My paper is now a fetus! Hurrah! Er... what that means: My paper is an absolute mess, but at least it's seven pages of absolute mess. This means I get to take another break to bring you... the Locus Award finalists!

(By the way, I totally haven't read all of these but that's not going to stop me from underlining my favorites to win based on either having read the book and liking it or just random guessing!)

LOCUS AWARDS 2009 - FINALISTS

The top five finalists in each category of the 2009 Locus Awards are:

Science Fiction Novel: Matter Iain M. Banks (Orbit UK); City at the End of Time by Greg Bear (Gollancz, Del Rey); Marsbound by Joe Haldeman (Ace); Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow); Saturn's Children by Charles Stross (Orbit, Ace).

Fantasy Novel: The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford (Morrow); Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt); The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia A. McKillip (Ace); The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick (Tor); An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe (Tor).

First Novel: Thunderer by Felix Gilman (Bantam Spectra); Black Ships by Jo Graham (Orbit US); Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory (Ballantine Del Rey); The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann, Knopf); Singularity's Ring by Paul Melko (Tor).

Young-Adult Novel: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor); The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins, Bloomsbury); Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan (Knopf); Nation by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK, HarperCollins); Zoe's Tale John Scalzi (Tor).

Novella: "The Erdmann Nexus" by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 10-11/08); "Pretty Monsters" by Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters); "The Tear" by Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires); Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman (Knopf); "True Names" by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2).

Novelette: "Pump Six" by Paolo Bacigalupi (Pump Six and Other Stories); "The Ice War" by Stephen Baxter (Asimov’s 9/08); "Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s 3/08); "The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away" by Cory Doctorow (Tor.com 8/08); "Pride and Prometheus" by John Kessel (F&SF 1/08).

Short Story: "King Pelles the Sure" by Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads); "Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette (Fast Ships, Black Sails); "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two); "The Kindness of Strangers" by Nancy Kress (Fast Forward 2); "After the Coup" by John Scalzi (Tor.com 7/08).

Magazine: Analog; Asimov's, F&SF; Realms of Fantasy; Subterranean.

Publisher: Ace; Baen; Night Shade Books; Subterranean Press; Tor.

Anthology: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, eds. (St. Martin's Griffin); Galactic Empires, Gardner Dozois, ed. (SFBC); The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin's); Eclipse Two, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade Books); The Starry Rift, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Viking).

Collection: Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books); The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial); Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link (Viking); The Best of Lucius Shepard by Lucius Shepard (Subterranean Press); The Best of Michael Swanwick by Michael Swanwick (Subterranean Press).

Editor: Ellen Datlow; Gardner Dozois; David G. Hartwell; Jonathan Strahan; Gordon Van Gelder.

Artist Bob Eggleton; John Picacio; Shaun Tan; Charles Vess; Michael Whelan.

Non-Fiction/Art Book: Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood Books); What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (Beccon); Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan University Press); Coraline: The Graphic Novel, Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins); Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan (Allen & Unwin; Scholastic '09).



Who else thinks it's a spectacularly bad idea for nonfiction and art books/graphic novels to be the same category? And how can we lobby them to change that?

Yesterday, via tithenai, I discovered that it was Talk Like Shakespeare Day in addition to being International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. Rapscallion that I am, I didn't even visit the website before engaging in the following conversation with a friend (who, for obvious reasons, I shall here refer to as 'cos'):

Our Heroine: You know, Talk Like Shakespeare day is just not as much general fun as Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Our Heroine: I mean, you really need a drunk English department to enjoy the former properly.
My Cos: I think I'd need to do a lot more prep work for that.
My Cos: Pirate Day, you can get through with an "arr" or "matey" here and there.
Our Heroine: Oh, totally. I'd only want to talk in Shakespeare's actual lines, so I'd have to download them all into my brain or just flail around, butchering his plays terribly.
My Cos: Shakespeare...I dunno. I use "praytell" and "prithee" in regular conversation, so I'm not sure anyone would notice. Maybe I should invest in a codpiece for next year, hope the costume helps.
Our Heroine: The Codpiece of 17th Century English.
My Cos: Best D&D Item Ever?
My Cos: Exceeding the "Gloves of Hymen" that came up in a long a bizarre (and drunk!) conversation at the cake party last year.
My Cos: I really should hit the xkcd boards again.
Our Heroine: 0_0

(I should note, with a bit of cheek-coloring embarrassment, that I had this conversation with more than one person yesterday because it amused me so. I might be conflating them a bit in this transcript. Apologies and love to my dear cos-es-es. Es.)

Anyway, after reading the actual guidelines of Talk Like Shakespeare Day, I am much more amused and almost willing to give their fashion of "talking like Shakespeare" a go next year:

How to talk like Shakespeare...

1. Instead of you, say thou. Instead of y’all, say thee.
2. Rhymed couplets are all the rage.
3. Men are Sirrah, ladies are Mistress, and your friends are all called Cousin.
4. Instead of cursing, try calling your tormenters jackanapes or canker-blossoms or poisonous bunch-back’d toads.
5. Don’t waste time saying "it," just use the letter "t" (’tis, t’will, I’ll do’t).
6. Verse for lovers, prose for ruffians, songs for clowns.
7. When in doubt, add the letters "eth" to the end of verbs (he runneth, he trippeth, he falleth).
8. To add weight to your opinions, try starting them with methinks, mayhaps, in sooth or wherefore.
9. When wooing ladies: try comparing her to a summer’s day. If that fails, say "Get thee to a nunnery!"
10. When wooing lads: try dressing up like a man. If that fails, throw him in the Tower, banish his friends and claim the throne.

I must admit that I randomly "talk like Shakespeare" anyway. I am much enamored of Much Ado About Nothing, for one, and have memorized large swathes of the play, including much of Beatrice and Benedick's witty bickering. Because he found it funny, my oldest brother likewise memorized certain parts so that we could go back and forth at the dinner table on many a mother-maddening occasion.

Now, we randomly and occasionally throw these mean-spirited yet well-worded barbs back and forth through text to our ridiculous glee.

...

And this has been your moment of "Shakespeare in the Modern Day"! I bid thee good morrow!

Pardon my brief links here today! I am in the midst of the final week and a half of the spring semester of graduate school: I have two and a half papers to write and two exams to study for-- so I hope you'll understand my brevity!

With that now dispensed:
HAPPY THIRD ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL PIXEL-STAINED TECHNOPEASANT DAY! [Explanation here.]

Year One (2007):

The Internet (in some incarnation) is here to stay. Online interactive content is the wave of the future, and promoting the value of your work via the Internet is absolutely nothing to shy away from.

There are many, many artists that I have discovered online and subsequently spent large amounts of cash on. If it weren't for them freely posting some of their works to the Internet, I'm not sure that I would have found them as easily. This says nothing about their talent and everything about methods of physical distribution.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Year Two (2008):

What I said last year still holds true today, and I'd like to add a little more commentary on how free work offered online affects the real world of paid work.

First, being able to sample new writers through their online journals and postings has turned me on to authors that I possibly never would have found before. (This is not a comment on how their work stands up among the market, but a comment on the sheer number of things out there that I want to read. Choosing among all the things I want to read can sometimes be a daunting task indeed.) The fact that I had sampled Elizabeth Bear's work sold me a copy of Dust. The fact that I read and enjoy seanan_mcguire's poetry is guaranteed to sell me a copy of whatever physically published work Seanan McGuire puts out. Becoming familiar with the amazing work of copperwise has guaranteed that I'll be purchasing a fine limited edition of Mia Nutick's Broken Glass Slippers, forthcoming from Papaveria Press.

Also, since last IPSTP Day, we've seen a couple of major publishers put entire works of their authors online-- for free.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

In my Year Two post, I discussed how Tor had just opened their new website: an interactive, creative place full of free offerings. This site has flourished in the last year: there is so much art and free fiction and miscellanea offered that I've honestly not had time to look at it all.

In the wreckage surrounding us thanks to the recent American economy, some people may worry about giving their work away without charge. However, I say it's even more important to do so now than it was in past years! You foster loyal patronage by showing your patrons what you can do, enticing them with your skills so that they feel moved to support your work.

Without further ado, I bring you my offerings:

Last summer, I began an experiment in cyberfunded creativity, inviting tips but not requiring payment for my work. I've had to put the project on hiatus due to graduate school, but here is a listing of the current offerings:
"In Extremis" (Concerning a working-girl demon.)
"The Brotherhood of Applied Sciences" (Concerning two brothers in science.)
"Our Lady of Crows" (Concerning the earliest story of crows.)
"Mortal Desires" (Concerning conversations with Death.)

I have had two poems published recently that are available in amazing online magazines, free of charge:
"My Small Army of Souls," published in the Sixth Issue (September 2008) of Scheherezade's Bequest, the online companion to Cabinet des Fées.
"Ireland, A Sapphic Poem," published in the 50th Issue (February 2009) of The Pedestal Magazine.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I published a number of my photographs from Kyoto, Japan, coupled with my words in a project called Postcards from a Traveling Oracle: To Nine Sisters, from Kyoto.

At my website, you can find a selection of free fiction and poetry, including my offerings for the previous years' IPSTP Days (which I list here below):
"And My Sky Full of Stars": A short work mixing creative nonfiction with abstract fiction, focusing on relationships. Year One (2007) offering.
"Elegy for a Fallen Angel": A poem considering the subsequent mortal life and mystery of a fallen angel. Year One (2007) offering.
"To Live": Short fiction on the interconnectedness of life through the tale of wolf and boy; originally published in Huntingdon College's The Prelude in 2001. Year Two (2008) offering.

Please see my next post for this year's offering: a selection of free poems, showcasing my practice in some specific poetic forms.

Also:
Visit the community to see many, many IPSTP Day offerings from others: ipstp.
Also see A Directory of Online Creations.

seanan_mcguire has this book coming out in September: Rosemary and Rue, the first novel in the first trilogy of books about one October "Toby" Daye. I've been wracking my brain for the best way to infect all of you with communicate to you the excited anticipation with which I await this urban fantasy.

Luckily, seanan_mcguire herself stepped in and came up with the most apt introduction ever: a comic-form advertisement drawn by her own hand. She also managed to do this before my head exploded with all the brain-wracking, so I am definitely and particularly grateful.

So, without further ado, I'll let the author speak:



(Pssst! You can pre-order Rosemary and Rue at Amazon!)

Just about two weeks ago-- on March 14th, 2009, to be exact-- elisem posted a picture of her evocatively-titled pendant "Nine Things About Oracles."

The next day, papersky came along with a poem and ripped things wide open. A list by dhole slotted into place next, followed quickly by a snatch of verse by noveldevice.

The rest, as they say, is explosive history: look at that link and you'll see Nine Nines (plus more!) of word-art and image-art inspired by "Nine Things About Oracles."

The collection is amazing. Breath-taking. Memery at its finest-- a dizzying explosion of creativity and celebration.

You know I, especially with my interstitial heart, could not resist the lovely pendant's evocative title or frenzy of community-promoted art.

And so I give you:



*grins* I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it. Make sure you read what the Oracle's written on the flip side of the postcards. ;)

I saw this on the door of my professor's office today when I stopped by for a meeting regarding thesis planning. I instantly knew I had to have it for my very own-- seriously, my love for this cartoon is vast and unending. AND I CAN HAVE IT ON A MUG IF I WANT. ♥

Those offended by profanity should probably just scroll on by.


Professor of Graffiti @ The Rut


Also spotted on a professor's door:
An advertisement for his Milton class where the tag line was - "We don't promise you paradise. But you'll read Paradise Lost."

Just shy of two weeks after the novel's release, my review of Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente has appeared at Green Man Review.

Palimpsest runs the risk that all hotly desired lovers do -- it fetches you in with a dream, teases you into a taut state of wanting, and leaves you desolate in the face of reality. Or -- here, have another analogy, for this work seems to throw itself at them -- like its namesake, you may fall in love with the gorgeous purity of its surface text, but flinch in horror from what lurks beneath, barely scraped away.

The plot of Palimpsest is rather straightforward. Four strangers find themselves the newest hosts of a sexually transmitted city. Each of them have slept with an individual bearing an intensely black mark that looks like nothing so much as a small part of a strange city map. Afterward, they experience a bizarre dream in which the four characters, still unknown to each other, find themselves ritually tied together in a frog-headed fortuneteller's shop before being released to wander separately and divided in a truly bizarre otherworldly city. In this city, the vermin are manufactured clockwork creatures of dizzying perplexity and stunning beauty; canals are filled with clothes above rivers of cream; lion-headed priests silently cry aching sermons in breathtaking cathedrals; trains are wild beasts and contain rice paddies, forests, the dead, and the rabbit of the moon. The city offers amazing wonders and staggering horrors. The city is still seeping pus from infected wounds left by war. An alien and glittering tyrant wants to open doors, the city wants to be known, and the four -- Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico -- don't want to leave this place they seem only able to enter in dreams. [Read the rest of the review at this link.]

Thank you to the editors at Green Man Review for giving this review of mine an Excellence in Writing Award.




Please feel free to comment here with any points you would like to discuss from my review. Below, you'll find some rambling elaboration on the book's flaws, some nitpicky observations, questions I was left with, and a listing of some things I liked. And some pretty pictures.

Beware that there are spoilers beneath the cut and also, no doubt, in the comments.

( More about Palimpsest below the cut... )

PALIMPSEST ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

The original short story.
Theophania, the Glass-Blower (a haunting, excised piece of the novel).
Quartered, a companion album by S.J. Tucker.
Catherynne's release day Livejournal post, including icons.
Palimpsest merchandise.*
An interview with Catherynne revealing inspiration for the narrative.
Promotional videos: [Palimpsest the Trailer.] [The Trains of Palimpsest.] [The Dead of Palimpsest.]
ARG websites: [Tabula Rasa.] [Sato Kenji.] [H.F. Weckweet.]



* I really want one of those pendants from RockLove, but because my name means "bee" and I have developed a fascination with compass roses rather than because of Palimpsest.

March 4th, 2009, sees a new edition of Cabinet des Fées online. I haven't had time to fully appreciate the new offerings up at Scheherezade's Bequest, but I can tell you that I've read shadesong's poem "Twelve" and it is marvelous. Bloodthirsty and marvelous!



My debut review with Cabinet des Fées is online with this update as well, a look into the intriguing fairy tales of Oscar Wilde:

Oscar Wilde is well known for his wit, his plays, his poetry, his scary aging portrait, and the trials regarding his homosexuality — famous perhaps for everything he's ever done except his fairy tales. Well, here's a tidbit for you: those fairy tales represented one of his first major works to see print in the form of The Happy Prince and Other Stories published in 1888. Jack Zipes even suggests, in his excellent afterword to the Signet Classic edition, that it was in the deceptively simple, evocatively rich, and satire-ready language of fairy tales that Wilde first began developing his unique voice. [Read the rest of the review at this link.]

TOP AUTHORS & ARTISTS BECOME "RAVENS IN THE LIBRARY"

World-famous fantasy authors and artists have joined together to produce a limited-edition benefit book entitled RAVENS IN THE LIBRARY.

This exclusive collection – featuring Newbery Award-winner Neil Gaiman (of Coraline and Sandman fame), Spiderwick Chronicles creator Holly Black, vampire noir author Laurell K. Hamilton and many other contributors – is being released this March to help independent music artist S.J. Tucker, a popular figure in the postmodern fantasy scene.

( Click to read the rest of the press release... )



For my part, guys, I am ridiculously excited about this! The line-up is superb: beyond the above, we're talking Francesca Lia Block, Storm Constantine, Erzebet Yellowboy (erzebet), Shira Lipkin (shadesong), Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire), Mia Nutick (copperwise)... the list of awesomeness goes on! It's intoxicating, it's delightful, and it's goshdarnitall heart-warming that this community has rallied to support such a fiery and wonderful creative lass as s00j.

Join me at the fireside with your own copy, and let's toast some marshmallows.

Recently, I picked up jimhines' The Stepsister Scheme on seanan_mcguire's mother's recommendation.

Yes, really.

I sadly don't have time to give you a full review. Instead, I bring you three factual statements regarding my experience reading The Stepsister Scheme:

1. I was uncertain regarding his treatment of the fairy tale heroines at first, yet not only pleased with them by the end but also emotionally moved by their journeys.

2. The book is compulsively readable: there were several late nights where sacrificing sleep so I could find out what happened next seemed much more sensible than getting enough sleep for classes.

3. While reading, especially after the quest entered Fairytown, I often found myself thinking, "This is like some of my fondly-remembered childhood Saturday morning cartoons. ... ...except dirtier."

Thumbs up! Go buy it!