Going to Extremes

Okay, I can come up long enough for this. Pimping and tub-thumping never takes more than a few minutes.

You know that new Eriophora story I’ve been fibletting recently?  I’m now free to announce that it’ll be making its appearance later this year in an anthology entitled Extreme Planets: A Science Fiction Anthology of Alien Worlds edited by David Conyers, David Kernot and Jeff Harris. The whole production is an Anglointernational effort: the editors are Australian, the cover artist is English, and the publisher is USnian (Chaosium, out of California, and evidently one of the Grand Old RPG companies).

The official announcement is over here. The cover art is to the right (although one assumes that the planets behind the cover are a bit more extreme than the one on it, what with the apparent earth-type gravity and nitrox atmosphere). And the Table of contents is below:

  • “Banner of the Angels” by David Brin and Gregory Benford
  • “Brood” by Stephen Gaskell
  • “Haumea” by G. David Nordley
  • “A Perfect Day off the Farm” by Patty Jansen
  • “Daybreak” by Jeff Hecht
  • “Giants” by Peter Watts
  • “Maelstrom” by Kevin Ikenberry
  • “Murder on Centauri” by Robert J. Mendenhall
  • “The Flight of the Salamander” by Violet Addison and David Smith
  • “Petrochemical Skies” by David Conyers and David Kernot
  • “The Hyphal Layer” by Meryl Ferguson
  • “Colloidal Suspension” by Geoff Nelder
  • “Super-Earth Mother” by Guy Immega
  • “Lightime” by Jay Caselberg
  • “The Seventh Generation” by Brian Stableford

Thanks to my own limited awareness of such things, I’d just kind of assumed that this was a small-to-middling project featuring small-to-middling names.If I’d known it was going to feature the likes of Brin, Benford, and Stableford I would have been a lot more scared about getting involved.

Too late now.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 at 10:47 am and is filed under writing news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Whoever
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Whoever
11 years ago

Chaosium? Cool. Only ever played their CoC, I think once at a con (and die hards of that system will swear it superior to the more recent d20 adapation), but they also handled Moorcock’s game adaptation(s) at least for a while. Good company.

Paula
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Paula
11 years ago

An off-topic comment here, Peter, but i’ve got to thank you for your posts about how the vacuum pump helped heal the wound on your leg. My dad is in hospital after a couple of strokes, unable to speak. He currently has a vacuum pump hooked up to an MRSA infection site on the feeding tube in his stomach. Since my dad can’t talk, my mother wondered how the wound felt as the suction was turned on. While I didn’t tell her why you had a wound, I was able to tell her a little about what you wrote about how the vacuum felt and how it helped you heal. Thanks, man.

nas
Guest
nas
11 years ago

Hmmm, and with a story called “Maelstrom” *not* by that Watts guy.

Nick Camm
Guest
Nick Camm
11 years ago

Now all you need is for someone to give it a good narration. Ahem.

John
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John
11 years ago

Good for ya’, PW. Get us a release date when the time draws nearer, please.
I was wondering about the source of the “I’m a Sexy Space Bunny but I’m spanxed for action” graphic. (winking smiley icon) It hearkened me back to the old days, reading Omni magazine.
I’ve been reading GK Chesterton lately, and noticed his affinity for descriptives like “sallow” and “hatchet-faced”. Are there any favorite terms in your writing?

pG
Guest
pG
11 years ago

Brin, Benford, Stableford, Watts.
Sounds about right to me.
Congratulations. Can’t wait to get my hands on that collection.
Now if you tried your hand at dirty limericks like Asimov….

Nick Camm
Guest
Nick Camm
11 years ago

Peter Watts: All I need is for someone to do an audiobook edition. Ahem. But if that happened you’d get the gig, for sure.

Ah, the dreaded *But*. It’s a good job I’m an actor with optimistic tendencies and obdurate waiting capabilities. I shall wait.

Sheila
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Sheila
11 years ago

Peter Watts,

You like informational topologies as well. I bought the audiobook of Blindsight recently and noticed that on the listen. Good way to explain Siri.

Docbrain
Guest
Docbrain
11 years ago

So, your new book will be edited in this anthology? And it is series of a books, or a one book? And what the dish, with so big boobs on a cover?

Alyx Dellamonica
Guest
11 years ago

New story! New Story!! Hurrah!!

Jeremy
Guest
Jeremy
11 years ago

Congratulations to all! Ill be keeping at eye out for this anthology on Amazon.

@Docbrain:

Big boobs + adolescent male readers = $$$

Mr Non-Entity
Guest
Mr Non-Entity
11 years ago

@Peter Watts: Using “Euclidean” isn’t to be thought a sin by those who are fans of HP Lovecraft. Of course, it’s even better if you’re over-using “non-Euclidean”. See also Algernon Blackwood, Stephen King, and Charles Stross. Either way, I certainly don’t mind, but I’m still a bit puzzled by all of that “benthic” stuff. 😉

@Generally Speaking: Although there are probably increasing numbers of females who like SF (and eventually non-fiction sciences), the core audience remains the sort of male teen who is both highly intelligent and imaginative, as well as eternally without a date probably until well after college. A cover with Space Girls In Tights is sure to catch their eye as well as, or better than, a Sports Illustrated cover with Nina Agdal. No disrespect to the Finnish supermodel, but she might not quite get ahead of the learning curve for patching those pesky meteoroid holes in the inflatable space-habitat, but Space Girl In Tights (theoretically) inspires the male teen SF fan because she’s not only dressed for the job rather than wearing a bikini, but is hot as well as being dressed for lunar excursions of the highly-technical kind. How this might appeal to female teen SF fans, I don’t actually know. But if it somehow does and will cause them to read this story collection where the gray eminences rub elbows with the rising talents, it’s still all good.

BTW whatever happened to “Feminist SF” as in James Tiptree Jr (Alice B Sheldon), Kate Wilhelm, or Joanna Russ? OMFG. Just noticed. RIP.

Michèle Laframboise
Guest
11 years ago

Hi Peter.

I did try for this antho, but none of my texts (translated from French) were ready enough, or the good lenght. Sigh.
Maybe next time!

Pad
Guest
Pad
11 years ago

(trying to type this on my first tablet PC, I apologise for any gobbledygook)
Sorry to read about your loss Mr Watts. I know you must be feeling really raw right now and I doubt that anything I, or anybody else can write will make any difference to you at the moment. But I hope that you can accept these words as the written equivalent of pat on the shoulder.

He was your dad and you loved him, that fact alone is enough.

Respectfully yours,
Pad