Jared Shurin's Blog, page 116

Irregularity & The Rite of Spring - Open for Submissions

Two new titles, now open for submissions!

Irregularityis our next major anthology after The Book of the Dead. It will be published in partnership with the National Maritime Museum, released to coincide with two of their upcoming exhibitions.

The stories should be focused on the period between 1660 and 1860, andthose brave and motivated men and women who promoted scientific thought, skepticism and intellectual rigour in the face of superstition and intolerance. From Newton to Lovelace, Harri...

Underground Reading: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

This is part of a slightly Quixotic attempt to read and review all nine finalists for the David Gemmell Legend Award before the winner is announced at the end of October. As this is the first one, I suppose a bit of a heads up - I'll be approaching these books in a slightly templated fashion: plot summary, good stuff, not so good stuff, conclusion.

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Tell me a story.

Throne of the Crescent Moon (2012) is an awards juggernaut. A Hugo finalist, a Nebula finalist, a Locus winner - and now a D...

Review Round-up: Never Knew Another and Tears in Rain

I mentionedNever Knew Anotherin passing on Monday, but it deserves a little more space. Plus, Rosa Montero's post-cyberpunk detective story,Tears in Rain.

J.M. McDermott'sNever Knew Another (2011)is a stunning example of one of my favourite new sub-genres - the fantasy/mystery mash-up, set in a secondary world (see also: Tomorrow, the Killingand Drakenfeld.) I can only imagine how tricky these are to write - the two genres each have their own rules and themes, and convincing them co-exist is...

Post-script: Nine Worlds

Well, that was the best con I've been to in ages - sort of the sneaky lovechild of SFX and EasterCon, with the best traits of both. It had the multi-media focus and enthusiastic fans of the former, plus the in-depth programming of the latter. Plus smoothly organised, charming and... well, fun. Bonus points go to the Red Wedding cosplayers, everyone in the indie gaming room, a literary stream that ran like clockwork, whatever workshop it was that was churning out steampunk weaponry and the Br...

David Gemmell Legend Awards: Shortlists & Reviews

The 2013 David Gemmell Legend Awards shortlists are:

Legend Award (Best Novel)

Joe Abercrombie:Red Country
Jay Kristoff: Stormdancer
Mark Lawrence: King of Thorns
Helen Lowe: The Gathering of the Lost
Brent Weeks: The Blinding Knife

Morningstar Award (Best Debut)

Saladin Ahmed: Throne of the Crescent Moon
Miles Cameron: The Red Knight
John Gwynne: Malice
Aidan Harte: Irenicon
Jay Kristoff: Stormdancer

Ravenheart Award (Best Cover)

Didier Graffet and Dave Senior, for Red Country by Joe Ab...

Joey Hi-Fi's Weirdness Rodeo

Welcome to the Weirdness Rodeo - wonder and strangeness, courtesy of Joey Hi-Fi.
You can follow Joey on Twitter at @JoeyHiFi and admire his work here.

Villainous from Paul Constantakis on Vimeo.

"Villainous" - A delightfully macabre short film featuring a host of villainous action figures in a kids room. [Vimeo]

Very clever piece of street art in Shoreditch, London. [Neatorama]

Joanna Newsom may be in Paul Thomas Anderson's new film "Inherent Vice". [AV Club]

10-Year German boy finds Egypt...

Introducing... Joey Hi-Fi's Weirdness Rodeo

Here's something new and fun!

Your hard-working Pornokitsch editors look at the massive round-up posts on other blogs with nothing but envy.Look at all that cool stuff!Where do they get it?!We've always wanted one of our every own.

But... how to do it differently?

The other blogs are all doing a lovely job of collecting the latest in book news, covers, TV updates and general nerdery. We're not a news site, nor do we wantto be. How do we go about finding cool links that would keep people en...

Upcoming Events: Derry, Bristol, Secret Histories, Mummies and GOD

Upcoming events, and there are a few of them:

Thursday, September 5: I'll be interviewing James Lovegrove at Blackwell's Charing Cross for the launch of Age of Godpunk(and general chat about the Ages of Ra, Odin, Zeus, Voodoo...). I can't promise that the conversation will be anything but free-ranging, but, given the subject matter, there may be a lightning bolt or two. The details are here (Facebook)and here (Solaris).

And some Kitschies goodness! Last year, one of the big pieces of feedbac...

The Biggest Fantasy Series of All Time is...

According to Wikipedia:

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter (7 volumes, 3 supplements) - 450m
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings - 150m (Wikipedia classifies it as a single volume)
C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (7 volumes) - 120m (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobealone - 85m)
Stephanie Meyer's Twilight (4 novels, 1 novella, 1 guide) - 116m
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit- 100m (Not a series - unless you're Peter Jackson)
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (12 volumes) - 80m
E.L. James' 50 Shades o...

Platform Sites: Do magazine brands have value?

I don't know if this is the first in a series or just a one-off amble. Justin and I have been scheming (as we do), which has spurred a lot of discussion about platform sites - specifically, what makes them good and what makes them successful.

This is mostly a rambling encapsulation of some of my own (incomplete and ill-formed) conclusions.

First, by platform sites, I'm thinking of the "new magazine" - sites like Tor.com, primarily, but also anything from Lightspeed (very magaziney) to the g...