OK, so many of you may have already seen this, but it may be news to (1) the people who don’t really read this sort of thing and are only here because they know me personally; (2) the surprisingly large and steady stream of people who come here googling for the repair manual for a victa mower; and (3) the spambots.

It’s a new anthology of reprint and original fiction, published by Tachyon; see also here.

What does “The New Weird” mean? Apparently there are essays in this very anthology explaining it. I haven’t read those bits yet. I have read many of the stories and they’re great. I have about five pages in it, maybe six, I think.

Isn’t it lovely? I am tremendously excited to see my name sharing a cover with those people.

Really I just want to show that cover off.

Look at it!

Keep looking!

You’re not done yet!

Ann & Jeff V. have a competition to win a personalised copy, and also a copy of a whole lot of other anthologies between now and 2010, here. Best three weird true-life stories win.

The clockwork insect on the cover is by Mike Libby of the Insect Lab. He sells them, you know. They’re made out of insect carcases, clockwork and circuitry. I have a clockwork stag beetle sitting on my desk right here:

If you happen to need a clockwork beetle — and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t — Libby’s your man.

Henrik Ibsen used to keep a live scorpion on his writing desk. This is a true story. It lived in a beer mug, out of which Ibsen was apparently pretty confident it couldn’t climb. He fed it bits of orange peel, and in return it sat there and symbolized some really profound stuff for him. A good deal all round.

My stag beetle is dead, but on the other hand it’s a fucking robot, so suck it, Ibsen.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.