Books

A Book From The Past

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

I had lunch with my friend Jon Turney on Thursday last week. Jon had been doing a little sorting out, and he presented me with an unusual book that he had found in his collection. It is Beyond This Horizon: An Anthology of Science Fiction and Science Fact, edited by Christopher Carrell and published by Ceolfrith Press in Sunderland in 1973. The book has an introduction by Peter Weston and articles by people such as Brian Stableford, Tom Shippey, Patrick Moore, David Hardy and George Hay. There is short fiction from, amongst others, Brian Aldiss, Peter Nichols, Bob Shaw, James Blish and John Brunner. There are also extracts from “work in progress” including Inverted World by Chris Priest and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany.

I suspect that this belongs in a fan history collection somewhere, and I’d be happy to hand it over to a suitable repository. In the meantime, many thanks to Jon for giving me something rather cool to look at.

And Podcast

~ Cheryl

Well that was a great day out. And the folks at Ujima are very quick getting their podcasts online. You can find my main appearance here. I start about 15 minutes in. And when Paulette discovered that I publish ebooks she asked me back for a brief segment in her second hour, starting around 35 minutes in to this recording. I think I did OK, though I really must remember to mention bi people more often.

What really got me excited about the day, however, is that Ujima has launched a project called Sounds Reads. It is backed by the Lottery and Bristol Libraries, it is a project to encourage reading amongst immigrant communities in the city. There will, of course, be a particular emphasis on young people. Some of you are going to get emails from me about this. There’s a short segment starting 17 minutes into the second show with three guys talking about the problem of getting boys to read. (And some slightly dubious stuff about gender that I’ll talk to Pauline about later.)

Rambling About Writing

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Clearly I have been listening to Gary and Jonathan too much because I am about to ramble. Hopefully a coherent post will result.

My starting point is Justine Larbalestier being smart about publishing, which in turn led me to Diana Peterfreund torpedoing some really bad advice to young writers. Can I just echo what Diana said? Look folks, I run a small press. That doesn’t mean that I want to publish sub-standard books. Wizard’s Tower Press exists primarily to help existing writers get their backlists into ebook form. It will also run projects like the Colinthology that a bigger publisher wouldn’t touch, and I’d love to publish translated fiction if I can afford to do so. I’m not in the business of publishing books that can’t get published anywhere else because they are not good enough, and I suspect that most other small press owners would say the same.

So, young writers, please do have some ambition. The point is not to get published, the point is to learn to write really well. Getting rejected is part of that process.

And talking of ambition, this month’s The Writer and the Critic features books by Kate Forsyth and Lavie Tidhar. Kirstyn and Mondy liked them both, which pleases me in different ways. I reviewed Kate’s first novel for Emerald City. It was terrible. So I’m absolutely delighted to hear that, 15 years later, she’s got to be really good. I shall get hold of a copy of Bitter Greens, because I owe that to Kate for having savaged her early work.

See, young writers, even getting published by a major publisher doesn’t mean that you are good. You can still have a lot to learn.

And then there is Osama, which as Kirstyn says is wonderfully ambitious. And I totally agree with her, I would much rather read a wildly ambitious book that isn’t 100% perfect than a merely competent one. Which takes us back to the beginning of the podcast where Mondy says he’s sick of short fiction and Kirstyn says she’s having trouble getting the enthusiasm to read novels. It happens. When you read a lot (which they do, and I do as well), you can get really jaded.

Osama ought to be a cure for anyone who is jaded. I didn’t say too much about it in my review because it is way too easy to be spoilery (and the podcast is massively spoilery — you have been warned). However, one of these days I want to write a critical essay about how clever the book is. I’m bearing in mind Damien Walter’s sage advice here, but academic tongue firmly in cheek I’d like to note that I think Kirstyn and Mondy missed something very important about the book. And that has specific bearing on Kirstyn’s concerns about the book being noir.

Finally I note that next month’s episode of The Writer and the Critic will focus on ebooks recommended by listeners. Two of them were recommended by me (and possibly by others). They are Anticopernicus by Adam Roberts, and Paintwork by Tim Maughan. They are both in the bookstore, and both are short and cheap. So if you want to play the game of reading along with Kirstyn and Mondy (and shouting at the podcast when they get things wrong), you know what to do.

Offers from Book View Cafe

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

This week in the bookstore I have added a bunch of special offers from Book View Cafe. These are all bundles of books sold together at a discount. Mostly they are series, though there are a few others as well. All of them allow you to save money compared to buying the books independently. Here’s what we have so far:

Happy (cheaper) reading.

A YA Evening

~ Cheryl

Yesterday I spent the evening in Bath at the official launch party for Moira Young’s second novel, Rebel Heart. I’m very impressed with Moira, both as a writer and as a professional, and I’m delighted to see her doing well.

Given that Moira writes YA, quite a few other YA authors were present. I got to see Veronique David-Martin again. I wish I could read her book, but it is in French and my limited language skills are not up to it. I also met Rachel Ward, whose books I clearly need to investigate. And I finally managed to find a copy of Janet Edwards’ Earth Girl, though Janet herself wasn’t there.

I also met some young people from the Bath University Creative Writing program, all of whom seem to want to write YA fantasy. I tried to persuade them to come over for BristolCon. Moira will definitely be there, and hopefully Veronique will be able to come too.

The Kids’ Lit Fest is coming up soon. There’s a post about it on the BristolCon blog. I’ll be there on October 5th to see Johan Harstad. Yes, I know Iain Banks is in Bristol that day. I will have seen him in Bath on the 4th, and Harstad is a potential Translation Awards candidate, so I need to go and see him. Anyone in Scandinavia know anything about him?

Coming Soon – The Thief’s Gamble

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

There’s a fair amount of book production going on hereabouts right now. Over the next coupe of months you should see three new releases from Wizard’s Tower. The first one is actually pretty much done. The only reason I’m not releasing it is that Juliet is very busy right now finalizing her new novel from Solaris and I want her to be able to participate in the PR process. In the meantime, however, here’s a pretty picture to keep you happy.

Thief's Gamble cover

Book Review – Railsea

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Given that I would be seeing China in London last week, one thing that I had to do was finish reading his latest novel. I have now written the review. I think you can guess that I will have enjoyed it. Nevertheless, hopefully I have something interesting to say about the book. You can read the review here.

It occurs to me that if there is a trial for a YA Hugo in San Antonio, which of course will have to be voted on by normal Hugo rules, then the winner will almost certainly be Railsea. And I suspect this will make many people in the YA community furious.

Juliet Gets Reviewed

~ Cheryl

I don’t get many reviews for Wizard’s Tower books because they are mostly reprints and professional reviewers much prefer to cover new material. However, I was pleased to see a review of Juliet McKenna’s Turns & Chances done by Jo Hall. You can read the whole thing here, but the comment I have picked out for use in sales situations is as follows:

The reader also gets a real sense of depth, of the world stretching away beyond the narrow confines of these pages, both in time and space. It’s an impressive achievement.

That encapsulates pretty much what readers want from Epic Fantasy, a world that seems real, rather than just being a pile of cheap Hollywood flats borrowed from a failed production of The Lord of the Rings. Juliet, as an historian, is very good at this sort of thing.

By the way, over the weekend I was checking the final draft of our ebook of The Thief’s Gamble. It will be a few weeks yet before you can buy it because Juliet has deadlines for her latest novel, Defiant Peaks, but it will not be long now.

New From Lethe

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

My friends at Lethe Press have sent me a new ebook edition of a classic work of gay science fiction. Exile in Paradise by Dirk Vanden (Richard Fullmer) was first published in 1969, the same year as the Stonewall riots. The original publisher called the book Twin Orbs because they liked salacious puns, but I believe that Exile in Paradise is the author’s preferred title.

I see that there is no mention of Vanden in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia. I shall have words with the management. There’s a good interview will him at Lambda Literary.

Coode Street: Best / Not Best

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

Thanks to Gary and Jonathan, and their special guest Paul Kincaid, for another fascinating podcast. This week they discussed Paul’s LA Review of Books essay, “The Widening Gyre”, and his concern that the SF field is in a state of exhaustion.

Like Paul, I prefer books that provide a great deal of mental stimulation. However, I don’t share his distress, possibly because I have lower expectations. I’m well aware of the fact that my literary tastes are elitist and not shared by the majority of readers. I don’t expect commercially-focused publishers to always cater to my tastes, though I’m pleasantly surprised when they do.

Paul’s particular beef is with Best of the Year anthologies, a type of book that I have very little interest in (sorry Jonathan). That’s because I recognize them for what they are: a commercial operation intended to encourage readers to pay for collections of short fiction. The idea that one editor’s picks, constrained by commercial necessity, will ever accurately represent the “best” of the year is frankly silly. The best we can hope for is that such a book will provide a reasonable snapshot of the state of the field.

Of course some people will then complain that such books should not be called “Best”, and in a world free of marketing imperatives they would not. However, complaining about this is a bit like complaining that the contestants in a TV talent show appear to have been picked because of their eccentric personalities or their desperate desire for fame, not their actual mastery of their craft. And it will get you about as far.

I’m therefore perfectly happy to acknowledge that no “best of the year” anthology actually contains the best stories of the year. I only raise my eyebrows when people complain that a “year’s best” book is bad because it contains the “wrong” stories, and if it had included a different set of stories it would indeed deserve to be called the best of the year. That’s totally missing the point.

The boys also got to talking about awards, and appear to have forgotten that the romance community is far worse at slapping itself on the back than we are (though quite possibly it does it for the same reasons). I’m not a big fan of proliferation of awards, and certainly not of the idea of adding new awards because you think that the existing ones are “wrong”. Where I like to see new awards is where they can draw attention to works that might otherwise be ignored. I’m fond of awards like the Tiptree, the Carl Brandons and the Translation Awards.

It should be noted, however, that not all awards are the same. Each one has its own method of deciding on a winner, and its own eligibility rules. I find the different results produced by these different methodologies to be fascinating.

I’m happy to agree with Jonathan and Paul that the primary benefit of awards is to provide an excuse to talk about books. I’m delighted when my friends win with good books, and try not to become despondent or angry when I don’t like the results. I also try to ignore the seemingly endless accusations that particular awards are “broken” or “fixed”. Such things seem to be an inevitable part of the process. The one thing that really confuses me is when people complain that the Hugos produce winners that are really poor quality, and then go on to say that the results would be much better if far more people voted. Oh dear me no.

Like Paul, Jonathan and Gary, I would love to see more really good books and stories. How we get them is another matter. We are in the middle of a pretty nasty recession right now, so I don’t expect the major publishers to have much appetite for risk taking. But I will continue to check out what the more adventurous small presses are producing, and if I spot anything I like I’ll bring it to your attention. I will not expect all of you to share my tastes.

New Fantasy from Book View Café

~ Cheryl

Yesterday I told you about the science fiction new books from Book View Café. Today it is the turn of fantasy.

First up we have From Whence You Came by Laura Anne Gilman.This is set in the same world as her Nebula-nominated Vineart War trilogy, but centuries earlier.

In addition we have The Hounds of God by Judith Tarr. This is the third and final volume of Tarr’s famous series, the Hound and the Falcon. The other two volumes (also available in the store) are The Isle of Glass and The Golden Horn.

New SF from Book View Café

~ Cheryl

I have three new science fiction books available in the bookstore today. They are all published by Book View Café. There are two new fantasy books as well, but I’ll leave those for tomorrow.

Pride of place should go to the Chaos Chronicles omnibus by Jeffrey A. Carver. This is a three volume series packaged together as one and selling for only £4.49. We also have a new short story collection from Carver, Going Alien.

Also new in store is a short story collection called Female Science Fiction Writer by Amy Sterling Casil. See, they do exist! And with a title like that, how can you resist.

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The WSFA Small Press Award

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

This is a favorite award of mine, and one I’m growing even more fond of now I have my own publishing company and bookstore. The Washington Science Fiction Association (that’s Washington DC, not Washington State) gives out an award each year to a fine short story published by a small press. The nominees for 2012 were released just before Worldcon and the news got a bit buried by the Hugo excitement, so I’m giving them a signal boost. Besides, You can buy lots of the nominees in my store.

The full list of nominees is available here. I’d like to highlight the following.

From Clarkesworld we have “A Militant Peace” by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell (issue #62) and “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by Lily Yu (issue #55).

From Fantasy we have “Lessons from a Clockwork Queen” by Megan Arkenberg (issue #54).

From Twelfth Planet Press there’s “The Patrician” from Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Love and Romanpunk collection.

And from Book View Café we have “What Ho, Automaton!” by Chris Dolley, which is available in the anthology Shadow Conspiracy, Volume II (edited by Phyllis Irene Radford and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff) and as a stand-alone volume. Chris has produced a celebratory version of the stand-alone book with steampunk-themed drop caps. As I know some ereaders mess up dropcaps I’ve left both versions available when you buy the book.

Finally, though sadly not in the store, I’d like to mention “Yesterday’s Taste” by Lawrence M. Schoen which appeared in Transtories, the last book edited by my much missed friend, Colin Harvey. Colin would have been so proud.

New From Fox Spirit

~ Cheryl

There will be a lot of new books added to the store this week. I have a mailbox full of material from Book View Café that arrived this morning. Before that, however, we have the weekend’s deliveries: two new books from the new British small press, Fox Spirit.

Shadows is a psychological horror novel from South African writer, Joan De La Haye. I’m not sure that I’m up for a book whose heroine is plagued by thoughts of suicide, but I’m sure some of you will appreciate it.

Tales from the Nun and Dragon is a themed fantasy anthology edited by Adele Wearing. There are 23 stories altogether, and they all center around the pub in the book’s title (though doubtless no two authors imagine it in the same way). There are 23 stories, and the biggest name amongst the contributors is probably Adrian Tchaikovsky. I’ve sold two already, which is always heartwarming.

Welcome Osier Publishing

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

We have a new publisher in the bookstore. Osier Publishing is a UK-based small press specializing mainly in fantasy. You can see a list of their books here.

I haven’t read any of their books, but one thing I did note is that one of their authors is Morgan Gallagher, who is a frequent commenter here. That makes them sort of family. Please do check out their books.

Book Review – Beyond Binary

~ Cheryl

I’m almost caught up on book reviews now. The latest one is for Brit Mandelo’s anthology, Beyond Binary, which is a book that I probably had unrealistically high hopes for, and which nevertheless managed to provide a lot of stories that I liked a lot. It is certainly a book that I’m proud to have in the store. You can read the review here.

Book Review – The Black Opera

~ Cheryl

At long last, a new Mary Gentle novel. And, I am delighted to say, it has much better gender politics than Ilario. The UK edition won’t be out for a couple of months, but I found Night Shade’s edition in the Bristol Waterstones. I enjoyed The Black Opera a lot. You can read my review here.

Book Review – Rhapsody of Blood : Rituals

~ Cheryl

I did a brief review of Roz Kaveney’s debut novel for META Magazine last month, but I only had 250 words for that, which is nothing really. There was a lot more that I would have liked to say, and now that the book is out I have a much longer review for you. Enjoy.

And if you don’t believe me, you can always click through to the publishers’ website to see what Neil Gaiman, Pat Cadigan, Charlie Stross and Jo Walton have to say about the book.

By the way, Roz will be doing a brief tour of the USA in September. She’ll be appearing at SF in SF on September 15th.

New from Prime

~ Cheryl

I’ve been neglecting Wizard’s Tower a bit over the past couple of weeks because of the high pressure day job stuff, but I’m pleased to say that I’ve found time to add some new titles to the bookstore. These are all new releases from Prime Books.

First up is a anthology that is presumably cashing in on the current fashion for circus stories. It is a reprint anthology, but that means you get some great material. The finest circus stories around, from people like Peter Straub, Amanda Downum, Jeff VanderMeer, Genevieve Valentine, Kij Johnson, Chris Barzak, Holly Black and Howard Waldrop. Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top – go for it!

Next we have a new collection from a very fine and under-appreciated author, Holly Phillips. I loved her first collection, In the Palace of Repose, and I’m sure that At the Edge of Waking will be just as good.

And finally, for those of you who can’t get enough gore, Paula Guran has put together an anthology of the most repulsive and disgusting tales of the zombie apocalypse that she can find. If your brains have not yet been eaten enough, you need Extreme Zombies.

Eew, guess which one I won’t be reading. Still, it takes all sorts. If brain eating is your thing, I’m happy to help, so to speak.