A Few More Things.

Art and updates, mainly: looks like I’m going to be back in Nantes this November for a return engagement at Utopiales, the massive French con that roots itself in Jules Verne’s home town. Caitlin and I were there back in 2010, and loved it. I am not just delighted to be going back, I am also surprised and deeply suspicious; it seems too soon for my name to have come ’round again. There’s a part of me that wonders if someone didn’t access an old guest list by mistake; or, worse, if this is some kind of cruel hoax.

Cover by Irek Konior

We’ll find out soon enough.

Keeping with the overseas motif, here’s the cover for MAG’s new short story collection, coming out this fall. To save you the trouble of typing into Google Translate, the title comes out as An Antidote for Optimism, and — as usual — the Poles seem congenitally incapable of producing cover art that is anything short of terrific. Given my strange and unexpected long-distance romance with that country over the past few years, it seems only right that this volume should represent the most comprehensive collection of my short fiction ever assembled in any language. Including my own website. (Which I really should rectify. Really, this time. Any month now.)

Finally, tracking north across the Baltic1, the latest issue of Tähtivaeltaja gears up for Finncon with a special section focusing on Guest of Honor Aliette de Bodard (whom I look forward to meeting because I have not yet and she seems to be everywhere) and including a translation of my fan-fic story “The Things”, which made its first appearance in Clarkesworld a couple years back. This time around, “The Things” is illustrated by Olli Hihnala. I do not know whether these superb illustrations are more typical of his style than the naked dude with the rainbow-spewing bearcat-head breasts who is under attack by six-gun-wielding skeletal monkeys astride ass-blasting flying zebras that adorns his web site. I cite both as evidence that at the very least, Mr. Hihnala has range. And these pics are a great fit for the story: strongly evocative of the look of the Carpenter film, while at the same time adding a layer of visual metaphor across the literal viscera. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, I think they’re just about perfect.

 

 

Used with Permission. Click to embiggen.

 

 

 


1 In which I hope harbor porpoises still reside, although they seemed to be on the ropes a few decades back when I was studying their kin across the sea.


This entry was posted on Monday, June 3rd, 2013 at 2:07 pm and is filed under ink on art, On the Road, public interface, 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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Demagog
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Demagog
10 years ago

Oh my god (replace with name of another probably not really existing being).
This is fantastic news.
Good to know, someone care about Polish readers.
I’d love to buy it as soon as possible.
Sometimes being Polish is good thing 🙂

But wait. I must end Behemot.
Too many good books for one year 😛

Nestor
Guest
10 years ago

Gorgeous art! You seem to be blessed in the cover and supporting art department.

Sheila
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Sheila
10 years ago

There should be an art book that collects neat covers and artwork by these artists, do you know if this exists?

(holy crap this just reminded me of an anxiety dream I had last night where I forgot that I was supposed move out in 6 hours and I only had someone with a jeep to help me move and I had shelves and shelves of books left in the house — I started triage and picked the hard to replace or enjoy in eink art books first but wasn’t sure I could go through all the shelves and was also freaking out about old favorite books I wouldn’t be able to find either…)

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db
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db
10 years ago

Oh my. The picture on that website is special.

safetyvalve
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safetyvalve
10 years ago

There are still porpoises in the Baltic and AFAIK they are still on the ropes.

http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=431006&lan=sv&clan=fi shows my own neighborhood of the Baltic (in Finnish language, the numbers on the map each represents an observation of one or more individuals).