2009 WORLD FANTASY AWARD NOMINEE

The city has always been a place of mystery, of magic, and wonder. In cities past, present, and future, in metropoli real and imagined, meet mutilated warrior-women, dead boys, mechanical dogs, escape artists and more. From the dizzying heights of rooftops and spires to the sinister secrets of underpasses and gutters, some of the most talented authors writing today will take you on a trip through the urban fantastic. Edited by Ekaterina Sedia, author of The Secret History of Moscow and The Alchemy of Stone.

With stories from Forrest Aguirre, Hal Duncan, Richard Parks, Cat Rambo, Jay Lake, Greg van Eekhout, Cat Sparks, Steve Berman, Stephanie Campisi, Mark Teppo, Paul Meloy, Vylar Kaftan, Mike Jasper, Ben Peek, Kaaron Warren, Darin C. Bradley, Jenn Reese, David Schwartz, Anna Tambour, Barth Anderson and Catherynne M. Valente. Introduction by Jess Nevins

“Variety, along with a willingness to publish new and established writers alike, helps explain Paper Cities’ considerable appeal…ambitious and entertaining…a delightful and absorbing read.”
-Jeff VanderMeer for Publishers Weekly, Signature Review

“Together with 18 other stories of cities and their people, this vital collection pushes the envelope of the urban fantasy genre, reaching beyond the standards made popular by Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, and Jim Butcher to create an ever expanding definition of the term… this collection belongs in most libraries.”
-Library Journal

“These story settings range from the suburbs to the cities of the future; and their approaches to the idea of the urban, what urbs are, and how we might interact with them as they become ever more fantastic, are wildly varied, intensely satisfying.”
-Booklist

“A strong, original, selection; giving a useful reinvigoration to the idea of Urban Fantasy.”
-Rich Horton for Fantasy Magazine

“These stories are like dark chocolate: rich, decadent, sometimes bitter, but always complex and stimulating. Be careful. They will keep you up at night!”
-Theodora Goss, author of In the Forest of Forgetting

“Paper Cities is a really cool anthology, a wide-ranging collection of styles, approaches, and genres. In fact, it’s a wonderful metaphor for the idea of the City: simultaneously bright and dark, crowded and lonely, all about life and all about death, beautiful and horrible. There are remarkable imaginations at work in these stories. Read them and see.”
-Delia Sherman, author of Changeling, editor of Interfictions.

The collection contains my Red Sun story, ‘The Funeral, Ruined’, in case you’re curious. It’s still online, so you can check it out, decide if you dig it or not, and then try the whole collection, in now the paper and paperless versions.

Link

From Jhayne (porphyre):

A nine year old girl in Peru won a television station contest where she got to star in a remake of her favourite music video. Unsurprisingly, she chose a Britney Spears video, Toxic… Remember when little girls in stripper-wear lip syncing to songs about sex was still weird?

I found this pretty funny:

“According to Jett Heer in Lingua Franca magazine (June 2001), literary theorist Fredric Jameson called Dick “the Shakespeare of science fiction”. Unfortunately though, Dick never returned the favour, with revelations that he wrote letters to the Federal Bureau of Investigation denouncing many of his academic supporters. Dick claimed that Jameson and other literary theorists were agents of a KGB conspiracy to take over American science fiction. Presumably though, Dick wasn’t in a clear and level headed mental state at the time.”

It comes from a longer piece on why science fiction writers don’t get any respect, an issue that is not of huge concern to me. The conversation arises mostly out of Margaret Atwood’s claims that her novels aren’t science fiction, which one were probably made for PR issues, though you can also argue that she has a point, since her particular style of writing in Oryx and Crake isn’t in vogue in the SF field. Likely, if the novel had been published as a pure SF book, it would have been mostly ignored by the respect giving folk there. Assuming, of course, someone other than Atwood had written it.

At any rate, I’m not particularly sure why there is a burning desire to grab respect from literary establishments around the world, especially if you don’t respect who they are to begin with. All awards are influenced by the background and interests of their judges, and it strikes me as a strange thing to get bent out of shape about people who you don’t know not digging what you do (and if, like in SF awards, you actually have a look at who some of these people are, you might think that there’s no reason to give them any respect at all). And, far as I’m concerned, the truth is you can do anything you want when no one is paying attention to you. Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man has a mentally retarded Jesus, has been in print for years, doesn’t once fall on a list to be banned, and is constantly taught by me. Quite often my students don’t read books, but they have a little bit of curiousity when I say, ‘It’s got a retarded Jesus and it’s only two hundred pages long.’

It’s all in how you present it, I guess.

Following an uproar by Australians, Kraft Foods is recanting on its plans to name a new line of its vegemite product “iSnack 2.0.” The high-tech, forward-looking concoction is a blend of vegemite and cream cheese. Yum!

The ludicrous name, which sounds like a joke (but isn’t), was selected by Kraft as part of a public naming contest that fielded 48,000 entries.

According to the Brisbane Times, following an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the choice, Kraft issued a statement that it was backing down: “Please bear with us for the next 48 hours as we finalise how Australians and New Zealanders can decide the new name through an independent popularity vote.”

An announcement from Kraft Foods regarding the name is expected on Friday.

I’m totally and utterly shocked that a mix of Vegemite and cream cheese called iSnack 2.0 didn’t work.

Totally, one hundred percent, shocked.

Totally.

Link.