Win a Free Copy of By Blood We Live
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is giving away three free copies of my vampire anthology By Blood We Live. Go here for details!
Archive for August, 2009
Before the Apocalypse, There was Reggaetón
People sometimes ask me about the cover of Wastelands, wondering where they might have seen it before. Some of you may remember that when the cover (by Daniel Kvasznicza) was first revealed, I mentioned how the cover art had been previously used as a backdrop on a rap album or something. It took me a while, but I finally got more of a complete picture (so to speak) as to the history of the image.
First, it was actually first used as the backdrop for an animated film that screened in Austria in 2004. Then Sony licensed the image for use on the album King of Kings by Don Omar (actually Reggaetón, not rap). Here it is:
On the cover, it’s hardly visible at all, though on the second image, which looks to be the back of the CD case, it’s obviously much more visible.
The image has also been posted online in various venues to illustrate posts about post-apocalyptic scenarios, such as at io9.com and elsewhere.
So there you have it. The brief, sordid history behind the Wastelands cover.
The Living Dead is a World Fantasy Award nominee!
The Living Dead has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology! This is a tremendous honor, and I’m hugely thrilled.
Visit the World Fantasy Awards web site for the full list of nominees.
io9 Loves Federations
io9 has a rave review of Federations:
“Federations aims to be an anthology of short stories about interstellar civilizations — think Star Trek, Star Wars, or Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation series. But really, most of the stories in this collection are just classic space opera, with only a little discussion of the challenges and joys of multi-planetary collaboration. There’s quite a lot of space war, a fair bit of first contact, and a dash of deep-space exploration. And that turns out to be a more thrilling experience, in many ways, than a more tightly thematic collection of stories about deep-space alliances might have been. … Federations is definitely one of those anthologies that offers something for everyone. … Whether they’re taking us to deep-space battles, showing us uneasy collaboration between vastly different races, or satirizing the very idea of a benign interplanetary alliance, the stories in Federations mostly keep a very human perspective on the hugeness and strangeness of a galaxy teeming with life. And that’s reason enough to sign on to its galactic charter.”
By Blood We Live: Now Available + Website Launches
My vampire anthology By Blood We Live is now on sale, and so I’m launching the anthology’s website, which features the complete text of 8 stories from the book.
Here’s the cover copy:
Vampires. They are the most elegant of monsters—ancient, seductive, doomed, deadly. They lurk in the shadows, at your window, in your dreams. They are beautiful as anything you’ve ever seen, but their flesh is cold as the grave, and their lips taste of blood. From Dracula to Twilight, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to True Blood, many have fallen under their spell. Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams brings you 33 of the most haunting vampire stories of the past three decades, from some of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.
Charming gentlemen with the manners of a prior age. Savage killing machines who surge screaming from hidden vaults. Cute little girls frozen forever in slender bodies. Long-buried loved ones who scratch at the door, begging to be let in. Nowhere is safe, not mist-shrouded Transylvania or the Italian Riviera or even a sleepy town in Maine. This is a hidden world, an eternal world, where nothing is forbidden…as long as you’re willing to pay the price.
By Blood We Live is 245,000 words of the best in vampire fiction. Thirsty? By Blood We Live will satisfy your darkest cravings…
And here’s the URL: www.johnjosephadams.
My next anthology, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, is coming out in September, but I’m launching the site for that now as well:
Sherlock Holmes is back!
Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first—and most famous—consulting detective, came to the world’s attention more than 120 years ago through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and stories. But Conan Doyle didn’t reveal all of the Great Detective’s adventures…
Here are some of the best Holmes pastiches of the last 30 years, twenty-eight tales of mystery and the imagination detailing Holmes’s further exploits, as told by many of today’s greatest storytellers, including Stephen King, Anne Perry, Anthony Burgess, Neil Gaiman, Naomi Novik, Stephen Baxter, Tanith Lee, Michael Moorcock, and many more.
These are the improbable adventures of Sherlock Holmes, where nothing is impossible, and nothing can be ruled out. In these cases, Holmes investigates ghosts, curses, aliens, dinosaurs, shapeshifters, and evil gods. But is it the supernatural, or is there a perfectly rational explanation?
You won’t be sure, and neither will Holmes and Watson as they match wits with pirates, assassins, con artists, and criminal masterminds of all stripes, including some familiar foes, such as their old nemesis, Professor Moriarty.
In these pages you’ll also find our heroes crossing paths with H. G. Wells, Lewis Carroll, and even Arthur Conan Doyle himself, and you’ll be astounded to learn the truth behind cases previously alluded to by Watson but never before documented until now. These are tales that take us from the familiar quarters at 221B Baker Street to alternate realities, from the gaslit streets of London to the far future and beyond.
Whether it’s mystery, fantasy, horror, or science fiction, no puzzle is too challenging for the Great Detective. The game is afoot!
And the URL is www.johnjosephadams.