Anthologies – Page 2 – John Joseph Adams

Tag: Anthologies

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.com/by-blood-we-live

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.com/sherlock-holmes

Guidelines: The Way of the Wizard

Story Guidelines

(a) The story should be about a wizard, witch, sorcerer, sorceress, of some kind (basically, any sort of user of magic).

(b) The fact that the story has wizards in it should be vital to the story, i.e., magic should be an important factor in the resolution of the plot.

(d) I’m interested in all types of wizard tales, but am especially interested in seeing some stories that explore the idea of wizardry from a non-traditional viewpoint–i.e., something based on the Chilean Kalku or on the supernatural practices of other cultures.

(e) The story may be set in a secondary world, the real world, the present, or in a historical time period…let your imagination run wild.

Genres: Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror. Obviously wizard stories tend to be fantasy, but some sort of SFnal take on the theme would be acceptable.

Reprints/Originals: Original fiction strongly preferred. The anthology will include some reprints, but I will be very selective in my choices given I have all of sf/fantasy history to choose from. If you want to submit a reprint or submit a recommendation for a reprint, instructions for that are here.

Payment: 5 cents per word ($250 max), plus a pro-rata share of 50% of the anthology’s earnings and 1 contributor copy.

Word limit: 5000 words. (Stories may exceed 5000 words, but $250 is the maximum payment per story, and stories 5000 words or less are strongly preferred.)

Rights: First world English rights, non-exclusive world anthology rights, and non-exclusive audio anthology rights. See my boilerplate author-anthologist contract, which spells out the rights in detail.

Reading Period: July 1, 2009 – March 31, 2010.

Response Time: I will be making all of my final decisions in April and May 2010, so if you submit early, your story might be held for consideration for a long time. Most rejections will be sent out quickly, however, so I’ll only hold onto a story if I’m seriously considering it, and if that happens, I’ll notify you.

Publication date: November 2010

Publisher: Prime Books

Submission Instructions: Email your story in .doc Microsoft Word format (preferred) or .rtf rich-text format to jjadams.anthology@gmail.com. Include the words “Wizards Submission” and the title of the story and your byline in the subject line of the email (i.e., Re: Wizards Submission: “The Wizard’s Revenge” by Slushy P. Slusherton). ETA: There is no need to query first. Submissions should be made in standard manuscript format.

About the Editor

John Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, Seeds of Change, The Living Dead, and Federations. Forthcoming work includes By Blood We Live (August 2009), The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (September 2009), and The Living Dead 2 (Fall 2010). He is also the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. For more information, visit his website, www.johnjosephadams.com.

New Anthology Sale: The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination

From Victor Frankenstein to Lex Luthor, from Dr. Moreau to Dr. Doom, readers have long been fascinated by megalomaniacal plans for world domination and the madmen who come up with them. Typically, we see these villains through the eyes of superheroes (or other good guys) as they attempt to put an end to their evil ways. This anthology, however, will explore the world of mad scientists and evil geniuses–from their own point of view.

Evil geniuses are always so keen on telling captured heroes all their fiendish plans. Isn’t it about time someone gave them a platform such as this one to reach the masses with their messages of ~~hope~~ death and ~~prosperity~~ destruction?

Publisher: Tor

Publication date: TBD, circa 2011

Note for writers: I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to have an open submission period for this anthology, given the limited space I have to work with (I had to get commitments from a lot of writers to sell the book), but if I do, I’ll announce that here. If I’m familiar with your work already, and you’re keen on this idea, feel free to query me about writing something. I’d really like to have an open reading period, but not sure it’s going to happen at this point; this is the best I can do for now. Watch this space for updates.

Listen to Federations

StarShipSofa has posted a podcast of Jeremiah Tolbert’s story from Federations, “The Culture Archivist,” which Tolbert describes as his take on “what if the Star Trek Federation were actually capitalist bastards.”

In other Federations-related news, contributor Catherynne M. Valente (“Golubash, or Wine-War-Blood-Elegy”) has developed a cool an unique piece of work based on her story. It’s a “ReadMix,” which is basically a song with text from the story being read in the background, all mixed and such to create a piece of music. The song is called “Wine is a Story,” and you can read more about it and listen to it here.

Locus reviews Federations

The May 2009 issue of Locus has two reviews of Federations.

The first, from Gardner Dozois, says: “[Federations is] filled with good solid stuff, and a few stories are a bit better than that.” Gardner goes on to single out John C. Wright’s story, “Twilight of the Gods,” as the best story in the book.

The other review is from Rich Horton, who says: “Where the book shines is with the original stories, many of which are by quite new writers. … The mix—of old and new stories, of newer and more established writers, and of tones and styles—is vigorous and impressive.” Horton also offers some nice commentary on a few of the stories, for instance, calling Jeremiah Tolbert’s “The Culture Archivist” “very fine” and saying that it “modulates from an almost Strossian romp to a serious examination of its central issue.”

Star Trek Smackdown

Come see me debate the merits of science fiction’s best starship captains at the Star Trek Smackdown on May 12 at the Paley Center (formerly known as the Museum for Television and Radio) in New York.

From the Paley Center’s website:

Event: Star Trek Smackdown

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
New York

John Joseph Adams, Editor of anthologies Federations, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, and The Living Dead
Matt Mitovich, Senior Editor, TVGuide.com
Bones Rodriguez, Author, Captain Kirk’s Guide to Women
Moderated by David Bushman, Curator, Television
Additional panelists to be announced.

O Captain! My Captain! Who’s the greatest leader in the history of science fiction on television? We’re pitting Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek against your choices, based on the results of our Star Trek Smackdown poll. We’re beaming aboard a panel of sci-fi experts to debate the pros and cons of all the leading contenders, but we also want to hear what YOU think, so set your coordinates for the Paley Center and come join the debate.

Bring your tricorders to help you answer some trivia questions to win some DVDs and other special prizes! Costumes welcome!

Tickets include admission to the Paley Center (free to Members, $10 for non-members).

Hope to see you there!

Federations now on sale!

Federations is now available via Amazon, and should be in brick and mortar stores soon, or possibly in stock already.

New Anthology Sale & Anthology Update

I just signed the contracts and mailed them off, so I figure it’s safe to announce this now: I’ll be editing a wizards anthology for Prime Books, scheduled for publication in November 2010. It will be structured like Federations—half reprints, half originals. I’ll be doing an open reading period for the book at some point, which I’ll post about at a later time. So if you’ve been dying to write a wizard story, you can start brainstorming it now.

Since the wizards anthology will consist of originals and reprints, I’ve setup a database to solicit recommendations for the reprints. You can recommend a wizard story, or view the current entries. If you’d like to repost my call for recommendations, the database entry form is here: http://tinyurl.com/jja-wizards-db and the current entries are here: http://tinyurl.com/jja-wizards.

As for my other projects… Federations should be in bookstores in May. I just turned in By Blood We Live (vampire reprint anthology) to Night Shade, and am currently putting the finishing touches on The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes mystery/fantasy reprint anthology). Both of those are due out later this year (August/September).

Next year, what I currently have lined up for release are The Living Dead 2 for Night Shade and this as-yet-unnamed wizards anthology* for Prime.

Farther down the line, with an unset release date is Brave New Worlds (dystopian reprint anthology) for Night Shade, and possibly a few other projects if the stars align properly.

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* If anyone has title suggestions for the wizards book, feel free to offer them up. If someone throws something out there really great and I end up using it, I’ll give you a free copy of the book and praise you in the acknowledgments.

Federations now available on Amazon Kindle

The print and other ebook versions of Federations are still a few weeks away, but the anthology is now available for the Kindle. You can go buy it right this very instant. Which you should do if you have a Kindle.

Federations Website Now Live, Anthology Now Available for Pre-Order

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.”

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