Interview

Podcast: Lou Anders and Rick Kleffel Discuss the New Fantasy

1 Comment /

I’m up on Rick Kleffel’s Agony Column podcast talking about what Rick calls “The New Fantasy,” and covering works by Joe Abercrombie, Tom Lloyd, Joel Shepherd, James Enge, Justina Robson, Mark Chadbourn, Matthew Sturges, Chris Roberson and others. We even discuss Doctor Who‘s latest casting announcement and the effect Obama may have on genre fiction. Here’s the direct link, and the show is available via iTunes as well (it’s episode 555).

Rick writes:

“What’s darker, grittier and sells better than expected in days such as these which are already dark and gritty enough without the help of excellent fantasy writers? Well, it’s what I’m going to call for want of a better term, The New Fantasy, and since Lou Anders of Pyr Books is publishing a boatload of it in the upcoming months, I thought I’d give him a call. Lou Anders is a lucky guy. His job is to read a bunch of great fiction and then publish it, and as it happens — or at least as he observes and I concur — fiction does well during recessions. So what’s going to happen to the fiction market during a full-blown, we’re-wearin’-barrels Depression? Looks like it’s boom times for genre fiction. Lou and I explored The New Fantasy and talked about Pyr’s and other publishers current and upcoming titles.”

Podcast: Lou Anders and Rick Kleffel Discuss the New Fantasy Read More »

Podcast: Yours Truly at SciFi Dimensions

John C. Snider interviews me for the SciFiDimensions Podcast. You can hear in streaming from his website, or you can search iTunes for “SciFiDimensions.” I’ve not listened to it yet, so no idea how I come off, but it felt like a very thorough interview at the time. We talk about Fast Forward 2,Pyr, the art of John Picacio, and many more topics besides. He’s a good interviewer, (and hit me with a curve ball out of the gate. Not that I’m saying that’s a criteria for a good interview!) He also interviews Tim Lasuita, licensing director for Jack Lake Productions, a Canadian company involved in reprinting Classics Illustrated. Cool!

John also reviews Fast Forward 2 on his blog.

There’s no theme to the Fast Forward series, other than excellence in storytelling. The stories in FF2 cover the spectrum of sub-genres, from near-future parables to far-future space opera, from post-cyberpunk to hard SF; from cautionary tales a la The Twilight Zone to uplifting vignettes that affirm the best in human nature. With such a wide selection of styles and themes, it should come as no surprise that not every entry will appeal to every reader. At the very least, FF2 is like a Whitman Sampler; a little something for everyone, and if you find a story you like, it’ll be from a writer with plenty of other work you can chase down later.

Podcast: Yours Truly at SciFi Dimensions Read More »

Lou is Omnivoracious

14 Comments /

Over on Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog, an interview with Yours Truly conducted by the great Jeff Vandermeer and regarding Fast Forward 2. Here’s a taste:

Amazon.com: When you edit an original anthology series where you solicit stories only, how do you protect against mediocre material creeping in?

Lou Anders: The very wise Jacob Weisman, editor and publisher of Tachyon Publications, once said that when selecting illustrators for book covers, you shouldn’t pick based on the best work in an artists portfolio, but based on their worst. Because, he said, you had to be willing to live with the worst piece in the portfolio if that is what they hand in. That’s one of the most helpful pieces of publishing advice I’ve ever encountered, and it rules all of my own cover art decisions at Pyr. But it also has applications to editing invite-only anthologies. As much as I’d like to, I can’t do open-reads anthologies and still fulfill my job as Editorial Director of the Pyr science fiction and fantasy line. There just aren’t enough hours in the year. But I love the short form and I want to always work in it, and so I must do invite-only. Therefore, I believe very strongly that the moment of editorial discernment falls at the point of the invitation. The best piece of general business advice anyone can give you is this hire people smarter than you are and listen to them. I believe, firmly, that I am working with some of the best writers in the business, and I trust them to deliver. I avoid mediocre material by avoiding mediocre writers!

Lou is Omnivoracious Read More »

Today: a Shifting Balance of Power on a Global Level

No, I’m not talking about the election (though I’m off to vote just as soon as I blog this). What I am on about – over on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, there’s a great interview with Tom Lloyd, author of the just-released-and-kickin’-butt The Stormcaller: Book One of the Twilight Reignseries.

Tom says:

“Stormcaller is, at its heart, a story about a shifting balance of power on a global level. For various reasons, the object intended to engineer this change is a young man called Isak, who is thrown into events and expected to sink or swim. All the plans that have been building over the past years and centuries are about to bear fruit and Isak is going to find all of this being played out around him. In plot terms, each of the Seven Tribes of Man are ruled by white-eyes, divinely blessed warriors with bulging muscles and a nasty temper. Isak is raised from poverty to the post of heir-elect of one of the most powerful tribes and soon realises that this isn’t even the most dramatic or terrifying of the changes planned for his life.”

And while we’re on the subject of (ahem) changes, you can see the US version of the cover of book two, The Twilight Herald, (ahem) changed from the UK, on Amazon now. Both US covers are from the amazing Todd Lockwood, whose company I just enjoyed in Calgary this past weekend, where he was Artist Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention. As nice a fellow as he is good a painter.

Today: a Shifting Balance of Power on a Global Level Read More »

Todd Lockwood’s The Stormcaller, From Sketch to Finish

Over on Tor.com, art director Irene Gallo has just posted “Todd Lockwood’s Stormcaller, from Sketch to Finish” a very in-depth breakdown of the evolution of the cover for our forthcoming title, The Stormcaller: Book One of the Twilight Reign,by Tom Lloyd. With quotes from Yours Truly and a LOT of commentary from Lockwood himself, and 20 different sketches, roughs and detailed close-ups, the post is well worth checking out.

Todd Lockwood’s The Stormcaller, From Sketch to Finish Read More »

Justina Robson on Keeping It Real

As I reported earlier, writer/co-executive producer of Stargate: Atlantis Joseph Mallozzi featured Justina Robson’s Keeping It Realon his blog’s book club discussion. I’m a few days late on gettting the link up, but Justina has now answered, indepthly, all his readers questions. The full interview is up here. And here’s one of my favorite bits:

The demons and devils were really refreshing to work on for me. I’ve been a Christian fundamentalist of a kind in my youth, and an occult student, and a devotee of all things theological and then I discarded formal approaches and religions altogether for a kind of atheism and went on a more personal kind of spiritual quest, which I am still on. But I used to have very fixed ideas and literal notions of all kinds of things and being able to finally sift through all that and find my version of what the truth is was just tremendously exciting and liberating. Of course it’s just my version and although I’m passionate about writing this stuff and feeling it’s true I know it’s only a way of seeing things. Hence the book’s title.

And, of course, the third book in the Quantum Gravity series, Going Under,was just recently released. You can read a substantial excerpt on our new sample pages site here.

Justina Robson on Keeping It Real Read More »

Joe Abercrombie Speaks (again)!

Joe Abercrombie is interviewed by Andrew Brooks on SFRevu,
wherein he says many things about the just-released Last Argument of Kings, and the trilogy it completes, including:

I read a lot of history, and my observation has been that failures, mistakes, and idiocy are frequently much more important in the course of events than successes. I hadn’t seen that much failure and stupidity in fantasy so I was keen to redress the balance. I wanted my characters grimy, flawed, and difficult, as I have observed real people generally to be, so it made sense that my mismatched group of champions should mostly despise each other throughout. A couple learn grudging respect for one member of the team or another, but in the main they hate each other just as much at the end as they did to begin with.

John Berlyne also reviews the book for the site, and says, “The First Law is, I strongly believe, a seminal work of modern fantasy. It is a benchmark sequence that should be regarded as an example of all that is truly great in today’s genre fiction. It stands way above the vast majority of the marketplace, tainted as so many fantasy works are with the lofty and portentous myth cycles bequeathed to us by Tolkien. Instead, Abercombie’s work reflects today’s harsher world within its pages. This is fantasy come of age, a tale for a modern generation, a story for the selfish — for a harder, more self-aware audience, for people who live in today’s litigious, cynical, unforgiving society. You know who you are! Very highly recommended.”

Joe Abercrombie Speaks (again)! Read More »

Mind Meld: Is it Time for Star Wars to Go?

SF Signal is back with another Mind Meld, this one asking, “Is it time for Star Wars to go on hiatus for a long while, or is there hope the new, live-action TV series will breathe new life into the series?”

Answers are from such notables as Keith R.A. DeCandido, John C. Wright, Pete Tzinsky, John Hemry, Bruce Bethke, Jeff Patterson, Jeanne Cavalos, Andrew Wheeler, and Yours Truly. My favorite response comes from Andrew Wheeler, who says, “Actually, ‘The Star Wars Franchise’ is one of those wonderful fannish constructions, which has always existed more fully in the collective consciousness than in reality (and even more so in the rationalizations of a million fans talking at once). Consider Boba Fett — the biggest badass in the galaxy, on the basis of about five lines of dialogue and some battered old armor. Fett’s image was almost entirely constructed by the fans’ desires and dreams, goaded on by the fact that his action figure was a rare giveaway when they were mostly young and impressionable.”

Mind Meld: Is it Time for Star Wars to Go? Read More »

Mind Meld: Favorite Examples of World Building

The guys at SFSignal are back with another Mind Meld question, this one asking, “Which sf/f story is your favorite example of worldbuilding? Why?”

Answers from such notables as Joe Abercrombie, Karl Schroeder, Nancy Kress, Orson Scott Card, Mike Brotherton, Jeffrey Ford, Jeff Vandermeer, Mike Resnick, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Jeff Somers, Paul Levinson, and Yours Truly.

This bit from Orson Scott Card caught my eye: “Science fiction is, in many ways, DEFINED by world creation. Anybody who’s any good in this field knows how to create worlds, at least well enough to get by. So what we tend to value are the worlds that surprise us. The master of the surprising yet apt detail is Bruce Sterling; I point to his “Green Days in Brunei” as an exemplar.”

Mind Meld: Favorite Examples of World Building Read More »

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top