Steampunk (and Francophilia)

I am very, very upset not to be getting on a plane to Utopiales along with Renaissance editing-duo Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. Kind souls that they are, they are comforting me by announcing the staggeringly awesome lineup for their next Tachyon anthology:



"Preface," Jeff and Ann VanderMeer
"Introduction: The Nineteenth Century Roots of Steampunk," Jess Nevins
"Steampunk in Pop Culture," Rick Klaw
"Steampunk in the Comics," Bill Baker

"Benediction: Warlord of the Air" excerpt, Michael Moorcock
"Lord Kelvin's Machine," James Blaylock
"The Giving Mouth," Ian MacLeod
"A Sun in the Attic," Mary Gentle
"The God-Clown Is Near," Jay Lake
"The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down," Joe Lansdale
"The Selene Gardening Society," Molly Brown
"Seventy-Two Letters," Ted Chiang
"The Martian Agent: An Interplanetary Romance," Michael Chabon
"Victoria," Paul Di Filippo
"Reflected Light," Rachel E. Pollock
"Minutes of the Last Meeting," Stepan Chapman
"Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of the Tribes of the Pacific Coast," Neal Stephenson

What a lineup - sacre bleu! Can you wait until May 2008? Nor can I.

But back to Utopiales, because I should have left work an hour ago, and I can't stop cruising the website (which is especially amusing using the Google translation fuction). This has to be the coolest, hippest con ever, an Alice in Wonderland playground for scientists, graphic artists, sf authors, gamers, filmmakers, geeks of all stripes - highly intellectual programming alongside sheer Gallic madness. I so want to go to Jeff's panel on organic, labyrinthine cities in sf - and who would voluntarily miss to the "Tournament of the Intergalactic Design to Catch Mustache"? Sounds like World Fantasy on acid...

Jill