Jeff Vandermeer_6 Titles (New Weird; Fantasy; Pulp)

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The VanderMeers (_Best American Fantasy_) ably demonstrate the sheer breadth of the New Weird fantasy subgenre in this powerful anthology of short fiction and critical essays. Highlights include strong fiction by authors such as M. John Harrison, Clive Barker, Kathe Koja and Michael Moorcock whose work pointed the way to such definitive New Weird tales as Jeffrey Ford's At Reparata and K.J. Bishop's The Art of Dying. Lingering somewhere between dark fantasy and supernatural horror, New Weird authors often seek to create unease rather than full-fledged terror. The subgenre's roots in the British New Wave of the 1960s and the Victorian Decadents can lend a self-consciously literary and experimental aura, as illustrated by the laboratory, where more mainstream fantasy and horror authors, including Sarah Monette and Conrad Williams, try their hands at creating New Weird stories. This extremely ambitious anthology will define the New Weird much as Bruce Sterling's landmark Mirrorshades anthology defined cyberpunk. (Mar.)
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From

The title of this collection of stories, essays, and online discussion threads refers to a subgenre of modern horror that has roots in New Wave literature and the off-kilter fantasy spawned by Weird Tales. In contrast to the eerie nostalgia of Bradbury or the haunting supernaturalism of Lovecraft, the New Weird more often leans toward grotesque urban noir and cross-genre experimentation. The contributors here constitute a multitalented lineup ranging from such veterans as Clive Barker and Michael Moorcock to rising stars, such as Jay Lake and Alistair Rennie. Kathe Koje’s “The Neglected Garden” follows the transformation of a spurned lover who takes revenge by crucifying herself on her ex’s wire fence. China Miévelle, whose celebrated Perdido Street Station (2000) epitomizes the subcategory’s visceral blend of fantasy and realism, contributes a gritty tale about the veneration and inevitable capture of an outlaw cyborg. In the anthology’s final section, an experimental collaboration between seven authors embellishing a plot hatched by Paul DiFillipo exemplifies the New Weird’s propensity for pushing the boundaries of literary invention. --Carl Hays



Blending the romantic elegance of the Victorian era with modern scientific advances, the popular Steampunk genre spotlighted in this collection is innovative and stimulates the imagination. This artfully assembled anthology of original fiction, nonfiction, and art can serve as an introduction to the Steampunk culture or provide dedicated fans with more fuel. Stories of outlandishly imaginative technologies, clockwork contraptions, eccentric heroines, and mad scientists are complemented by canon-defining nonfiction and an array of original illustrations. This collection showcases the most sensational Steampunk talents of the last decade, including Daniel Abraham, John Coulthart, William Gibson, and Margo Lanagan, and demonstrates exactly why the future of the past is so excitingly new.



Review

“The narrative scope and stellar assemblage of writers and illustrators in The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities makes this a book that will be absolutely cherished by fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk aficionados alike.” (Paul Goat Allen )

“Some of the most interesting fantasist-fabulists writing today.” (Los Angeles Times )

Product Description

The death of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead in 2003 at his house in Wimpering-on-the-Brook, England, revealed an astonishing discovery: the remains of a remarkable cabinet of curiosities.

A carefully selected group of popular artists and acclaimed, bestselling fantasy authors has been assembled to bring Dr. Lambshead’s cabinet of curiosities to life. Including contributions from Alan Moore, Lev Grossman, Mike Mignola, China MiÉville, Cherie Priest, Carrie Vaughn, Greg Broadmore, Naomi Novik, Garth Nix, Michael Moorcock , Holly Black, Jeffrey Ford, Ted Chiang, and many more.



In City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer has reinvented the literature of the fantastic. You hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited–an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians.

City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading–and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago.…

By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzlebox where you can lose–and find–yourself again.



“The Situation” is based on a short story by Jeff VanderMeer which Margo Lanagan called “darkly hilarious” and Kevin Brockmeier “a work of surreal humor, bemused sadness, and meticulous artifice...as if the workplace novels of Sinclair Lewis and Joshua Ferris had been inverted, shaken, and diced until they came out looking like a Terry Gilliam creation.”



From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. VanderMeer's seventh collection (after Secret Lives) is a fine introduction to one of our very best contemporary practitioners of the fantastic. In the dark "The Third Bear," an isolated medieval town is beset by a monster that uses the bodies of its victims to create a grisly work of art. "Finding Sonoria" concerns a down-on-his-luck PI hired to find a country that issued a postage stamp but apparently does not exist. The intensely surreal "The Situation" takes place in a company torn by bizarre office politics and dedicated to body modification and the construction of beetles and flying manta rays. "The Goat Variations" is a sophisticated alternate history in which a newly elected U.S. president is briefed on a startling scientific breakthrough with origins not of this world. Fans of slipstream and the interstitial will relish VanderMeer's superb prose, overwhelmingly odd situations, and fascinating, eccentric characters.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"A fine introduction to one of our very best contemporary practitioners of the fantastic." —_Publishers Weekly_

"These 15 elegantly crafted stories ably demonstrate VanderMeer's skill . . . calls to mind the works of Borges, Kafka, and Lem." —_Library Journal_, Starred Review

"VanderMeer proves again why he is so essential and why everybody should be reading him." —Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“One of the things that sets VanderMeer apart is his embrace of technology and media. His online presence is considerable and includes a number of web sites, frequent blogging, a short film adaptation of his novel Shriek (including collaboration with pop rock band The Church), his Alien Baby photo project and even a project involving animation via Sony Playstation.” —Wired.com

"Jeff Vandermeer is not to be trusted. He hypnotizes with shiny objects, bizarrely beautiful shapes and phrases, then (more often than not) gently drifts you into very dark places. You won't know where you're going till you get there and then, of course, it's too late." —Mike Mignola, creator, Hellboy

"In the hands of a brilliant writer like Jeff VanderMeer, writing fantasy can be a means of serious artistic expression. . . . It is also playful, poignant, and utterly, wildly imaginative." —Peter Straub, author, The Talisman

"Fascinating . . . the harmonics between the stories cross all sorts of boundaries." —Locus Magazine

"Jeff VanderMeer is an extraordinary writer . . . passionate, beautiful, complex, terrifying." —Tamar Yellin, author,_ The Genizah at the House of Shepher_