Jan. 2
3:38 PM
Year in Review + Folly Titbits
2012 rolled in like a hoop snake and crawled out like a tatzelwurm, if you follow me, a real cryptozoological clusterfuck. I'm glad to be shy of it, frankly, but that's not to say nothing of personal interest or import went down. With no further ado, then, this was 2012, or at least the bits I care to talk about:
- I read quite a few good books, many of which I've talked about here. I took part in Strange Horizons' reviewer year in review round robin and briefly covered my favorite reads of 2012 (or at least the works that bubbled up to the top of my brain at the time).
- My plans to attend Readercon and World Fantasy fell through, but I took part in paneling at several local cons, including Starfest and Mile Hi Con. The best part of these, as always, was meeting new people and seeing old friends. And talking shit in the bar, of course.
- The Enterprise of Death was shortlisted for a Kitschie Red Tentacle Award, which was rather exciting. Better even than the mega ego-boost to find myself nominated alongside China Miéville, Lavie Tidhar, Jane Rogers, and the ultimately triumphant Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd was getting to know judges Anne Perry, Justin Shurin, and Lauren Beukes after the awards were concluded. All three are marvelous, brilliant, funny people, and I'm glad to have met them.
- Two of the films I've been most looking forward to since, uh, ever came out! I talked about Prometheus here, because it was at least amusingly bad, but haven't been able to bring myself to talk about The Hobbit. I love Peter Jackson, have ever since I watched Bad Taste as a young creep, and love all three of his Lord of the Rings pictures. The Hobbit, though, was an unmitigated disaster of style over substance--gone were my beloved small scale conflicts and moral shades of grey, replaced with a LotR scale, gravitas, and black and white morality that I want no part of in my Hobbitses. So it goes.
- The Man with the Iron Fists, on the other hand, was everything you could possibly want from a Rza-directed kung-fu movie. Dopey and problematic, but a lot of fun!
- I was recently reminded of this gorgeous collection of (primarily erotic, NSFW) bookplates:
- I've been primarily laboring on this and that longer project, but also had a couple of short stories come out last year, and sold a few more which will be dropping this year.
- The first of the two pieces published last year was "HISTORYBOT Saves the Future," which appeared in Zombies vs Robots: This Means War! and is quite possibly the best short story I've ever written.
- The second story published in 2012 was a collaboration with Molly Tanzer called "Tubby McMungus, Fat from Fungus," which appeared in Fungi and is quite possibly the weirdest short story I've ever (co-)written.
- Some of the stories that I sold last year which should come out in 2013 are "Saturday's Children" (about NYC photographer Weegee teaming up with a local mambo to solve a rash of child abductions), "Porn Enough at Last" (gender-neutral erotica about a post-apocalyptic entrepreneur restoring the pornographic details to censored hentai), and "The Fox and the Quantum Physicist" (a modern fable).
Most important, though, is that my third novel snuck out at the tail end of the year. Since The Folly of the World has only been in the wild for a couple of weeks, I've got some links to interviews, guest blogs, etc. that have come out since my initial launch post:
- Jeremy L.C. Jones interviewed me at Clarkesworld.
- I did a "Writer's Read" column at The Campaign for the American Reader.
- And also a "Page 69 Test" column for the same folks.
- I missed it before, but HTMLGiant listed the book as one of their Holiday Shopping Guide Recommendations. (Thanks, Chris!)
- I also realize I neglected to post to any reviews the first time around, so here are some choice ones:
- Publisher's Weekly says, "Every page is saturated with wickedness and mischief." (Thanks PW!)
- Romantic Times gives it 4 1/2 stars and says, "(it) will keep you guessing at every turn. The language here is lyrical, bawdy and constantly challenging." (Thanks, Elise!)
- FantasyLiterature.com describes it as my best work to date, and says it is "filled with sexual tension, unwelcome surprises, and short lifespans, all of it weaved with masterful wordplay and dark humor." (Thanks Justin!)
- And UK review site The Bookbag says, "this dark and memorable novel, complete with its dark and memorable characters, is among the more distinctive and classifiable reads around." (Thanks John!)
As always, if you enjoy the novel I'd be most obliged if you could help spread the word about it however you can, be it through reviews on goodreads, Amazon, blogs, etc, or just telling your friends about it. This was the toughest novel I've yet written and took about three years to come together, so yeah, it obviously means the world to me to at last see all the hard work result in the beautiful edition Orbit has produced. I hope all that energy, time, inevitable frustration, and sure, love, has resulted in a work that you find worthy of your eyeballs ... and of course, thanks for reading!
Now, here's looking forward to '13--Cheers!