Time keeps on slippin'...

Hey, it's my third wedding anniversary! And to celebrate, I'm home alone all month as Olivia and Oliver do a tour of the East Coast. (Olivia will also be finishing her dissertation while my parents and then hers watch the baby.) Plenty of work to do, plus I get to watch TV with the volume up again. I may even—*gasp*—see a film that work doesn't send me to! (PS: go see Edge of Tomorrow!)

I think we may have hit exhaustion when it comes to anthologies. I have work in two—these were from the May rush—and one book is called Shadows Over Main Street and the other is called Streets of Shadows. You might be thinking, "But but..." and yes, but the books are different. The former is Lovecraftian fiction in a small-town or 1950s setting, and the other is noir-meets-urban fantasy-whatever-that-means. Anyway, contents!

Main Street (alphabetical order):
Chesya Burke, Mountaintown
T. Fox Dunham, Father or the Flesh
Brian Hodge, This Stagnant Breath of Change
Kevin Lucia, The Black Pyramid
Adrian Ludens, Estranged
Nick Mamatas, Χταπόδι Σαλάτα <--hey, it's me
Rena Mason, Red Hill
Lisa Morton, The Ogre
Aaron Polson, Undergrounders
Mary SanGiovanni, The Floodgates of Willow Hill
Lucy A. Snyder, The Abomination of Fensmere
John Sunseri, Homecoming
Richard Thomas, White Picket Fences
Jay Wilburn, Boss Cthulhu



Mean Streets (I presume publication order):
“What I Am” – Tom Piccirilli
“A Game of Cards” – A.C. Wise
“Shooting Aphrodite” – Gary Kloster
“Santa Muerte” – Lucy A. Snyder and Daniel R. Robichaud
“Morrigan’s Girls” – Gerard Brennan
“Such Faces We Wear, Such Masks We Hide” – Damien Angelica Walters
“The Man Who Has Been Killing Kittens” – Douglas F. Warrick
“The Large Man” – Paul Tremblay
“Unfilial Child” – Laurie Tom
“Street Worm” – Nisi Shawl
“Der Kommissar’s In Town” – Nick Mamatas <--here I am again
“The Shadow People” – Brandon Massey
“Hand Fast” – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Beware of Dog” – Kevin J. Anderson
“Stay: A Tale of the Spellmason Chronicles” – Anton Strout
“God Needs Not the Future” – Jason Sizemore
“Relics” – Tim Lebbon
“Cold Fear” – Lucien Soulban
“In Vino Veritas” – Tim Waggoner and Michael West
“Best Served Cold” – Seanan McGuire
“Toby’s Closet” – Jonathan Maberry


So, these will be out in autumn. The former story, as you may have guessed, has a Greek theme and is indeed about the aftermath of Omaha, Nebraska Greektown riot one generation later. Also, octopus salad.

"Der Kommisar" (hey, two non-English titles!) is about psychogeography, Occupy, and the practice of dérive, but I'm told people are reading it as an allegory about all the recent generational and political struggles within science fiction fandom and prodom. Given that the story ends with a MOVE-style bombing (the anniversary of that police terror was just two weeks ago), what can I say but "Here's hoping!"

In other news, Chizine is having a 99-cent sale on all its ebooks from today (Canada Day) till the 4th (US Independence Day). This includes my novel Bullettime , and the recently released horror-Western Haxan by Mark Kenneth Hoover, which I enjoyed and blurbed.

So check those out.