warren_ellis

THE SPOILS by Zola Jesus is one of my favourite albums of this year.  But it’s kind of hard to find on CD.  (The mp3 download is easy to find, I’ve even seen it on Amazon, and got mine at eMusic.)  But now there’s a store open at zolajesus.com, where you can buy it, her other records, and a t-shirt that I’m going to pick up for Lili.

warren_ellis

Nick Barrucci from Dynamite Comics asked me to do him the favour of posting this. This seems like an entirely worthy charity, well deserving of your investigation:

Saved Whiskers Rescue Organization, Inc. announced today that world renowned painter Alex Ross has donated an original piece of classic Catwoman art to Saved Whiskers Rescue Organization, Inc. (S.W.R.O.). The piece was created exclusively for Saved Whiskers Rescue Organization to raise money to help rescue animals. The piece will be auctioned through Ebay at the following URL: eBayISAPI.dll-ViewItem&item=250524615645 . The piece is signed by Alex Ross and measures 10.75 inches wide by 23 inches tall and has never been seen anywhere…

Full press release at the link.

warren_ellis

TOTW is basically a joke that Ariana and I pull each week in our joint guise as the International Electrophonic Unit. Basically, we take some of the stupider things I’ve said on Twitter and elsewhere, often in a state of extreme alcoholic refreshment or severe sleep deprivation, and put them on a t-shirt. Ariana set up a Cafe Press store (because this is a joke and engaging with a serious maker of t-shirts would be less funny to us), and… well, once a week, here we are.

Through this website and this Cafe Press store, we’re going to release one t-shirt a week. It’ll go live on Monday… and it’ll die Sunday night — midnight UK time, more often than not. Each one lives for a week, and then it’s replaced by the next week’s shirt. Until I either run out of dumb ideas or Ariana’s brain explodes.

So, every Monday, I’ll post the new shirt here, and you can peer at it more at http://www.cafepress.com/electrophonic.

Anyway. I present to you T-Shirt Of The Week #003: FUCKABLE ZOMBIE:

We also offer a couple of perennial items. Mostly because I wanted one of these for myself:

(And also a MAN COOK MEAT WITH FIRE "splatter-shield", because Ariana’s crazy)

Thank you for your kind attention.

douglasnoble

Glad to see that the Doctor has continued to keep making his notes!

Originally published at Strip For Me. Please leave any comments there.

jeffvandermeer

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/11/09/bibliophile-stalker-best-of-2009-short-list/

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/?p=6133

Guest Blogger Charles Tan blogs at Bibliophile Stalker, The World SF News Blog, and SF Signal.

It’s not yet the end of the year and publications/companies/people are already publishing their “Best Of 2009″ lists. Don’t you find that annoying? (I, on the other hand, am trying to cram as much books that I haven’t yet read in this last two months.) Anyway, I’m following Andrew Wheeler’s advice on publishing my short list. At the end of the year, I’ll be publishing my top three titles in various categories over at my blog. I’m not an institution however so note that this list is very subjective and tentative (and I still have a lot of reading to catch up to!).

Some disclaimers though. While a lot of other publications focus on the novel, I tend to read more of anthologies and short story collections. And while we’re on the subject of short stories (and its ilk, the novelette and the novella), I don’t have access to to the Big Three genre magazines, so that also colors my preferences (I can’t evaluate what I haven’t read).

I like lists though because it generates discussion. What are your favorite titles in the various categories? Anything that I missed or should be reading? (On that note, China Mieville’s The City & The City has been bought but unread, and the same goes for John Joseph Adams’s Night Shade Books anthologies.)

Best Novel

• The Babylonian Trilogy by Sebastien Doubinsky (PS Publishing)
• Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (Spectra)
• Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press)
• The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (William Morrow)
• Slights by Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)

Best Novella

• “Delusion’s Song” by Alan Smale from Panverse One (Panverse Publishing)
• Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow (Tachyon Publications)
• Starfall by Stephen Baxter (PS Publishing)
• The Witnesses Are Gone by Joel Lane (PS Publishing)
• The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough (PS Publishing)

Best Novelette

• “Everland by Paul Witcover from Everland and Other Stories (PS Publishing)
• “Technicolor” by John Langan from Poe (Solaris Books)
• “It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith from Eclipse Three (Night Shade Books)
• “Don’t Mention Madagascar” by Pat Cadigan from Eclipse Three (Night Shade Books)
• “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria” by Carlos Hernandez from Interfictions 2 (Small Beer Press)

Best Short Story

• “Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy” by Catherynne M. Valente from Federations (Prime Books)
• “SO-far” by Otsuichi from ZOO (Haikasoru)
• “The Cinderella Game” by Kelly Link from Troll’s Eye View (Viking Juvenille)
• “At the Edge of Dying” by Mary Robinette Kowal from Clockwork Phoenix 2 (Norilana Books)
• “The Best Monkey” by Daniel Abraham from The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume 3 (Solaris Books)
• “Artis Eterne” from Cern Zoo (Megazanthus Press)
• “Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken” by Elizabeth Ziemska from Interfictions 2 (Small Beer Press)

Best Original Anthology

• Poe edited by Ellen Datlow (Solaris Books)
• Philippine Speculative Fiction IV edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Nikki Alfar (Kestrel IMC) — disclosure: I’m included in this anthology.
• Eclipse Three by edited Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books)
• Firebirds Soaring edited by Sharyn November (Firebird)
• Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing edited by Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak (Small Beer Press)

Best Reprint Anthology

• Best American Fantasy 2 edited by Jeff & Ann VanderMeer (Prime Books)
• Year’s Best Fantasy 9 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (Tor Books)
• The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology edited by Gordon Van Gelder (Tachyon Publications)
• The Best Horror of the Year Volume One edited by Ellen Datlow (Night Shade Books)
• The Secret History of Science Fiction edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel (Tachyon Publications)

Best Short Story Collection

• The Best of Michael Moorcock edited by John Davey with Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon Publications)
• Everland and Other Stories by Paul Witcover (PS Publishing)
• We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon Publications)
• ZOO by Otsuichi (Haikasoru)

Best Single-Issue Magazine

• New Genre #6
• Sybil’s Garage No. 6
• Icarus #1
• Farrago Wainscot October 2009
• GUD Magazine #4

Best Genre Podcast

• Sofanauts
• Adventures in SciFi Publishing
• The Dragon Page
• The Agony Column
• I Should Be Writing

Special Award

• Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon Publications)

Best Non-Genre Book for a Genre Reader

• The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Picador)

jonathancarroll

http://www.jonathancarroll.com/blog1/2009/11/carrollblog_119_7.html

One of my favorite Beatles songs is "A Hard Day's Night" despite the fact the first time I ever heard it was while sitting in the backseat of a police car on the way to the town police station where we had to give statements about how we had just found the body. So naturally ever after when I hear the song I think back to that day and remember the radio DJ excitedly saying "And now the new song by The Beatles!"
My sister worked at the town theater that summer. They were about to open for the season and wanted as much PR as possible. So she hired my pal Joe and me for five dollars each to go down to the railroad station and hand out flyers announcing the first performance to commuters as they boarded early morning trains to NY. The station was right next to the Hudson river so when there was a lull between trains, Joe and I walked over to the water and threw stones in. He threw, I threw, he threw, I threw. Sometimes we did it for distance, sometimes we threw to see who could get their stone to skip the most times across the water. Joe eventually found a large stone and heaved it in with all his might. It hit something. That something moved and suddenly a large inverted "V" appeared in the water about twenty feet out. We stared at it for a while until one of us, I don't remember who, said "It's an elbow!" Joe ran back to the station to call the police while I waded into the water to get whatever it was. When I was in up to my chest I reached the elbow which was now rocking back and forth in the water current. I took hold of the arm and slowly pulled it toward me. It moved easily and now I could see down into the water. It was a girl. She was wearing a white bra and underpants and long dark hair obscured her face. The one thing I remember most vividly was being calm. I was probably 11 or 12 at the time and as skittish as any kid that age, but for some mysterious reason seeing the body didn't scare or make me nervous. To this day I do not know why that was. Holding the dead girl's arm, I calmly decided the best thing I could do was pull her back to shore. It was a short way and easy to do. Back on land, I reached down into the water and taking hold of her shoulders, pulled her up onto the small beach. She was in rigor mortis by then. One arm was crooked in that "V" position, the other was across her chest, as if even in death she was trying modestly to cover herself. One of her knees was bent. Across her face something that looked like whipped egg white completely hid her features. Without thinking, I reached down and wiped the frothy stuff off. She was very pretty. Her expression was peaceful-- as if she were only sleeping. I had never seen her before. I don't know how long I was there alone with her but the whole time was peaceful. She was dead and I was keeping her company until someone arrived. Someone who would take over and know what to do with her. And eventually they did.
Years later I decided to use that event in my novel KISSING THE BEEHIVE. The oddest part was before beginning the book, I wrote to the town police department asking to see their records on the case. Back then the only thing I heard about it was a rumor that the girl-- who came from the next town over-- had been murdered by her boyfriend and thrown into the river. But the police wrote to me and said they no longer had any records of the case. They doubted if any even existed after three decades. I was amazed. I did further research but no one anywhere in the county had information. It was as if the event had never taken place. Stephanie Wendel. That was her name. I hope I am spelling it correctly. Last year I learned that my friend Joe died too a long time ago. On hearing that, part of me wondered if they might have met up somewhere in the land beyond and talked about this.