fantastic books

Disturbing Stories

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A press release from Fantastic Books:

What kind of siding do you need to protect your house from werewolves?
Would you kill someone to prevent them from committing suicide?
What would you say to him if you met Dr. Frankenstein?
Imagine building a clockwork god… that truly is God.
How many times can you execute a mass murderer?
What is a goddess to do when her worshippers abandon her for another?
Could you carry out a death sentence yourself?
If you were the last person on Earth, would you know it?
Forget “raised by wolves.” What about the boy raised by birds?
It’s a hard life for the man who is always second.
Imagine a world where nothing dies. Nothing.
What would a zombie have to do to prove his status as undead?

In these Disturbing Stories, Ron Miller answers (or in some cases, asks) questions that will make you look at the world differently, and not necessarily from a position of comfort.

“Ron Miller has the rare gift of being a visionary in two ways: a superb imaginative artist who is also a fine storyteller. I’ve been an admirer of his paintings for many years; what a pleasure it is to discover that his short stories are just as wonderful. Disturbing Stories is a terrific collection; read this book, by all means.” —Allen Steele, three-time Hugo Award-winner

Disturbing Stories
by Ron Miller
$15.99, 268 pages, trade paperback, ISBN: 978-1-5154-5821-0

Fantastic Books is pleased to be publishing Disturbing Stories on June 11, 2024. Review copies are available upon request.

Sailing on Sunshine

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A press release from Fantastic Books:

Fantastic Books is honored to be publishing the updated-for-the-21st-century edition of the classic (Analog called it “fascinating”) Project Solar Sail.

Arthur C. Clarke’s “Sunjammer” updated an ancient dream, taking millions of readers on a sailing regatta in space. His stirring tale sparked a tech revolution that’s coming true today—interplanetary vehicles, navigating across the Solar System on inexhaustible torrents of sunlight!

Many others have since explored the coming, renewed age of sail. This intriguing anthology—updated for a new century—features both up-to-the-minute facts and future visions of solar sailing in a fascinating mix of stories, essays, and illustrations. Contributors range from JPL scientists to Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Kevin Anderson, and Ray Bradbury. From classics by Arthur C. Clarke, David Brin, Joe Clifford Faust, and Larry Niven, to the latest missions by NASA and the Planetary Society. Even interstellar possibilities—explored by Robert L. Forward & Joel Davis—are now carried even farther in reports by space pioneers like Les Johnson, Robert Staehle & Louis Friedman. This 21st Century Edition, specially crafted by David Brin and Stephen W. Potts, also includes a lost gem by Jack Vance.

Of the original edition, Locus said “[T]his is not a book of dry prospects. The diversity of our strengths and the zest of the ideas unleashed is revealed by the range of fiction.… There is a ton of sense of wonder packed into this book, all about gossamer ships.”

Project Solar Sail
edited by Arthur C. Clarke, David Brin, and Stephen W. Potts
224 pages, 21 illustrations
Hardcover: $25.99, ISBN 978-1-5154-5819-7
Trade Paperback: $15.99, ISBN: 978-1-5154-5818-0

Project Solar Sail—and all Fantastic Books books—are distributed via Ingram. Review copies are available upon request.

Contents:
Preface to the 21st Century edition by David Brin
Foreword to the 20th Century edition: The Winds of Space by Arthur C. Clarke
Introduction to the 20th Century edition: Sailing the Void by Isaac Asimov
To Sail Beyond the Sun by Ray Bradbury and Jonathan V. Post
Tripping the Light Fantastic: Lightsails in Science Fiction by Stephen W. Potts
Sail 25 by Jack Vance
The Wind from the Sun by Arthur C. Clarke
Sailing on Light: Today and the Near Future by Les Johnson
Sunjammer by Poul Anderson
Lightsail by Scott E. Green
The LightSail Program Propels Solar Sailing Forward by Bruce Betts
The Fourth Profession by Larry Niven
Sails in an Interplanetary Economy by Robert L. Staehle and Louis Friedman
Rescue at L-5 by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason
Lightsails to the Stars by Robert L. Forward and Joel Davis
Grand Tour by Charles Sheffield
Riding on a Beam of Light by Steve Nadis
Explorers by David Brin
Goodnight, Children by Joe Clifford Faust
About the Authors

Science fiction convention weekend (fourth of 2024)

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Next weekend is my next science fiction convention. This time, I’ll be in the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore, Maryland, for Balticon. If you’re looking for me, as always, first check the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room, which will be open 2–7pm on Friday, 10am–7pm on Saturday and Sunday, and 10am–2pm on Monday.

I’ll also be on programming. Look for me on the following panels:

Friday at 4:00pm in Guilford: “What Good is an Agent?” with John Appel, Joshua Bilmes, and Shahid Mahmud

Saturday at 2:30pm in Guilford: “Punctuation and Other Things” with Sarah Avery, Carrie Gessner, and Elaine Stiles

Saturday at 8:30pm in Federal Hill: “Late Night Tales From the Slush Pile” with Neil Clarke, David Keener, Jennifer R. Povey, and Sheila Williams

Sunday at 11:30am in Gibson: “OH NO A Paradox!” with John Ashmead, Jack Campbell, Aaron M. Roth, and Martin Wilsey

Sunday at 4:00pm in Guilford: “Running a Small Press” with Neil Clarke, Shahid Mahmud, and Martin Wilsey

Sunday at 8:30pm in Mount Washington: “First Pages Party” with Joshua Bilmes, Morgan Hazelwood, and Sheila Williams

Science fiction convention weekend (third of 2024)

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Only the third? It’ll be May. That seems to be far fewer than in usual years. Hmm…. Anyway…

I’m still on the road, and the current plans are for me to return to New York late Tuesday. Nevertheless, the wheel of conventions continues to roll on, and next weekend, I’ll be at Heliosphere in Piscataway, New Jersey.

If you’re looking to join me at the convention, I will be (as always) at the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room, open Friday 4–7pm, Saturday 10am–5pm, and Sunday 11am–3pm.

I’ll also be on programming, if you’re looking to join me for these fascinating discussions:

Saturday at 11:30am in Salon E: “This is How You Lose the Space Race”

Saturday at 2:30 pm in Salon E: “So You Want to Make an Anthology”

Sunday at 11:30am in Salon C: “Fact and Fiction: Hear from writers who write both”

Hope to see y’all there!

Catching up with JF authors

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Untitled-150Life interfered with work a week or two back. As a result, I didn’t get a chance to tell y’all about a couple of new videos now available. Con-Tinual: The Con That Never Ends hosted two panel discussions with authors appearing in Jewish Futures. But two of our authors weren’t able to make it to those panel, so editor Michael A. Burstein interviewed them individually. All four videos are now available online, with links available in the book’s description on the linked page (scroll down to the first paragraph under “Publicity and Reviews”). If you’re a new author looking for inspiration, let me especially point you at Michael’s interview with Samantha Katz. And if you’re a long-time reader, writer, or fan, Michael’s interview with Jack Dann will definitely bring back some wonderful memories from way back when. And of course there are the panels, with Riv Begun, Nomi Burstein, Robert Greenberger, Susan Shwartz, Steven Silver (and Michael and me), and with Leah Cypess, Randee Dawn, Valerie Frankel, Jordan King-Lacroix, Barbara Krasnoff, SM Rosenberg, and Harry Turtledove. Check them all out!

Science Fiction Convention Weekend (second of 2024)

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Next weekend is another science fiction convention weekend. I’ll be at Boskone, once again in the Westin Waterfront in Boston. As always, I’ll be tethered to the Fantastic Books dealer table (Friday, 4–8pm; Saturday, 10am–7pm; Sunday, 10am–3pm).

And you’ll be able to catch me on some fascinating programming, including:

Friday at 5:30pm in Harbor III: “‘Our Air! Our Water!’ Space Independence” with Brett James, Steven Popkes, John Scalzi, Romie Stott, and Erin Underwood

Friday at 8:30pm in Harbor III: “Legal and Actuarial Supernatural Hypotheticals” with R.E. Carr, Jack Cullen, William Fletzer, and Michael Green

Saturday at 2:30pm in Harbor III: “Worldbuilding New Folklore for Fictional Worlds” with Ben Aaronovitch, Sarah Beth Durst, Amelia Leonards, and Emily Hurst Pritchett

Saturday at 8:30pm in Harbor II: “Radical Economics in Speculative Fiction” with R.E. Carr, Vincent Docherty, Will McMahon, and Christie Meierz

Hope to see lots of you there!

Science Fiction Convention Weekend

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This weekend is my first science fiction convention of the calendar year. I’ll be at Arisia in Boston. If you’re looking for me (hiding behind my mask, because the convention has a policy which I think is doing something to be seen to be doing something, rather than something that might actually be effective), I’ll be at the Fantastic Books table in the Dealers’ Room: Friday, 5–9pm; Saturday and Sunday, 10am–1pm and 2–7pm; Monday 10am–2:30pm.

I’ll also be on several panels, including:

Friday at 8:30pm in Marina 4: “Mythology for Fictional Worlds” with Elizabeth Birdsall, Rob Cameron, Andrea Hairston, and Chris Lester

Sunday at 2:30pm in Marina 4: “Fascinating Timelines of History” with E.C. Ambrose, Allison Neff, Daniel Neff, and Elijah Kinch Spector

Sunday at 8:30pm in Faneuil: “Embracing the Alien: Writing Believable ETs” with Sara Cordair, Kristin Janz, and W.A. Thomasson

And yes, I do see a conflict with the Friday night panel starting before the dealers’ room closes. I’ll figure it out at the convention (may just close the table half an hour early). Hope to be able to see you there!

GRP/FB’s Day of Seconds

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Gray Rabbit Publications and Fantastic Books is starting the year off with a bang. And since today is the second of January, it’s a day of seconds: a second edition, a second novel, and a second anthology.

Untitled-9Today is the publication day for the second book in Carren Strock’s much-loved Coney Island Mysteries series. Start out with two frightened children, their missing mother, a kidnapped nurse, a murderous lawyer, and a stupid henchman. Put them all together, stir in a dose of streetsmart teenager, big-hearted candy store owner, dedicated detectives, and rehabilitated child taker, and you get Who’s Watching the Children? Join Carren Strock’s beloved Detectives Rothman and Cardello, along with clever Moses, to a Coney Island where car thefts, break-ins, and a dead body are the least of their concerns.

Untitled-6Today is also the publication day of the second edition of Sarah Totton’s collection Animythical Tales. Since we’re (finally) making the book available as an ebook, we decided to update the cover and make the interior far more readable for the print book. This “deftly written” (according to the Waterloo Region Record) collection of fantastical tales “speaks to one on an emotional level… Totton’s writing has depth and is multilayered, inviting the reader to explore the deeper meaning of the issues that she covers.” (according to BookPleasures.com). Tangent Online said simply “the writing… is exquisite, infusing the mundane with magic.… Even when set in what is ostensibly the ‘real’ world, Totton’s writing is gifted with this intangible but lovely quality of transformative fantasia that reminds one of a child’s imagination and perspective (both dark and light), lensed through an adult’s language.… This is a collection worth owning.”

And today, Fantastic Books and editor Michael A. Burstein are pleased to announce the writers’ guidelines—and the opening of the limited submission window—for our forthcoming anthology, Jewish Futures 2. The book will be a stand-alone sequel to our best-selling and much praised Jewish Futures, which was published (after a stunningly successful Kickstarter campaign) in August. At the moment, we’re planning to publish the book right around the Jewish New Year.

Asimov’s reviews two, and mentions me

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The January/February issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction provides commentary on two recent Fantastic Books publications.

Untitled-41212Up at the front of the magazine, in his Reflections column “I Didn’t Write It,” Robert Silverberg goes in depth with Jim Theis classic fantasy story “The Eye of Argon,” and also talks a bit about The Eye of Argon and the Futher Adventures of Grignr the Barbarian, edited by Michael A. Ventrella, and—surprisingly—mentions me. Silverberg writes:

It has been reprinted time and again, most recently in 2022 in a handsome paperback edition published by Fantastic Books of Brooklyn, New York, under the title of The Eye of Argon and the Further Adventures of Grignr the Barbarian.… The Eye of Argon is an extraordinary work, which connoisseurs of fantasy fiction have almost unanimously agreed is the worst work of its genre ever written. I’ve recently re-read it and I can concur with that dark accolade—adding the proviso that I found it, once again, immensely entertaining in its strange way. I commend it to you now.… Ian Randal Strock, the publisher of the recent Fantastic Books edition, has provided interleaving pages that attempt to correct the multitude of grammatical and lexical errors of the story, telling us that “swlived” should actually have been “swiveled” and “ulations” is really “ululations,” but even he is defeated by such Theisian verbal novelties as “expunisively,” “scozscetic,” and “appiesed.”… Grignr is in fact an interesting character, a ruthless barbarian through and through in the authentic Conan manner, and in a weird way we care about him as he navigates one peril after another on his path to his rendezvous with the deadly Eye of Argon. It’s easy to laugh at the comedy of errors that Theis produced, back there in 1970, but underneath all the absurdities lies a real story, silly but strangely compelling.… It is possible to see that in the new edition by reading the various Argon pastiches that have been appended to it. One of them is the real thing, Hildy Silverman’s “The Return of the Eye of Argon,” which is a perfectly good little fantasy story that replicates Theis’s innumerable errors with remarkable accuracy, but which also deftly catches the music of his imagination. Another, “Oanna’s Rock” by Jean Marie Ward, is likewise a nicely plotted heroic fantasy, but unlike Hildy Silverman she was unable to make herself strew her tale with spelling errors and goofy grammatical absurdities, so it is essentially Theis played straight, somewhat of a different kettle of fish.

9781515447856Later in the issue, Peter Heck’s review column On Books looks at, among others, Alan Dean Foster’s If You Shoot the Breeze, Are You Murdering the Weather?: 100 Musings on Art and Science. Heck writes:

While each of the essays is short, Foster manages to pack a good amount of interesting information into them.… These short articles are ideal for subway, bathroom, and waiting-for-family-members-to-get-ready reading.… As the collection’s title indicates, the author’s sense of play is fully engaged here—and the fun is contagious. While it’s not strictly SF or fantasy, it gives an intriguing insight into how one of SF’s most prolific writers looks at our daily world.

These quotes are, of course, brief excerpts from much longer essays, the entireties of which I recommend to you, available in the magazine.

Philcon weekend

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Friday starts another science fiction convention, my expected last of the calendar year: Philcon, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. As always, I’ll be spending a lot of time at the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room (open Friday 4-7pm, Saturday 10am-6pm, and Sunday 10am-3pm). I’ll also be on programming:

Friday, 7pm in Plaza 5: “Money, Morals, and Financial AI” with Gil Cnaan and Jeff Warner

Saturday, 11am in Plaza 5: “Kickstarting Your Next Project” with Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Storm Humbert, and Alex Shvartsman

Saturday, 4pm in Plaza 2: “Meet the Editors!” with Neil Clarke, Ty Drago, Bjorn Hasseler, and Gordon Linzner

Sunday, 12n in Plaza 3: “Paths to Publication” with Eric Avedissian, LJ Cohen, Christine Norris, and Mark Roth-Whitworth

If you haven’t yet picked up your copy, I’ll have copies of the recently published anthology Jewish Futures edited by Michael A. Burstein, of which Publishers Weekly said “Burstein brings together 16 appealing stories extrapolating Jewish themes into near- and far-future settings.… These stories open diverse and challenging vistas for sci-fi fans—Jewish and gentile alike.” And The Atlantic said “Best work of fiction I’ve recently read. I can’t wait for other people to be able to read it.” Makes a great Hanukkah gift!

Hope to see lots of you there.