Warren Rochelle's novel, Harvest of Changelings (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-46-3), was reviewed by Tom Easton in his "The Reference Library" column in the December Analog: "Rochelle is a careful writer with a gift for making almost all his characters come alive, and the reader roots for the good guys and condemns the bad guys with a will. . . . there’s a lot at stake, and it all comes down to a final hell-ride in a church van driven by a changeling priest. At this point even a reader who thinks it’s all predictable is on the edge of his or her seat. Great fun, well done, and Rochelle deserves loads of fans."

A second story from Bruce McAllister's collection, The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-49-4), has been podcast courtesy of website Escape Pod. In addition to short story "Kin" (a 2007 Hugo Award finalist), readers can now listen to (or download) "Stu." Damien G. Walter provided feedback on Escape Pod after listening to the story, and summed it all up quite succinctly: ". . . not much action but that doesn’t mean nothing much happened. It takes the narrator from naive young boy to a grown man who has learnt a strong moral lesson. That's quite a thing to show in a short story." Readers (or should I say "listeners") might want to check in at Escape Pod regularly as other stories from McAllister's collection may be podcast in the near future.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008!

2007 World Fantasy Awards

Also announced during the World Fantasy Convention were the International Horror Guild Awards. Artist John Picacio was the MC for the awards ceremony, but he had to step aside when the award for Best Art was announced since his art book, Cover Story, was one of the finalists. John won the IHG Award in a tie with artist Aeron Alfrey. Congrats to John (and Aeron), and be sure to check out Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio from MonkeyBrain Books because it showcases a lot of John's Golden Gryphon Press cover art.

Reviews

As for our 2007 titles, Sheila Finch's collection The Guild of Xenolinguists (ISBN-13: 978-1-930846-48-7) has been named one of the Kansas City Star's Top 100 Noteworthy Books of 2007! KCS's web site lists all Top 100 titles. The Guild of Xenolinguists has also been reviewed in the Midwest Book Review's California Bookwatch: "In most science fiction novels the challenges and impossibilities of inter-species communication is overcome by the presence of a 'universal translator' — or just not mentioned. So, it's intriguing to see a novel based around communication challenges . . . and these short stories center around Guild challenges and achievements, offering up detailed and complex story lines perfect for any serious science fiction collection seeking a blend of strong plot and technological insight."

In his column "The Reference Library" in the December ish of Analog, Tom Easton reviews George Alec Effinger's collection A Thousand Deaths (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-47-0): "The late George Alec Effinger was a seminal figure in SF, much appreciated by many readers, among whom must be counted Mike Resnick . . . the stories themselves, in Mike's words, are 'the most creative, the most off-the-wall stories that George or just about anyone else ever put to paper.' People who write introductions can be forgiven for waxing a bit hyperbolic. That's what they're supposed to do, after all! You'll enjoy finding out whether Mike needs forgiveness."

And our two World Fantasy Award-winning authors, Jeffrey Ford and M. Rickert, have had their respective titles blogged recently. RobB's "Blog o' Stuff" reviews Ford's The Empire of Ice Cream (ISBN 1-930846-39-8) on November 25: "For all the awards, [Ford's] writing deserves a much bigger audience. . . . What I’ve read from Mr. Ford has been spectacular, and his most recent collection is no exception. . . . What we have here is a writer unrestrained by bounds of genre and imagination. Jeffrey Ford’s writing has such an authenticity about it, you cannot help but trust that the stories he tells have a ring of truth to them. More importantly, you want to believe them as real and yearn for the next stories to be told." And the Other Fantasy Admins have posted a review of M. Rickert's Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4) on their "OF Blog of the Fallen" for October 28: "There are scenes of obsession and terror, but also tender and moving moments. In his Afterword, editor Gordon Van Gelder compares Rickert's stories to those of the great magic realists, such as Gabriel García Márquez, especially for how the events in 'The Chambered Fruit' unfold and conclude. There is something to this, I agree, but I ought to note that Rickert is not slavish in holding to this form, as each of her stories shows a willingness to experiment. The results may not always be pretty, but I found them to be enjoyable, provocative stories that have stuck in my head perhaps a bit more than the others."

That brings us up to date for now, however we have plans for one final year-end update around mid-December. See you then.

Recently, we learned that the 2008 Futurama calendar from HarperCollins includes this entry note for April 3, 2008: "Read Jeffrey Ford's Empire of Ice Cream." Contratulations, Jeff —kick back, relax, and enjoy a beer and cigar; and next April 3, we hope to see a spike in sales of The Empire of Ice Cream.

<>Review, more reviews, and an interview<>

As has been previously mentioned here, two of our authors — Jeffrey Ford and M. Rickert — have three nominations each for the upcoming (November 4) World Fantasy Awards. Two of the three nominations for each author is for work published by Golden Gryphon Press: Jeffrey Ford's collection The Empire of Ice Cream has been nominated for Best Single-Author Collection, and the original novella, "Botch Town," included in the collection, has been nominated for Best Novella. Also, Mary Rickert's collection Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4) has been nominated for Best Single-Author Collection, and the title story has been nominated for Best Novella. Unfortunately, Jeff and Mary are competing (I wish there was a better word that I could use that wasn't so . . . umm . . . competitive!) against one another with all three of their nominations, which is a shame simply because both authors have written such quality work that both deserve to win. Best wishes to both Jeff and Mary on their World Fantasy Award nominations.

And since we've mentioned Map of Dreams, we'll share with you a snippet from a review in Fantasy Magazine: "M. Rickert is easily one of the most exciting new writers to appear in the fantasy field over the past several years. Her stories are lyrical and odd, often myth-derived, often intriguingly framed. Story collections for new writers who have not yet published a novel used to be rare, but they are common these days. Sometimes such collections seem too early, but for Rickert such a collection is, if anything, overdue. . . . This is an essential collection by a superb writer."

Our most recent release, Bruce McAllister's The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-49-4), has been reviewed by Kilian Melloy on EDGE Boston: "Bruce McAllister has been a past master at American speculative fiction for decades, now, and is still going strong, as evidenced by the nomination of his short story, "Kin," for a Hugo Award this year. "Kin" is included in McAllister’s new collection of stories . . . along with 16 other selections, ranging from the far-flung, far-future "Assassin" to the flat-out funny and nostalgic look at 1950s horror movies that is "Hero, The Movie" (which . . . this is true . . . started off as a treatment for a movie for the sci-fi action-flick producer Gale Ann Hurd). . . . Golden Gryphon Press has never issued a book that did not feel essential for the well-stocked library of speculative fiction . . ."

Also, in support of the release of The Girl Who Loved Animals, Bruce McAllister is interviewed in-depth by Kilian Melloy. When asked the question: "When you see a collection of stories, like this new one, is it like flipping through a photo album or going to a reunion to see old friends?" McAllister responds in part: "What an interesting question. Both, I guess. . . . In the story notes, what I try to relate is what, in my own life, those stories meant, and where they came from. Many of the story notes are disguised letters, I suppose, to younger writers, basically to what I once was; a way to speak over the decades to them. Others are thanks — in personal story form — to people I feel very grateful for, the mentors and friends in my life, presented in a way I think is interesting to strangers." You can read the full interview at the link above.

Barnes & Noble now has a new online review magazine, simply titled Barnes & Noble Review. The premier issue contained a review of George Alec Effinger’s latest collection, A Thousand Deaths (ISBN 978-1-930846-47-0); the review was conducted by the eminent short story writer Paul Di Filippo. In the review, Paul writes: "If Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Sheckley had heard only a rumor of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930) and then decided to collaborate on trying to reproduce that hypothetical Ur-text, they might possibly have come up with a novel as tragicomically unsettling as Effinger's The Wolves of Memory (1981). . . . This absurdist, melancholy novel is the centerpiece of the generous omnibus A Thousand Deaths, which also features seven short stories starring Courane. But Effinger's trickster impulses insure that Courane dies and is reborn in a variety of contradictory, outrageously inventive roles. A combination of Kilgore Trout and Wile E. Coyote, Courane stood in for Effinger and his ill-starred life — a biography heartbreakingly summarized in Andrew Fox's compassionate afterword."

Last, but certainly not least, we have a Booklist review for Warren Rochelle’s novel Harvest of Changelings (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-46-3): "Ben Tyson was an ordinary man with an extraordinary wife, Valeria, a Daoine Sidhe, until the Fomorii, enemies of Faerie, killed her, leaving Ben to raise their son, Malachi. Ten years on, Malachi's fairy powers manifest, but because he is only half fairy, he cannot control them. . . . As magic becomes visible, ordinary people panic, and the tetrad race to reach the nearest Faerie gate . . .The sensory details of the North Carolina primary setting and the multifaceted characters come alive in Rochelle's hands. . . . this is an absorbing fantasy full of sympathetic characters."

As always, links to the full reviews can be found for each book in our online Catalog.

Now, on to the reviews . . .

Our most recent release, Bruce McAllister's The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-49-4), received a very fine review in the October 1 ish of Booklist: "In stories spanning his more-than-30-year career, McAllister creates characters and places with haunting presence. . . . McAllister's notes are almost as fascinating as the stories themselves, and the glimpse he affords into his research is thought provoking. As represented by this collection, McAllister's work is distinguished by a stunning array of ideas and a depth of characterization that is impressive in such short pieces."

We're certainly pleased that Booklist chose to acknowledge McAllister's story notes in its review of The Girl Who Loved Animals. These notes comprise nearly 10,000 words on the genesis of each story, and include the author's personal and professional relationships that influenced his life and work. Not to be missed!

Midwest Book Review looks at two of our earlier 2007 books: Of George Alec Effinger's A Thousand Deaths, MBR writes: "Eight stories represent fine Sandor Courane thrillers, with the opening novel 'The Wolves of Memory' telling of a bleak Earth ruled by intelligent, near-human computers. . . . Science fiction fans will find it a winning story and any serious collection appealing to genre readers will want this." And MBR had this to say in its review of Warren Rochelle's Harvest of Changelings: ". . . a fantastic novel about a single father's efforts to save his half-fairy son. . . . Ben and [his son] Malachi are caught up amid the clash of good and evil forces in this enchanting adventure of the bridge between two realities." As mentioned in a previous update, Harvest had also received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. And speaking of Harvest, reviewer-at-large Kilian Melloy gives this novel a stunning review on SFSite: "Harvest of Changelings features everything that makes fantasy a potentially great genre: epic struggles between good and evil; a blend of realism and magic; an enchanted view of the various fantastical species that dwell in realms other than our own, and sometimes trespass here softly or in malicious, murderous force. . . . In this story, as in others of its ilk, it's the outcast or the stranger who is the hero. Whether it's because of a sensitive temperament, or a different sexuality, or an outstanding talent, the best fantasy books address human diversity and human potential as part of the central metaphor. Rochelle understands this instinctively, and his book is vibrantly constructed along exactly those lines, which makes this novel about flying children, otherworldly realms, and magical chaos seem, despite it all, relevant and down to earth."

This is probably one of the best online reviews (of any book, in fact) that we've read in quite some time: Melloy not only discusses the overall themes and events of the story, typical of a review, but he also focuses on each of the main characters, providing insight into the story as well. A detailed and articulate review.

=> Now Shipping! <=

The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories is now shipping direct from Golden Gryphon Press, though online and retail outlets may not have the title until its official publication date of October 1. You can order now through PayPal on goldengryphon.com or send a check, money order, or credit card information to Golden Gryphon Press, 3002 E. Perkins Road, Urbana, IL 61802-7730.

=> Reviews and More <=

Warren Rochelle and his new novel Harvest of Changelings (ISBN 13: 978-1-930846-46-3) have received a great deal of positive press of late, including a review and mini interview in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, Free Lance-Star, as well as a review in Linear Reflections & City View Magazine. In the Lance-Star, columnist Lucia Anderson sets the stage for the novel: "The protagonist, Ben, is a prosaic librarian, toiling away at the reference desk in the county library while trying to raise his young son, Malachi. That Malachi is the result of Ben's union with a fairy is not ordinary, and that's the reader's door into Rochelle's eerie world. . . . There are centaurs and dragons, demons and witches. The battles between light and dark escalate in violence as Ben seeks frantically to get Malachi and his friends safely into Faerie, where they will be safe." And in Linear Reflections, Naomi De Bruyn writes: "I’d been looking forward to reading this book ever since I first caught wind of it. The idea of half-elven children in our midst isn’t a new one . . . but with Warren’s exceptional skill the premise broadens into a tale that is a delectable feast for the imagination."

A graduate from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Rochelle studied under the tutelage of Poet Laureate Emeritus Fred Chappell, who won the 2005 Thomas Wolfe Prize, which honors his impressive body of work. The June 2007 UNCG Alumni & Friends e-newsletter includes a quote from Chappell on Harvest of Changelings: "We find a cast of strong and sympathetic characters that I would want to have on my side. Perhaps a new beatitude is discovered: the broken shall mend the earth. Warren Rochelle's new novel is a beautiful, dangerous experience."

Warren Rochelle is currently an Associate Professor of English at University of Mary Washington. The May 22, 2007, UWM online News had this to say about Rochelle's new novel: "More than a straightforward fairy tale, this is a story of the Other: those who are different — physically, mentally and in their lifestyles. The four part-fairy children are taunted by their classmates because of these differences; two have been abused by their parents. All four are outsiders. As they find each other, they find they must learn how to survive together, and unite to overcome the apathy and prejudice of humans, as well as the evil Fomorii."

As always, the full reviews of the above excerpts, along with additional information on all of our books, can be found in the Golden Gryphon online Catalog.

Lastly, we have some news about Charles Stross's first book in his "Bob Howard / The Laundry" series, The Atrocity Archives. Typically we don't mention when our books are reprinted by other publishers, but this is a bit of an exception. Atrocity has recently been published by Orbit Books in the U.K. in an electronic format — either as an Adobe e-book or a Microsoft e-book — for the price of £3.00 (which I believe is about $6.00 in good ole US currency). You can order the e-book version of The Atrocity Archives direct from WHSmith eBooks. I suspect that if this e-book does well, then The Jennifer Morgue will also be made available in e-book format when it is released by Orbit Books next month.

** World Fantasy Awards Finalists! **

Jeffrey Ford's collection The Empire of Ice Cream (ISBN 1-930846-39-8) has been nominated for Best Collection; and "Botch Town," the original story included in the collection, has been nominated for Best Novella. Jeff also has a Best Short Story nomination but for a story not published by Golden Gryphon Press. In 2003, Jeff won two World Fantasy Awards for Best Collection (The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories) and Best Short Fiction ("Creation," also included in the collection).

M. Rickert's collection Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4) has been nominated for Best Collection; and the title story, "Map of Dreams," which is original to the collection, has been nominated for Best Novella. And not to be outdone by Mr. Ford, Ms. Rickert also has a Best Short Story nomination for a story published elsewhere. Map of Dreams recently won the William L. Crawford Award for best first book by a new fantasy writer.

I don't know if three World Fantasy Award nominations in three different categories in the same year is a record or not, but I'm pleased that two Golden Gryphon Press authors are sharing this experience.

I also wanted to recognize John Picacio — cover artist for Ford's The Empire of Ice Cream, among many other Golden Gryphon Press titles — who has been nominated for Best Artist. John previously won the Best Artist Award at the 2005 World Fantasy Convention. Also nominated in the Best Artist category is Edward Miller, who you may recall did the cover art for Robert Reed's second collection, The Cuckoo's Boys, in 2005.

And I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that Joe R. Lansdale has been nominated in the Best Anthology category as editor for two different titles (not published by Golden Gryphon Press).

The World Fantasy Awards will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention, to be held in Saratoga, New York, November 1-4. Congratulations once again to all the authors and artists, and all best wishes upon your nominations!

View the complete list of the 2007 World Fantasy Award nominations.

** Now Shipping! **

The June 18 issue of Publishers Weekly contained a stunning review of The Guild of Xenolinguists: "Nebula-winner Finch's many fans as well as SF readers who have yet to encounter her work will welcome this collection of 10 short stories and a novella that showcase her unique contribution to the genre. Making excellent use of her graduate work in linguistics, Finch creates the Guild of Xenolinguists (later called lingsters), a formal organization devoted to translating the languages of other worlds. Much as Asimov did with the Three Laws of Robotics, Finch creatively examines the conflicts stemming from adherence to the guild's strict rules. The stories span a wide range, from "First Was the Word," a brief tale setting the stage for the development of the guild, to the moving "A World Waiting" and "A Flight of Words," which present their protagonists with morally difficult situations — tortured prisoners, conflicting religious beliefs, abortion — that hold significant contemporary resonance. A thoughtful foreword by New Wave luminary Ian Watson and an engaging afterword by Finch (Birds) discuss the linguistic theories that underlie the fiction."

We've also just posted the wraparound dust jacket art by multi Hugo Award winner Bob Eggleton. Again, don't forget to let us know in your order is you would like an autographed copy of The Guild of Xenolinguists.

** Reviews **

We don't typically mention reprints of our titles that are released by other publishers, but we're making an exception in this case because the review appears from Mitch Wagner in Information Week's "Digital Life Weblog" for July 17, 2007. Wagner writes about the Ace Books edition of The Atrocity Archives: "You don't have many IT-manager action heroes in science fiction. Sure, you have a lot of hackers, breaking into networks and subverting authority. But not a lot of science-fiction heroes save the universe in between staff meetings, working the help desk, and rebooting the file server. . . . Not until Bob Howard, the hero of The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross. . . . I recommend Stross' novels and short fiction to any science-fiction fan, but I always feel a special connection to them because of our shared professional background — not just in the tech industry, but in tech journalism."

The second review, for Stross's more recent "Bob Howard/The Laundry" novel, The Jennifer Morgue, is from issue #250 of Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. The review has been reprinted online courtesy of Velcro City: "In many ways, The Jennifer Morgue is a work of metafiction — a playful, knowing and openly self-confessed deconstruction of James Bond novel and movie plots, mocking them and revelling in them at the same time. Each supporting character is a gag or cliché in his or her own right. . . . Bob doesn’t get Bond's Aston Martin and Walther PPK, but has to make do with a two-seater Smart car and a Treo smartphone that fires silver-jacketed exorcism rounds. Bob’s innate cynicism comes through in the first-person narration, which deflects the outright silliness of the ideas into the realm of tragic comedy and farce and avoids the snake-pit of superficial spoof. . . . It's a fun book. And it's funny too, provided you either know the Bond clichés backwards or you’re a paid-up member of the geek-and-proud subculture . . ."

<> And Still More Award News (plus a clarification) <>

In other award news, the finalists for the International Horror Guild (IHG) Award have been announced. M. Rickert's first collection, Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4), has been nominated for Best Single-Author Collection, and John Picacio's Cover Story (which features oodles of John's Golden Gryphon Press cover art) has been nominated for the Best Art Award. Other nominees (but for work published elsewhere) include M. Rickert again (Mid-Length Fiction category), Joe R. Lansdale (Anthology category), and J. K. Potter (Art category). The IHG Awards will be presented on November 1, 2007, during the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York. Again, congratulations to all our authors and artists.

<> The Review <>

* And Yet More Award News *

Speaking of awards, Bob Eggleton discusses his current Hugo Award nomination for Best Artist in an interview conducted by Gayle Surrette for SF Revu. In the interview, Bob also anwers questions about working in the field, his inspirations, and art itself.

* The Death of SCIFICTION *

Many of the collections we've published over the years have contained stories originally published on SCIFICTION. I've had links to these stories on the various book catalog pages, stories like M. Rickert's "Anyway"; Jeffrey Ford's "The Empire of Ice Cream," "The Far Oasis," and "Floating in Lindrethool"; Dale Bailey's "In Green's Dominion"; Bruce McAllister's "Stu"; and Richard Bowes's "From the Files of the Time Rangers." The SCIFICTION archives comprise nearly 7,000 files (trust me, I counted them!) and approximately 90 megs of disk space — very VERY insignificant in the overall scheme of things for a large entity such as SciFi.com. Hmmm . . . wouldn't all that data easily fit on a USB flash drive? Aren't these flash drives also called "thumb drives" because of their physical size? Note to SciFi.com: Costco has a 2 gig USB flash drive (Isn't that like 2,048 megs?) for $27.49 (plus tax!). Anyhow, I had ten html pages that I had to update, to remove the links to SCIFICTION, but I suspect there are tens of thousands of links worldwide that will sadly be broken after tomorrow.

Regardless, I want to take this opportunity to thank SciFi.com, and especially Ms. Ellen Datlow, for allowing us the pleasure of reading some brilliant new fiction (much of it award winning or award nominated), along with a host of not-to-be-forgotten classic stories, during these past seven years.

* Recent Reviews *

Our last review is for M. Rickert's Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4) in Linear Reflections & City View Magazine. Reviewer Naomi De Bruyn writes: "M., or Mary, has put together an incredibly rich selection of tales in this anthology, each one requiring a time of savouring before turning to the next. A time to reflect and understand, to reach beyond the boundaries of the norm and grasp at the magical and twisted progeny of a wondrous imagination, then on to the next."

More Award News

Speaking of awards, as previously mentioned, Bruce McAllister's short story "Kin" is a finalist for the Hugo Award — and not only is the text of the complete story posted online on Asimovs.com, but the web site Escape Pod now has a podcast of "Kin" available. You can listen to "Kin" online or download the mp3 file and listen to the story at your leasure. And we hope you'll keep "Kin" in mind when voting for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Reviews

Lastly, we have a review of Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN: 1-930846-45-2) in Chris Karr's blog "Little Thoughts": "I feel that if there were such a thing as custom created fiction, Stross's novels would be the one that the novel machine would spit out for me. It includes elements from some of my favorite kinds of novels, tied in to some of my other interests that I've randomly been picking off over the last few years (including a minor interest in one Howard Hughes). The in-jokes were great and some things introduced in the book (such as including zombie-creating PowerPoint slide transitions) will leave me looking at real-life with a more humorous lens."

As always, the full reviews of the above excerpts, along with additional information on all of our books, can be found in the Golden Gryphon online Catalog.

Now Shipping!

The "touching afterword" by Andrew Fox, a former student of Effinger's and author of Fat White Vampire Blues, is more than 2,700 words in length; and the "visually stunning cover art" by John Picacio can be viewed in full here. For additonal information on A Thousand Deaths, please go to the book's Catalog page. And when has Publishers Weekly ever referred to a book's cover art?

More Reviews . . .

Dorman T. Shindler reviews Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4) by M. Rickert, in the latest ish of Subterranean Magazine Online. Shindler writes: ". . . Map of Dreams is a must-read collection of stories by a writer whose growing body of work already puts her among the finest of her generation — genre and mainstream writers alike. The title story alone is worth the price of entry. . . . Heart-wrenching, funny, poetic and damn-near perfect in execution, "Map of Dreams" is a piece of fiction that grabs the reader by his or her emotions and doesn't let go until every last drop of blood, sweat and tears has been wrung out. That's just the first story! . . . Pick up this collection by Rickert and prepare to be enthralled and entertained, moved and maddened. Then make sure to shelve it next to works by Harlan Ellison, Luisa Valenzuela, Connie Willis, Angela Carter and Lucius Shepard. Right where it belongs."

And Green Man Review tackles (the apropros word here) The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN: 1-930846-45-2) by Charles Stross: "I'm pretty sure Stross is writing beyond my usual sphere of comprehension. I greatly enjoyed The Jennifer Morgue, but there were times when I felt left behind, just because he goes off on some really esoteric or technical angles. But looking at this on the surface, as James Bond meets Lovecraft meets quantum physics, you end up with a fascinatingly strange, rip-roaring adventure. . . . It's perfect for those who are always looking for cutting-edge fiction and boundary-stretching ideas."

The full reviews of the above excerpts, along with additional information on all of our books, can be found on the Golden Gryphon online Catalog.

The Locus Awards

Charles Stross's second "Bob Howard / Laundry" novel The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN: 1-930846-45-2) is a finalist in the Best Fantasy Novel category, and Jeffrey Ford's collection The Empire of Ice Cream (ISBN 1-930846-39-8) is a finalist in the Best Collection category. We have two authors whose work appears in the Best Novella category: Jeffrey Ford's "Botch Town" (also in The Empire of Ice Cream) and M. Rickert's "Map of Dreams" (from the collection also entitled Map of Dreams, ISBN 1-930846-44-4). And lastly, both Bob Eggleton and John Picacio appear in the Best Artist category. This past year, Bob Eggleton did the wraparound cover art for Eric Brown's Threshold Shift and George Zebrowski's Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts; John Picacio did the wraparound cover art for two titles as well: Jeffrey Ford's The Empire of Ice Cream and Dale Bailey and Jack Slay Jr.'s Sleeping Policemen. This is all very impressive indeed, and we're pleased to see our authors and artists achieving such recognition. For further information on these titles, and to order your copies online, please see our Catalog page.

Golden Gryphon Press authors are also among the finalists in these and other categories, but for work from other sources: Charles Stross again (Best SF Novel and Best Novella categories), Alastair Reynolds (Best Collection category), Jeffery Ford again (Best Novelette category), Paul Di Filippo (Best Novelette category), Nancy Kress (Best Short Story category), and John Picacio once again (Best Art Book).

The Locus Awards will be presented at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Awards Weekend, in Seattle, Washington, on Saturday, June 16. Congratulations to all our authors and artists!

The Hugo Awards

"Kin" will be included in Bruce McAllister's forthcoming short story collection, The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories (ISBN-13: 978-1-930846-49-4), scheduled for publication in October. You can read the complete review of "Kin," and from that page, you can link to Ms. Nussbaum's review of the entire 2007 Hugo Award Short Story shortlist.

Now Shipping!

News, reviews, and interviews . . .

The ever popular Charles Stross novel, The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN: 1-930846-45-2), now in its second printing — but first editions are still shipping direct from Golden Gryphon Press! — is reviewed in Tom Easton's "Reference Library" column in Analog magazine. Easton writes: "Since [The Atrocity] Archives was great fun, I was happy to see The Jennifer Morgue in the mail. It's the sequel, and this time Stross has chosen to send up the greatest of all British spies — James Bond himself. . . . There is a villain, a scheme, a Bondian hero, a Good Bond Babe, and a Bad Bond Babe, and the more everyone acts their parts, the stronger the spell grows. The trouble is that Bob [Howard] is pretty clueless, and everyone seems to be trying very hard to keep him clueless. . . . It gets complicated, but it's all a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. . . ." Also, Joe Sherry posts a review of Jennifer in his blog "Adventures in Reading" for April 10, 2007: "This is a Bond-style adventure with good humor, high adventure, and clever, clever writing. . . . Stross has shown growth from The Atrocity Archives to The Jennifer Morgue and shows once again that this style of writing and the Bob Howard novels are very much in his wheelhouse and are shining examples of the talent and gift of Charles Stross. This is very original fantasy fiction which pays homage to the spy novels of yesteryear and yet takes it into an entirely new direction." For further information and to place your order for a first edition hardcover, visit the The Jennifer Morgue Catalog page.

Our last review is for the forthcoming George Alec Effinger title A Thousand Deaths (ISBN 978-1-930846-47-0), which should be shipping within the next few weeks. Don D'Ammassa, in his online SF Reviews, writes: "The third collection of Effinger's short stories from Golden Gryphon is actually dominated by a novel, The Wolves of Memory, originally published in 1981. A plot summary is going to make it sound like a routine dystopian adventure story, which it sort of is but sort of isn't as well. TECT is a supercomputer that pretty much runs everything and the protagonist, Sandor Courane, pretty much doesn't run anything. . . . Sounds routine, but Effinger rarely was and this darkly funny and sometimes convoluted novel was one of his best." Additional details on A Thousand Deaths. including the contents and full cover art, can be viewed on our Forthcoming Books page.

Lastly, the finalists for the annual Locus Awards have been announced — and there are a lot of Golden Gryphon Press titles, stories, authors, and artists represented throughout, and we'll be posting those in the next update, Real Soon Now.

One of Golden Gryphon Press's past cover artists, Jamie Bishop — son of author Michael Bishop — became one of the victims yesterday in the tragic shootings that occurred on the Virginia Tech campus. Jamie was a foreign languages instructor at Virginia Tech.

Jamie Bishop did the cover art for Michael Bishop's second Golden Gryphon Press collection, Brighten to Incandescence. Please take a moment to view the full wraparound dust jacket, and then please take another moment of silence for Jamie Bishop: son, husband, instructor, artist, and friend.

We extend our deepest heartfelt sympathies to the entire Bishop family and friends; our thoughts and prayers are with you always.

And the Announcements Keep Comin' . . .

And speaking of John Picacio, aficionados of his work will be pleased to learn that John has been nominted for two — count 'em, two! — Hugo Awards: one award is for Best Professional Artist, and the other award is for his nonfiction art book entitled Cover Story, which prominently showcases a number of his Golden Gryphon Press dust covers.

Other Golden Gryphon authors who have been nominated for Hugo Awards (but not for work published by Golden Gryphon Press) include Charles Stross in the novel category and Robert Reed in both the novella and short story categories.

The Hugo Awards will be presented on September 1 at Nippon 2007, the first WorldCon in Japan! Congratulations and best wishes to Bruce McAllister, John Picacio, Charles Stross, Robert Reed, and all the authors who have been nominated for the 2007 Hugo Awards.

We previously mentioned that From the Files of the Time Rangers (ISBN 1-930846-35-5) by Richard Bowes has been named a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel. SciFi Wire, the news service of the SCIFI Channel, has recently published a mini Richard Bowes interview, conducted by John Joseph Adams, in which the author discusses his novel and the Nebula nomination. If you're one of the very few who have yet to read From the Files of the Time Rangers, you can read the novella of the same name — roughly chapters eleven through thirteen in the novel — which is still available online on SCIFI.com.

A Really Big Announcement!

On our Forthcoming Books page, we've posted details, including cover art, table of contents, and ordering information, for Sheila Finch's collection, The Guild of Xenolinguists (ISBN-13: 978-1-930846-48-7), which is scheduled for September publication. "Reading the Bones," one of the stories included in this new collection, won the 1998 Nebula Award for Best Novella. An Afterword by Finch, discussing the difficulty in learning an alien language, and a Foreword by Ian Watson bookend the fiction with insightful visions on language. With wraparound cover art by Bob Eggleton. On a more personal note, Sheila Finch was born in London, England, but has been living in the United States since 1957. Initially, she lived in Bloomington, Indiana, where she did graduate work in Medieval Literature and Linguistics at Indiana University; Sheila currently resides in California.

Reviews

In his Interzone review of Map of Dreams, the inestimable John Clute concludes: "Rickert is as good as anyone I've read in recent years at first paragraphs, which means she has a genius for knowing where to start. Her best stories build from that thrust of beginning like James Tiptree Jr. in her pomp. And in good stories and less good alike, there is a density and swift grasping rightness in Rickert's verbing, and a nakedness of passionate intensity that needs not utter itself, which reminded me strongly of Emily Dickinson . . . we know that the highest art, the level of art which Rickert clearly aims to attain, is a heavenly hurt to mortals." Whew, M. Rickert and James Tiptree Jr. and Emily Dickinson all in the same paragraph — now if that doesn't encourage you to read Map of Dreams, well, I don't know what else to say!

Niall Harrison, in his review of Map of Dreams on Strange Horizons writes: "Rickert's stories, then, are strongest when the fantastic is in some sense contained, when the structure of the story fences it in — when the story provides its own frame. This is not to say that Rickert is a manipulative writer, or that her stories feel rigged, because they don't. The families and marriages and mothers (particularly the last, who are, let's face it, not exactly an over-represented constituency in the genres of the fantastic) that populate this book are beautifully drawn, distinctive and believable; they may (they often) suffer, but never cheaply. . . . Rickert refuses to sanitise our world for her stories: so grace is always tempered by sorrow, and sorrow always holds the possibility of grace. The same is true for Rickert's proxy. Towards the end of her story, Annie Merchant tries to explain how her grief has opened up her life: 'It's not, as they said, that I wanted the pity,' she says. 'It's just that my life, well, this is what it is. This is who I am. The incredible thing is everyone was convinced that this was about hating life but really, it's about loving it. For the way it really is' (p. 97). From beginning to end, Map of Dreams hurts. It's meant to. M. Rickert loves the world for the way it really is."

And on SF Site, Stuart Carter has written a fine review of The Jennifer Morgue: "Bob Howard has been dragged, kicking and screaming, away from his PC and out into the world of espionage and skulduggery; out of his geek-chic t-shirt, black jeans and trainers, and forcibly inserted into — whisper it — a suit! He's even got a government expense account, if he can face the paperwork that actually using it will inevitably entail. . . . There's no mistaking it, this is Stross's take on the James Bond mythos, a wryly updated undermining of everything Ian Fleming held dear — and it's great fun! — a Fleming-Lovecraft mash-up, blending the two incompatible universes in one contradictory whole! Super-spy versus supernatural horrors! . . . all the essentials are there: advanced mathematics and the many-worlds theorem conspiring to produce a working form of 'magic,' as well as squamose, rugose horrors from beyond space and time. . . . The Jennifer Morgue is a rip-roaringly entertaining homage; a highly intelligent high adventure bursting with geek humour and a love for the spy genre."

The full reviews of the above excerpts, along with additional information on all of our books, can be found on the Golden Gryphon online Catalog.

And Still Another Announcement!

The 2006 Final Nebula Awards Ballot has been announced, which contains some great work by a number of our authors. The one Golden Gryphon Press title on the ballot is in the Best Novel category — From the Files of the Time Rangers (ISBN 1-930846-35-5) by Richard Bowes. A HUGE congratulations to Rick!

The splash line on the Time Rangers' dust jacket reads: "Of Gods and Cops . . . and Time." You can read more about the book, including content details and a peak at the full wraparound John Picacio cover art, by clicking on the book's catalog page.

You can also read online the complete text of the novella "From the Files of the Time Rangers" — roughly Chapters 11 through 13 in the novel — on SCIFICTION.

The award winners will be announced at the Nebula Awards Banquet to be held at the New York Marriott Financial Center May 11-13. Other Golden Gryphon Press authors on the final ballot (but not for work published by Golden Gryphon) include Jeffrey Ford in the best novel category, James Patrick Kelly in the best novella category, and M. Rickert in the best novelette category. Congratulations to all our authors, and best wishes in May!

For the full 2006 Final Nebula Awards Ballot, click here.

And Yet More Announcements!

Jeffrey Ford's The Empire of Ice Cream (ISBN 1-930846-39-8) is a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Collection. The Stoker Awards are given by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and will be presented at the World Horror Convention, Toronto, Canada, on March 31. Congratulations, Jeff!

The Empire of Ice Cream was also selected by the Editors at SF Site as one of the Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2006. Click on the link for the complete SF Site Editors' Choice list.

Bruce McAllister has recently been informed that his story "The Boy in Zaquitos," originally published in the January 2006 issue of F&SF, has been selected to appear in The Best American Short Stories 2007. This volume of BASS just happens to be guest-edited by Stephen King! "The Boy in Zaquitos" will also be included in Bruce's forthcoming collection The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories, to be published by Golden Gryphon Press in October. For more information, including contents and cover art, please visit our Forthcoming Books page. And kudos to Bruce on this timely news.

Last, but certainly not least, we have one new review to share with you. On Strange Horizons, Mark Teppo reviews The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN 1-930846-45-2) by Charles Stross: "The Jennifer Morgue is a delirious collision of the archetypal hero adventure, our modern obsession with flashy technology, and our perpetual fear of the unspeakable unknown. Stross wraps his reverent irreverence with a not entirely tongue-in-cheek warning: not all our monsters are inhuman soul suckers or tentacle-faced alien overlords; some are auditors." Now, doesn't that make you want to read the entire review?

Announcements!

M. Rickert's first collection, Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4), has been nominated for the William L. Crawford Award for best first book by a new fantasy author. The award is presented by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA) at their annual convention in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in March. The awards banquet is scheduled for Saturday, March 17. Previous recipients of the Crawford Award include Charles de Lint, Jonathan Lethem, Alexander C. Irvine, K. J. Bishop, and Joe Hill, to name just a few — so the winner of this year's award will be in grand company. Congratulations and best wishes, Mary Rickert!

Our newest title, The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN 1-930846-45-2) by Charles Stross, has already gone back to press and is now in its second printing. However, all copies ordered direct from Golden Gryphon Press are still first editions, so you best order your copy now (along with a first edition of The Atrocity Archives, also in its second printing) if you haven't already done so. You may still be able to find a first edition at some of the smaller specialty bookstores, but all the chains (online and physical stores) including Amazon.com will now be shipping second printings.

For more information on Map of Dreams and The Jennifer Morgue — and to order your first edition copies — please visit our online Catalog.

Reviews and Interview

Paul Di Filippo also reviews Jeffrey Ford's The Empire of Ice Cream (ISBN 1-930846-39-8) in this same ish of Asimov's: "If Ray Bradbury at his prime had been hired to script his own macabre version of The Happy Hollisters YA series of my youth, for a film to be directed by David Lynch, the results might dimly resemble in an inferior fashion the novella titled "Botch Town" which appears as the beating heart of Jeffrey Ford's fantabulous new collection . . . Jonathan Carroll introduces this collection with typical grace and insight and appreciation. Good choice of fellow traveler. Indeed, I'd lump Ford in with Carroll, VanderMeer, Blaylock, Wolfe, Powers, Shepard, Waldrop, and Link as American Gods of Fantasy, a pantheon whose full significance we all won't fully appreciate for generations to come."

Another of our favorite reviewers, Kilian Melloy, who's been absent from the scene for a bit, is back with a grand review of M. Rickert's Map of Dreams for EDGEBoston. Melloy begins his review with: "M. Rickert is a writer of fantastical tales whose stories come equipped with psychotics, dead children, time travel paradoxes, demons, and angels . . . all familiar enough fare, but — like a visionary painter tackling landscapes with bold new hues — dished up here with strange and savory new twists and flavors." And he concludes with: "There’s a thin line between ordinary and extraordinary, and a thinner line between sanity and madness, and Rickert has no qualms about burring those lines."

Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue (Don't forget: First Editions are still available direct from Golden Gryphon Press!) is the subject of two very different reviews. In the San Francisco Chronicle, reviewer Michael Berry writes: "In the new film adaptation of Casino Royale, James Bond has been reimagined as nasty, blondish and short. In The Jennifer Morgue, his follow-up to The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross gives his readers a British super spy with a long-term girlfriend, no fashion sense and an aversion to martinis. . . . Stross packs this new novel full of hilarious in-jokes and frenetic set pieces, from underwater fight scenes that top anything in Ian Fleming's Thunderball to a villain who makes Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Thunderball's villain, look like the voice of sanity. . . . Bob Howard and crew ultimately deliver a narrative climax that matches anything Ian Fleming could have envisioned."

The second Jennifer Morgue review comes from Ernest Lilley on SF Revu: "This starts off with a historical recap of the CIA's Glomar Challenger operation to recover a sunken Soviet (remember the Soviets?) sub, all nice and normal in a spy novel sort of way. Then, things get very strange indeed. . . . It doesn't take long for either reader or character to realize that things are all proceeding along the script of a meta-spy-novel . . . Stross has created a story which uses the meta-Bond plot as a commentary on both its absurdity and its power. Author Rudy Rucker would say that he's playing the "power chords" of the genre, but by doing so right out in the open, he's masterfully concealing his actual moves."

And speaking of Ernest Lilley, he also conducts an interview with Charles Stross in this same issue. When asked about his preparation for The Jennifer Morgue, Stross replied: "Well, Bond is something of a British icon. I'd read all the original books by the time I was twelve; the movies get shown on TV regularly every Christmas Day. So what I had to do was basically play catch-up. Swallowing a couple of Ian Fleming biographies proved fruitful, and I ploughed my way through about three quarters of the movies over a three month period, with a friendly director who was able to point me at aspects of the production I'd have missed otherwise." You can read the complete interview online on SF Revu.

We've posted details, including contents and cover art, for October title The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories by Bruce McAllister. If you're not familiar with Bruce's writing, then you may not be aware that he sold his first story at the age of sixteen to editor Frederik Pohl for Worlds of if magazine — and he's been publishing incredible short fiction ever since. We have posted quotes praising Bruce's writing from the likes of Gregory Benford, Michael Bishop, Gardner Dozois, and Harry Harrison. If you would like to sample Bruce's writing, you can read his short story "Stu," included in this collection, online on SCIFICTION. And last, but certainly not least, The Girl Who Loved Animals has yet another stunning wraparound dust jacket by artist John Picacio. You can check all this out on our Forthcoming Books page.

For those of our readers who enjoy purchasing books early and often, we've now posted ordering information, through PayPal, for our two forthcoming spring/summer titles: Warren Rochelle's Harvest of Changelings (ISBN 1-930846-46-0) and George Alec Effinger's A Thousand Deaths (ISBN 1-930846-47-9). Of course, you can always order with check, money order, or credit card by contacting us directly at: Golden Gryphon Press, 3002 Perkins Road, Urbana, IL 61802.

One of our earlier titles, From the Files of the Time Rangers (ISBN 1-930846-35-5) by Richard Bowes, was recently reviewed on "Neth Space," the personal blog of Ken Neth, on December 23. Ken writes: ". . .it is a celebration of speculative fiction, as well as the American Northeast that Bowes has known. While the pieces contained are dark, ominous, and rather pessimistic toward the human condition, the homage is one of love, hope, and remembrance. . . . when it all finally clicked in my head at the end, I was left with a sense of awe." Time Rangers has made the preliminary Nebula Awards ballot and we'll keep our fingers crossed that the novel makes the final ballot as well. Congratulations, Rick, and continued success!

Obviously, the books receiving the most reviews are our three most recent titles:

Eric Brown's Threshold Shift (ISBN 1-930846-43-6) has recently been reviewed by Rambles Magazine and Midwest Book Review. In Rambles, reviewer Greg Thurlbeck writes: "These stories tend to be filled, not with space battles and ray guns, but with people dealing with the sorts of quiet human conflicts that will inevitably arise from the development of new technologies or from encounters with extraterrestrials. . . . Overall this book is a tranquil, intelligent treat, one that occasionally leaps out at the reader with surprising vigor and zest. For any fan of SF short fiction it's a worthy addition to one's library." And Midwest Book Review states: "Threshold Shift explores the complex problems arising from future technology, as well as constructing fantastic alien visions and worlds, and is strongly recommended for science fiction collections and reading lists." Eric Brown is among the new wave of British space opera writers, which includes Stephen Baxter, Ken MacLeod, and Alastair Reynolds. If you enjoy these authors, you'll want to read Brown as well.

Terri Windling, former co-editor of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series, has posted a blurb on her Endicott Studios web site in support of M. Rickert's new collection Map of Dreams (ISBN 1-930846-44-4). To quote Terri: "Don't miss this excellent collection of stories by M. Rickert (an exceptionally talented writer working at the literary end of the fantasy field), for it's likely to be an awards contender." Hopefully Terri is spot-on with her reference to "awards contender."

Map is also reviewed in two online 'zines, Ideomancer and Mania. Sean Melican on Ideomancer says of M. Rickert's style: "For me, I find strong similarities to Flannery O'Connor's emphasis on ordinary people: not scientists, magicians, geniuses, savants, detectives, or outlaws, except of the accidental sort. Ordinarily, I don't like the 'recipe' method of review: the sort that reads, 'M. Rickert is two parts García Márquez blended with one part Flannery O'Connor with a dash of . . .' But Flannery O'Connor, despite a relatively small body of work, is a critical component of American fiction, partly because she illuminates the forgotten, ordinary corners of America; M. Rickert falls into the same category. It isn't the hallowed halls of academia or mystical caverns or lands just beyond or overlapping. It is as much a map of America as it is a map of dreams." Whew, to be compared with García Márquez and Flannery O'Connor, all in the same sentence, is pretty heady stuff! Mania: Beyond Entertainment has a mini review of Map in its Weekly Book Buzz on October 3: ". . . this [collection] skims along the surface of life and dips just beneath, revealing the hidden machinations that fuel dreams. These underlying myths and fantasies exist not as musty old stories but as ancient truths that have come to illuminate the modern human condition."

Our last title to be reviewed is Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue (ISBN 1-930846-45-2). MIT's Science Fiction Society has posted a review on their web site: "If you're a geek, you'll probably love this book. There are so many references to modern geek culture and humor (when I was reading it in the kitchen, my dorm-mates commented that they'd never seen me laughing so hard). At times, the cultural references were so specific and appropriate that I just stared and said, 'I can't believe this book exists' — and I mean that in the best possible way. . . . run, don't walk, and get ahold of The Jennifer Morgue. Seriously, go NOW. It may be the most fun book you've read in a long time — it certainly was for me."

Stross's novel has also been reviewed recently in a couple of blogs. Anthologist and editor Jim Mann, in his "Reviews and Comments" blog for November 23, writes: "The Jennifer Morgue is somewhat lighter than The Atrocity Archives — the Bond thread guarantees that — but there are some disturbing, sobering, and even somewhat frightening parts. It’s a worthy successor, and I hope Stross writes more here." And in the "Uncertain Principles: Physics, Politics, Pop Culture" blog for December 21, Chad Orzel writes of Jennifer: "In this one, Bob [Howard] finds himself acting out a James Bond plot in a surprisingly literal way. . . . it all comes together beautifully, for a very silly and exceedingly geeky secret agent adventure story that really isn't like anything else you're likely to read."

And speaking of The Atrocity Archives, as I'm sure most of our readers know, this first novel in the "Bob Howard/The Laundry" series has gone into a second printing. All the copies you'll find "out there" online and in retail stores will be second printings. However, all copies sold direct from Golden Gryphon Press are still first editions. Be aware, though, that the supply of these first editions is finite — only 3,000 copies were printed for worldwide distribution! And now that Stross readers and fans are hearing the buzz about Bob Howard and The Laundry and The Jennifer Morgue, they're going back and picking up copies of Atrocity as well — first edition copies from Golden Gryphon. So our supply is quickly selling out. Which means, if you don't have your first edition of The Atrocity Archives yet, then please be sure to order your copy soonest.

As always, additional details on all of our titles, including links to the full reviews mentioned above as well as ordering information, are available through our online Catalog.