Trick or Treat?

I hope you picked treat, because that's what you're getting.

First, some Pop Candy. Stempunk II: Steampunk Reloaded is USA Today Pop Culture blogger Whitney Matheson's book of the week. Check it out!

And you can follow up that candy with some "literary bonbons" over at Tor.com:

"Given the wide range and variety of contributions in this follow-up volume to the VanderMeers’ Steampunk, I can’t help but attempt the “anthologies are like a box of chocolates” analogy. I nibbled on this collection of twenty-five stories and articles bit by bit, indulging way more than I should during many bedtime reading sessions. Nuggets of fictional (and non-fictional) delights were contained therein—some light and fluffy, some containing chewy, pulpy centers, others crunchy with satirical humor..."

Read the rest here

Happy Halloween!

Fall Books Have Hit the Shelves

Three new Tachyon books, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded, The Search for Philip K. Dick, and Flaming Zeppelins are now out in the world and ready to read! Excited? Well, you should be. But in case you're not, here's the New York Journal of Books review of Steampunk Reloaded to get you started:

Steampunk is a genre for thinkers, and this book proves the point. The stories inside are beautiful, often lyrical, frequently disturbing, always exciting, and occasionally even funny, but they’re also dense, literary, and trusting of the reader to be smart enough to “get” it.

Each story offers up a new and distinct world to explore—as they should be in a good anthology—and these are amazing, weird, and wonderful worlds. Better yet, they show the wide range of styles and applications that comprise Steampunk, from William Gibson’s modern-day “The Gernsback Continuum,” and Samantha Henderson’s beautiful fairytale-meets-now-meets-steam “Wild Copper,” all the way to Marc Laidlaw’s highly Victorian “Great Breakthroughs in Darkness” that’s almost a Lovecraftian take on the genre, and the Sherlock Holmes-ian “Balfour and Meriweather in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance."

Read the rest here

Tachyon in Bull Spec

We are just going to keep celebrating our 15th Anniversary until we get tired of it--and don't count on that happening any time soon. Today, Bull Spec is joining the ongoing birthday party with a fantastic article on Tachyon's 15 years in the business. Here are some excerpts from the piece, which is by Bull Spec publisher Samuel Montgomery-Blinn:

A decade and a half ago, Tachyon Publications published Ganglion and Other Stories by Wayne Wightman. After a typically low-key celebration (rum cake, authors flown in from across the country, etc.) at San Francisco’s Borderlands Books, founder, editor, and publisher Jacob Weisman reflected on why he started the company and the changes he’s seen over the years.

"We started in 1995 as a small press, publishing forgotten giants of our field: Clifford D. Simak, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Ward Moore. I felt these authors were being marginalized and that I was, perhaps, in a position to help them," wrote Weisman.

Tachyon has grown a reputation for good work, both in terms of publishing books readers want to read, and in how it works with authors and editors. "Tachyon is professional, pragmatic, and creative," writes Jeff VanderMeer, when I asked him why Tachyon was the right home for The Third Bear...they have an editorial and production process that would be the envy of many New York publishers."

Read the rest here, or pick up a copy of the magazine. If you can't find this genre gem in your local bookstore, you can order it through the Bull Spec website.

Next Summer's Reading List

While everyone else is busy buying sweaters and squirreling away acorns for the long winter, we at Tachyon are prepping up for summer 2011. Because if we don't, what would you read? You're welcome.

Here's a peek at what's coming up:

Promises to Keep, by Charles de Lint
May 2011
Jilly's best friend Donna from the bad old days takes Jilly into a beautiful mysterious city. It is a place full of wonderful opportunities and delights that at first seems perfect. But the journey was a one-way trip, and Jilly still has unfinished business in Newford. Available for the first time in trade paperback.


The Uncertain Places, by Lisa Goldstein
June 2011
A long-awaited new novel from American Book Award winner Lisa Goldstein. Will Taylor has fallen for the enigmatic Livvy Feierabend, but Livvy's family is behaving strangely. The Feierabend women seem to believe that luck is their handmaiden, based on a contract made with a powerful otherworldly force. Now Will must unravel the riddle of their bargain to save Livvy from an unfortunate destiny.


Future Media, edited by Rick Wilber
July 2011
This cutting-edge exploration of the mass-media age uniquely combines complex nonfiction and prescient fiction from the best and brightest visionaries of the future. Future Media not only entertains while it informs, it also challenges its readers, from teachers to students to science-fiction fans, to consider the implications for society of a mass media that is at once personal, public, pervasive, and powerful.

Bookslut Reviews Very Best of Charles de Lint

Are you a slut for books? Good! We love book sluts, especially bookslut.com

If you haven't checked out this fun review site, why not start with their review of The Very Best of Charles de Lint? On the same page you'll find a great review of Muse and Reverie, another recent de Lint collection. Check it out if you are already a de Lint fan, or if you haven't read him yet (because you certainly should be reading him).

"His is fantasy deeply ingrained in the real world, and his words have a lot more staying power than most. When he is at his best, he can be quietly devastating, and his two most recent collections are an excellent way to enter his world and discover what this author is capable of."

Read the rest of the review here.

The birthday party continues over at Publishers Weekly

In case you haven't heard, Tachyon is currently celebrating 15 years in publishing. That's 15 years of smart science fiction and fantasy! We already had the party (and it was awesome) and now Publisher's Weekly is here to fill you in on the "secret history" of Tachyon:

...Tachyon, whose name is based on a Star Trek term indicating the altering or reversing of the space-time continuum, successfully reflects Weisman's editorial sensibility, which focuses on more literary science fiction than the action-oriented kind. "One of our mottos is that we publish smart science fiction and fantasy," says Weisman...

Read the rest here at Publishers Weekly's website