Happy Crowley Day, too

Mon 1 Dec 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Go wish John Crowley a Happy Birthday—but let’s not depress him any more than the Writer’s Almanac already did. Wonder if this means John will be on Prairie Home Companion one day? (And, what would he sing?)

It’s the birthday of the writer John Crowley, (books by this author) born in 1942 in Presque Isle, Maine. His most famous novel is Little, Big (1981). It’s a fantasy story, full of fairies and enchantment, but it’s also an epic saga of a New England family, complete with historical details. The critic Harold Bloom chose Little, Big as one of the books that changed his life. He said, “I have read and reread Little, Big at least a dozen times, and always am startled and refreshed.” John Crowley has a cult following, and his novels always get great reviews, but they still don’t sell very well, partly because they’re so hard to categorize.

Endless Things actually sold ok. If we’re to believe Bookscan, it has outsold the paperback collection of Novelties & Souvenirs and will soon overtake the pb of Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land. More interestingly, The Solitudes has blown it out the water which bodes well for the whole series. Given the recent National Book Award win by Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country, maybe we can persuade John to rewrite the whole Aegypt sequence into one massive novel. Hmm!

Iain Emsley recently met up with Lizza Aiken to talk about her mother, Joan:

“She had a curious childhood. She didn’t go to school until she was 12, she was brought up not in much contact with children at all. Her mother married her step father when she was 5. He was essentially a Victorian much in the same way as the books in the house. There were no children’s books, and there weren’t that many books for children in the 1920s, so she read whatever was in the house which were Dickens, Dumas and Austen.

LCRW 23 is at the printer. Yay!

Anyone online at www.readingtrails.com? (Not that we are, just looks like an interesting site.)


Endless Things pb

Tue 11 Nov 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Just emailed our interior files from Endless Things to the Overlook Press so at some point (January!) the paperback will come out and all those readers who have been waiting to get the 4 book set can at last sign in relief. (We wanted to do this set but got outbid, c’est la vie!)


Loki

Thu 24 Apr 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

This has nothing to do with Trickster gods (excepting The Coyote Road, which has lots to so with it). Instead it is just a tricky headline to make you wonder what we’re on about now. It’s Locus finalist celebration day—thanks to John K. for the heads-up!

Chocolate bars for all!

YBF&H 20It is excellent—and we are very grateful to each and every one of you who made your butler go vote—to see John Crowley’s unendingly brilliant Endless Things on there, along with The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 2007: Twentieth Annual Collection, and, and this is a lovely surprise, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Holy Xerox Printed Zine Batman! What’s that doing there? (Um, basking?) Guess we’ll keep it going after all.

The finalist list is a reminder that 2007 was a strong year, especially for men writing in this genre. That’s not snarky, look back at the list. Congratulations to Elizabeth Bear (“Tideline,” Asimov’s Apr/May 2007) and Connie Willis (“All Seated on the Ground,” Asimov’s Dec 2007; The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, Subterranean), the only women in short fiction. SF novels are all men, then Fantasy, YA, and Debuts are all pretty mixed—and all are very strong categories (below the cut). Too much work to look at more except perhaps there should be a PR campaign by any women artists in the genre?

It will be fun to see who wins but the real winners, said without cheesiness—especially after serving on award juries—are readers who use this as a reading list to see what’s good out there at the moment.

Read more

“the star called Wormwood”

Mon 5 Nov 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

John Crowley, who popped in to the WFC this past weekend for a reading from Four Freedoms and to sign a few books for the ardent multitudes, has a letter in the NY Times Book Review.

Ron Drummond, also in Saratoga, was carrying around a printer’s dummy or blank of his crazy beautiful 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big. It is huge! 7.5 x 10 inches, 3, maybe 4 inches thick. He also had some early, nearly-final copies of the first chapter. This is going to be one awesome object.


Crowley in London, L.A.

Sat 3 Nov 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

and other disingenuous titles. Actually, the London Review of Books. Has to be read on paper, one copy of which John will receive in, yes, Saratoga. Where much swapping of paper will occur.

Tomorrow in Ed Park’s L.A. Times column, Astral Weeks, he writes about Endless Things and the conclusion of the whole shebang:

The “Aegypt” cycle has always been about its own slow process, its private alchemy, its impossibility, but in the brisk “Endless Things” Crowley dismantles the machinery while dazzling us, showing how each part gleams.

Also, Strange Horizons are reviewing all the World Fantasy Award novel finalists—including The Privilege of the Sword.

More reviews:

Interfictions at Fantasy Book Spot.

Water Logic at the Feminist Review.

LCRW 20 at Horrorscope.


The Solitudes

Mon 15 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Greg Feeley writes up the Aegypt series in  The Philadelphia Inquirer:

With Endless Things, John Crowley brings to a conclusion the quartet of novels, acknowledged by his present publisher as a single sequence titled Ægypt, upon which he has labored for the last 20 years. A highly ambitious meditation on fantasy and desire, mythopoeia, secret histories, and the greater significances (if any) behind the texture of everyday life, Crowley’s series began publication, with new volumes appearing every six or seven years, from a highly commercial publisher that maintained (for a time) the belief that his books could be not merely intensely loved by a small body of readers, but bought in large numbers.


Sun 7 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Ed Park gets swept away to Aegypt (with more to come next week):

Now that Overlook Press has brought out “Aegypt” as “The Solitudes” (Crowley’s preferred title) and will soon dust off two other works in the “Aegypt” cycle (1994’s “Love & Sleep” and 2000’s “Daemonomania”), and Small Beer Press has issued the Aegyptian finale, “Endless Things” (the subject of next month’s Astral Weeks column), it’s as though a string of curiously beautiful planets has emerged from a long, cold shadow. As if “Aegypt” had been waiting all along for me to discover it.

The new edition of The Solitudes is out this week, Love & Sleep is due in January, and Daemonomania is due out in spring. Endless Things is out out out.


Sun 7 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Ed Park gets swept away to Aegypt (with more to come next week):

Now that Overlook Press has brought out “Aegypt” as “The Solitudes” (Crowley’s preferred title) and will soon dust off two other works in the “Aegypt” cycle (1994’s “Love & Sleep” and 2000’s “Daemonomania”), and Small Beer Press has issued the Aegyptian finale, “Endless Things” (the subject of next month’s Astral Weeks column), it’s as though a string of curiously beautiful planets has emerged from a long, cold shadow. As if “Aegypt” had been waiting all along for me to discover it.

The new edition of The Solitudes is out this week, Love & Sleep is due in January, and Daemonomania is due out in spring. Endless Things is out out out.


Tue 10 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

There may be a Readercon thing later. In the meantime, reviews &c:

  • Quimby’s bookshop in Chicago has an appropriately and hilariously named blog.
  • Get a Spec Lit Foundation travel grant.
  • Nisi Shawl on Endless Things in the Seattle Times:
    “Endless Things” is the long-awaited fourth book in John Crowley’s epic magical realist “Aegypt” sequence. Despite the perpetualness its title might imply, it’s the concluding volume of the series, which first began to charm and intrigue readers 20 years ago.
  • Matt Cheney on Generation Loss in Strange Horizons:
    Just as lives that are only momentarily brilliant deserve celebration and respect, though, so do such novels, because life is dark enough that we need whatever illumination we can get, and there’s plenty to be had in Generation Loss.
  • It may be true that of a recent night there was some drinkage and some talking about Harry Frickin Potter (to quote Brad Neely). Kelly took down a few notes for Salon.
  • Go see the preview for The Jane Austen Book Club movie at Buzz Sugar and leave comments to puzzle regulars.

Tue 10 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

There may be a Readercon thing later. In the meantime, reviews &c:

  • Quimby’s bookshop in Chicago has an appropriately and hilariously named blog.
  • Get a Spec Lit Foundation travel grant.
  • Nisi Shawl on Endless Things in the Seattle Times:
    “Endless Things” is the long-awaited fourth book in John Crowley’s epic magical realist “Aegypt” sequence. Despite the perpetualness its title might imply, it’s the concluding volume of the series, which first began to charm and intrigue readers 20 years ago.
  • Matt Cheney on Generation Loss in Strange Horizons:
    Just as lives that are only momentarily brilliant deserve celebration and respect, though, so do such novels, because life is dark enough that we need whatever illumination we can get, and there’s plenty to be had in Generation Loss.
  • It may be true that of a recent night there was some drinkage and some talking about Harry Frickin Potter (to quote Brad Neely). Kelly took down a few notes for Salon.
  • Go see the preview for The Jane Austen Book Club movie at Buzz Sugar and leave comments to puzzle regulars.

2 x John Crowley

Wed 16 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Tonight: KGB Bar in New York City.

Tomorrow: Artifacts, Florence (Northampton), Mass.—with Liz Hand, Paul Park, 2/4 of the Winterpills, & Others.

In other Crowley news (from John’s blog) he reports that the 25th Anniversary edition of Little, Big banneris moving along and may be out by September.


Thu 26 Apr 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

John Crowley’s novel, Endless Things, is out soon. We’ve received some office copies and mailed them out (signed, because John was nice enough to come by and sign some) to everyone (tons and tons!) who pre-ordered it. We’ve heard from people who have bought it from stores but we’d be grateful to anyone who sends a pic of one out there in der wild.

John had some news from his recent trip to Kyiv (as we learn we are now to spell the city previously known as Kiev):

I suppose I should first announce that I am the recipient of the first ever Bulgakov Award of PORTAL, the Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy convention/conference. Bulgakov (raise your hand if you didn’t know this) is Ukrainian, born and died in Kyiv, where a museum about him now occupies the house that was his childhood home and the place he died.  Though he wrote in Russian, and though his masterpiece The Master and Maragarita is set in a lovingly detailed Moscow, the Ukrainians consider him their own.  So do I, now.

John hasn’t posted all his pics yet, but he did post these:

The Bulgakov Award, in addition to being an honor, also consisted of an object — a huge sculpture of a black cat (Behemoth, as readers of Bulgakov will remember), weighing at least ten pounds.  Great jokesters, these Ukrainians, as they have had to be, and funny certainly but bad to let their Visiting Author believe (even briefly) that he would have to wrestle this monstrous beast onto three different flights home.  Picture of self with Behemoth laughing hysterically (self; cat remains as always calm) will soon be posted.


Thu 26 Apr 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

John Crowley’s novel, Endless Things, is out soon. We’ve received some office copies and mailed them out (signed, because John was nice enough to come by and sign some) to everyone (tons and tons!) who pre-ordered it. We’ve heard from people who have bought it from stores but we’d be grateful to anyone who sends a pic of one out there in der wild.

John had some news from his recent trip to Kyiv (as we learn we are now to spell the city previously known as Kiev):

I suppose I should first announce that I am the recipient of the first ever Bulgakov Award of PORTAL, the Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy convention/conference. Bulgakov (raise your hand if you didn’t know this) is Ukrainian, born and died in Kyiv, where a museum about him now occupies the house that was his childhood home and the place he died.  Though he wrote in Russian, and though his masterpiece The Master and Maragarita is set in a lovingly detailed Moscow, the Ukrainians consider him their own.  So do I, now.

John hasn’t posted all his pics yet, but he did post these:

The Bulgakov Award, in addition to being an honor, also consisted of an object — a huge sculpture of a black cat (Behemoth, as readers of Bulgakov will remember), weighing at least ten pounds.  Great jokesters, these Ukrainians, as they have had to be, and funny certainly but bad to let their Visiting Author believe (even briefly) that he would have to wrestle this monstrous beast onto three different flights home.  Picture of self with Behemoth laughing hysterically (self; cat remains as always calm) will soon be posted.


Mon 26 Mar 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Last Wednesday some of us here trundled down the glorious winter roads to New York to the KGB Bar to see Carol Emshwiller and David Louis Edelman read. Both readers were worth getting the matched pair out and the (somewhat long) curricle ride. And is there anything more beautiful than the rural fields of Stamford and the rolling hills of New Haven on the approach to the glittering metropolis of New York?

However, despite the lovely readings and the feast following the reading, we left with something unexpected: a “Devil Bug of Doom” (copyright Gwenda Bond) which had us shaking like Elvis for a couple of days. Or maybe just Shakin’ Stevens.

Things You the Reader Could Do*:

Send us the new Adobe Creative Suite…? MacRumors says the pricing will be released tomorrow — which is far enough ahead of the software packages’ ship dates (which run April to June) for us to get over the sticker shock. We are using new (for us, maybe 6 months old now) MacBooks (tiny, cute computers!) and PhotoShop and InDesign run a bit slow so these upgrades are much anticipated. The Design package is what we’re looking at:

CS3 Design Premium (up) $1799.95
CS3 Design Standard $1199.95

…although we might be able to get an upgrade from PhotoShop 7 for only $900. So, Johnny, you know how we promised to take you to DissMeLand for your birthday this year? Small Beer says, Sorry Kid, maybe next year, maybe never. Don’t cry kid. Aw.

* If you were perhaps either stuck in traffic for 36 hours and bored out your head. Or just a little more than tipsy. Or a crazy stalker**. Or just wealthy. Or just plain crazy.

** We don’t have any of these, yay!

In other news:

  • John Crowley’s Endless Things received one of its first big reviews in Book Forum: “With Endless Things and the completion of the Ægypt cycle, Crowley has constructed one of the finest, most welcoming tales contemporary fiction has to offer us.”
  • Liz Hand (whose novel is will shipped from the printer next week) is part of a new group blog, the inferior 4 +1.
  • Matt Cheney posted the contents for the first Best American Fantasy anthology which includes Kelly’s “Origin Story” from A Public Space, Liz Hand’s “The Saffron Gatherer”, as well as a ton of other great stories.
  • Happy to see that Michael Dirda’s Washington Post piece was run by the Austin American Stateman this weekend.
  • Did Scotland actually win at football? Reports say the final score in some kind of European tourney was Scotland 2, Georgia 1. But we were in Georgia recently, in Atlanta, and while the accents were strong, they did not seem to be Europeans (and I could have sworn we drove, so how did we cross the water?). Scotland play Italy on Wednesday. You never know. Unless you’re a Scotland fan.

Mon 26 Mar 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Last Wednesday some of us here trundled down the glorious winter roads to New York to the KGB Bar to see Carol Emshwiller and David Louis Edelman read. Both readers were worth getting the matched pair out and the (somewhat long) curricle ride. And is there anything more beautiful than the rural fields of Stamford and the rolling hills of New Haven on the approach to the glittering metropolis of New York?

However, despite the lovely readings and the feast following the reading, we left with something unexpected: a “Devil Bug of Doom” (copyright Gwenda Bond) which had us shaking like Elvis for a couple of days. Or maybe just Shakin’ Stevens.

Things You the Reader Could Do*:

Send us the new Adobe Creative Suite…? MacRumors says the pricing will be released tomorrow — which is far enough ahead of the software packages’ ship dates (which run April to June) for us to get over the sticker shock. We are using new (for us, maybe 6 months old now) MacBooks (tiny, cute computers!) and PhotoShop and InDesign run a bit slow so these upgrades are much anticipated. The Design package is what we’re looking at:

CS3 Design Premium (up) $1799.95
CS3 Design Standard $1199.95

…although we might be able to get an upgrade from PhotoShop 7 for only $900. So, Johnny, you know how we promised to take you to DissMeLand for your birthday this year? Small Beer says, Sorry Kid, maybe next year, maybe never. Don’t cry kid. Aw.

* If you were perhaps either stuck in traffic for 36 hours and bored out your head. Or just a little more than tipsy. Or a crazy stalker**. Or just wealthy. Or just plain crazy.

** We don’t have any of these, yay!

In other news:

  • John Crowley’s Endless Things received one of its first big reviews in Book Forum: “With Endless Things and the completion of the Ægypt cycle, Crowley has constructed one of the finest, most welcoming tales contemporary fiction has to offer us.”
  • Liz Hand (whose novel is will shipped from the printer next week) is part of a new group blog, the inferior 4 +1.
  • Matt Cheney posted the contents for the first Best American Fantasy anthology which includes Kelly’s “Origin Story” from A Public Space, Liz Hand’s “The Saffron Gatherer”, as well as a ton of other great stories.
  • Happy to see that Michael Dirda’s Washington Post piece was run by the Austin American Stateman this weekend.
  • Did Scotland actually win at football? Reports say the final score in some kind of European tourney was Scotland 2, Georgia 1. But we were in Georgia recently, in Atlanta, and while the accents were strong, they did not seem to be Europeans (and I could have sworn we drove, so how did we cross the water?). Scotland play Italy on Wednesday. You never know. Unless you’re a Scotland fan.

Endless Things galleys

Thu 28 Dec 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Proof (ahem) that John Crowley’s final Ægypt novel, Endless Things, exists, and is one more step along the road to being. These Advance Uncorrected Galleys just arrived (thanks UPS and Fidlar Doubleday!) and in the next couple of days will start to wend their way out to reviewers and so on.

It’s been 20 years since Ægypt was published and we know (from the fantastic number of pre-orders — yay!) that tons of people have been patiently waiting for this one to appear.
The image “http://lcrw.net/images/covers/crowley-galley.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

http://lcrw.net/images/covers/crowley-galley2.gif


Really?

Fri 1 Dec 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Crowley, Endless ThingsJohn Crowley let us know that our May publication date may be in jeopardy:

I’ve written a couple of extra chapters for Endless Things that will need extensive editing. I also am thinking of dropping every other page, so a certain amount of stitchery joining the remainig pages will be required. I do feel these changes will help the book. They will only take an additional couple of months.

Also, we are working on methods of invisibly numbering the copies as Crowley requested.

One reader has already noticed that this book concerns “Pierce Moffitt” rather than “Pierce Moffett.” This change of chief protagonist, this alternate take on reality, this deepening of coincedence and the magical similarities in the life of Moffitt to Moffett’s (as recounted in three prior volumes) proves Crowley’s mastery of the form and future of the novel and will be a welcome surprise to the longtime readers who are rushing to pre-order this title.

Or: 1) Not really. 2) Invisible numbering? Sure. 3) Oops! That gaff has been fixed.


« Later Entries in John Crowley