Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Promo copy:

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won’t find any elves or wizards here…but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled.

The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

Check out the full table of contents here

Darksiders: The Abomination Vault
by Ari Marmell

Promo copy:

Ride with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse as they seek to unearth a plot that could plunge all of Creation into chaos!

Ages before the events of Darksiders and Darksiders II, two of the feared Horsemen—Death and War—are tasked with stopping a group of renegades from locating the Abomination Vault: a hoard containing weapons of ultimate power and malice, capable of bringing an end to the uneasy truce between Heaven and Hell … but only by unleashing total destruction.

Created in close collaboration with the Darksiders II teams at Vigil and THQ, Darksiders: The Abomination Vault gives an exciting look at the history and world of the Horsemen, shining a new light on the unbreakable bond between War and Death.

Nebula Awards Showcase 2012
Edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
Cover by Michael Whelan

Promo copy:

The latest volume of the prestigious anthology series.

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes, which have been published since 1966, collect the year’s Nebula Award-nominated and winning stories and poems, as voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This year’s volume includes the winners of the Andre Norton, Dwarf Star, Rhysling, and Solstice Awards, as well as the Nebula winners, and features:

“How Interesting: A Tiny Man” by
Harlan Ellison

“Ponies” by
Kij Johnson

“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by
Eric James Stone

“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window by
Rachel Swirsky

an excerpt from
Blackout / All Clear by
Connie Willis

and an excerpt from the Andre Norton Award-winning
I Shall Wear Midnight by
Terry Pratchett

with additional stories and poems by Chris Barzak, Aliette de Bodard, Amal El-Mohtar, Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson, Howard Hendrix, Geoff Landis, Shweta Narayan, Ann K. Schwader, James Tiptree, Jr., and Adam Troy-Castro and a cover by Solstice Award-winner Michael Whelan.

Books received 3/18/12 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Promo copy:

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won’t find any elves or wizards here…but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled.

The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

Check out the full table of contents here

Darksiders: The Abomination Vault
by Ari Marmell

Promo copy:

Ride with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse as they seek to unearth a plot that could plunge all of Creation into chaos!

Ages before the events of Darksiders and Darksiders II, two of the feared Horsemen—Death and War—are tasked with stopping a group of renegades from locating the Abomination Vault: a hoard containing weapons of ultimate power and malice, capable of bringing an end to the uneasy truce between Heaven and Hell … but only by unleashing total destruction.

Created in close collaboration with the Darksiders II teams at Vigil and THQ, Darksiders: The Abomination Vault gives an exciting look at the history and world of the Horsemen, shining a new light on the unbreakable bond between War and Death.

Nebula Awards Showcase 2012
Edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
Cover by Michael Whelan

Promo copy:

The latest volume of the prestigious anthology series.

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes, which have been published since 1966, collect the year’s Nebula Award-nominated and winning stories and poems, as voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This year’s volume includes the winners of the Andre Norton, Dwarf Star, Rhysling, and Solstice Awards, as well as the Nebula winners, and features:

“How Interesting: A Tiny Man” by
Harlan Ellison

“Ponies” by
Kij Johnson

“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by
Eric James Stone

“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window by
Rachel Swirsky

an excerpt from
Blackout / All Clear by
Connie Willis

and an excerpt from the Andre Norton Award-winning
I Shall Wear Midnight by
Terry Pratchett

with additional stories and poems by Chris Barzak, Aliette de Bodard, Amal El-Mohtar, Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson, Howard Hendrix, Geoff Landis, Shweta Narayan, Ann K. Schwader, James Tiptree, Jr., and Adam Troy-Castro and a cover by Solstice Award-winner Michael Whelan.

Books received 3/18/12 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

This is (ahem) fantastic news for those in Austin:

After seeing it at last year’s Fantastic Fest, here’s what I wrote:

Definitely a MUST see!

Juan of the Dead returns to Austin! was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

This is (ahem) fantastic news for those in Austin:

After seeing it at last year’s Fantastic Fest, here’s what I wrote:

Definitely a MUST see!

Juan of the Dead returns to Austin! was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Angelmaker
by Nick Harkaway
Cover by Jason Booher

Promo copy:

From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World, blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good square off against the forces of evil, and only an unassuming clockwork repairman and an octogenarian former superspy can save the world from total destruction.

Joe Spork spends his days fixing antique clocks. The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun…

This looks fascinating. Sadly, won’t be able to get to it until after I turn in The Apes of Wrath.

Here’s some great quotes about the book courtesy of Knopf’s pr department.

The Master of Heathcrest Hall
by Galen Beckett
Cover by Phil Heffernan

Promo copy:

Even as her husband is about to attain undreamed-of power, Ivy Quent fears for her family’s safety. With war looming and turmoil sweeping the nation of Altania, Ivy finds the long-abandoned manor on the moors a temporary haven. But nowhere is really safe from the treachery that threatens all the Quents have risked to achieve. And an even greater peril is stirring deep within the countryside’s beautiful green estates. As Ivy dares an alliance with a brilliant illusionist and a dangerous lord, she races to master her forbidden talents and unravel the terrible truth at the heart of her land’s unrest—even as a triumphant, inhuman darkness rises to claim Altania eternally for its own.

Body, Inc.
by Alan Dean Foster
Cover by Carl Galian

Promo copy:

New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has always been on the cutting-edge of science fiction. In Body, Inc., he creates a tomorrow where genetic manipulation has become ubiquitous, and the very meaning of what it is to be human is undergoing drastic transformation.

In a world deeply wounded by centuries of environmental damage, two unlikely souls join forces: Dr. Ingrid Seastrom has stumbled into a mystery involving quantum-entangled nanoscale implants—a mystery that just may kill her. Whispr is a thief and murderer whose radical body modifications have left him so thin he is all but two-dimensional. Whispr has found a silver data-storage thread, a technology that will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He is also going mad with longing for Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Their quest to learn the secrets of the implant and the thread—which may well be the same secret—has led them to the South African Economic Combine, otherwise known as SAEC. Or, less respectfully, SICK. SICK, it seems, has the answers.

Unfortunately, SICK has also got Napun Molé, a cold-blooded assassin whose genetic enhancements make him the equivalent of a small army. Molé has already missed one chance to kill Ingrid and Whispr and now he has followed them to South Africa. This time, he is not only going to succeed, he is going to make them suffer.

RevSF contributing editor Alan J. Porter interviewed Foster about The Human Blend, the first volume of The Tipping Point Series.

Books received 3/13/12 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Angelmaker
by Nick Harkaway
Cover by Jason Booher

Promo copy:

From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World, blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good square off against the forces of evil, and only an unassuming clockwork repairman and an octogenarian former superspy can save the world from total destruction.

Joe Spork spends his days fixing antique clocks. The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun…

This looks fascinating. Sadly, won’t be able to get to it until after I turn in The Apes of Wrath.

Here’s some great quotes about the book courtesy of Knopf’s pr department.

The Master of Heathcrest Hall
by Galen Beckett
Cover by Phil Heffernan

Promo copy:

Even as her husband is about to attain undreamed-of power, Ivy Quent fears for her family’s safety. With war looming and turmoil sweeping the nation of Altania, Ivy finds the long-abandoned manor on the moors a temporary haven. But nowhere is really safe from the treachery that threatens all the Quents have risked to achieve. And an even greater peril is stirring deep within the countryside’s beautiful green estates. As Ivy dares an alliance with a brilliant illusionist and a dangerous lord, she races to master her forbidden talents and unravel the terrible truth at the heart of her land’s unrest—even as a triumphant, inhuman darkness rises to claim Altania eternally for its own.

Body, Inc.
by Alan Dean Foster
Cover by Carl Galian

Promo copy:

New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has always been on the cutting-edge of science fiction. In Body, Inc., he creates a tomorrow where genetic manipulation has become ubiquitous, and the very meaning of what it is to be human is undergoing drastic transformation.

In a world deeply wounded by centuries of environmental damage, two unlikely souls join forces: Dr. Ingrid Seastrom has stumbled into a mystery involving quantum-entangled nanoscale implants—a mystery that just may kill her. Whispr is a thief and murderer whose radical body modifications have left him so thin he is all but two-dimensional. Whispr has found a silver data-storage thread, a technology that will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He is also going mad with longing for Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Their quest to learn the secrets of the implant and the thread—which may well be the same secret—has led them to the South African Economic Combine, otherwise known as SAEC. Or, less respectfully, SICK. SICK, it seems, has the answers.

Unfortunately, SICK has also got Napun Molé, a cold-blooded assassin whose genetic enhancements make him the equivalent of a small army. Molé has already missed one chance to kill Ingrid and Whispr and now he has followed them to South Africa. This time, he is not only going to succeed, he is going to make them suffer.

RevSF contributing editor Alan J. Porter interviewed Foster about The Human Blend, the first volume of The Tipping Point Series.

Books received 3/13/12 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Fair Coin
by E. C. Myers
Cover by Sam Weber

Promo copy:

The coin changed Ephraim’s life. But how can he change it back?

Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she’d identified Ephraim’s body at the hospital that day.

Among his dead double’s belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin–a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he’s liked since second grade. But the coin doesn’t always change things for the better. And a bad flip can destroy other people’s lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.

The coin could give Ephraim everything he’s ever wanted–if he learns to control its power before his luck runs out.

Destroyer of Worlds (Kingdom of the Serpent, Book 3)
by Mark Chadbourn

Shadow’s Master
by Jon Sprunk
Cover by Michael Komarck

Promo copy:

THE NORTHERN WASTES…
A land of death and shadow where only the strongest survive. Yet that is where Caim must go to follow the mystery at the heart of his life. Armed only with his knives and his companions, he plunges into a world of eternal night where the sun is never seen and every hand is turned against him.

Caim has buried his father’s sword and found some measure of peace, but deep in the north an unfathomable power lies waiting. To succeed on this mission, Caim will have to do more than just survive. He must face the Shadow’s Master.

With this novel, Jon Sprunk brings his action-packed trilogy to an epic conclusion.

Books received 3/13/12 Pyr edition was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Fair Coin
by E. C. Myers
Cover by Sam Weber

Promo copy:

The coin changed Ephraim’s life. But how can he change it back?

Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she’d identified Ephraim’s body at the hospital that day.

Among his dead double’s belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin–a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he’s liked since second grade. But the coin doesn’t always change things for the better. And a bad flip can destroy other people’s lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.

The coin could give Ephraim everything he’s ever wanted–if he learns to control its power before his luck runs out.

Destroyer of Worlds (Kingdom of the Serpent, Book 3)
by Mark Chadbourn

Shadow’s Master
by Jon Sprunk
Cover by Michael Komarck

Promo copy:

THE NORTHERN WASTES…
A land of death and shadow where only the strongest survive. Yet that is where Caim must go to follow the mystery at the heart of his life. Armed only with his knives and his companions, he plunges into a world of eternal night where the sun is never seen and every hand is turned against him.

Caim has buried his father’s sword and found some measure of peace, but deep in the north an unfathomable power lies waiting. To succeed on this mission, Caim will have to do more than just survive. He must face the Shadow’s Master.

With this novel, Jon Sprunk brings his action-packed trilogy to an epic conclusion.

Books received 3/13/12 Pyr edition was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon