Tachyon - Saving the World One Good Book at a Time

Battle of the Books - Round Two!

2012-01-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

Book battle!! Charles de Lint's Eyes Like Leaves has won round two of the Battle of the Books over at Fantastic Reviews Blog.

What is the Battle of the Books? Each book in the competition is read 25 pages at a time, and the reviewer (Aaron Hughes, for most titles in the bracket) picks the book he most wants to continue reading.

Will Eyes Like Leaves be up against Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card, or Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson? Keep checking back to find out!

Jeff VanderMeer's Webcomic Situation

2012-01-25T13:57:00.000-08:00

File this under Awesome: Jeff VanderMeer's short story, "The Situation," has been adapted into comic form! You can view the first part for free on Tor.com, and parts 2 and 3 will be up on Thursday and Friday. The art is by Eric Orchard, who brings VanderMeer's strange worlds to life with just the right amount of vibrant creepiness. A fantastic adaptation.

"The Situation", as well as many more of his best stories, can be found in Jeff VanderMeer's collection, The Third Bear.

Tachyon's Gone Weightless!

2012-01-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

We are very happy to announce that Tachyon ebooks will now be available on Weightless Books. Weightless Books is a DRM-free ebook store for independent publishers. Tachyon is joining Small Beer Press, Blind Eye Books, Less Than Three Press, and many more on the Weightless team.

Weightless carries ebooks in all formats, and you can even send books directly to your Kindle from their site. New books are added every Tuesday, so have a look, then come back for more.

Book Reviews, Attack the Block, and Authors Ryan Boudinot and Ayize Jama-Everett

2012-01-23T11:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday! SF in SF has some awesome authors speaking this week, but I'm going to start off by sharing some reviews.

First, Fresh Fiction takes a look at Charles de Lint's Promises to Keep:

"A clear and stunning view revealing the secrets of Newford." Nice! Read the rest of the review here.

Functional Nerds loves Kafkaesque! They say "It's an extremely rich and potent collection..." and you can read the rest of the review here.

SF in SF movie night kicks off a new year this Thursday with Attack the Block, a fast, funny, and gritty tale of aliens attacking the slums of South London. Did you miss this one when it came out in theaters? (I didn't, and it was AWESOME) Well, now's your chance to see it.

Doors and cash bar (proceeds go to Variety Children's Charity) open at 6PM, movie starts at 7. And there's free popcorn!

All SF in SF events take place at:
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance next to Citbank on Market St.
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Finally, SF in SF will be hosting Ryan Boudinot and Ayize Jama-Everett this Saturday the 28th! Both are first timers at SF in SF, so this will be an extra fun event.

Ryan Boudinot is the author of Blueprints of the Afterlife and The Littlest Hitler a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year. You can read his column at The Rumpus over here.

Ayize Jama-Everett is the author of the debut novel The Liminal People. Check out his website to learn more about this terrific new author.

Once again, doors and bar open at 6, event begins at 7. Check above for the address.

See you there!

io9 Reviews Eyes Like Leaves

2012-01-19T12:30:00.001-08:00

Eyes Like Leaves hits shelves next month, but if you're curious about it now, io9 has just posted a long, excellent review (though beware, there are spoilers).

"What looks at first glance like a pretty traditional epic fantasy turns out to be something a bit darker, and stranger. And it does wind up raising some fascinating questions about how we come to be the people we are. Would you expect any less from Charles de Lint?"

Check out the full review here.

2012-01-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

The Quill and Ink book blog has just posted a short but very sweet review of Promises to Keep, saying it was "beautifully written" and giving it five stars!

Read the rest of the review here.

John Kessel and James Kelly on The Prosen People

2012-01-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

All this week, John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly will be guest blogging over at the Jewish Book Council's blog, The Prosen People. Today's post, Kafka: A Man as Puzzling as His Stories, is a must-read, and don't forget to keep checking back all this week.

Where we're at in 2012

2012-01-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

We here at Tachyon have been hard at work to bring you another great set of books and believe me, we have been working HARD. There are some great books out there from our friends in the publishing world, and we contribute our own unique and wonderfully distinctive books.

We bring you canonic anthologies from the diverse genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. We take our time working through many ideas in a day to try to find books that will fill our ideal of "smart science fiction and fantasy" and make them entertaining and well executed. The possibilities seem endless and our staff are constantly discussing projects, covers, designs, ideas, authors, stories, the state of publishing, the existence of the supernatural, random thoughts on the disappearance of bees (oh sorry), and other topics too numerous and strange to describe here.

Not only are we hard at work acquiring new books, we are putting finishing touches on our 2012 books. We are also creating a new website that is more interactive, more user-friendly, and a place that you will want to visit regularly.

Anyway, look us up in the coming months for new books on the horizon and a new website to celebrate another year. 2012 marks our seventeenth birthday and by 2013, we will be in business for eighteen years. Not far from the big 2-0!

Read a book. Buy a book. Support your community, your stores, and your imagination.

Jim

A Very Kafka New Year

2012-01-10T11:49:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012, everybody!

Here's how I like to start my year: forwarding on another awesome review of Kafkaesque! We're quite proud of this one, and it's great to see the love continuing into a new year.

From Underwords book blog-

"Each story within Kafkaesque offers something new, interesting and very Franz Kafka. The quality of the collection is superb and will provide hours of mind-boggling reading enjoyment."

read the rest here

Heavy reading

2011-12-26T13:22:00.000-08:00

I had the wonderful experience this Christmas day of leafing through a decade's worth of old Galaxy magazines. They'd been donated to SF in SF, the program Tachyon sponsors to raise money for Variety Children's Charity of Northern California. About a dozen people were drinking spiced apple cider, eating cookies and cakes, and poring over the magazines, which spanned about 10 years between 1952 and 1961.

The authors featured in these issues included Theodore Sturgeon, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Clifford D. Simak, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, Fritz Leiber, Ray Bradbury, and Cordwainer Smith, among many others - giants of the field all writing in the prime of their lives. But what drew our attention most of all were all the wonderful covers by Emsh and the science articles by Willey Ley, the German-born scientist whose articles often centered on spaceflight and rocketry. His column ran for 40 years from 1937 (in Astounding) to his death in 1967.

One article that caught my eye was written in October 1952, with the sentence that began "I don't believe in the 'electronic device' which replaces the newspaper. Nor do I think that books will be printed on anything which we would not call paper," Ley continues, "even though it may technically be something else.... In quite a number of stories, the spaceship pilot looks up the characteristics of a planet in an almanac "printed on indestructible metal foil.... But while the paper book, with binding, weighs two lbs., the metal book, if aluminum, would weigh nine pounds!"

It still remains to be seen if ebooks will, in fact, replace the real thing. No matter how powerful it becomes, the Kindle will probably never weight nine pounds. Not all of Ley's predictions in this particular column were off the mark, though. He did predict the advent of answering machine and that helicopters would not replace the automobile.

The Uncertain Places is (clearly) one of the best books of 2011

2011-12-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays! As 2011 winds down, the best of the year lists begin and your early 2012 reading is settled. Michael Berry at the San Francisco Chronicle has selected Lisa Goldstein's The Uncertain Places as a standout in the science fiction and fantasy genres: "Goldstein weaves a tale of magic that stretches from Berkeley in the '70s to the vineyards of Napa Valley to the outer limits of Faerie."

Hope you are accruing lots of great books to read and that your [insert your traditional holiday fare here; mine is Chinese food] is tasty...

Happy Hanukkah from the Fantastical Andrew Fox

2011-12-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

It's a fairly-well known fact that some of Tachyon's staff, as well as some of our authors and editors, are Jewish. I leave you to guess which ones, though I'll give you a freebie, our fearless leader Jacob Weisman. Meanwhile, Andrew Fox is giving you an excellent Hanukkah gift, an excerpt from The Good Humor Man. About latkes! Here's where it begins:

***

Shit. I’m late for Cindy's dinner party in La Jolla. Apart from my father, she's the only family I have left. Worse, I forgot to get out to the store to buy a gift. I search the kitchen for something to bring. The best I can find is a bottle of California table wine. I wrap it in tin foil and hope Cindy won't notice that the top fifth of the bottle is empty.

Buddy answers the door. I've never much cared for him. According to Cindy, he’s been an emotionally removed husband and father, burying himself in his engineering business. It's probably the resemblance to my own father that irks me. But he's certainly provided my cousin and their son with a comfortable home.

"Hello, Lou. Cindy was just wondering whether you'd make it."

"Hi, Buddy. How are you?" We awkwardly shake hands. I catch him looking curiously at my black eye. "You haven't fed the last crumbs of the latkes to the dogs yet?"

"Not yet. Cindy’s just taking them out of the oil now."

"The latkes or the dogs?"

No smile. "The latkes."

***

Read more here. And enjoy some non-government-banned latkes for us!

Corycast - Interview with Cory Doctorow on The Command Line Podcast

2011-12-14T11:23:00.000-08:00

The Command Line is a blog and podcast "exploring digital citizenry as a creator and a consumer." Nifty! And now The Command Line Podcast's latest episode features an interview with Cory Doctorow. They discuss Context, take questions, and talk about other Cory-fied topics like copyright laws, and living in the future.

A fun, informative listen. You can download it here.

'Tis the Season for Kafka

2011-12-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Kafkaesque has been getting a lot of love lately! You'll find a nice review in Sci Fi magazine's latest issue. They give Kafkaesque an A!

And if you, like Michael Weingrad, wonder why there is no Jewish Narnia, Gillian Polack over at Biblio Buffet thinks Kafka has the answer:

"Kafka is many things to many people, which is impressive, considering that his writing is distinctive and always identifiable, even in different translations. His stories aren’t a simple formula of strip-bare-and-add-telling. This is why the volume Kafkaesque, edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly, is so very good. It shows us that Kafka was an allegorist (like C.S. Lewis, although that comparison remains unmade)...Each of these stories is good in its own right, and each of these stories illuminates different facets of Kafka’s writing and our perception of Kafka."

Read the rest of the review here.

An Evening with Franz Kafka and Friends

2011-12-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

Do you live in or near North Carolina? John Kessel, one of the editors of Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka, will be leading a discussion on Kafka, his works, and his influence at Quail Ridge Books and Music on Wednesday, December 7th.

If you aren't an NC local, but still would like a signed book, you can request one by contacting orders@quailridgebooks.com

Click here for more details

Occupy Wall Street library donations

2011-11-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

Despite numerous police efforts to dismantle it, The People's Library has more lives than any fat cat on the New York Stock Exchange. Politics aside, the library represents free speech and the power of books to inspire social change. We're totally behind that. So thanks to the willingness of our authors, we've sent a box of Tachyon books to Occupy Wall Street. If you'd like to donate, send books to:

The UPS Store
Re: Occupy Wall Street
Attn: The People's Library
118A Fulton St. #205
New York, NY 10038

Pre-trypotophan Roundup

2011-11-22T14:51:00.000-08:00

I think someone in the office is messing with the tachyons again. How does turkey make you sleepy two days before you've eaten it?

Anyway, good things happen around here whether we nap through them or not. Here are a few:

Lisa Goldstein's The Uncertain Places has been named one of Library Journal's Best Books 2011: SF/Fantasy. The review called the book "a modern fairy tale elegantly told." In The Agony Column, Rick Kleffel concluded "like the fairy tales it so powerfully evokes, a few pages spent in 'The Uncertain Places' offers readers the feel of whole lives lived well, of magic brushing up close before pulling away, of our world, enchanted for just long enough to know what it is missing."

Meanwhile John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly's Kafkaesque anthology received a rave from Publishers Weekly: "Kessel and Kelly (The Secret History of Science Fiction) celebrate the life and career of Franz Kafka in this eclectic, mind-blowing collection of 18 reprints."

Check out John Kessel's NPR interview and you can hear him talk about Kafkaesque and read from his new original translation of "A Hunger Artist."

Don't forget that there's still free Media Mail shipping on the Tachyon website. Order as many books as you like, they still ship for free! Everyone you give a gift to this year should get a book, preferably one of ours. Just saying.

Happy holiday, folks. See you after zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Kafkaesque is so weird

2011-11-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

We're delighted to be included in today's feature on the excellent new Weird Fiction Review webzine, who is spotlighting all (well, many) things Kafka this week. John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly's introduction to Kafkaesque is featured, and the dynamic editorial duo are given due kudos, including:

"We hope you enjoy this bewitching essay on “the moon-blue mouse” and consider acquiring the anthology Kafkaesque."

Where in the world is Cory Doctorow?

2011-11-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

Well, this Thursday he will be at The Wharton School in Philadelphia giving a free talk (open to the public). Then, this weekend he will be guest of honor at PhilCon. Finally, on November 22nd, Cory heads down to D.C. for a talk at the New America Foundation about technology, social media, and other topics covered in Context. East coasters, check it out!

Kafkaesque is officially out!

2011-11-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

Happy 11/11/11! I probably should have made this post at 11:11 AM (but I forgot). But if I had posted it then, it would have been pretty Kafkaesque. Or obsessive compulsive, but let's not quibble over semantics when I have a book to talk about.

Kafkaesque, our Kafka-inspired anthology edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly, is now on the shelves. This anthology features nineteen excellent short stories from a fantastic range of authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, T. C. Boyle, Carol Emshwiller, J. G. Ballard, Eileen Gunn, Terry Bisson, Philip Roth, Jeffrey Ford, Michael Blumlein, Theodora Goss, Jonathan Lethem, and Carter Scholz, all exploring the impact Franz Kafka left in the literary world.

Kafkaesque also features a new translation of Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" alongside the R. Crumb (Fritz the Cat) comic of the same story, so it's a must have for the Kafka completest (kompletest? hmm...).

The Marketplace Fairness Act

2011-11-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

This is an unpaid political ad for the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bipartisan bill that requires online retailers to collect sales tax. That would remedy a 23 *billion* dollar a year loss to state governments, plus a blatantly unfair advantage that e-tailers have over brick and mortar businesses. Like say your local indie bookstore. If you still have one.

The bill's sponsors comment here.
Contact your senator in support of the Marketplace Fairness Act here.

We now return you to your regular Tachyon programming.

The Good Humor Man now available as an eBook

2011-11-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

The Good Humor Man by Andrew Fox is now out as an eBook! You can find it in all eBook formats (well, all of the ones we know about) at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, the iTunes store and other major online retailers. The novel, described by Kage Baker as "a Fahrenheit 451 for the post-millennium, told with Fox's magnificent evocation of place and twisted humor," goes a little something like this:

In 2041, a pound of real chocolate is worth more on the black market than a kilo of cocaine. The evil corporation MannaSantos controls the food supply with strange genetically-modified products. And a lone ex-plastic surgeon, whose father performed a secret liposuction surgery on Elvis Presley, holds the key to humanity's future.

In a mad dash to retrieve his family heirloom—the mortal remains of the King’s belly fat—Dr. Louis Shmalzberg becomes entangled with a civil servant of questionable motives, an acquisitive assassin from a wealthy Caliphate, a power-mad preacher evangelizing anorexia, a beautiful young woman addicted to liposuction, and a homicidal clone from a MannaSantos experiment gone terribly wrong.

Can Elvis save the world sixty-four years after his death?

***

For more about Andrew Fox, check out his excellent blog: Fantastical Andrew Fox. (It's foxy!)

Small Press Spotlight in The New York Times and news from the Agony Column

2011-10-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

"The best work in dark fantasy and horror fiction these days is being published by small presses", says today's New York Times. And that includes Tachyon and The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, just in time for Halloween....

Meanwhile, over in The Agony Column, Rick Kleffel finds Future Media "fascinating, intelligent and engaging" and The Uncertain Places is "an excellent examination of magic, stories and family...a perfect example of social surrealism that approaches the fairy tale as a hidden family history."

SF in SF: The Ackermonster Chronicles and William F. Nolan

2011-10-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night, SF in SF has something special for you.

Come see the FIRST San Francisco screening of The Ackermonster Chronicles. This will be a special preview of the working cut. Featuring interviews with Ray Bradbury, John Landis, Ray Harryhausen, and more, this film has everything you need to know about noted science fiction author, editor, collector and critic, Forrest J. Ackerman.

And before the movie, there will be a special author appearance by William F. Nolan (author of Logan's Run, soon to be a major motion picture for a second time). He will be hosting a meet and greet/book signing for The Last Quark.

Wednesday, October 19th
Doors and bar open at 6PM
Author event at 7PM
Movie at 8PM with FREE popcorn!

Proceeds from cash bar and suggested donations go to Variety Children's Charity

This event takes place at:
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance next to Citbank on Market St.
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Kafkaesque in Publishers Weekly

2011-10-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Publishers Weekly has just reviewed Kafkaesque, calling it an "eclectic, mind-blowing collection." Mind-blowing! I'd stick in a bunch of happy-face emoticons if this wasn't a work blog. Suffice it to say, we are very happy PW loves Kafkaesque as much as we do.

Read the rest of the review here.

Future Media (and Litquaaaaaake!)

2011-10-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Pop Matters has reviewed Future Media today, and they like it as much as we do! It's "Recommended for Anyone Who Has a Smartphone, Watches TV, or Uses the Internet." Here's a clip:

"This book makes connections—connections between past and present, fiction and nonfiction, what is real and what is not (or at least, not yet). It’s about predictions—those that have come to pass and those that still might. And as the nonfiction makes clear, much classic science fiction isn’t as far from reality as we might like it to be." Read more.

Litquake wraps up tomorrow, but the Kafkaesque panel is TONIGHT, so come join us! Rudy Rucker, Carter Scholz, and Terry Bisson will be discussing and reading from their contributions to the upcoming Kafkaesque, our anthology of stories inspired by Franz Kafka, coming out this November.

SF in SF presents
Kafkaesque at Litquake
Friday, October 14th
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance next to Citibank on Market St.
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Doors and cash bar open at 6, event starts at 7. First come first served, proceeds from the bar and suggested $5-$10 donations at the door go to Variety Children's Charity.

Tim Powers! Kafka! Urban Fantasy! Litquake!

2011-10-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

"The name of Tim Powers has been a secret talisman for a select group of readers for decades..."

This line, which I love, starts off a fantastic review of The Bible Repairman and Other Stories in the Barnes & Noble Review. Who doesn't love secret talismans? The review continues:

"Superb....Here, in potent, distilled form, you will find Powers's trademarked secret histories, heroically damaged (or damagedly heroic) losers, creepy supernatural phenomena, and macabre humor." Read the rest here.

And speaking of reviews, the Green Man Review took a look at The Urban Fantasy Anthology:

"Every single story in this collection has been well chosen and polished brightly.... I highly recommend those with even a vague interest in urban fantasy add The Urban Fantasy Anthology to their collection." Read more.

Now then, did you know that this week is Litquake? Litquake is the largest independent reading festival on the West Coast. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are lots of amazing author and book events every day this week (check out www.litquake.org for a full schedule).

This Friday, SF in SF's reading series joins with Litquake to bring you Rudy Rucker, Carter Sholz, and Terry Bisson, in one amazing panel. They will be discussing and reading from their contributions to the upcoming Kafkaesque, our anthology of stories inspired by Franz Kafka, coming out this November.

SF in SF presents
Kafkaesque at Litquake
Friday, October 14th
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance next to Citibank on Market St.
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Doors and cash bar open at 6, event starts at 7. First come first served, proceeds from the bar and suggested $5-$10 donations at the door go to Variety Children's Charity.

Tobacconistic magic

2011-10-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Excellent news. Michael Swanwick has made a video of his infamous performance of his infamous story, "Cigar-Box Faust." Michael also performed "Cigar-Box Faust" at Tachyon's 8th Anniversary party in 2003. This time around he is joined by his multitalented wife, Marianne Porter. For the libretto (I mean, the story Marianne is reading), as well as many other bite-sized Swanwickian treats, you'll want to check out Michael's Tachyon collection, Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures.

The Wall Street Journal on The Bible Repairman

2011-10-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

In today's Wall Street Journal, Tom Shippey reviews The Bible Repairman, aptly concluding:

"Most fantasy authors aim at persuading you of the reality of their invented worlds. Mr. Powers makes you doubt the reality of your own. Are there still sin-eaters and ghost-talkers quietly pursuing their trade in tenements and behind weed-infested yards, with regular tariffs and specializations? If there are, what do they know that you don't? That's what creates a true frisson."

Read the rest of the review here.

Context Has Hit the Shelves

2011-09-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century, by the ever-entertaining Cory Doctorow, is now for sale!

Context is a followup to Cory's earlier collection, Content. A stay-at-home dad as well as an international activist, Doctorow writes as eloquently about creating internet, real-time theater with his daughter as he does in lambasting the corporations that want to limit and profit from intellectual freedoms. Cory has written a guide to how the technology we use every day shapes our lives. Context is as much a warning against selling our privacy for convenience as it is a celebration of the infinite creative possibilities of the internet.

And now to kick things off, here's a review from Booklist:

"Part Poor Benjamin, part Dr. Spock, Doctorow is by now a wise, trusted guide in this messy—but eminently navigable!—world in which we’ve landed."

read the rest here

The New York Journal of Books gives its two cents (twice)

2011-09-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

We've got two very nice reviews coming up in the New York Journal of Books. Here's a snippet from their review of Context by Cory Doctorow (October release):

"A blueprint for well-considered decisions.... Cory Doctorow's Context is a treat for those who live in the digital world—as well as for those who would like to know more about it."

And for Kafkaesque, edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly (coming out in November):

"All of the works collected in Kafkaesque prove both edifying and entertaining.... A fine, intelligent, and exquisitely bizarre collection of fiction."

Who will make Charlie Sheen go away?

2011-09-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today on Forbes.com, Todd Wilms orchestrates a virtual meeting of the minds, interviewing three experts on the future of social and mass media, R. "Ray" Wang, CEO of Constellation Research Group; Dr. Andreas Weigend, Professor of e-commerce and former Amazon.com executive; and our own Dr. Rick Wilber, media professor, sf author, and editor of Future Media.

Addressing the topic of "Where are we going?", Rick comments:

"We are about 'the now' and digesting data right in front of us. So, what if a celebrity or athlete or leader could transmit their reality to you - you could, in effect, be in the head of that person. MIT currently has a retinal prosthetic device they are testing that will allow stimulus to enter directly into the brain, bypassing your eyes. Now, imag[ine] that you could be in the head of anyone who would transmit that data out. Imagine not just watching Lady Gaga perform in pay-per-view simulcast at home, but being in Lady Gaga's head while she performs – in essence, being Gaga. For that matter, how much would some kid pay to be in Eli Manning's brain for passing tips, or to experience a great legal argument in front of the Supreme Court?"

"We thought the internet was going to be THE disruptive event for us – and to some degree it has. But TV and the internet are melding together in many ways. This would be the first time since the 1950's that something really came in and change the game for us. Who would watch TV when you could experience another person whenever you wanted? It would be a total revolution and it is not too far away. These are the things I have been thinking about."

Wilms muses, "Now, who is going to step up and solve how to make Charlie Sheen go away?" We at Tachyon wish we knew.

Praise for The Bible Repairman and Sleight of Hand

2011-09-19T14:51:00.001-07:00

Two books, no waiting!

Tim Powers got a short but sweet review for The Bible Repairman and Other Stories in the Denver Post yesterday. It's a quick one, but worth checking out:

"Powers specializes in hidden histories and all of these stories present a very real exterior and another world inside its cracks."

The Bible Repairman was also given a featured review on SF Site: "Powers' first new collection since 2005 assembles five stories and a novella, where he exhibits his extraordinary talent as a fantasist and his uncommon imaginative power."

Meanwhile, here is a review of Sleight of Hand at Strange Horizons: "With its engaging and wide-ranging selection of fantasies, Sleight of Hand seems the perfect book for an author to publish in the same year that his towering status in the field has finally been formalized with a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, proving as it does that this achievement lies not only in the past, but remains very much a thing of the present."

Green Man Reviews Bible Repairman and Other Stories

2011-09-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Green Man Review has a short-but-sweet review up for Tim Powers' new collection, The Bible Repairman and Other Stories.

"Fans of Powers’ work should have no qualms about picking up The Bible Repairman, as it offers many of the pleasures of his longer works distilled into smaller bites....an excellent collection."

Click here to read the entire review.

SF in SF Author Night: Nancy Kress & Jack Skillingstead

2011-09-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

This is a great weekend to be a science fiction and fantasy fan in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Not only is the Tachyon Publications Sixteenth Anniversary Party this Sunday, but this Saturday SF in SF will host Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead!

Nancy Kress is the bestselling author of Beggars in Spain and Dogs. She's won four Nebula Awards and two Hugos, and is a frequent teacher at the Clarion writer's workshop.

Jack Skillingstead is a fantastic and prolific short story writer. You can find his work in Asimov's SF, F&SF, Realms of Fantasy and in numerous anthologies. His first collection is Are You There and Other Stories.

SF in SF Reading Night
Saturday September 10th
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Doors and cash bar (with proceeds to Variety Children's Charity) open at 6:00pm, event starts at 7:00.
Email: sfinsfevents@gmail.com

You're Invited! Tachyon Turns Sweet 16!

2011-09-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

Tachyon Publications is turning 16! That's 16 wonderful years of saving the world, one good book at a time. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area (or not, it's worth the trip) come celebrate with us at our birthday party this Sunday at Borderlands Books in San Francisco.

When: Sunday September 11th, 2011 from 2:00 - 4:00 PM (well, probably longer)
Where: Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street, bet. 19th & 20th
Who: You! Your friends! And some of your favorite authors! Plus the Tachyon crew will be there, since it is our birthday.

Special guests include:
Peter S. Beagle
Nancy Kress
Jack Skillingstead
Kathleen Bartholomew

There will be cake! and food! and freebies! Plus: author readings and the Emperor Norton Award presentation and a super-secret surprise tribute to Kage Baker (hint: think silent science-fiction cinema...)

We love our birthday parties because every year it gives us a chance to thank the readers that have supported us all these years. We hope you'll join us as we toast 16 fantastic years, and we look forward to 16 more!

SF in SF Presents Ringers: Lord of the Fans

2011-08-23T15:16:00.000-07:00

This is a big one, folks! Come to SF and SF movie night and see Tolkien fans' answer to Trekkies.

On Thursday August 25th, SF and SF will be screening the award-winning documentary Ringers: Lord of the Fans. Special guests are the film's director, Carlene Cordova, and bestselling author Peter S. Beagle (of The Last Unicorn fame), who wrote the screenplay for the Ralph Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings film.

Ringers explores the growth of the Tolkien fandom, and how it has influenced pop-culture over the last fifty years. Hear the story of LOTR on screen, from its first cartoon adaptations to the Peter Jackson films--including an interview with Jackson himself--and witness the awesome that is Leonard Nimoy performing "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."

Ringers won the award for Outstanding Achievement in a Documentary at the 2005 Newport Beach Film Festival and was nominated for Best DVD Release at the 2006 Saturn Awards.

Thursday August 25th
Doors and cash bar open at 6:00, show starts at 7:00
Suggested $5-$10 donation, with proceeds going to Variety Children's Charity

This event takes place at:
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance is next door to Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Email sf in sf events@gmail.com for more information

Outfoxing the Food Police

2011-08-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well, we *hope* we can outfox them...

On his blog today, Andrew Fox, author of the eerily prescient The Good Humor Man, gathers the best of (as it were) the Food Police. Between British bureaucrats surveilling student lunchboxes to organic farmers standing up to Monsanto over spurious copyright violations, it's scary to fathom how far gone we already are. Luckily, Elvis can save us - you'll want to read Andy's book to find out how.

2011-08-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Samantha Holloway at The New York Journal of Books has posted a very thoughtful review of The Urban Fantasy Anthology, concluding:

"As the genre is presented here, we see a rich, full, experimental and long-lasting contribution to the ecology of Fantasy. It’s perfectly arranged and intentionally diverse, and there are no duds here like there are in some other anthologies. If you’re new to the genre, this is an ideal place to start, so you begin with the multitude of ideas that count here. If you’re a fan of the genre, this is like a re-acquaintance, a reminder that there’s more to Urban Fantasy than the vast numbers of women on motorcycles who kill bad things."

Read the full review here.

Future and present adventures in St. Louis

2011-08-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

When someone in the present speculates about the future, does the present become the future? Only Rick Wilber knows.

Wilber, the intrepid editor of Future Media, will be/is/has been taking St. Louis by storm, appearing at both the AEJMC journalism/mass media conference and in front of a full house at the excellent indie bookstore Left Bank Books.

So the future of communications really *is* now. We think...

Why e-books cost more than they "should"

2011-08-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today's GalleyCat newsletter features one of the more frivolous lawsuits I've seen in a long time: Apple & Publishers Sued Over eBook Pricing. Thank goodness the right to ultra-cheap e-books is finally being stood up for! Here’s more about the suit, from the law firm:

"While free market forces would dictate that e-books would be cheaper than their hard-copy counterparts, considering lower production and distribution costs, the complaint shows that as a result of the agency model and alleged collusion, many e-books are more expensive than their hard-copy counterparts."

Hmm. What's wrong with this picture?

-E-books are (almost) never more expensive than print versions. It's ludicrous to state otherwise.

-Since e-books are cheaper than print books, and publishers still pay distribution fees, wholesaler discounts, and author royalties, we almost always make even less than we do on a print version. (This is literally true for Tachyon.)

-You can (almost) never publish an e-book without publishing a print version. So e-books absorb part of the costs of doing the print books, including printing, warehousing, and distribution, as well as all of the associated production costs.

-We live in a free market economy in which, within reason, prices are dictated by supply and demand. If people think e-books are too expensive, they don't have to buy them. You can't sue someone for that. Or can you?

***

So in case anyone is wondering why they're paying $9.95 for something they can't put on a bookshelf (unless it's that cute one in Calibre), remember that someone still has to publish that book. We're not trying to rip you off. I promise.

Urban Fantasy...and more Uncertain Places

2011-08-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Urban Fantasy Anthology has hit the shelves!

All Things Urban Fantasy calls it "as thought provoking as it was enjoyable." You can read the rest of the review here, and you can buy the book over here!

Also, The Uncertain Places has gotten yet another fantastic review (not that we're bragging or anything...*ahem*):

"Exemplary.... Goldstein is one of fantasy's most reliable practitioners, and a new novel from her is always a cause for celebration." - San Francisco Chronicle

Tin Soldiers

2011-07-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

While Google is facing a major age discrimination lawsuit, it disheartens me to see a tangentially similar situation in publishing. This today, courtesy of Publishers Weekly:

Scholastic is in the final days of offering a buyout package to all employees who have been with the publisher for at least 10 years regardless of age. The offer for all but book fair employees expired July 18; due to pre-scheduled meetings, fair staff has until next Thursday to decide on the package.

News of the buyout offer comes after the disclosure by Scholastic last week when it released its fiscal 2011 results that it was "taking steps to reduce costs in non-digital areas across the business," while expanding its digital operations. It also noted that its forecast for fiscal 2012 excluded severance and other one-time expenses associated with restructuring actions.

***

Arrgh. How is offering buyouts to longtime employees similar to age discrimination lawsuits? Both are indicators of the increasingly-hostile business environment for older workers.

Sure, Scholastic is giving the option of a golden (bronze? tin?) parachute to their staff. It's far better than being one of over forty thousand employees summarily dismissed by Borders. But surprisingly, Scholastic is also being completely up front about their intentions - "taking steps to reduce costs." They are trying to clear the decks to either consolidate jobs (read: employees doing more than one job for the same pay) or hire younger workers to whom they can offer much lower salaries.

Employees eligible for this package could be only in their early thirties, having worked for Scholastic since their early twenties. Granted, the youngsters probably won't take the deal, but people in their late thirties and up will have to take a very hard look at it. If they don't go for it, they still run the real risk of being laid off (i.e. dropped with no parachute) at any time, and with especially bleak prospects.

It is very much in Scholastic's immediate financial interest to get rid of long-term employees, who both command higher salaries and require more expensive health care premiums (though that problem can always be solved by making employees pay more, if not all, of their own premiums). Of course Scholastic is jettisoning one of their most valuable resources: experience. But that's not something you can present to your shareholders or on a balance sheet.

I don't know why I'd have hoped that a publishing company that made a gazillion dollars off of the Harry Potter series might have more ethical business practices than Google. My starry-eyed expectations of the publishing world have mostly disappeared in the ten years I've been here (I'm eligible for a retirement package at Scholastic - not sure what I get at Tachyon!). Editors used to have prestigious careers with excellent prospects. Publishers used to count on an audience that wanted lots of high quality books. Booksellers were local merchants who had customers paying fair prices. Authors, well, it's always been tough for authors (and that's another post entirely).

Now publishing is yet another a business run by greed and fear. In the corporate world, we're all increasingly interchangeable or simply disposable.

Tim Powers is In Ur Bible, Fixin Ur Scripturz

2011-07-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

So here I am, getting The Bible Repairman by Tim Powers ready to send to the printer, and I am seething with indignity.

Look at this cover:

Pretty badass, right? But I still think they should have gone with mine:

"It's too old a meme!" They said. But I said, "No. It's classic. Tried and true."

Alas! My protests fell on deaf ears, and you'll be seeing the serious version on shelves come September. Meanwhile, I have some finishing touches to make on our October release:

SF in SF Movie Night: The Adjustment Bureau and The Men Who Stare At Goats

2011-07-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

Come on down to the Variety Preview Room tonight, July 20th, for the SF in SF movie night. Tomorrow's double feature: The Adjustment Bureau and The Men Who Stare At Goats.

As always, doors and cash bar (proceeds to Variety Children's Charity) open at 6, event starts at 7. Plus, free popcorn!

Variety Children's Charity works to provide pediatric wheelchairs for kids in need. Learn more at www.varietync.org

SF in SF events are located across from the Montgomery station BART at:
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Tor's Genre in the Mainstream Series: The Secret History of Science Fiction

2011-07-12T13:53:00.001-07:00

Tor.com's blog series, Genre in the Mainstream, shows that sometimes the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction boils down to the section where the book is shelved. Though there's lots to offer the science fiction/fantasy fan at the mainstream fiction end of the bookstore, as for the literary fiction buffs, you've been enjoying great genre for years whether you know it or not.

Today Genre in the Mainstream highlights Tachyon's 2009 anthology, The Secret History of Science Fiction:

"Instead of convincing you with a series of essays, (like Genre in the Mainstream) Kelly and Kessel pushed their thesis forward by laying out a bunch of stories from various authors in order to demonstrate cross pollination between genres has been happening for ages...If you’re interested in reading a bunch of stories written by some of the best contemporary writers out there, you’ll like this anthology. If you also want to read some of the best science fiction stories since the 70s, you’ll love this anthology."

Book Reviews for the Young and Old

2011-07-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

We've got two great reviews to share today!

First, for our newest title, Future Media, from Publishers Weekly:

Wilber's solid anthology of short stories and academic essays successfully juxtaposes work both newer and timeless. Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" posits that Google has severely curtailed our attention spans; this is further developed by James Patrick Kelly's "New Brains for Old," a discussion of reprogramming our brains. An excerpt from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is paired with Gregory Benford's morbid book auction in "Centigrade 233." Allucquére Rosanne Stone's "Sex, Death, and Machinery" mashes up a nonfiction essay with a fictional style, exploring technology and all of our relations to it...Often deep, occasionally dense, and always thought-provoking, these works will appeal to both academics and lay readers.

And then an great review on Paperblog of one of our favorite Peter S. Baegle titles, A Fine & Private Place:

It features some of the best character studies I have seen. By the time you finish the story, it seems like the characters are people you have known for a long time. You will remember them long after you read this book... If fantastically developed characters trapped between love and death appeal to you, this is a nearly perfect book.

SF in SF author night: John Shirley and Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire

2011-07-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

We have got two excellent guests for tomorrow night's SF in SF author event, so if you're in the Bay Area, you won't want to miss this one.

John Shirley has written in multitude of styles and genres. You're probably already a fan, even if you don't realize it. He's a horror writer, a science fiction writer, a lyricist, and his novel City Come a Walkin' was a cornerstone of the cyberpunk movement. He was a writer for The Crow, Deep Space Nine, and Batman: Beyond. Some of his latest titles are The Other End, Wet Bones, and Bioshock: Rapture.

Mira Grant, a founding member of the Horror Movie Sleep-Away Survival Camp, is a John W. Campbell Award winner and Philip K. Dick Award finalist. Her zombie novel Feed landed on several Year's Best lists. Her latest book is Deadline, book two in the Newsflesh series.

You might also know Mira as Seanan McGuire, author of the October Daye series starting with Rosemary and Rue.

SF in SF author night
Saturday July 9th at the Variety Preview Room Theatre.
Doors and cash bar (proceeds to Variety Children's Charity) open at 6, event starts at 7.

The Variety Preview Room is located right across the street from the Montgomery BART station:
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

For more information contact Rina at sfinsfevents@gmail.com
You can also call 415-572-1015 on the day of the event only.

SF in SF Anime Night

2011-06-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Anime Night at SF in SF, with a double feature of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Paprika. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, come down to the Variety Preview Room for a night of award-winning anime!

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time stars Makoto, a girl who discovers she can literally leap through time, and each leap lands her closer to an even bigger discovery...

Paprika was cited as an influence for the hit film Inception. Doctor Atsko Chiba is a research psychologist developing technology to help patients by entering their dreams; but things begin to go wrong when she uses her invention outside of the research facility, helping patients as her alter-ego, Paprika.

SF in SF Movie night is Wednesday, June 15th (tomorrow night)
The Variety Preview Room Theatre is at 582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery, in the Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor; the entrance is between Quiznos and Citibank

Door open at 6, movie starts at 7
Popcorn is free and all proceeds from the cash bar to to Variety Children's Charity

First come, first seated!

Book Launches, Author Events, and Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

2011-06-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's a hit! Here we have even more excellent reviews for The Uncertain Places.

From BoingBoing:

Goldstein fearlessly rubs the dreamlike logic of fairytales up against stark realism, and each one makes the other more real. The fairyland we visit from time to time has the perfect mix of terror and beauty, and the story rips along at such a pace that I finished it in a day and a half, at the expense of many prior commitments.

From Shelf Awareness:

Lisa Goldstein is back and at the top of her game.

Additionally, this Saturday June 11th, SF in SF is celebrating the launch of The Uncertain Places, as well as the launch of Nick Mamatas's two new books, Starve Better, a fun yet brutally honest guide for the career writer, and Sensation, the story of a woman who falls out of reality and into the Simulacrum.

Goldstein and Mamatas (a.k.a the Nihilistic Kid) will be reading from their books, followed by a Q&A. As always, doors and cash bar (all proceeds to Variety Children's Charity) open at 6, event begins at 7, so if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area--or just really committed to excellent reading--come on down!

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Sleight of Hand reviewed in The New York Times

2011-06-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle will be making a well-deserved appearance in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, but if you can't wait for the weekend, the review is already live on the site next to some other great genre titles:

Ever since his classic first novel, A Fine and Private Place, Beagle has displayed a talent not just for writing fantasy but for documenting the frailties and bittersweet qualities of human relationships. Fifty years later, Beagle’s new story collection, Sleight of Hand provides ample evidence that his powers of observation are still sharp.

Read the rest of the review.

***

Are you a follower of Sniffly Kitty's book blog? Well perhaps you should give it a look! May I suggest starting with this nice review of The Uncertain Places?:

I have been disappointed many times by lackluster fairy tale retellings, but this one was good, really good. I was enchanted from the moment I picked up the book until the moment I finished. It manages to capture that touch of fae which is at once serious and wild.

Read the rest of the review

Book Reviews: The Uncertain Places and Sleight of Hand

2011-05-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

Lisa Goldstein's new novel The Uncertain Places has hit the shelves! io9 has a fantastic spotlight on the book:

The world is full of retellings of the Brothers Grimm lately, but Lisa Goldstein's new novel The Uncertain Places makes the world of fairy tales feel like a living place, with a long history that intersects with our own world.

...Lisa Goldstein won an American Book Award for her novel The Red Magician, and her story collection Travellers in Magic contains some of the most arresting fantasy story-telling I've ever come across. So the arrival of a new Goldstein fantasy is a major cause for rejoicing. And The Uncertain Places does not disappoint.

read the rest of the article here (spoilers!)

Outside the internet, Interzone has reviewed Peter S. Beagle's Sleight of Hand in their May-June issue. Here's our favorite part:

Few can match [Beagle] when it comes to a particular mix of the fantastic and the ordinary, with a tinge of nostalgia. As one character observes, the magic is in the telling, always.

You'll have to pick up the magazine to read the rest - but with the wonderful sf/f short fiction, movie reviews, and illustrations, Interzone is well worth a trip to the bookstore

2011-05-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Richard Dansky, over at our new favorite adorable blog, Sleeping Hedgehog, has reviewed Charles de Lint's Promises to Keep, concluding:

"In the end, Promises to Keep is an origin story, the tale of how and why Jilly Coppercorn came to be. It doesn't unveil any grand mysteries or drive forward any earth-shattering metaplots; instead, it shores up everything the long-time Newford reader already knows and loves, and gives it a stronger foundation. Jilly emerges from Promises to Keep stronger, more sympathetic and believable, and in light of what's now known about her early days and choices, even more admirable. A first-time reader may enjoy the book as the origin story of an interesting character; a De Lint fan will come away with their experience of the rest of the Newford canon deepened."

Thursday Night Exclusive: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec

2011-05-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

From director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, a steampunk romp with mummies, a pterodactyl wreaking havoc on Paris, and a heroine who simply cannot be contained. Adele is showing at the Variety Preview Room Theatre this Thursday for Variety members only, but even if you're not a member you still have a chance to score a ticket or two if you RSVP Rina at sfinsfevents@gmail.com--first come, first served!

Author events and movies? Yes please!

2011-05-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

This just in from Rina Weisman at SF in SF:

SF in SF - Science Fiction - San Francisco - A Perfect Fit
sponsored by Tachyon Publications - Saving the world, one good book at a time

All proceeds benefit Variety Children's Charity of Northern California

Follow us on Twitter at #sfinsfevents - Join our Meetup.com group too, at SFinSFEvents!

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Bringing you quality science fiction and fantasy authors and films since 2006 - over $20k raised for Variety!!
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SATURDAY, MAY 7TH

SF in SF is delighted to present

ANDREA HAIRSTON
HOWARD HENDRIX

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Andrea Hairston is a novelist and playwright, and a Clarion West 1999 graduate. In March, 2011, she was honored with the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for "distinguished contributions to the scholarship and criticism of the fantastic." Ms. Hairston is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for over thirty years. She is also the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. Ms. Hairston has received many playwriting and directing awards, including an NEA Grant to Playwrights, and a Shubert Fellowship for Playwriting. Since 1997, her plays produced by Chrysalis Theatre and others have been science fiction plays.

Ms. Hairston's first novel, Mindscape (Aqueduct Press, 2006) won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and was shortlisted for the Phillip K. Dick Award and the Tiptree Award. She is a frequent attendee at WisCon, the longest-running Feminist Science Fiction Convention in the world. She has published numerous short stories and essays, such as "Griots of the Galaxy," (So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future), "Romance of the Robot: From RUR & Metropolis to WALL-E" (The WisCon Chronicles: Vol. 4) "Lord of the Monsters—Minstrelsy Redux: King Kong, Hip Hop, and the Brutal Black Buck," (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts) and "Octavia Butler—Praise Song to a Prophetic Artist" (Daughters of Earth).

Redwood and Wildfire, her second speculative novel, was recently published by Aqueduct Press in April 2011. "At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images. This "dreaming in public" becomes common culture and part of what transforms immigrants and "native" born into Americans." We are delighted to welcome this wonderful artist to our SF in SF program for the first time.

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Howard V. Hendrix is "one of the best novelists working in science fiction today" according to author Kim Stanley Robinson. Nominated for Nebula Awards, a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner, and a 1st prize winner in the Writers of the Future Contest, Hendrix is a professor of English literature at CSU Fresno, and coordinates the annual Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UC Riverside. His many publications include dozens of shorter experimental and science fiction stories, political essays, book reviews, and works of literary criticism, including his book-length study of apocalyptic elements in English literature from Langland to Milton, The Ecstasy of Catastrophe (1990). Hendrix's most widely available works of shorter science fiction and near-miss thrillers are available in the Full Spectrum series (Bantam Books) and in The Outer Limits, Volume 1 (Prima). His novels include Spears of God (2006) and The Labyrinth Key (2004), Empty Cities of the Full Moon (2001), Lightpaths (1997), Standing Wave (1998), and Better Angels (October 1999). Hendrix also created a stir among SFF fans and authors with an LJ posting on April 12, 2007, discussing authors who offer their works for free on the internet, either as written works, or recorded as podcasts. His comments have drawn discussion, compliments, and criticism, and resulted in "International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day."

He lives with his wife Laurel in central California, where they enjoy backpacking in the Sierras and mushroom forays in the foothills. He is currently at work on a fourth novel, Empty Cities of the Full Moon, set in a universe quite different from his first three books. He is also, incidentally, one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet, and SF in SF is delighted to welcome him back.
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Join SF in SF at the Movies!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD & CONAN
Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM - free popcorn!!
Candy for sale at the bar (what's a movie without Red Vines?!)
Free THOR one sheet movie poster for each attendee!

Films start at 7:00PM - there will be a short intermission between films

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

A MOST special film you won't want to miss - it's the biographical treatment of Robert E. Howard and his life and love with teacher Novalyne Price. Based on her autobiographical book, One Who Walked Alone, it's the story of REH and Novalyne's romance against the backdrop of small town Cross Plains, the beginnings of Howard's literary career as the premier writer of sword & sorcery fiction, and the sad and tragic story of his relationship with his mother. Believe me - you don't have to read Conan to love this movie. It's one of the most respectful, involving, and amazing movies out there - the debut of Renee Zellweger, and the knock 'em dead acting of Vincent D'Onfrio as Bob Howard - and a true story of star-crossed love. The backstory of the author who brought us Conan, Red Sonja, Agnes the Sword Woman, and Solomon Kane is not to be believed!

CONAN
Well, this one is just for fun - our way of saying, "goodbye Arnold!!!" Actually, it's the "epic tale of child sold into slavery who grows into a man who seeks revenge against the warlord who massacred his tribe." Or, if you prefer "He conquered an empire with his sword. She conquered HIM with her bare hands." Whatever - we just know it's a hoot. Come live the legend - campy, trashy, and an amazing transformation of the well-known and well-loved stories from the pen of Robert E. Howard. Swords will be confiscated at the door, but if you come dressed as Red Sonja, we'll give you a free drink!

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Suggested donation at the door $5 per person - it's all for the kids folks! The need for services and help continues in our community, and money donated to Variety helps meet those needs - come have a great time while helping the Charity!

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No need to RSVP for either of these events - but seating is limited, and first-come, first-seated. Once we are full - we're full! :)

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Events start at 7:00PM
Books for sale at author events courtesy of Borderlands Books www.borderlands-books.com
Author events podcasted courtesy of Rick Kleffel, and the Agony Column - learn more, and catch previous SF in SF podcasts

SF in SF takes place at:

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

DON'T DRIVE - BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here
Phone - days of events: 415-572-1015
Email me at sfinsfevents@gmail.com with any questions.

2011-04-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Sara Skarloff at Washington Post Book World reviews 3 works of science fiction, including Sleight of Hand, calling it "satisfying." Also covered was Lost Gate, a YA novel by Orson Scott Card, and Songs of the Dying Earth, a Jack Vance tribute anthology edited by Gardner Dozois and featuring Kage Baker, Dan Simmons, and Tad Williams.

Library Journal on Sleight of Hand

2011-04-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

One more rave for Sleight of Hand (and not the last one):

Multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Beagle opens readers' eyes to wonder with his latest collection of 13 short stories. Each piece bridges the rich intersection of fantasy and fairy tale, reality and possibility, exploring predestination, fate, and the power of love through characters that come to vivid, three-dimensional life within a few short pages. Beagle's lyrical writing is set in a wide range of landscapes both familiar and fresh, with twists on Jack and the Beanstalk, monsters and dragons, a singing enchantress, ghostly photographs, and a modern werewolf tale. "The Bridge Partner" is more noir than fantasy yet fits within the collection quite well, as does the deeply chilling, experimental, and dark "Dirae." "The Woman Who Married the Man in the Moon" features two lost children and an encounter with an early version of Schmendrick the Magician from his classic novel, The Last Unicorn. Each story is introduced with some background about its origin.

Verdict: Short story and fantasy lovers will devour these tasty tidbits that whet the appetite for more.
—Charli Osborne, Oxford P.L., MI

The Third Bear nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award

2011-04-15T13:26:00.001-07:00

Today the Shirley Jackson Award revealed its nominees, including The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer. It's interesting and cool that every book in the category of single author collection came out from an independent publisher, as did nominees in many of the other categories. You can read the original story "The Quickening" to get a feel for this amazing collection.

SF in SF:Kick Ass Unicorns vs. The World

2011-04-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Do you live in or have access to San Francisco? Then you've got some great events to check out this week!

Tonight's SF in SF Movie Night is a funny fight-club double-feature: Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Then on Saturday April 16th, SF in SF presents authors Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn, Tamsin, Sleight of Hand) and Michael Blumlein (The Healer, The Brains of Rats, The Roberts).

Timetable for both events:

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Events start at 7:00PM
Requested donation: $5-10 at the door, all proceeds go to the Variety Children's Charity

SF in SF takes place at:

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street between 2nd St. and Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94104

We encourage you to take public transportation; BART and MUNI both go to the Montgomery Street station, right outside of our venue.

And don't forget to check out the SF in SF website for more Science Fiction events around the bay

Prestidigitation observed

2011-04-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Reviewer Keith Brooke at the UK Guardian has just reviewed Sleight of Hand. He called Peter S. Beagle "one of the true greats of fantasy fiction" and is taken with Peter's "magical prose." Here's the full review:

When a writer of Beagle's standing brings out a new book the reviewer's job, after checking to ensure that there has been no slippage in standards, is simply to say: "Here it is..." One of the true greats of fantasy fiction, Beagle is regularly mentioned in the same breath as Ray Bradbury and Ursula Le Guin. It's the former's gently lyrical tales that are perhaps the best comparison, as Beagle's prose in these collected short stories enchants the reader. One of the charms of good fantasy fiction is that it transcends age, as in "The Best Worst Monster", an adult story told as a children's tale wherein a monster tramples the post office flat because the mailman never delivered its master any nice letters. The concluding story, "Vanishing", shows that Beagle still has the power to surprise, a darkly moving piece set on the Berlin wall where the rest of Germany has disappeared, a scenario impossible to visualise until Beagle weaves it into existence with his magical prose. So here it is: a new collection of stories by one of the all-time greats.

2011-04-08T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sleight of Hand continues to receive excellent notices, this one from Tor.com:

Sleight of Hand is a must-have collection for fans of Peter Beagle. It coalesces a lot of the stories of the past few years of the much more prolific Beagle that have appeared in widely different venues and so are not always easy for even the most devoted fan to find. This is also a great collection for those who keeping hearing about this author Neil Gaiman described as “the gold standard of fantasy” to begin with as it collects a wide variety of Beagle’s stories, yet is thematically connected and showcases Beagle’s fascination and ability to fantastically represent familial bonds and loyal friendships.

***

More reviews after the break. Enjoy your weekend, all.

SF Crowsnest reviews VanderMeer and Van Vogt

2011-04-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

Geoff Willmetts at SF Crowsnest has made his way to the "V" section of our Tachyon library. Here are some choice bits of reviews you can find on the site this month:

Future's Past by A. E. Van Vogt

"Van Vogt's niche was to play around with aliens and super-humans in his stories and raise all kinds of issues that could arise from any generation... It's something I learnt my lessons from for my own stories. As the last compilation of Van Vogt's stories before his death [it] should belong in any SF reader’s collection."

Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer

"...'Booklife' is a fascinating practical guide to the world of the modern writer. Published writers who want to understand how to build their readership will find it invaluable. Unpublished writers will learn much that should help them on the route to publication. All writers, no matter what their level of experience or achievement, should find VanderMeer's views on how to balance writing with the rest of your life insightful. This is a book I expect to return to frequently. I can’t recommend it highly enough."

Also, check out the SF Crowsnest interview with Jeff VanderMeer this-a-way!

Forthcoming Tachyon books for 2011/2012

2011-03-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

Let's hop in the DeLorean and take a look into the future, shall we? Ah, here we go. I see...books! The future is full of books! (Take that, ancient Mayans.)

Here's a look at the books of the very near future coming from Tachyon this fall and next spring:

The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
September 2011
Tim Powers

In his first new collection since 2005, the master of the secret history delves into the mysteries of souls, whether they are sacrificed on the pinnacle of Mount Parnassus or lodged in a television cable box. Featuring two original Tim Powers tales - including a journey backward in time to revisit the Romantic poets - The Bible Repairman and Other Stories also gathers his short fiction previously only available in limited hardcover editions.

Context: Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century
Cory Doctorow
October 2011

One of the internet's most celebrated hi-tech culture mavens returns with his second collection of essays and polemics. Discussing complex topics in an accessible manner, Cory Doctorow shares his vision of a future where artists have full freedom of expression, as well as his view that creators need to benefit from their own creations. From extolling the Etsy makerverse to excoriating Apple for dumbing-down technology while creating an information monopoly, each unique piece is brief, witty, and at the cutting edge of tech.

Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka
John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly, eds.
November 2011

Mystery, horror, comedy, speculation, paradox, political allegory, nightmare: all these things are Kafka. In the decades since his death in 1924, the works of Franz Kafka have grown in power and influence. New generations of writers and artists have drawn from the well he opened. Kafkaesque presents a broad range of the outrageously imaginative work that has made Kafka's name known even among people who have never read a word of his fiction.

Eyes Like Leaves
Charles de Lint
February 2012

In this early Charles de Lint novel, previously unavailable in a paperback edition, he spins a stirring epic fantasy of Celtic and Nordic mythology along with swords and sorcery. In the Green Isles, the summer magic is waning. Snake ships pillage the coastal towns and the evil Icelord encases the verdant lands in a permanent frost. A mysterious old wizard prepares to mount one last defense of the Isles, hurrying to instruct his inexperienced apprentice in the art of shape-changing. In a desperate race to awaken the Summerlord, the newfound mage gathers a few remaining allies...

The First Last Unicorn and Other Beginnings
Peter S. Beagle
March 2012

Featuring previously unpublished and uncollected treasures from a much-beloved fantasy icon, this collection is a rare treat for fans of The Last Unicorn and fans of Peter S. Beagle, present and new. A romp through the filing cabinet of Peter S. Beagle’s imagination, this is an unexpected glimpse into the curios, curiosities, and capstones of Beagle's later fiction. Included is a novella-length adventure of the last unicorn, in which she joins a duo of ambivalent demons and seeks out her lost brethren.

Tachyon March Madness: Two New Books!

2011-03-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

Sleight of Hand and Crucified Dreams have finally hit the shelves!

Current Peter Beagle fans are already excited for a new collection (and we're just as excited to print it for you), but if you're one of those The Last Unicorn fans who hasn't read any of his short stories, then you need to pick up Sleight of Hand. Today. You've been missing out on some of the greatest short fiction out there for far too long.

Crucified Dreams supernatural, super intense, super scary, and super! (thanks for asking.) These are Tales of Urban Horror by old, new, and unexpected favorites, such as: Harlan Ellison, Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Lucious Shepard, Ellen Klages, and more.

These scary, disturbing stories will stay with you. They will poke their heads out to make you walk faster whenever you pass by a dark alley. And that's why you'll like them so much.

Why you should boycott Borders

2011-02-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

Borders recently filed for bankruptcy. And while they may still be able to reorganize under Chapter 11, and pay off some of their existing debt someday, chances of most of us in the publishing world getting paid for our labors are looking slim at best.

The last time a major chain bookstore went out of business—Tower Books in the mid-1990s—a vast proportion of the small presses in the U.S. went under too. The ripple effect on small presses from the Borders collapse will be different (since Borders’ buying policies have never been as enlightened as Tower’s), but the overall effects should prove to be no less catastrophic to an already reeling industry.

In this round, Tachyon will come through with just a few ugly bruises. We'll be the field mice in the land of dinosaurs; under advice from our distributor, we've been underselling to Borders for a couple of years now. Contrast that with a larger company like Penguin, which is out over forty-one million dollars. That'll hurt any company, no matter how large.

So what can we expect in the near future? More layoffs, fewer titles, smaller advances, and fewer royalties paid to authors (for all those books that were sold by Borders but not paid for).

What can be done? Not buying from Borders right now would be an excellent start. There are still a few stalwart independent local bookstores that are well worth supporting, as well as another brick-and-mortar chain store, and a major online book retailer.

Bargain-seekers are flocking to Borders to take advantage of their big going-out-of-business sales, buying books that will no longer be part of the bookselling ecology. Discounts will continue to get deeper at Borders as stock levels decrease. But remember, when you save a few dollars by shopping at Borders, that money is coming out of the pockets of the publishing world. And it’s ultimately being taken away from authors whose work you enjoy, people like Peter S. Beagle, Michael Swanwick, Joe R. Lansdale, Nancy Kress, and Ellen Klages, and your own favorites.

Let's Ring in the Spring with New Books!

2011-02-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Forget all this snow and rain and winter-downers, who's ready for spring? We are! And two spring Tachyon titles are about to hit the shelves:

Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle

As io9.com so rightfully reminds us, "A new Peter S. Beagle collection is always cause for celebration"

If you're a Beagle fan, then you've been excited about this new story collection for months. And if you've never read any of Beagle's short fiction, here is the book to start with.

"This 13-story anthology will entice even the most jaded reader to
read long hours into the night.... Sleight of Hand will beguile and
enchant."
-New York Journal of Books

Crucified Dreams: Tales of Urban Horror, edited by Joe R. Lansdale

Joe Lansdale knows how to make a good book. Whether he's writing or editing, you are going to have a great read on your hands. As Hellnotes notes:

"...prime pieces by respected genre writers. Readers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror will find something within their tastes to enjoy."

Tuesday Steampunk

2011-02-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

Suzanne over at Steamed! has named her top steampunk picks for 2010, and we're on the list! If you're a steampunk fan, and you aren't reading this blog yet, hop to it! There's a lot to offer over there.

Also, Bookgasm loves us--or at least, Bookgasm loves Flaming Zeppelins. It's a steampunk Lansdale, what's not to love?

Collora Double Feature- Batman: Dead End and Hunter Prey

2011-02-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

Time to get excited, folks. And I mean REALLY excited.

Wednesday's SF in SF movie night is screening BOTH Batman: Dead End and Hunter Prey! As if that weren't enough, Director Sandy Collora will BE THERE for Q&A, Meet & Greet and autographs!

All this plus free popcorn and cash bar (proceeds to Variety Children's Charity as always)

You do NOT want to miss this one. Doors open at 6, event starts at 7, and remember: don't drive, BART!

Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance between Quizno's & Citibank
582 Market Street at 2nd & Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Bearwatch: 2011

2011-01-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Third Bear hasn't been hibernating this winter. In fact, he's been pretty busy.

He's got a music feature on Large Hearted Boy, where Jeff Vandermeer discusses book soundtracks. Then The Third Bear Carnival rolls into Wired. Downloads for all!

And in case you haven't heard, royalties from The Third Bear will go to the Leviathan 5 Project: a collection that will give new and foreign-language authors a chance to showcase their work in this World Fantasy Award winning and PKD award finalist series.

Facebook and Futurama

2011-01-18T14:59:00.001-08:00

Did you hear we won Best Anthology for the Best of 2010 Steampunk Facebook Awards? Steampunk Reloaded. It's way better than Farmville.

Also, are you in the Bay Area? If you are, tomorrow's SF in SF movie night is a double feature of Despicable Me and Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs.

Show starts at 7, but doors and cash bar open at 6! All proceeds go to Variety Children's Charity, so if you aren't drinking a 5$ donation at the door is appreciated.

The Preview Room is at 582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery, right off the BART so no need to deal with city parking.

And remember, popcorn is FREE!

Litmag Reloaded!

2011-01-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

Steampunk Reloaded just got reviewed in The Cascadia Subduction Zone, which is a fantastic literary quarterly you can purchase here.

Some choice bits:

The stories and essays led me through a maze of anti-colonial politics to meet alien space-time terrorists, robot gunslingers, moody artistic cyborg strippers, buried spaceships called to life by fairies, mysterious paper-and-typewriter bloggers and sockpuppets, and a couple of intrepid squid. Paired with Steampunk, this anthology is great for understanding shifts in the zeitgeist of speculative fiction today.

...For Steampunk Reloaded the aesthetic is of a baroquely fucked up revolution gone wrong, and of resistance by people, aliens, cyborgs, robots, magical beings, and cthuloid horrors to the machinery of power. It should make pulp fans, political thinkers, retro-technophiles, and history wonks very happy.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T22:34:00.000-08:00

Despite a bleak economic climate, I'm pleased to report that 2010 was Tachyon's most successful year ever. Happily, in our fifteenth year we've grown quite a bit, both in increasing our sales and making additions to our staff. Equally importantly, we're still getting great feedback from reviewers and readers alike. We truly appreciate all of you; I guarantee that in 2011, we'll be bringing you more smart science fiction & fantasy.

And now, a brief journey backward (courtesy of our time-traveling tachyon particles). The Chesley Award-winning painting above was created for the cover of Peter S. Beagle's marvelous The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche. The first edition of Rhino, Peter's first story collection, came out in 1997. Happily, it was also Tachyon's first major success. Created by the inimitable Michael Dashow, the rhino was even Mike's inspiration for our adorable little typewriter-wielding, bespectacled logo.

Now leap ahead to the first half of 2011. We're going on a field trip to the future of Mass Media and making a (brief!) descent into urban nightmares. We're visiting a city between life and death and lifting the veil between reality and fairy tales. We're also reuniting with Peter Beagle, who is every bit the master magician to whom we apprenticed ourselves.

OK, you can go home now if you want to. But isn't the future awesome? See you here again real soon.

Steampunk at the end of the aughts...and previously

2010-12-28T11:48:00.002-08:00

At the last of the first decade of the *21*st century, NVE (neo-Victorian era), Paul Goat Allen at Barnes & Noble has picked Steampunk Reloaded as a top 10 Steampunk book of 2010. He also recognized Steampunk as a "landmark anthology." Kudos to Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, who are getting much-deserved recognition for their editorial contributions to the steam oeuvre.

Bookgasm on The Very Best of Charles de Lint

2010-12-17T11:32:00.002-08:00

Mark Rose has reviewed our collection, The Very Best of Charles de Lint, for Bookgasm, commenting about de Lint's choice to include his fans in the story selection process:

"He was wise to respect and trust those readers, for they have put together a remarkable collection that showcases de Lint's truly awesome talent. He is a master storyteller, with differing styles, approaches and voices that he uses in a number of his different fantasy worlds."

Brazilian Steampunk Exclusive

2010-12-15T10:45:00.002-08:00

Beyond Victoriana spotlights steampunk outside of a Western-dominant, Eurocentric framework. They are currently featuring fiction from the Brazilian steampunk anthology Vaporpunk, edited by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro and Luís Filipe Silva. There are story teasers translated into English by Fabio Fernandes and Larry Nolen (also posted in the original Portuguese). It's quite a treat. I was particularly intrigued by Carlos Orsi's, "The Extinction of the Species" and Eric Novello's, "The Day of the Beast."

Steampunk Unloaded, Uploaded, Reloaded, Remixed, Cooked, Stuffed, and Codified

2010-12-14T14:19:00.004-08:00

The above subject-line, penned by Jeff VanderMeer on the Amazon book blog, encapsulates the wonderous mayhem that steampunk has become in the last few years. It also precedes his excellent overview of steampunk fiction. Devotees of the steam oeuvre, do let Jeff lead you to the best old and new classics of "Victorian-era alternate history fiction or retro-futurism," ranging from Michael Moorcock's Warlords of the Air series to The Steampunk Bible, the much-anticipated VanderMeer treasury coming out next spring.

Take Some Time Out for Steampunk Reloaded

2010-11-30T15:09:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Messinger at Time Out Chicago was nice enough to review Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded recently. Says Jonathan:

"Though it may be the brass’s flash that first attracts readers, it’s the grime and verdigris that makes the stories, and this anthology, so compelling."

It's what we were going for. Read the rest here!

Also, did you catch the New York Times piece on The Search for Philip K. Dick reprinted in the International Herald Tribune? Good news travels fast.

The New York Times on The Search for Philip K. Dick

2010-11-22T17:09:00.001-08:00

Today's online New York Times and tomorrow's print edition feature a front page article on Philip K. Dick and The Search for Philip K. Dick. In this thoughtful piece by Scott Timberg, for which he went to Point Reyes to interview Anne, he comments: "The book, while refraining from literary analysis, is invaluable for Dick fans and scholars because it’s told by the one person he was close to at an important turning point in his career."

Indie-Debut recommends a Booklife

2010-11-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

I'm stuck on "debut of a debut," but Indie-Debut 2010 is a really cool website that features first time authors touting small press offerings.

Luckily for us, they've spotted the quintessential guide for first-time (or any-time) authors, Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer, concluding: "I highly recommend this book to any writer who is nervous about navigating the virtual landscape."

Genreville's Year in Review

2010-11-09T11:03:00.000-08:00

Genreville's Rose Fox only got five spots for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror for Publishers Weekly's Top 100 books of 2010 (which you can find here). Just five spots!

This was a great year for SF/F/H fans, and there are definitely more than five books out there worth reading, so Ms. Fox followed up the top 100 with a list of her own: The Best, and Next Best, of 2010 (You may notice a certain Third Bear gets a mention)

The Nightmare Before Thanksgiving - 12 Scary Stories

2010-11-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

Just because Halloween is over doesn't mean you can't enjoy some great horror fiction. The Chicago Tribune has some suggestions: 12 Spine-Tingling Short Stories, two of which--"Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament", and "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves"--are available in Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror.

Trick or Treat?

2010-10-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

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

The Slipstream Question

2010-09-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite books in the Tachyon arsenal is Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology. I like to recommend it when people ask me for book suggestions, but this always leads to the question "But what is Slipstream?" and apparently I'm not the only one getting asked this question.

Short Answer: Fiction that straddles genres, hanging out somewhere between literature, science fiction, fantasy, and pop culture

Joke Answer: Gene Roddenberry's alternative to Warp Drive

Long Answer: ...well, for that I will now hand you over to the Science Fiction Research Association. Ready to get schooled in Slipstream? This is the class for you: Slipstream 101.

Tachyon Turns 15!

2010-09-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary! Yesterday, Tachyon Publications celebrated 15 years of smart science fiction and fantasy, and it was a blast!

Books! Cake! Authors! CAKE! The Norton Awards! CAKE WITH RUM IN IT!
Check out Amelia Beamer and Jacob Weisman's flickr pages to see what you missed.

15 years in publishing, especially for an independent press, is a big deal. As Jacob said at the party, we were so happy for the chance to emerge from our office and celebrate it with all of you friends and booklovers.

The party was fantastic, and many thanks are in order. Thank you to Borderlands Books in San Francisco for being fabulous hosts. Thank you James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, who came a long way to celebrate with us and give their speech. Thank you to Madeleine Robbins for the awesome rum cake, to Rina Weisman for cooking and organizing the event, and Amelia Beamer for taking pictures. And thanks to everyone who came and celebrated this with us, you made this birthday a Birthday Party and we loved celebrating with you.

Of course the biggest thanks goes to the readers, to all the fans of smart science fiction and fantasy. 15 years strong! We'll be thanking you by continuing to save the world, one good book at a time.

Starred Library Journal review for Jeff VanderMeer's The Third Bear

2010-09-15T15:33:00.001-07:00

Jeff VanderMeer receives a rare starred Library Journal review for The Third Bear:

In the title story, a monster of seemingly supernatural powers threatens a small village, forcing its leader to find the only way to save his home, while in "Fixing Hanover," a seaside salvage reconstructionist balks at repairing a mechanical device he fears will bring about his own doom. These 15 elegantly crafted stories ably demonstrate VanderMeer's skill at telling tales of wonder in language that enhances the reading experience. VERDICT: Fans of imaginative literature and true speculative fiction should appreciate this groundbreaking collection by a World Fantasy Award winner that calls to mind the works of Borges, Kafka, and Stanislaw Lem.

SF in SF double feature--It's Anime Night!

2010-09-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

Love anime? We know you do. That's why next Wednesday night's SF in SF double feature is Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo, followed by The Wings of Honneamise. Either movie is great on it's own, but put them together--plus free popcorn--and you have yourself a damn fine Wednesday.

Admission and popcorn are FREE, and yes, you can bring the kids. But come early! It's first come first seated. Doors open at 6, the first film starts at 6:30 and there will be a brief intermission between the films.

Wednesday September 22nd
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - - entrance between Quizno's & Citibank
582 Market St., at 2nd @ Montgomery, San Francisco
Steps from Montgomery St. BART/MUNI station!

As always, proceeds from the cash bar will go to Variety Children's Charity, and if you don't plan on patronizing the bar, there's a suggested donation of $5 to help Variety provide pediatric wheelchairs to kids in need.

Tachyon's anniversary bash in less than one week

2010-09-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday...

Once again (or maybe for the first time), we invite you to Tachyon's anniversary party on Sunday September 19th at Borderlands Books. That's our *fifteenth* anniversary in publishing. Whoa. So come on by and say hi, grab a free limited-edition novella, and have some fantastic birthday cake (created by a bakestrix extraordinaire).

The Tachyon Publications
Fifteenth Anniversary Celebration

Sunday September 19th
2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Borderlands Books
866 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110-1739
(415) 824-8203

Special guests:
Peter S. Beagle
Michael Blumlein
James Patrick Kelly
John Kessel
Madeleine Robbins

Featuring the Eighth Annual Norton Awards for achievement in Bay Area science fiction. And cake.

SF Signal's Exclusive Interview with Chares de Lint

2010-09-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hello Internet, did you know a daily dose of Charles de Lint is important--nay, essential for maintaining good health?

But if you haven't had any de Lint today, don't worry. The fine folks at SF Signal have got you covered with an exclusive interview. Enjoy! (You can thank us later.)

The World Fantasy Award Noms are IN

2010-08-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

...and we've got three of them!

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction by Gordon Van Gelder, ed. is nominated for Best Anthology. We Never Talk About my Brother by Perter S. Beagle is nominated for Best Collection, and our very own Jacob and Rina Weisman are nominated in the Special Award category for being damn fine professionals!

You can see the rest of the nomination list over at Locus Online. It's a fantastic list, so don't let me hear you whine about having nothing to read unless you've already finished everything on it.

SF in SF presents ARMY OF DARKNESS and HOUSE II

2010-08-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hello San Franciscans! I have come back from a lovely European vacation just to let you know that tonight's SF in SF double feature is a guaranteed good time.

Come join us for Army of Darkness followed by House II, two great horror-comedies that get even better when you throw in free popcorn and a bar.

If you live in the Bay Area and want to liven up your Wednesday, there's no reason to miss this one.

Doors open and bar open at 6, the films start at 6:30.

Remember, all proceeds from the cash bar go to the Variety Children's charity. Get drunk, give back, and help raise money for pediatric wheelchairs! But after you do, don't drive home! The Variety Preview Room is just steps away from the Montgomery BART/MUNI stop.

See you tonight!

Variety Children's Charity Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg. - 1st Floor
582 Market Street, at 2nd & Montgomery, downtown San Francisco

Recent Tidbits

2010-08-05T13:54:00.003-07:00

With Miss Elizabeth in Prague (lucky girl), the blog has been sadly neglected. Here's some of the latest news.

Nick Monfort posted a delightfully concise (1K words!) review of The Secret History of Science Fiction, commenting "Even the weakest stories in here are well-written and worthwhile; most go far beyond that, making for a truly great collection."

Linda Esler at NorthJersey.com lauded Andrew Fox's The Good Humor Man: "The Good Humor Man is funny but makes some serious points. It won me with the first line, 'I remember cheese.' Of course, I can't help loving a book in which Elvis saves the world. Treat yourself...."

Five Weeks of Tachyon at Free Book Friday

2010-07-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

Attention all freebie lovers, Lit Drift's Free Book Friday will be giving away Tachyon books for the next five weeks!

This week's book is The Cat's Pajamas and Other Stories by James Morrow, so head over to Lit Drift's Free Book Friday page. All you have to do is leave a comment in the post and you will be entered to win.

Good luck!

Win a Free Copy of The Very Best of Charles de Lint!

2010-07-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

Want a free de Lint book? Here's how to get a free Very Best of Charles de Lint of your very own. Just go to the contest page on SF Site, answer the questions correctly, and you will be entered to win.

Good luck!

Come See Brian and Wendy Froud Tonight!

2010-07-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Attention faerie-loving Bay Area residents! Want to see Dark Crystal and Labyrinth artists Brian and Wendy Froud tonight? Of course you do!

Come down to the Variety Preview Room tonight to hear the renowned pair discuss their new box set, The Heart Of Faerie Oracle

As conceptual designer for Dark Crystal, Brian Froud provided Henson with hundreds of paintings, drawings and sculptures to define the characters, and worked very closely with the construction of the maquettes. Wendy Froud, a key member of the original conceptual team, was in charge of creating the Gelflings and also operated the radio-control mechanism that gave Jen his subtle facial expressions. For Labyrinth, Brian produced the drawings that gave inspiration to screenwriter, Terry Jones.

Wendy Froud was also part of the team that created Yoda for The Empire Strikes Back, doing a major part of the developing, sculpting and puppet building.

Seated is first come first serve, but you can email sfinsfevents@gmail.com to reserve up to two seats.

The Variety Preview Room
582 Market St. @ Montgomery
1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.
Doors open at 6:00PM
Cash Bar - Proceeds to Variety
Readings begin at 7:00PM

See you there!