Genreville

November 4, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

World Fantasy delayed this post a bit, but here it is at last: our artwork for November, provided by the marvelously talented Omar Rayyan. Omar and his wife, Sheila, run Studio Rayyan, where they create some really beautiful work for fantasy and gaming books. We saw one of Omar's paintings at a reception for the Spectrum Award and were blown away. Josh immediately asked him to be one of our featured artists, and we're thrilled that he said yes.

I'm really glad that our artists are having fun with our portraits and bringing in various speculative and historical elements. The point of these posts has always been to show off each artist's imagination and skill, and Omar's are clearly on display here. Check out these amazing pictures! I will have to work on the thumbnail versions the next time I have access to a computer with Photos...Read More

November 3, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

PW's list of 2009's top 10 books doesn't include any genre titles and has been discussed quite a lot elsewhere, so I'm going to skip down to the SF/F/H and mass market top fives, which were compiled by yours truly. I considered only books that PW had reviewed, which means no tie-ins, no e-books, and no self-published books. Beyond that, these are pretty much the books I enjoyed the most this year, to the best of my recollection and with some caveats I'll mention below.

SF/F/H:

The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
Bacigalupi's powerful debut warns of dire ecological collapse and the evils of colonialism in an eerily plausible near future Thailand....Read More

November 3, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

It's apparently interview week! Over at Grasping for the Wind, I (and numerous other bloggers) tell John Ottinger about our favorite book endings.

November 2, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Charles Tan was kind enough to interview us over at Bibliophile Stalker. Go take a look! I am highly amused by my bloviating back-to-back with Josh's terseness.

November 2, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (11)

A couple of weeks ago, Ron Hogan of Galleycat fame happened to stop by my office, and he randomly gave me a box of 15 Domo-kun dolls that he had apparently gotten as a promotion for something or other.* "I don't have space for them," he explained. "Do whatever you want with them."

_{* I hope this is sufficient disclaiming for the FTC. Seriously, I have no idea where these came from.}

Apparently there are different dol...Read More