First up, the shameless pimping of reviews of my stuff… this time the most excellent Charles Tan reviews the final issue of Farrago’s Wainscot over at Bibliophile Stalker
“First up is the nonfiction, “Telling Stories in the Wake of Postmodernism” by Jonathan Wood. Wood has a concise summary of the implications of postmodernism–some of which I’m not even aware of–and eventually gets to discuss the options in telling interactive stories. It’s the latter which catches my attention, and Wood cites mediums like video games and hypertext as one of the viable forms. It’s an interesting discourse and take on the subject, with the references remaining unobtrusive.”
“”Ephemera” by Jonathan Wood can be challenging to read and it’s an interesting combination of mystery along with your horror and fantasy. Overall however, I got confused as there are two plots taking place, and while the discourse is an interesting technique, isn’t exactly the most accessible. Yet this confusion is also perfect for the story as it captures the clash and fusion of minds of its main character. While some readers might appreciate this form-function synthesis–and it takes great skill for Wood to pull it off–I’m not fond of this format.”
Which is generally nice to hear.
Next up, more excellence. Mr Jeff Vandermeer (along with the intrepid Mr. Matt Staggs) has put together the sweetest of books: Booklife, which is launching shortly (I believe). It is only marred in one place by a relatively stupid quote from me. Despite this it is ful of great advice for authors, especially those just moving into the professionally creative part of their lives. In fact it was on the strength of the book that I finally moved over onto Wordpress, which has made me very happy.
Anyhoo, for more information about this fascinating little book (I chewed through it in about3 days) you can now head over to http://booklifenow.com/ which just launched today.
Next up, for reasons of full discolsure as well as hideous self-pimpage, I have been included in another of Mr Vandermeer’s projects, the charity anthology, Last Drink Bird Head. It’s got over 80 writers, most of whom are far more famous and talented than I, which makes it a real honor to be in their company, all donating pieces of flash fiction about the idea of “What the crap is Last Drink Bird Head?” It’s full of really lively cool stuff, and includes authors like eter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, and Marly Youmans. To name a few.
What’s more all the proceed go to charity. Whoot!
And while on the subject of anthologies, I think I have totally failed to mention the anthology Hatter Bones, put together by Paul Jessup. There are several reasons for this, mostly due to my general concern that the publishers are a bunch of eejits. This may be false, and if so I apologize. However, you may notice Mr Jessup’s name oddly absent from the cover despite the very hard work he put in, which is but one of the oddities. It’s a patchy antho, through no fault of his that I can tell, but there are some real gems in there.
There’s something in there by me (hence the mention) but you’ll also find stuff by Matt Cheney, Darin C. Bradley, Ekaterina Sedia, Cat Rambo, Jason Sizemore, Lavie Tidhar, Forrest Aguirre, and Becca De La Rosa, so I strongly recommend at least considering spending some of your pennies.
And that’s quite enough from me, so I shall be quiet.
