Back in stock: The Serial Garden

Wed 30 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Big Mouth House, Joan Aiken| Posted by: Gavin

With all the celebrations and reviews for the new Virago edition of The Serial Garden in the UK — for example, The New Statesman:

“Virago Modern Classics reissues The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken (£8.99, eight-plus), a long-lost collection of stories about the imperturbable Armitage family, whose small village must endure unicorns, fairy godmothers and more. Inexhaustibly imaginative, Aiken was one of the 20th century’s greatest children’s authors. Witty, zany and entirely sane, this is a necklace of diamonds.”

— I’m very happy to say that we had the opportunity to reprint our Big Mouth House edition. It arrived from the printer a couple of weeks ago and has been shipping out to (I would suppose) very happy readers since.

Our edition has a cover by Beth Adams and interior illustrations by Andi Watson and the Virago edition, which I’m very much looking forward to seeing, has a cover and interior illustrations by Peter Bailey.

More?

“It’s a delightful summary of one side of Aiken’s talent: whimsical, funny, a series of brilliantly imaginative ideas stitched together with dream logic. But along with the happiness, there is often a tug of melancholy, of love unrequited and yearnings unsatisfied – as in the title story, in which a cut-out cardboard garden on the packet of an obscure German brand of cereal is the gateway to a vanished past. It is the mixture of irrepressible gaiety and invention with the tragic that makes Aiken one of the great children’s authors.”
—The Telegraph

“A delightful whimsical set of stories about young Mark and Harriet Armitage and the fantastical things that just happen to them, where if the lawn is full of unicorns you can count on their father to rush out and try to stop them eating the roses. These stories are funny and often unexpectedly poignant. They also don’t have a wasted word or scrap of information. They’re both charming and genuine in a way that few things manage.”
—Jo Walton

Celebrating the Liminal world!

Tue 22 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett| Posted by: Gavin

Hey, today is the day that the third liminal novel comes out! At last here comes The Entropy of Bones. The first review the book received was a star from Publishers Weekly:

“Rooted in Chabi’s voice, the story is spare, fierce, and rich, and readers will care just as much about the delicate, damaged relationship between Chabi and her mother as the threat of world destruction.”

and they are not wrong. It is a hell of a read. Chabi is a girl who is having trouble finding her place in the world. Then she meets a strange guy down at the docks who offers to teach her his unique martial art. No wonder her mother is worried. But the weird training she’s getting is just the start.

There is nothing like these books out there. They are international, fast-paced, and set in the moment all the while being infused with a deep sense of history. You can read more about the books here:

Largehearted Boy: Book Notes playlist
SF Signal: The Liminal People and The Entropy of Bones
City Lights: 5 Questions

and especially Michael Berry’s essay in the LA Review of Books:

“Slavery and indenture are themes that run through all three books. Taggert’s own relationship with his boss is more that of a servant to his master than that of a mentee to his mentor. At one point, Nordeen tells Taggert, “I told you from the beginning we all serve someone.” That harsh truth runs throughout these novels, recapitulated in interesting and often heartbreaking ways. No matter how much wealth they possess or what near magical abilities they command, each Liminal is concerned with controlling others and being controlled by someone else. Jama-Everett is skilled at moving beyond simplistic notions of good and evil and presenting the full complexity of master/servant relationships.”

More? More: The Liminal People, The Liminal War, The Entropy of Bones.

Pretty neat

Tue 22 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Basically everything I want to read now is published by @smallbeerpress.

— Anne Ursu (@anneursu) September 22, 2015

The Entropy of Bones

Tue 22 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper · 232 pp · 9781618731036 | ebook · 9781618731043
2nd printing: April 2022

The Liminal People · The Entropy of Bones · The Liminal War · Heroes of an Unknown World

A Liminal People novel. A young martial artist finds there is more to the world than she can kick, more than she can see

Chabi doesn’t realize her martial arts master may not be on the side of the gods. She does know he’s changed her from being an almost invisible kid to one that anyone — or at least anyone smart — should pay attention to. But attention from the wrong people can mean more trouble than even she can handle. Chabi might be emotionally stunted. She might have no physical voice. She doesn’t communicate well with words, but her body is poetry.

Read: Chapter One on Tor.com.

Literary Soundtrack Interview with Lilliam Rivera
Personal Essay: Diff’rent Strokes for Different Folks: How the 80s Approached What TV is Afraid to Talk About Today
Largehearted Boy: Book Notes playlist
SF Signal: The Liminal People and The Entropy of Bones
City Lights: 5 Questions

Reviews

“Jama-Everett’s book consistently resists easy categorization. Chabi’s mixed racial background offers a potentially nuanced look from a perspective that seems underserved. And by setting the book in a weird, if recognizable, Bay Area, Jama-Everett captures something about the way it feels to live so close to so much money and yet so far; he traces the differences between postindustrial East Bay towns, the gray melancholy of an older city, the particular feeling of struggling while surrounded by otherworldly wealth. If the book veers among different approaches — now a philosophical kung fu master story, now a seduction into a rarefied subculture, now an esoteric universe made from liner notes and the journal entries of a brilliantly imaginative teenager — there’s nevertheless a vitality to the voice and a weirdness that, while not always controlled or intentional, is highly appealing for just that reason.”
— Charles Yu, New York Times Book Review

“Chabi breaks the mold for superheroes in more ways than one. She begins fight training with Narayana, while still in high school. She is Mongolian on her father’s side and Black on her mother’s side. She loves dubstep with an obsessive, almost propulsive force, and spends nights out at clubs dancing as a portal into bliss. And she’s got a sense of humor, with a strong voice that permeates the book and moves the narrative forward. . . . Luckily, if the end of all things is a possibility, having a superhero around at least offers some modicum of comfort. If that superhero happens to be a twenty-something, old school hip-hop and dubstep-loving, half-Mongolian and half-Black woman who lives on a rusted old houseboat in Sausalito, all the better.”
—Leilani Clark, KQED

“Like The Liminal People, the book brims with originality, and features a protagonist with a captivating narrative voice. The story is not easy in many ways. For one thing, Narayana Raj, self-styled pirate captain and Chabi’s teacher, is not a good person. The things he subjects her to as part of ‘training,’ are vicious. This is a case where depiction isn’t approval. The story isn’t confused about Narayana even if Chabi is. Other characters give us insight into Narayana as the story progresses, and Chabi finally comes to a resolution about her old teacher. In this world, in this battle, conventional lines of ‘evil’ and ‘good’ don’t always serve us well.” — Marion Deeds, Fantasy Literature

“. . . a novel of initiation, another tale of a novice trained physically and spiritually in awesome mysteries. Think the Wachowski siblings’ Matrix movies. Think Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles comic book series.
“When we meet Chabi, she is a teenage girl living on a houseboat in Sausalito, California, and taking martial arts lessons from a mysterious Indian man named Narayana Raj. Disconnected from her alcoholic mother, she is able to speak without opening her mouth (and without, apparently, having anyone remark on that peculiarity). She’s also a fearsome adolescent warrior, able to run incredible distances at blazing speed and capable of fighting and killing fearsome opponents, human and otherwise. When her teacher abandons her, she must decide whether she wants to use her skills in the service of the rich and powerful.
“Chabi is . . . in over her head, but she doesn’t quite know it. Her inability to see the big picture gives The Entropy of Bones a poignancy that is not often found in a genre where the good guys are always expected to win.”
— Michael Berry, LA Review of Books

“If The Entropy of Bones was a sandwich, it would chip your tooth. If it was a drink, it would make you blind for a few panicked seconds before the world returned. The ending is relentless, breathless, and tragic.”
— Nerds of a Feather

“Chabi would never be like other teens in the Bay Area. Her black-Mongolian heritage, her lack of a father, her mother’s alcoholism–those make her unusual but what really sets her apart is that she is liminal, able to do things that normal humans simply can’t. Although mute from birth Chabi can push her thoughts into the minds of others. Trained from a young age to be an unstoppable killer by a man with shady motives, Chabi falls into a dangerous crowd led by the charismatic Rice after her mentor disappears. Before she can fall completely under Rice’s sway, a man familiar with liminals tries to tell her the score. VERDICT In this follow-up to “The Liminal People” and “The Liminal War”, Jama-Everett focuses on an outsider character who can show us more of the powers at play in his world. When the novel succeeds, it does so mostly on the strength of Chabi’s voice.”
— Library Journal

Reviews of The Liminal People:

“The action sequences are smartly orchestrated, but it is Taggert’s quest to retrieve his own soul that gives The Liminal People its oomph. Jama-Everett has done a stellar job of creating a setup that promises even greater rewards in future volumes.”
— San Francisco Chronicle

“Fast-paced and frequently violent, Jama-Everett’s engaging and fulfilling debut offers a compelling take on the classic science-fiction convention of the powerful misfit; incorporates an interesting, multiethnic cast of characters; and proves successful as both an action-packed thriller and a careful look at the moral dilemmas of those whose powers transcend humanity.”
— Publishers Weekly

“A great piece of genre fiction. But picking which genre to place it in isn’t easy. The first in a planned series, it’s got the twists and taut pacing of a thriller, the world-warping expansiveness of a fantasy yarn, and even the love-as-redemption arc of a romance. Oh yeah, a lot of the characters in it have superhuman powers, too.”—The Rumpus

“Ayize Jama-Everett has brewed a voodoo cauldron of Sci-Fi, Romance, Crime, and Superhero Comic, to provide us with a true gestalt of understanding, offering us both a new definition of “family” and a world view on the universality of human conduct. The Liminal People — as obviously intended — will draw different reactions from different readers. But none of them will stop reading until its cataclysmic ending.”
—Andrew Vachss

“Ayize’s imagination will mess with yours, and the world won’t ever look quite the same again.”
—Nalo Hopkinson

About the Author

Ayize Jama-Everett calls the Bay Area his home despite being born in New York City. He holds a Masters degrees in Divinity, Clinical Psychology, in Fine Arts, Creative Writing. He has worked as a bartender, a translator, a drug and alcohol counselor, a stand-up comedian, a script doctor, a ghostwriter, a high school dean, a college professor, and for a brief time, a distiller of spirits. Jama-Everett’s Liminal series began with The Liminal People and continued with The Entropy of Bones and The Liminal War. He has also written a graphic novel, Box of Bones with two-time Eisner Award winner John Jennings and has written for The Believer and the LA Review of Books, among others.

Previously:

Jan 17, 2016: BCAF, San Francisco, CA
BookRiotLive, NYC, Nov. 12-13, 2016

Strange Horizons is 15!

Sun 20 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Publishing, Strange Horizons, the world| Posted by: Gavin

Has it really been 15 years? I wasn’t at the Worldcon when Mary Anne Mohanraj kicked things off but I have been a big fan of the site ever since. Sure, they published me (for which, SH editors over the years, many thanks!) but it’s really not that. I sent stories to the magazine — through their submission portal of course — because I was so impressed with it and enjoyed the writing they published and I wanted to be part of that! The whole magazine is such a gift to the world, to the readers and writers of today and for those in the future. That it’s run by a huge staff of volunteers has amazed me for what, fifteen years! I love the tea parties at Wiscon. I am so happy there’s a podcast!

Every year (unless I, er, forget, sorry!) we donate some prizes to the fundraiser and this year we have a couple of bundles of print and ebooks, an LCRW chocolate sub (always fun to send out!), and I think a special something else. I need to check and make sure before I say anything about that!

To support the fund drive, Strange Horizons has a special extra issue that will be published as fundraising thresholds are met. One of those bonuses is Kelly’s newest story, “The Game of Smash and Recovery.” So, I really hope you will go ahead and support the magazine!

Paypal

[I think these links will work, if not, please go here.]

Here’s to 15 more years!

New Vincent McCaffrey

Fri 18 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vincent McCaffrey| Posted by: Gavin

No, sorry, it’s not another Hound novel (argh! we keep asking, he says one of these days), but, it is new McCaffrey. Here’s the description:

1937. A young press photographer for the Daily Mirror falls in love with a crusading reporter. There’s murder before breakfast and a beer and a beating for lunch. Just don’t be late for dinner or a deadline. And remember, sometimes it’s not your best shot, but taking the shot you have that counts. This is Fiorello LaGuardia’s New York, where Thomas Dewey battles Lucky Luciano and the mob, millions are out of work and maybe out of luck, Stalinist is set against Trotskyite and the German American Bund harbors Nazi spies. It’s a time of hard bitten city editors, soft-hearted molls, Seabiscuit and The Babe, when Winchell’s gossip paid the bills for Hearst’s newspaper empire, where a nation moved to the beat of Goodman and Gershwin, and Hepburn and Stanwyck filled our silver dreams, while Hughes and the DC-3 arose, Earhart and the Hindenburg fell, the 20th Century Limited departed and Superman arrives in the nick of time.

and you can start reading here:

Chapter 1. Sunday, March 14, 1937

Chapter 2. Sunday, March 14, 1937

Chapter 3. Sunday, March 14, 1937

or go straight to ordering it in paperback or ebook here.

Silicon Valley Reads: Sherwood Nation

Mon 14 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Parzybok, book clubs, water| Posted by: Gavin

Huge West Coast news: Benjamin Parzybok’s Sherwood Nation is one of two novels chosen for the 2016 Silicon Valley Reads program. The program theme this year is “Chance of Rain”

The program begins with the 2016 Kick Off Event on at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26, at the Heritage Theater (Campbell/San Jose) where Author in Residence Emmi Itäranta (Memory of Water) and Visiting Author Benjamin Parzybok will be interviewed on stage by Mercury News columnist Sal Pizarro.

Ben will return to Silicon Valley for at least a dozen events during three week-long trips during the spring — the complete events calendar will be available by the end of the year. We’ll have more on this as it develops so in the meantime we’re just looking forward to all the readers in Silicon Valley reading Ben’s fabulous book! Yay!

“Silicon Valley Reads is an annual community program that selects books focused on a contemporary theme and offers free events throughout Santa Clara County to engage the public in reading, thinking and discussing the topic. Our goals are to encourage the love of reading and learning and to have a welcoming forum where our diverse community can come together to share different perspectives.”

Two movies!

Fri 11 Sep 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelley Eskridge, Ted Chiang, the movies| Posted by: Gavin

Right now it knocks me over to write that two Small Beer books are being filmed: the title story of Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life and Others and Kelley Eskridge’s Solitaire.

Story of Your Life is being filmed in Montreal, Canada, with Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker, and Solitaire is being filmed as OtherLife in Perth, Australia, with Jessica De Gouw, Thomas Cocquerel, and TJ Power.

There are always books and stories being optioned (recent film interest has centered on two novels: Ayize Jama-Everett’s forthcoming The Entropy of Bones and Carol Emshwiller’s Philip K. Dick award winner The Mount) and some of it pans out and much of it doesn’t so it’s a total thrill that these two stories are actually on their way to the silver screen. Many things will happen between then and now but I’m just going to take this moment to celebrate. Whoopee!!