John Joseph Adams, publicist/editor for Night Shade Books, sent out this announcement today in regards to Night Shade becoming the home for John Klima's acclaimed Electric Velocopide magazine:

Night Shade Books Announces New Partnership with Electric Velocipede

Night Shade Books has joined forces with World Fantasy Award-nominated magazine Electric Velocipede, and, like a pair of steam-powered metal titans joined together to form a mighty behemoth, the pair plans to march forward in unison, changing the genre fiction battlefield for the better.

Electric Velocipede is a critically acclaimed science fiction/fantasy/cross-genre magazine published twice a year. Issues of Electric Velocipede have included works by award-winning authors such as Jeffrey Ford, Jeff VanderMeer, Alex Irvine, Liz Williams, Hal Duncan, Charles Coleman Finlay, and others. Many stories appearing in Electric Velocipede have appeared in the recommended reading lists for both the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror and Year's Best Science Fiction for several years running. Electric Velocipede editor John Klima will remain at the helm of the magazine, relying on Night Shade Books' expertise and deep market penetration to help shepherd the magazine to the next level.

In celebration of this momentous alliance, Night Shade Books and Electric Velocipede are proud to announce a subscription drive: sign up for a one year subscription or renewal, and we'll send you your choice of any two in-print Night Shade paperbacks or trade hardcovers! Just list your selections in the comments field when placing your order. Sorry, this offer applies only to United States subscribers only. Books must be in-print and available from Night Shade Books at the time the order is placed, and will be shipped concurrently with Electric Velocipede double issue #15/16. Night Shade Books reserves the right to make substitutions.

Subscriptions are for four issues, starting with the current issue. New subscriptions will begin with double issue #15/16. Double issues will be counted as two issues. Renewals are also four issues, starting with the next issue after your current subscription ends. Offer expires January 8, 2009.

For more information, visit www.nightshadebooks.com/velocipede

I would have already taken advantage of this sweet offer (especially since my 2009 resolution is to read/review more short fiction, in particular that not published by the traditional Big 3), but either my browser is screwed up or there is something off on Night Shade's site, since I never could find this "shipping options" part on the checkout page...I'll try again in a few days on my other computer.

Inscriptions

I love receiving books from dear friends, perhaps in part because I rarely receive such thoughtful gifts. I particularly love it when there are little inscriptions written on the inside cover or frontispiece, as it feels like a communion of sorts - me, them, and the text in-between to bind us closer together.

I found myself moving a few books around this evening to make space for new arrivals. As I tried to decide where to reshelve them, I began reading some of the inscriptions and thinking back fondly to the times when I first received those books, in some cases many years ago. Since I rarely share personal things, I thought I'd use this post to give readers here a glimpse into some of the good friendships I have developed over the years. No names will be shared (after all, there has to be some privacy here!), but the books and their inscriptions perhaps will be clue enough to the types of friends who've shared their thoughts as well as their dedications over the years:

José Hernández, Martín Fierro:

Si bien Martín Fierro es el gaucho "cliché" & no es verdadero gaucho; el poemo es inposible! Espero que lo entiendas...Besos, _________ Julio 2005.

Manuel Mujica Lainez, Misteriosa Buenos Aires:

Cuando me pase a pensar en tu regalo de cumpleaños en seguido pensé "tiene que leer estos cuentos."

Reales o no, reflejan verdaderomente el espiritu de Buenos Aires. Feliz cumpleaños!

Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (in a foreign edition):

For Larry:

For the rainy afternoons to scare away the boredom.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (in another foreign edition):

É ameró il rumore del vento nel grano...

Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler... (again, in another language):

Larry.

Books are like bridges.

They connect.


While there are others I could share, from friends and authors alike, these are the ones that mean the most to me, especially the Italian translation of Saint-Exupéry. Am I alone in cherishing such inscriptions, or have others out there received similar writings within their received books that have made them think just a bit longer about not just the book and its meanings, but on how that book might represent a larger connection between two people?

December 4-6 Book Porn

Five books this time, four of them purchases and one the finished copy of a previously-received ARC. As always, I show my purchases mostly for those few who might be curious about what I buy and if it differs greatly from what I receive for review consideration.

Left: Rómulo Gallegos, Doña Bárbara (before there was the Boom Generation, there were Latin American writers such as the Venezuelan Gallegos, taking influences from France, Spain, and occasionally the US and making adaptations to fit with what was transpiring in Latin America. This work is a classic for a reason and I am curious to discover that reason, since until recently, this book was not easily available for a gringo such as myself); Rikki Ducornet, The One Marvelous Thing (microfiction collection with illustrations provided. Ducornet has a lush, poetic writing style and so far, halfway into this collection, it is almost certain to be discussed more later this month, as it is just the sort of read I wanted to read right now); J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beetle the Bard (based off of the book's references in the last HP book, I've already reviewed it).



Left: Mark Schultz, The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA (the sort of book that makes complicated stuff like genetics a bit more comprehensible for non-science majors such as myself); Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Sleeping Sorceress (third volume in a series of reissues of Moorcock's Elric stories. Need to read the second one first, but since the fourth one arrived as an ARC last week, felt obligated to buy the third volume now, with hopes of reading all three volumes in the coming weeks.)

Pensando en unas historias traducidas

Mis pensamientos mientras estoy leyendo Doña Bárbara...

As many of you know, I love reading works written in Spanish. Found myself thinking during my long commute back home a couple of days ago about the difficulties it is for non-English fictions, particularly speculative fiction works, to be translated and published in the U.S. and U.K. markets. If the stories are short fictions, it becomes even more difficult to be published, as I can recall only two recent collections of Latin American/Spanish fictions, Cosmos Latinos (SF-oriented; published back in 2003) and the upcoming bilingual Best of Mexican Contemporary Fiction (mostly mimetic fiction, with some stories containing speculative elements).

For each of those two collections, each was published in part due to academic grants given to Wesleyan and Dalkey Archive. I wonder if it'll take something akin to that for the associated translation/transcription costs to be paid. If I had the time (which sadly I don't right now, as I'm really busy with the teaching aspects of my professional life), I would probably investigate this further, but does anyone reading this know of any such grant-giving institutions that might sponsor a SF-related anthology of translated fictions? Or for that matter, of any other anthologies of translated Spanish/Latin American literature?

Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon is one of those singers that I wished I would have discovered earlier than my late 20s, as I didn't become aware of his often brilliant songwriter until he was in the last stages of his battle with cancer in 2003. Out of his songs, "My Shit's Fucked Up" has haunted me for a long time, with its combination of lyrics, emotion, and guitar work. Sometimes, I find myself trying to think of what book would go best with Zevon's music and I thought I'd ask any out there who've listened to Zevon if there are any particular types of books that they'd read with his music, in hopes that my memory might be jogged, as I seem to recall thinking years ago of a certain book that fit perfectly with this song in particular.

Suggestions?

J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beedle the Bard

There was once a kindly old wizard who used his magic generously and wisely for the benefit of his neighbors. Rather than reveal the true source of his power, he pretended that his potions, charms, and antidotes sprang ready-made from the little cauldron he called his lucky cooking pot. From miles around, people came to him with their troubles, and the wizard was pleased to give his pot a stir, and put things right.

This well-beloved wizard lived to a goodly age, then died, little all his chattels to his only son. This son was of a very different disposition to his gentle father. Those who could not work magic were, to the son's mind, worthless, and he had often quarreled with his father's habit of dispensing magical aid to their neighbors.

Upon the father's death, the son found hidden inside the old cooking pot a small package bearing his name. He opened it, hoping for gold, but found instead a soft, thick slipper, much too small to war, and with no pair. A fragment of parchment within the slipper bore the words "In the fond hope, my son, that you will never need it." (pp. 1-2)

In her latest Harry Potter-related book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling reveals the "contents" of the book that was referenced often in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This is a slender, 110 page collection of five fairy tale-like stories intended for the fictional wizardly families. Rowling breaks down these five stories into the tales themselves (purportedly "translated" by Hermione Granger), with "commentaries" by Professor Albus Dumbledore. Clever as these tales are, this division often weakens the impact of the stories.

Rowling does a fairly good job with updating and referencing traditional fairy tales and their motifs in tales such as the one cited above, "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot." She manages to capture much of the feel of the old fairy and folk tales in these tales with her carefulness to mimic the structure of these tales without ever really going too far in the direction of creating pale carbon copies of the original tales. While the quoted first story obviously is going to set up a comeuppance for the wizard's son, it is the way that Rowling structures his pratfalls that makes for a satisfactory read. The other four tales are at least as strong as the first, with the middle tale, "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" being the darkest and most admonitory of the five stories. When reading that story, I found myself wishing that Rowling could have resisted the impulse to include the commentaries, as these were the weakest parts of the short collection.

It is difficult to comment upon a tale without risking an intrusion into that space where the Reader and the Fiction Text are interacting. Preferably, commentators will keep their comments succinct, eschewing any attempts at making a direct moral comparison in the tale. Unfortunately, Rowling too often has "Dumbledore" referring directly to the morals found in these tales. While she ostensibly did this as a means of trying to continue the illusion that the stories' readers were seeing it as might a Hogwarts student, she overdid it. At times, it felt as though one had read a really funny story, one that was witty and subtle at the time, but which was ruined at the end by someone explaining in laborious detail what the joke was about and what it aimed to accomplish.

Although the commentaries dampened my enjoyment of Rowling's fabulistic stories, the stories themselves contain that mixture of the familiar and the "new" that made for an enchanting read. While certainly not the type of book that I myself would re-read countless times, The Tales of Beedle the Bard definitely would merit a read by those who loved reading/listening to fables in their childhood and perhaps would be best suited for those growing up who still wish upon a star or hope beyond hope, even if such desires might prove to be costly in the end. Recommended.

Publication Date: December 4, 2008 (US). Hardcover.

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)/Children's High Level Group.

Blogger Book Club Reminder: Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus, December 8-12

I meant to post this one week reminder yesterday, but I was so exhausted after returning to work from Thanksgiving Break that I fell asleep soon after arriving home. Anyways, as per Fábio Fernandes, who chose this book, Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus will be the second Blogger Book Club entry, with a scheduled discussion date on various participating blogs the week of December 8-12.

I am going to begin reading it in the next couple of days and will have my review ready for posting by Monday night. Curious to know who else is planning to participate in this discussion or who might be interested in participating in the third installment, with chooser and book to be determined in the near future (hint: if you mention your willingness to participate, Fábio might be more likely to choose you to select the next book ;)).

Hope to see many of you participating in the coming week! And like last time, be sure to let me have a link to your review.