Coming soon: 3 for June from Eric Brown, Garry Kilworth and James Everington

June will be a big month for us at infinity plus, with three big titles to be published in paperback and a variety of electronic formats.

 

Salvage by Eric Brown

When Salvageman Ed saves Ella Rodriguez from spider-drones on the pleasure planet of Sinclair’s Landfall, he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for. Ella is not at all what she seems, as he’s soon about to find out.

What follows, as the spider-drones and the Hayakawa Organisation chase Ed, Ella and engineer Karrie light-years across space, is a fast-paced adventure with Ed learning more about Ella – and about himself – than he ever expected.

The Salvageman Ed series of linked stories – four of which appear here for the first time – combine action, humour and pathos, from the master of character-based adventure science fiction.

“Eric Brown’s modest, slightly retro, extremely charming and very human voice has been a distinctive, indeed unique, presence in British SF for many years. Here he offers another interlinked selection of stories which, as is typical of Eric Brown, manage to be small scale, close-up, and completely free of heroic posturing, in spite of the galactic scale of their setting. There is something restful about them, something comforting. Yet while they gently entertain, they also, very quietly, deal with big questions about identity, love, and the relationship between body and soul.” Chris Beckett

 

The Fabulous Beast by Garry Kilworth

A set of beautifully crafted tales of the imagination by a writer who was smitten by the magic of the speculative short story at the age of twelve and has remained under its spell ever since.

These few stories cover three closely related sub-genres: science fiction, fantasy and horror. In the White Garden murders are taking place nightly, but who is leaving the deep foot-prints in the flower beds? Twelve men are locked in the jury room, but thirteen emerge after their deliberations are over. In a call centre serving several worlds, the staff are less than helpful when things go wrong with a body-change holiday.

Three of the stories form a set piece under the sub-sub-genre title of ‘Anglo-Saxon Tales’. This trilogy takes the reader back to a time when strange gods ruled the lives of men and elves were invisible creatures who caused mayhem among mortals.

Garry Kilworth has created a set of stories that lift readers out of their ordinary lives and place them in situations of nightmare and wonder, or out among far distant suns. Come inside and meet vampires, dragons, ghosts, aliens, weremen, people who walk on water, clones, ghouls and marvellous wolves with the secret of life written beneath their eyelids.

‘Kilworth’s stories are delightfully nuanced and carefully wrought.’ Publishers Weekly

‘A bony-handed clutch of short stories, addictive and hallucinatory.’ The Times

‘Here is a writer determined and well equipped to contribute to the shudder-count.’ The Guardian

 

Falling Over by James Everington

Sometimes when you fall over you don’t get up again. And sometimes, you get up to find everything has changed:

An ordinary man who sees his face in a tabloid newspaper. A soldier haunted by the images of those he has killed from afar. Two petty criminals on the run from a punishment more implacable than either of them can imagine. Doppelgängers both real and imaginary. A tranquil English village where those who don’t fit in really aren’t welcome, and a strange hotel where second chances are allowed… at a price.

Ten stories of unease, fear and the weird from James Everington.
“Good writing gives off fumes, the sort that induce dark visions, and Everington’s elegant, sophisticated prose is a potent brew. Imbibe at your own risk.” – Robert Dunbar, author of The Pines and Martyrs & Monsters

“The horror angle in the stories is almost always a metaphor for other things – loneliness, fear, isolation, regret. The word “haunting” really does double duty here… Beautifully written, evocative, masterful…what shines through these stories is the author’s love of language.” Red Adept Reviews, 2011 Indie Awards Short Story category

“Everington is excellent at evoking a mounting sense of unease, turning to dread, that close, oppressive feeling when everything is still and ordinary, but the whole world is filled with the sense that something huge and terrible is just about to happen.” Iain Rowan, author of One Of Us and Nowhere To Go

New titles by Garry Kilworth, Eric Brown and James Everington due from infinity plus

I’m delighted to announce three new titles due soon in paperback and ebook format from infinity plus.

First up is The Fabulous Beast, a new collection from Garry Kilworth. This includes 18 stories, from Anglo-Saxon tales to fantasy, science fiction and horror, by an author described by Punch as “a master of his trade” and by New Scientist as “arguably the finest writer of short fiction today, in any genre.” Some of the stories in this book also featured in Garry’s ebook-only collection Phoenix Man (no longer available). Already available from infinity plus is Garry’s book of memoirs, On my Way To Samarkand, crammed with anecdotes about his farm worker antecedents and his rovings around the globe, as well as his experiences in the mid-list of many publishing houses.

James Everington‘s Falling Over is a wonderfully gritty and compelling collection of stories that tread the fine line between crime, horror and just downright strange. “Beautifully written, evocative, masterful…what shines through these stories is the author’s love of language” (Red Adept on James’s The Other Room).

And infinity plus stalwart Eric Brown returns with a book of the Salvageman Ed stories, rewritten as a single novel. Previously, we’ve brought out eight of Eric’s books, including early novels such as Meridian Days and Penumbra, his landmark collection The Time-Lapsed Man and other stories, the horror and ghost story collection Ghostwriting (which I think contains some of his best writing), and more.

These titles are due to appear from May to July, 2013.

In Transit – an extract from the novella by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown

The White Swan left the war zone and burst through the Jehovah wormhole with an actinic explosion of supercharged particles.

Abbott clutched the arms of his seat and closed his eyes as the swirling fire of the membrane swallowed the shuttle and spat it out the other side, five hundred light years along the galactic rim. The transition seemed to twist him inside out and wring his soul dry. It left him light-headed and nauseous, his head fizzing with static.

When he opened his eyes, he was amazed to see the crew going about their business as if nothing had happened. They hung in their slings, slaved to the shuttle’s smartware nexus, hands drifting across touchpads and parallel sensors with the dreamy grace of narcoleptic ballerinas. The pilot was setting course from the Jehovah wormhole to its twin, a thousand parsecs across the star system, while an engineer and a smartware specialist communed with the shuttle as if in comas.

Abbott’s head still reeled.

Through the forward viewscreen, a delta strip above the command slings, he made out the main sequence primary, its lone planet in transit across the sun’s fiery disc. Ahead, a mirror image of the wormhole they had just left, its twin was a coruscating oval interface through which they would pass in six hours en route to Earth.

At least, he thought with relief, they were out of Kryte-controlled territory now. This intermediate system was technically in no-man’s land, strategically important and sporadically fought over.

“… though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” a woman’s voice intoned to his left.

He turned. Some neurological side-effect of the transition had blitzed his short-term memory.

“…I will fear no evil.”

He fingered his crucifix, where it rested on an inflamed area on his chest. Memory started to kick in… The smartware implant, fed in through his chest wall, from where it had infiltrated his entire body. The slave device.

He’d been in conversation with Major Travers, he recalled. Just before the jump. Something about a briefing…

“…For thou art with me.”

It came back to him now. Travers, a blocky grunt who did nothing to disguise her disdain of civilians in general and xeno-psychologists in particular, had been filling him in about the captured Kryte in the shuttle’s hold.

“You okay, Abbott?” Travers looked across at him now, her superior expression putting him in his place. She was an uncompromising-looking woman, with the look of a street-fighter, only accentuated by the reconstructive surgery that left half her face composed of n-gel – so nearly natural-looking, but not quite. Responses on that half of her face lagged a split second behind so that an expression would start on one side of her face and migrate to the left, a peristalsis of the self. “You look rough.”

“I’m fine. Where were we?” He sat up, attempting to look competent.

Travers smiled, her time-lagged smile that Abbott tried hard not to find disturbing. “I was telling you about the Devil,” she told him. “I was telling you about your Devil…”

Abbott held up a hand. “Please. I know they’re the enemy, but demonising them like that does nothing to foster understanding.”

Travers sneered. “I don’t want to understand the bastards, Abbott. I want to eradicate them.” As she said this, she ran a finger across the crucifix tattooed on her left forearm.

“The best way to win the war, or even to contain it, will be to come to some understanding of how the enemy works, how it thinks. Reducing a dangerous foe to stereotypes is self-defeating and foolhardy.”

Something flared in Travers’ eyes, a fighter’s response, an unthinking, uncomprehending reflex. “Listen, Abbott. I lost an entire platoon capturing that fucker back there. Twenty-five fine men and women, blitzed in an instant. If you think I give a damn about what I call the…”

Something in Abbott’s expression halted her tirade.

He reached out and laid a hand over hers. The touch froze her. He wondered at the last time she’d felt the contact of human flesh.

“Major, ten years ago an advanced strike of the Kryte’s rim division killed five thousand colonists on New Hampton. My wife and two year-old son were among the fatalities. Please don’t doubt my enmity towards the Kryte.”

She had the good grace to looked away, cowed.

Abbott went on, “So… where did you say we’d got to?”

“I was describing the… the Kryte. We’re of the opinion that it wasn’t a combat soldier.”

“I thought all Krytes in the forward sector were militia?”

She shook her head. “Not this one. It didn’t have battle armour, and wasn’t equipped with phase array nucleonics. It was in a sub-light shuttle, grounded behind the front line. It was attempting to get away when we broke through and disabled the ship.”

“So what do you think it was doing there?”

“Beats me,” Travers said. “Anyway, it didn’t have time to kill itself. We took it by surprise. It put up a hell of a fight, but we quelled the bastard. We contacted the sector base unit immediately. The rest you know.”

“This is our big chance, Major,” Abbott told her. “Our big chance to understand.”

He saw in her eyes that she knew that this time his use of the word understand had a more specific meaning. The Kryte were known to be extremely long-lived, under normal circumstances – perhaps even immortal. Humankind had never even come close to understanding the secret of this longevity until now. Only three Kryte had ever been captured alive before, so badly wounded that they’d died a few hours later without yielding their secret.

Travers was looking at him, her lop-sided expression unfathomable. “Do we really want to understand?” she asked, her tone even, controlled.

(…continues)

In Transit: in a future war-torn universe in which human expansion has come up against implacable alien enemies, Xeno-psychologist Abbott finds himself the guardian of a deadly Kryte, so that it can be taken to Earth to be studied. When they crash-land on the fortress planet of St Jerome, the alien prisoner turns the tables and takes Abbott into terrible custody. What follows is a terrifying journey across a hellish landscape towards a finale that might change the destiny of the Kryte and humanity, forever…

In Transit: included with six other collaborations in Parallax View by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown, both of whom have novels shortlisted for the 2012 Philip K Dick Award.

In Transit: ”The stories in this collection are among the best science fiction. These are stories imbued with a rich intelligence and a deep sense of humanity. These are mature stories, tales of love and loss, of pleasure and pain. Cherish them.” —from the foreword by Stephen Baxter

Parallax View is available as an ebook from:
…Barnes and Noble
…Apple
…Kobo
…Amazon.com
…Amazon.co.uk
…and as a paperback from:
…Amazon.co.uk
…Amazon.com
…Createspace

Cover by Dominic Harman.

Snapshots: David D Levine interviewed

What are you working on now?
I’m currently writing a YA Regency Interplanetary Airship Adventure. (Yes, another one of those. Sorry.) It takes place during the English Regency in a world in which the solar system is full of air and it’s possible to travel to Mars and Venus by airship. Naturally both of those planets are inhabited. My main character, Arabella Ashby, is a young woman who was born and raised on Mars but was recently hauled back to Earth by her mother, who didn’t want her youngest daughters growing up surrounded by aliens and turning out as wild as Arabella. Arabella, child of the frontier, is a Patrick O’Brian girl in a Jane Austen world; she’s stifled by England’s gravity, climate, and culture and dearly misses her father and brother, who remain on Mars. When her father dies and she learns her evil cousin plans to travel to Mars to kill her brother and inherit the family fortune, she disguises herself as a boy and joins the crew of a fast merchant ship in hopes of beating him there. But pirates, mutiny, and rebellion intervene. Will she reach her brother in time?

This novel takes place in the same universe as my story “The Wreck of the Mars Adventure” in Old Mars, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, which will be published in October.

What have you recently finished?
My most recently completed short story, titled “Goat Eyes,” is based on a question that has been kicking around the back of my head for years. Suppose you — the actual you, in the real world — discovered that vampires actually exist. How would this affect your life going forward? How would it change your behavior and worldview? This story is currently under consideration at an anthology.

What’s recently or soon out?
My short story collection Space Magic will be out on January 15 from Book View Café. This collection of 15 science fiction and fantasy stories won the Endeavour Award, for the best SF or Fantasy book by a Pacific Northwest writer, when it came out in paperback a few years ago, and now it’s available as an ebook from all the major ebook stores as well as directly from bookviewcafe.com. This is my first venture into e-publishing, and if it is successful there will be more.

In addition to the collection itself, $5.99 for all 15 stories, I’m also making the stories available for 99¢ each, following the iTunes singles-and-album model. It turns out that creating and uploading a single-story ebook is almost exactly as much work as a full novel ebook, so the work involved in doing it this way was much greater than I’d anticipated. I hope it pays off. If nothing else, I think, having 16 titles in the bookstores will make it more likely that people will find me than if there were just one.

Describe your typical writing day.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot more time on what my friend Jay Lake calls “writing-related program activities” such as e-publishing, promotion, and submission than I have on the actual writing. This kind of stuff can take up a surprising amount of time. For example, when a short story is rejected (and yes, I get rejections all the time) I often find that it takes an hour or more to decide where to send it next. Even though I have a spreadsheet with a list of markets to submit each story to, a lot of the time when I go to submit I discover that a market is temporarily or permanently closed or I already have a story in submission there. So then I need to research markets, see if there are any new ones, and determine which of the currently-available markets is the best fit for this story. So just at the moment my typical “writing” day doesn’t involve any writing at all! I hope to change this in the new year.

What would you draw attention to from your back-list?
Although “Tk’Tk’Tk” won the Hugo Award and has been translated into seven languages, the story I am proudest of is “The Tale of the Golden Eagle.” That’s the only story I’ve ever written that made me cry. Both of them are now available as ebooks, as part of Space Magic and as individual stories.

Which other authors or books do you think deserve a plug?
Tobias Buckell is a fine writer who is doing excellent work straddling the divide between self-publishing and traditional publishing; Mary Robinette Kowal is an inspiration to me with her broad range of long and short fiction and her selfless work with SFWA; and Jay Lake is a good friend and extremely talented writer who doesn’t let his serious health issues get in his way.

If you were to offer one snippet of writing advice what would it be?
Write. Finish what you write. Submit it to a paying market. Keep submitting until it sells.

In this modern world, “submit” may mean to self-publish and “until it sells” may mean “until it sells enough copies to make you happy,” but, at this point in the evolution of the industry, whether to self-publish or seek traditional publication is a personal decision. But the basic idea of continuing to write, finishing what you start, and putting it out there for people to buy has not changed.

So… the easy one: what’s the future of publishing? How will writers be making a living and publishing in five or ten years? What will readers be reading?
I anticipate that the current free-for-all will not last. We are in a period of chaos right now, with the former “Big Six” New York publishers losing control of the industry they used to dominate, and individual writers can make a big splash. But large corporations always win out in the end (look at the fate of small independent bookstores, video stores, coffee shops, and gas stations in the past decades). In five or ten years there will be a new Big Six of publishing, and I expect that four of them will be Amazon, Google, Apple, and Wal-Mart.

What will readers be reading? Same as today: most people will read bestsellers, based on recommendations from their friends and trusted media sources, but a significant minority will seek out quirky independent works that match their idiosyncratic tastes. The latter readers are the ones I’m writing for.

What are you most excited about?
I have been working on a video based on my story “Letter to the Editor” in the forthcoming anthology The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, edited by John Joseph Adams. It will be going live on January 21 and I think people will like it a lot. I am also extremely excited by my new web page, www.daviddlevine.com, which looks fantastic.

More…

David D. Levine is the author of over fifty published science fiction and fantasy stories. His work has appeared in markets including Asimov’s, Analog,F&SF, and Realms of Fantasy and has won or been nominated for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Campbell. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Kate Yule, with whom he co-edits the fanzine Bento. His web page is at www.daviddlevine.com.

Buy stuff:

• Space Magic
  Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book View Cafe

New: Blue Shifting by Eric Brown

“The blue light thickened, blotting out Janner’s surroundings, and he existed in a displaced void-like limbo. Then the blue light vanished. Christ, he cried to himself, where the hell now?”

It begins with a feeling of euphoria, then the light, lapis lazuli, leaking from your body, intensifying, a blinding nimbus, then it’s gone. And so are you… somewhere, anywhere.

And it is happening to you every day.

This collection contains the novella Blue Shifting, plus seven other stories from the two-times winner of the British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction.

Take a journey into an extraordinary universe…

…where life and love face the demands of mortality on planets as far flung as Nova Francais, Earth and Henderson’s Fall.

…where mankind has become Augmented or Altered, where zebra-men talk with unicorn-women.

…and where you can break the chains of physics in the cobalt glory of the Nada-continuum.

Available from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.co.uk
• kobo
• smashwords

New: two from Jason Erik Lundberg

Two new infinity plus titles from Jason Erik Lundberg, each crammed with intelligent, exotic fantasy:

The Alchemy of Happiness – three stories and a hybrid-essay

The Alchemy of Happiness: a triptych of stories rooted in Southeast Asian myth and legend, literary fantasy at its very best.

In the beginning were the four: Water, Fire, Air, and Earth. Arriving simultaneously with the creation of the world, these archetypal elementals shaped humanity from the very start; two of the four continue to do so.

BLUE—The first trickster, fluid and fickle, holder of all the answers, and, therefore, of all the power.

DANE—The loyal lieutenant and enforcer, dispatching fiery judgment without question.

In various guises and forms, through the interstices of our reality and multiple afterlives, these two ancient but flawed siblings seek to find the one metaphysical formula that will lead them out of the never-ending cycle of suffering. Like all of us, human and demigod alike, they yearn for the pure land of endless bliss.

This volume also features “Embracing the Strange,” a 14,000-word hybrid essay on the transformative power of speculative fiction, as well as “Represented Spaces,” a wide-ranging interview with Jason Erik Lundberg by author and editor Wei Fen Lee.

[As a special bonus, anyone who purchases a copy of The Alchemy of Happiness gets a link to a free copy of Jason's collection Red Dot Irreal.]

“The writing is smooth and crisply visual, and the dialog sparkles … Go with the flow, and you’ll meet an interesting character who ultimately is given a thought-provoking choice, one which comes with a unique sacrifice.”
—Douglas Hoffman, Tangent, on “Reality, Interrupted” (the first story in The Alchemy of Happiness)

“A fantasy tale of the highest calibre, at times I thought I was reading the last chapter of a great novel and it has certainly made me want to hear more from this author. A world of magic suddenly springs from a fairly ordinary beginning as Goran soon realises that things are not what they seem, and he quickly plunges into a new and disturbing world that is set to change his life forever.”
—Tracy Sherrin-Miller, Whispers of Wickedness, on “Reality, Interrupted”

“Lundberg’s writing is that of an Old Soul who views the world through Young Eyes; his work is jamais vu of the highest order.”
—James A. Owen, author and illustrator of Here, There Be Dragons

Available from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.co.uk
• kobo
• smashwords

Red Dot Irreal – Equatorial Fantastika

Travel to Southeast Asia on wings of the fantastic for Jason Erik Lundberg’s debut short-story collection Red Dot Irreal. There you’ll meet pirates and shamans, wise fish and mystical storytellers, living monuments and paper animals, time travelers and civet cats, stone taxi drivers, floating dental patients, and a sentient bird park. Once you enter the surreal worlds of Lundberg’s equatorial fantastika, a part of you will never leave.

Bonus: extra stories “Big Chief”, “Occupy: An Exhibition” and “Bachy Soletanche” have been added for this electronic edition.

“Stories exotic, spicy, and redolent as a four-star curry. A fine meal for the mind awaits you in Lundberg’s collection.”
—Jonathan Carroll, author of Outside the Dog Museum

“Lundberg’s writing is that of an Old Soul who views the world through Young Eyes; his work is jamais vu of the highest order: these stories are memories encountered for the first time, but never to be forgotten once they’ve been experienced.”
—James A. Owen, author and illustrator of Here, There Be Dragons

“Red Dot Irreal is a box made of the finest equatorial wood, containing a collection of genu-ine gems of the early 21st century noble art of fantastika.”
—Zoran Zivkovic, author of The Last Book

“Red Dot Irreal teems with imagination, location, originality, and fine writing.”
—Jeffrey Ford, author of The Empire of Ice Cream

Available from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.co.uk
• kobo
• smashwords

New: The Emoticon Generation by Guy Hasson

Guy Hasson’s The Emoticon Generation features seven stories about life-changes brought about by our new electronic generation: stories that blur the borders between our world and science fiction, stories that make you ask, ‘Has this already happened? Is that actually true?’

In this collection you’ll find a man who, after losing his fiancée to a terrible accident, seeks to learn if true love really exists; a girl, hardly a teen, who searches for her father only to learn a terrible truth about herself; a man who wants to immortalize his genius but ends up tricking himself out of it; an old hero whose entire life unravels when the truth about his heroic act is revealed; a harmless birthday gift that triggers a profound search into the depths of a young couple’s relationship; and more.

Guy Hasson is one of the freshest new science fiction authors out there, with a knack for finding the human heart in the biggest ideas.
“Hasson has a scalpel-sharp intellect which, allied to great ideas and a superb story-telling ability, makes for a wonderfully entertaining collection.” –Eric Brown

“Guy Hasson writes with a deceptive smoothness, in the assured hand of an Old Master, and with a deep concern for the big questions of science fiction. You need to read him.” –Lavie Tidhar, World Fantasy Award winner for Best Novel 2012

The Emoticon Generation by Guy Hasson is available in ebook format from:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk
• Smashwords
•  Kobo

Snapshots: Nir Yaniv interviewed

Your first English-language story collection, The Love Machine & other contraptions, is just out. Tell us more about its contents and history.

The beginning, as stated in Frank Herbert’s Dune, is a very delicate time. Therefore I can’t say I remember much about the beginning of this book, for I was probably in a questionable state of mind then, an assumption I make mainly because I’m in a questionable state of mind most of the time, now included.

In any case, this book collects short stories written over a period of ten years or so. Most of them were published in Hebrew, and some were published in various publications in English and other languages. The recurring machines theme comes for my great love of everything mechanical, both in the real world and outside it, and from the fact that we are machines too. That’s also why I decided to augment the collection with some contraptions.

Contraptions?

Contraptions, to me, are just like fish: I’ve never eaten one. I mean – Gefilte-Fish doesn’t count, right? (If you don’t know what Gefilte-Fish is – count yourself lucky!)

In any case – after I finished selecting the stories to be included in the book, I sat and wrote twelve short-short ones, each dedicated to another impossible yet somehow very real machine. You’ll find there, among others, a Real Machine, an Id Machine, and even a Non Machine. They were not only great fun to write (and hopefully to read!) – I feel that they also bind the other stories of the collection together. Just like appetisers in a really good meal. You do notice the recurring theme of food in this interview, yes?

I’m ignoring it as best I can. So – you’re creative across a number of media: writing, editing, music and film. What are the connections between these? Do you ever stretch projects across several media? Are there even any boundaries?

One of the stories included in the collection is called My Uncle Gave Me a Time Machine. It is based on a song by the same name which was a part of my science-fiction rock album, The Universe in a Pita. That album, in turn, was a part of a radio-play I tried to produce a while back, in which an Israeli rock band is kidnapped by intergalactic mafia and has to pay by performing all over the universe. So projects in one medium influence projects in another. But it also works in other ways: when writing, I listen to the words. They have to have a tune and a tempo. In other words, they have to be a sort of music. In short: my mind is a mess.

Also, I am tempted to say that there are no boundaries, but of course there are: to me, boundaries, or rather – limits – are vital for creating any form of art. When everything is possible and everything is allowed, the result is boring. That’s why I’m a great fan of concept albums and themed projects, and my own works always have strict guidelines.

You’ve collaborated successfully with World Fantasy Award-winner Lavie Tidhar. How does a collaboration work for something as individual as writing fiction?

Lavie is a good friend and a great writer. I would compare collaborating with him to being in a rock band – I’ve been a bass player and a lead singer in several of those – only the work is serial instead of parallel: in a band everyone plays together at the same time, while a writing collaboration, in our case, goes chapter-by-chapter, one by him, one by me. But the rest is just the same: the alcohol, the drugs, the sexy young fans, the fights, the ruined hotel suites, the lot.

What’s special about Israeli SF? Who else should we look out for? Is it a good thing or bad to be labelled an Israeli SF author, rather than simply an SF author?

The very term “Israeli SF” is somewhat problematic, as even most Israeli fans fail to agree what it means. Is it SF written by Israeli authors? Or SF with Israeli protagonists? Or maybe SF written in Hebrew?

The other problem is that, even if we accept all of the above as genuine Israeli SF, that leaves us with only a few active writers, who don’t share much common ground besides that factor. An excellent Israeli writer I’d recommend is Shimon Adaf, whose work never ceases to amaze me.

As for the word “Israeli” being added or omitted to “SF author”, I’d say that this is mainly a question for the marketing department. I was born and raised in Israel, and Hebrew is my mother tongue, so yeah, I’m an Israeli guy, and my writing is influenced by that. On the other hand, most Israelis are sons or grandsons of immigrants: my grandparents are east-Europeans – mostly Polish – which explains the weird humor, and also the silly food. How “Israeli” is that? In some respects, my writing has more in common with Polish and Russian literature. Other Israeli writers have roots in such places as Spain, Egypt or Yemen, and draw their cultural background from there. And of course we all share the love, even if it’s in the form of nostalgia, for good old American and British SF.

What are you working on now?

At the moment I’m working on my second short film, about a young doctoral student who builds a time machine out of the microwave oven in his home, which gets stuck and sends him 6 hours into the future once every 20 seconds, that being only his second-worst problem, the first one being his extremely pissed-off roommate.

I’m also working on a very complex novel dealing with King Solomon, a character which always fascinated me. There are a couple of ancient Jewish legends telling about Solomon making a bad deal with Samedy, the king of the devils. Samedy takes Solomon’s signet ring, throws him to a distant land, takes his form and rules in his place. My idea: Samedy doesn’t take Solomon’s ring, but rather they exchange rings. And Solomon is not thrown in space, but rather – with the help of the ring he got – in time. Now starts the fun.

Describe your typical writing day.

I have a full-time job as a computer programmer, which, if you’re smart enough, is a good way of getting money for nothing-in-particular, meanwhile using an overly powerful computer for making your own stuff. I write in bits and pieces over the day, and in between I take pictures, edit video projects, soundtracks and texts, eat and sleep. I also do a bit of programming, yeah, but don’t tell my bosses at work – I don’t want them to get used to it.

What would you draw attention to from your back-list?

The Tel Aviv Dossier, which I co-wrote with Lavie Tidhar. I shamelessly declare that it’s not only the craziest book I wrote, but also the craziest book I’ve read.

If you were to offer one snippet of writing advice what would it be?

No excuses. If you find yourself in the need of any excuse whatsoever regarding any part of a story or a book – it isn’t good. Make it so good that you don’t need excuses. Or throw it away.

Also, regular meals are important.

So… the easy one: what’s the future of publishing? How will writers be making a living and publishing in five or ten years? What will readers be reading?

I am tempted to say that life will get better and that writers will get more money for their work due to the advances of e-books. However, I don’t think it’ll happen. The main factor for succeeding in any form of art was, is and will remain the marketing department. In other words, the concept of big publishers will stay with us, even while the technology changes.

I like paper books quite a lot, and the first thing people notice, when they get into my house, is the terrific amount of books in it. Well, maybe that’s the second thing, right after the terrific amount of bass guitars. Still, I do most of my reading on a Kindle these days, and I think it’s a game changer for the readers. Especially ones who used to carry one kilogram of books per flight, and can now reduce that to whatever it is the Kindle weighs.

Any last words to your audience, then?

No, sir. You haven’t heard the last of me!

More…

Nir Yaniv is a writer, musician, editor and filmmaker based in Tel Aviv. His short stories were published in Israel and outside it, including such publications as Weird Tales, Apex Magazine and Chizine. And they have been translated into German, Portuguese and Polish. His first story collection, One Hell of a Writer, came out in 2006. Two novels he co-wrote with Lavie Tidhar were published in 2009: The Tel Aviv Dossier and Fictional Murder. His second story collection, The Love Machine & Other Contraptions, came out in 2012.

Nir founded Israel’s first online SF&F magazine, sf-f.org.il, in which he served as chief editor for seven years; went on to edit Dreams in Aspamia, a printed speculative fiction magazine, and created the first Hebrew science fiction rock album, The Universe in a Pita.

Nir’s first short film, Conspiracy, was screened in film festivals in Israel and in the UK. He served in various film projects as cameraman, soundman, sound-editor, and even actor.

Buy stuff:

• The Love Machine & Other Contraptions
  • Amazon.com (paperback)
  • Amazon.co.uk (paperback)
  • Amazon.com (Kindle)
  • Amazon.co.uk (Kindle)
• The Tel Aviv Dossier
  Amazon US | Amazon UK
• Even more: http://www.niryaniv.com

New: The Time-Lapsed Man and other stories by Eric Brown

He made a sound of pleasure as the hot water needled his tired skin. Yet he heard nothing. The silence was more absolute than any he had experienced before. After more than fifty shifts, a lifetime among the stars, this was his first rehabilitation problem, and he was not unduly worried…

In Eric Brown’s landmark first collection of stories, fear, desire, love and redemption are forged with an innovative and stunning science-fiction imagination, creating eight exotic tales of tomorrow. Witty, original, imbued with a cyberpunk bleakness, this is the work of one of the UK’s leading, and most loved, SF authors.

“The essence of modern science fiction” Bob Shaw

“SF infused with a cosmopolitan and literary sensibility” Paul McAuley

“British writing with a deft, understated touch: wonderful” New Scientist

The Time-Lapsed Man and other stories is available as an ebook from:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk
• and other ebook retailers

A book of reviews? Really?

That was pretty much my first reaction when John Grant approached me with the idea of putting together a collection of his book reviews. Who on earth would buy such a thing?

But then I started to think a bit more. Back in the ten years I ran the infinity plus online genre showcase, John was one of my favourite reviewers. (I know that, as with our children, editors shouldn’t really have favourites, but you just know we all do.) He was productive and timely, for a start, which is always helpful. But far more than that, his reviews were eloquent, witty, opinionated and, above all, great reads. While most of our reviews were only a few hundred words long, John’s were often over a thousand words in length, articulate and entertaining essays that were filled with his genuine passion for good writing.

Another thing I liked about John’s contributions was the way he took books at face value. One week he might review Stephen King or Jeanette Winterson, and the next a book effectively self-published by iUniverse. He didn’t care about the names on the cover: it was all about the words. And he uncovered some real gems by taking such an egalitarian stance.

He did also stumble across some some turkeys, from large publishers and small, name writers and newcomers. And these turkeys were dissected, often with thoroughly scathing wit: never harsh or ridiculing, John analysed just what it was that made some books work and some choke, in an object lesson to any aspiring writer who wants to understand their craft, and their industry.

This is starting to sound like a sales pitch. And while I’d be the first to confess that I’m drawing your attention to the book in the hope that you will buy it (over 150,000 words, covering SF, fantasy, horror, crime and more, for a mere $1.99? how could you not?), my primary intention here is to set out my journey from “Really? You must be mad…” to “Aw, go on then,” to thinking that, actually, if enough of the right people read this book it would be a genuine contender for things like the British Science Fiction Award’s non-fiction category.

It’s funny. It’s breathtakingly intelligent and well-informed. It strikes that perfect balance between serious and a great read.

I made that journey from “Really?” to “what a great idea” quite quickly, and I’m sure a lot of other people will too.

John Grant’s Warm Words & Otherwise: A Blizzard of Book Reviews – infinity plus ebooks’ first venture into non-fiction is now available from the usual suspects:

…amazon.com (Kindle format, $1.99)
…amazon.co.uk (Kindle format, £1.44)
…Smashwords (various formats, including epub, mobi, Sony and PDF, $1.99)

A bumper collection – over 150,000 words! – of book reviews, many of full essay length, by the two-time Hugo winning and World Fantasy Award-winning co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and author, among much fiction, of such recent nonfiction works as Corrupted Science and (forthcoming) Denying Science.

Scholarly, iconoclastic, witty, passionate, opinionated, hilarious, scathing and downright irritating by turn, these critical pieces are sure to appeal to anyone who loves fantasy, science fiction, mystery fiction, crime fiction and many points in between … and who also enjoys a rousing argument.