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Even in post-apocalyptic world where men can transform into human resources bears and brain slugs can edit out disturbing memories, you can't escape the mindfuck that is office politics. In the webcomic adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's darkly comic story The Situation, a lowly fish designer is thrust into a world of traitorous brain-linking coworkers and steampunk automaton managers who just want his love. More »
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It's been an exciting time for anybody who wants to see Hollywood adapting some more adventurous source material. Acclaimed books by Charles Yu, Lauren Beukes and Cherie Priest have all gotten movie deals recently. Jeff VanderMeer has a great roundup of how all three authors have responded to the news — including which parts of their books they're most excited to see on the big screen, and which parts could be the most challenging to film. [Omnivoracious] More »
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Ann VanderMeer's award-winning tenure at Weird Tales was cut short when the magazine was bought by a new crew — but the print world's loss is the internet's gain. VanderMeer and her husband, Jeff VanderMeer, have started a new online magazine, the Weird Fiction Review, which just launched today. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5855364&view=rss&microfeed=true Up-and-coming short-story writer Rachel Swirsky talks the joy of short fiction at Amazon's Omnivoracious blog. More »
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In this month's books, Greg Bear serves up disaster in deep space, while a beautifully designed book sheds new light on steampunk. Plus medieval utopias, star-crossed loves, and a flaming zeppelin! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5684245&view=rss&microfeed=true It's been a while since the New York Times Sunday Book Review had a regular science fiction book column. So it's great news that The Third Bear author (and io9 contributor) Jeff VanderMeer has launched a new, semi-regular book column called "Science Fiction Chronicle." The first outing covers a nicely diverse bunch of authors from major and small presses, including Karen Lord, Ian McDonald and Karin Lowachee. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5633542&view=rss&microfeed=true If you're looking for some awesome tales of the fantastic to check out in the last days of summer, then the 2010 World Fantasy Award's shortlist has arrived just in time. There are stories of bizarre cities and harrowing adventures. Here's the complete list, via Locus: More »
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Comic-Con's just posted their Sunday guide. After the onslaught of panels on Saturday, it's a much quieter day, with appearances from the Smallville and Supernatural crew, Matt Fraction, and a whole lot more (including Glee, if you're into that). More »
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Literary scifi authors from Vonda McIntyre to Jeff VanderMeer and Thomas Disch have written "works for hire" - tie-ins to movie, TV, or game franchises. Now authors tell io9 why they did it - and no, it wasn't for money. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5559637&view=rss&microfeed=true Locus Magazine announced the finalists for its reader-selected Locus Awards — and the five best science fiction novels of 2009 include three female authors. The winners will be announced during the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle WA, June 25-27, and tickets are still available. Here are the finalists: More »
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Just in time for Passover, Tachyon Publications presents The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals. This slim and silly volume is the ideal gift for anyone who has tried to make a saving throw vs. petrification using a dreidel. More »
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Writing/editing team Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are following up their insanely successful Steampunk Anthology (Tachyon Press) with a second book, Steampunk Reloaded, that focuses more on steampunk art and culture, including nonfiction essays and gorgeous illustrations. Here's what's in store. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5480623&view=rss&microfeed=true The 2009 Nebula Awards final ballot is out, and it's "as fine a reading list as you're apt to find," says Cory Doctorow. Best novel finalists are Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, Laura Anne Gilman's Flesh and Fire, Finch by Jeff VanderMeer and The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak. (And just a reminder: Windup Girl is this month's io9 book club pick, starting next week.) More »
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When Jeff VanderMeer posed the surrealistic question "Who, or what, is Last Drink Bird Head?", the 500-word responses included luminaries like Michael Moorcock and Stephen Donaldson as well as newer authors you'll be thrilled to discover. The result is thirst-quenching. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5475967&view=rss&microfeed=true Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are almost done reading the submissions for their second steampunk anthology, which will focus much more on stories from the past decade as opposed to classic tales. And they're noticing some big changes in the make-up of steampunk lit. Writes Jeff VanderMeer: More »
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Congratulations — your first science-fiction novel has been published! Too bad it's one of dozens to come out at the same time. How do you stand out from the pack and get reviewed in major publications? More »
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Genre publishing has taken some hard hits in recent years — but a slew of independent publishers is still out there, charting the unknown regions of book publishing and keeping your reading lists weird. Here are our favorite indy presses. More »
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Reading Jeff VanderMeer's latest novel Finch, out this week, you're tempted to make up descriptors like "biosteam" and "spore noir." Inventive and haunting, the book is a hardboiled detective story set in a city overrun by spore-hacking mushroom people. More »
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Science-fiction fans and writers, alike, tend to think of cities in too simplistic a fashion. Quotes from The Caryatids author Bruce Sterling and City Of Saints And Madmen author Jeff VanderMeer explain how you should really view urban infrastructure. More »
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This may be the best era for original anthologies since the days of Dangerous Visions. Jonathan Strahan announced the final list of contributors for Eclipse 3, and it's made of want. Other anthologies promise down-and-dirty werewolves, and stellar flash fiction. More »
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Click to viewHollywood has taken everything, from your childhood toys to the novels that haunted your dreams, and turned them into splashy vehicles for young Scientologists to gallop through. Are there any books that Hollywood absolutely can't turn into movies? Or shouldn't? More »
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Their books take you to strange cities from other planets, alternate histories and mythical realms. But what real-life cities inspire Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock, Nalo Hopkinson and China Miéville? The SharedWorlds project found out, with fascinating results. More »
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Back in 2002, superstar literary journal Conjunctions redefined the intersection of science fiction and lit with its "New Wave Fabulists" issue. Now they're trying to do the same for urban fantasy. More »
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Are you a teen who is interested in worldbuilding in fiction, videogames, or art? Then we've got the best summer school class you'll ever take. It's called "Shared Worlds," and it's a two-week workshop on a South Carolina college campus where you meet with science fiction and fantasy authors, who help you create the world of your dreams. Enrollment is now open. More »
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Urban fantasy writer Jeff VanderMeer has decided to alter his neurological makeup by reading 60 classic works of philosophy in 60 days - and recording online what the experiment is doing to his brain. More »
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Last week, Jeff VanderMeer celebrated the publication of his new Predator novel by asking you guys to come up with your own pitches for a Predator or Aliens novel. Now he's announced the winners, and we've got their ideas for you below. Some of these book ideas actually sound pretty good! Couldn't possibly be worst than the last AvP movie, anyway. More »
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The best science fiction novel of 2008 was Brian Francis Slattery's Liberation, according to Amazon.com's new top 10 list, compiled by io9 contributor Jeff VanderMeer. The story of a gang of super-criminals reuniting to save a fallen America that's reinstated human slavery beat out Neal Stephenson's Anathem (which came in at number five), Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods (number eight) and Iain M. Banks' Matter (number nine). But Amazon.com's customers chose Stephenie Meyers' symbiont love story The Host as the best book of the year. (Click on each book title to read our own review.) [Omnivoracious] More »
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If you're a teenager and you spend a lot of time thinking about worldbuilding, then the SharedWorlds creative writing program at Wofford College is basically your homeland. The week-long program, co-organized by io9 contributor Jeff VanderMeer, took place in late July. Teens got to build their own worlds and then write about them, with input and help from VanderMeer, as well as other amazing authors like Ekaterina Sedia and Tobias Buckell. In fact, the program was such a success that program director Jeremy Jones ordered up a sequel. So you can go to SharedWorlds in 2009. Not convinced? Here's what Jones and VanderMeer had to say about this year's program. More »
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One of the biggest debates among people who like scifi — aside from the Star Wars vs. Star Trek thing — is where to draw the line between science and magic. Some adhere to the idea that magic is simply science that we don't yet understand, others feel that magic represents an essential mystery that can't be understood rationally. Of course the other big dividing line between magic and science has to do with genre: magic appears mostly in fantasy stories, and science (of course) in science fiction. And yet there is currently a trend in the scifi world toward creating stories that blur the line between science and magic: A lot of steampunk novels blend technology and sorcery (one of my favorite examples is in Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam, where one of the characters is a "forensic sorceress"). And shows like Lost and X-Files have frequently mingled the mystical and the rational. We talked to five authors whose fiction blurs the line between magic and science to find out what they thought of the difference between the two. Here's what they said. More »
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If you're a high school student looking for a way to reboot your creative brain for a couple of weeks this summer, check out the Wofford College Shared Worlds Creative Writing program. For two weeks, students will live at Wofford's South Carolina campus and have a chance to learn about building imaginary worlds from published authors, scientists, and artists. io9's Jeff VanderMeer, author of countless amazing short stories and editor of the recent collection The New Weird, will be Assistant Director of the program this summer as well as a teacher. More »
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Earlier today we wrote about Jeff VanderMeer's work, and how a lot of it takes place in a slipstream city called Ambergris (yes, it's named after a whale secretion). Like China Mieville's city New Crobuzon, Ambergris is a blend of bug-machines, aliens, and recognizable, contemporary urban landmarks. That's probably why Ambergris has inspired so many artists, like Vladimir Kush (above), to imagine the city in their work. Another, darker, vision of Ambergris below. More »
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Jeff VanderMeer is one of those authors whose books seep into your brain, trickle down your spine, and lodge somewhere deep in the insect parts of your DNA. Heavily influenced by Lovecraft, VanderMeer is perhaps best known for the dreamy-crawly short story collection City of Saints and Madmen, set in the brooding metropolis Ambergris, a location where many of his other stories and novels are set. Now his latest novel The Situation, which is about office politics at a beetle-implant development company, is available as a free download online via Wired. Yes, it's this week's lunchtime reading. More »
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John Coulthart has just posted his cover design for the re-release of Jeff VanderMeer's novel, Shriek: An Afterword. This is the cover image, by Ben Templesmith — it shows a mysterious "gray cap," one of an oppressed underground people who have this bizarre mushroom tech that will allow them to take over a city. You can see the full glory of Coulthart's book cover below. More »
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