will be on facebook for fun, though.)

In the meantime, tell me what you've been up to.

What've I learned the last couple of weeks?

—We need more, and more varied, best-of and reprint anthologies, with as much difference of approach in them as possible–not fewer. These are the arks of our common reading culture and outlive the magazines they often cull from. Without past anthos, the book of the weird would be impossible. ...

Writing Advice Over at Booklifenow

Yes, it's been pretty quiet here. It may continue to be sporadic the rest of this month as I work on various deadlines.

BUT Jeremy L.C. Jones has been collecting writing advice from a variety of sources. Go check it out. The great thing about writing advice? A writer benefits from taking advice, yes, but also from analyzing and then rejecting advice that doesn't work for them. So you win either way.