Federations is now available for pre-order, and the website is officially live. There, you’ll find interviews with several of the authors, and three free stories—Jeremiah Tolbert’s “The Culture Archivist,” James Alan Gardner’s “The One with the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses,” and Genevieve Valentine’s “Carthago Delenda Est.”
Also, a reminder that Federations is now available for pre-order. Note that if you pre-ordered it earlier, you may need to reorder, as the ISBN changed, so stores like Amazon will have cancelled those orders, because when the ISBN changed, a whole new entry for the book was created in their system.
I’m editing a new reprint anthology of Sherlock Holmes fiction for Night Shade Books, which is scheduled for publication this fall. The working title is The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and it will contain tales of both mystery and the fantastic.
As with my past reprint projects, I’ve setup a database to solicit recommendations of Sherlock Holmes fiction. Since the book will include tales of multiple genres, pretty much any story featuring Sherlock Holmes is eligible for consideration.
ETA: The book is done, so recommendations are now closed. Thanks!
[meme] Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. [/meme]
Okay, from that starting point, I had to just kind of think of albums that influenced the evolution of my musical tastes. Perhaps they were important to me in other ways, but I don’t know that I could come up with *15* albums that changed my life or the way I looked at it. In many cases, these were the first albums that I listened to by the band in question, and often these albums led me down a path toward a different sort of music than I had listened to previously. Admittedly, these are all metal, but they’re different kinds of metal, and each were important, as I said, to the evolution of my musical tastes.
1. Metallica – And Justice For All
2. White Zombie – La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
3. Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
4. Biohazard – State of the World Address
5. Ultraspank – Ultraspank
6. Spineshank – The Height of Callousness
7. Various Artists – MTV2 Headbanger’s Ball
8. In Flames – Reroute to Remain
9. Dark Tranquillity – Damage Done
10. At the Gates – Slaughter of the Soul
11. Ceremonial Oath – Carpet
12. Trivium – Ember to Inferno
13. Protest the Hero – Kezia
14. Lamb of God – Sacrament
15. Wintersun – Wintersun
[crossposted from Facebook]
Just a note about my vampire anthology, By Blood We Live. My agent just now announced the deal, which in fact had been agreed to long ago, but was only just finalized now due to some paperwork delays. In any case, I’m still putting the book together, so if I’ve been in contact with you about a story reprint, this announcement shouldn’t lead you to any conclusions about my decision. I’ve decided on several stories already, but there’s still lots of room in the book to fill, so it’s still very much a work in progress.
In addition to the Tor.com Zombie Caption Contest, another way to win a copy of The Living Dead is to buy a Lottery ticket. In this context, the Lottery refers to a fundraiser to support the Shirley Jackson Awards. In this case, you’d also win a copy of Wastelands.
The lottery begins on February 9th, 2009 at midnight Eastern Time and ends on February 23rd, 2009 at midnight. Winners will be announced shortly after midnight on the award’s blog.
About the award (from the official website):
In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, “The Lottery.” Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson “one of this century’s most luminous and strange American writers,” and multiple generations of authors would agree.
The Shirley Jackson Award will be voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards will be given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.
Over at Tor.com, we’ve got a zombie caption contest going on, with the prizes being a copy of my anthology The Living Dead AND a copy of the video game Left 4 Dead.
