Three Bits of Publicity Make a Post

Over at Omnivoracious, Jeff VanderMeer asked me to name five ways you can plant real-life seeds of change, since, you know, I edited a book called Seeds of Change.

In other VanderMeer-related news, Horia Ursu, who recently blogged about Seeds in Romanian, is guest-blogging this week at VanderMeer’s Ecstatic Days blog, and had this to say: “John Joseph Adams was kind enough to indulge my pleas and e-mailed electronic copies of Wastelands (the best reprint themed anthology I have read this last couple years!) and of his then-forthcoming, now freshly trailered Seeds of Change, where at least half of the stories will (or deserve to) show up in next year’s awards final ballots. This book reminded me why I started to love science fiction in the first place, with the stories’ focus on the paradigms of change and an almost militant engagement that stands out in a sea of simple entertainment.” Wow, that’s some praise right there!

And finally, I’m included in the latest SF Signal Mind Meld, which asks “What would you change about the SF/fantasy field?” Excerpt from my contribution: “From an editorial perspective, I think maybe that we don’t often enough challenge writers to be great. Not all stories (or writers) have greatness inside of them, but I think that perhaps too often we accept and publish good stories that truly could be great if the writer was just pushed to *make it* great. It seems like editors used to do this routinely, if one can accept the statements one reads in historical accounts at face value. Editors like John W. Campbell and Harlan Ellison are frequently cited as having done a lot to mold and shape the fiction they published. It could be that this is still happening today, but I don’t hear about it very often and don’t often see it–instead I find myself reading good stories in which I find greatness lurking inside them. I don’t know what the reason for this is, or even if it is a true problem–good stories are, after all *good*–but it’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

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My Not-a-Worldcon-Recap Post

Apparently, I won’t be getting to my planned Worldcon recap any time soon, so suffice it to say I had fun, got to meet some cool people, catch up with ones I already knew, and got to pick up two Hugos (one for Gordon and one for Ted Chiang). One of the highlights was meeting in the flesh for the first time my pal Jeremy Tolbert–we’ve been online friends for about seven years now and only now met in person. Ain’t the 21st century grand?

I spotted a couple of photos of me online. Here’s me looking like a missionary. I don’t normally wear glasses, but I was having a lot of problems with my contacts while in Denver.

Here’s me again, with the same exact expression, but now standing next to a pretty girl (Ace/Roc editor Jessica Wade).

Here’s a better photo of me, since I was not posing.

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Review: Booklist

Booklist, one of the top trade journals in publishing, had this to say about Seeds of Change in their August issue:

This satisfying theme anthology is, referentially speaking, pretty seedy. It’s secretably small (about five by four inches)*, seven of its nine contributors are blossoming sf newcomers, and each of its stories is about an at-first barely appreciated experiential kernel from which something new will grow. The Sassenachs lose the big one in Ken MacLeod’s “A Dance Called Armageddon,” and only two Scots who know their folk songs realize the sea change it portends. In both Ted Kosmatka’s “N-Words” and Mark Budz’s “Faceless in Gethsemane,” the defeat of a new social prejudice born out of bioengineering begins, and only one person appreciates that it will be total. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s “Spider the Artist” depicts a possible next step in evolution, cybernetic as well as physiological. K. D. Wentworth’s jokey “Drinking Problem” depicts one possible result of hyperconscious environmentalism, though she doesn’t let even one character foresee ultimate consequences. Blake Charlton’s immensely moving “Endosymbiont” lays out the future of human consciousness and has one, but only one, person embark upon it. An overall optimism, however guarded, makes the whole collection more gratifying. —Ray Olson

YA: Several kid protagonists and lots of challenging concepts. RO.

* Actually, it’s 5″ x 7″ —ed.

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SF Signal Review

SF Signal reviews Seeds, giving it a 4/5 rating: “The theme of Seeds of Change, an anthology of original fiction edited by John Joseph Adams, is paradigm shifts. Specifically, Adams asked the writers to write stories about technological, scientific, political or cultural change. Not only did each writer succeed at that goal, but most of them managed to provide stories that were entertaining and thought-provoking as well.”

Reviewer John DeNardo singled out Blake Charlton’s “Endosymbiont” as the standout story in the book, saying: “Charlton’s voice is totally his own, drawing upon his medical background to create a story that has big ideas, interesting twists and is 100% engrossing and abundantly satisfying.”

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Romanians Love Seeds of Change

Horia Ursu of Romanian publisher Millennium Press had this to say about Seeds of Change: “SEEDS OF CHANGE was definitely a pleasant revelation and a powerful proof that engagement–in the good sense of the word–continues to animate a genre only apparently reserved for easy entertainment, asking questions and offering possible answers.”

You’ll just have to trust me that it says that, unless you read Romanian, because that’s the language his post is written in. (He sent me that translated excerpt.)

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Seeds of Change: Now Available!

I came home from Worldcon to discover that Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both have stock of my new anthology Seeds of Change, so I’ve now launched the website www.seedsanthology.com for it. The stories aim to confront some of the pivotal issues facing our society today, such as racism, global warming, peak oil, technological advancement, and political revolution. It features original fiction from Tobias S. Buckell, Ken MacLeod, and Jay Lake, among others.

You can read the complete text of three of the anthology’s nine stories on the website, in HTML, PDF, or Mobipocket format. There are excerpts available of the remaining six stories.

Other bonus features include interviews with the authors and further reading lists for people who’d like to learn more about the issues discussed in the stories. And finally, the site also features a book trailer which features a short dramatized excerpt of each story, along with original musical score (which you can also download as an instrumental MP3 track).

 

It’s available in the usual online bookstores as well as in ebook format for Kindle, Sony Reader, and Mobipocket Reader, and are available in additional formats via ebook retailer Fictionwise. Also, through August 18th, you can download for your Sony Reader a free sampler featuring three stories from Seeds of Change.

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There is no Stargate (or so they say…)

During Worldcon last week, I went on a VIP tour of the NORAD facility at Cheyenne Mountain, which is known in SF circles for its relevance to the plot of the film WarGames and the television series Stargate SG-1. A bunch of other great authors were along on the trip, including Plague War author Jeff Carlson, who was the reason the tour came to be in the first place. I wrote up a report about our trip to NORAD for SCI FI Wire.  Annalee Newitz was also on the trip, and she wrote up a report for io9.com.

Worldcon itself was pretty good; not a great Worldcon, but lots of fun nonetheless–got to hang out with lots of cool people I knew already and met some new ones. More Worldcon musings may be forthcoming, but that’s all I have time for for now. So much work piled up when I was away!

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