Interview at Shirley Jackson Awards Blog

Filipino blogger and bibliophile Charles Tan has been conducting short interviews with a number of nominees of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Awards, including Lucius Shepard, Laird Barron, Carrie Laben, Barbara and Christopher Roden, Christopher Golden, Conrad Williams, and now my humble self. His interview with me was just recently posted:

What made you decide to use the format presented in 12 Collections?

Many prose books of mine share that format. Ursula LeGuin called it a “mosaic-novel”: A whole that is bigger than the mere sum of its constituent parts. An amalgam, not just a conglomerate. I find the term quite appropriate. The stones my literary mosaics are made of can be read and, hopefully, enjoyed, individually, but their true meaning emerges only when seen in entirety of the big picture. This is particularly evident in “Twelve Collections”: The final, twelfth collector collects collections, as if giving a frame to the picture…

Link to the interview.

OF Blog of the Fallen on Twelve Collections

Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen has some nice and insightful things to say about Twelve Collections and The Teashop:

In a day and age where it seems that even speculative fiction writers aim to pack as much descriptive verbiage into their stories as possible (often with deleterious consequences), it is refreshing to read stories written by authors who go in the opposite direction; their stories place a premium on the readers’ imaginative abilities to unpack meaning from just a few scant words.

Serbian author Zoran Zivkovic is one of those blessed few authors. Ever since I read his first novel released in the US, The Fourth Circle, back in 2004, I have marveled over how much depth there is to be found in stories that rarely go past 20 pages. In Twelve Collections and the Teashop, a 2007 limited-edition UK release (no known US release date), Zivkovic has written perhaps one of his best “story suites” to date.

In the introduction, Michael Moorcock discusses how Zivkovic’s writing reflects an older European fabulist tradition, one that was lost in the West with the rise of the Naturalists/Modernists and their (over)emphasis on verisimilitude. Moorcock posits that Eastern European authors such as Zivkovic, who came of age during the police state mentality of the Iron Curtain years, learned that being too specific was a risky matter and that much could be done with everywhere cities and such-and-such people. While this deliberate vagueness might annoy those who prefer focusing on the facts and not the vision behind the story plots, others have found the dreamlike qualities of such tales to be intoxicating, sucking one into reading and then considering what might be transpiring rather than just what really is happening there.

Link to the full review.

Twelve Collections Longlisted for the BFSA

12 CollectionsIn addition to Twelve Collections and The Teashop (PS Publishing, 2007) being a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, my mosaic-novel has now been longlisted for the 2008 British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novella. The list of recommendations is as follows:

  • Deadbeat: The Dogs of Waugh, Guy Adams, Humdrumming
  • Starship Summer, Eric Brown, PS Publishing
  • The Mermaids, Robert Edric, PS Publishing
  • The Lees of Laughter’s End, Steven Erickson, PS Publishing
  • The City Beyond Play, Philip Jose Farmer and Danny Adams, PS Publishing
  • “The Helper and his Hero,” Matthew Hughes, F&SF, Feb-March 2007
  • The Crystal Cosmos, Rhys Hughes, PS Publishing
  • Dead Earth: The Green Dawn, Mark Justice and David T Wilbanks, PS Publishing
  • “The Lazarus Condition,” Paul Kane, The Lazarus Condition, Tasmaniac Publications
  • “Dalton Quayle Rides Out,” Paul Kane, Dalton Quayle Rides Out, Pendragon Press
  • After The War (Double Novella), Tim Lebbon, Subterranean Press
  • “The Master Miller’s Tale,” Ian MacLeod, F&SF, May 2007
  • Under My Roof, Nick Mamatas, Soft Skull Press
  • Time Hunter 11: Child Of Time, George Mann and David J Howe, Telos Publishing
  • All Your Gods Are Dead, Gary McMahon, Humdrumming
  • Hereafter and After, Richard Parks, PS Publishing
  • “The Palace,” Barbara Roden, At Ease with the Dead, Ash-Tress Press
  • Strawberry Man, Eric Shapiro, Insidious Publications
  • “Stars Seen Through Stone,” Lucius Shepard, F&SF, July 2007 & Dagger Key & Other Stories
  • “Dead Money,” Lucius Shepard, Asimov’s, April 2007 & Dagger Key & Other Stories
  • Black Tide, Del Stone Jr, Telos Publishing
  • Rain, Conrad Williams, Gray Friar Press
  • The Scalding Rooms, Conrad Williams, PS Publishing
  • Twelve Collections and the Teashop, Zoran Zivkovic, PS Publishing

Link to the complete longlist for each category.

Escher’s Loops Sold to PS Publishing

I am very happy to announce that my agent, John Jarrold, has sold World English-language limited-edition rights of my new full-length novel Escher’s Loops to Peter Crowther of PS Publishing, for publication in 2009.

“The novel is subtle and fascinating,” said Jarrold. “It’s a true classic.”

Contact John Jarrold for further information, by e-mail at j.jarrold@btinternet.com or by phone at 01522 510544.

Extracts from Escher’s Loops

Geopoetika will be releasing my new novel, Escher’s Loops, in both Serbian and English in late June. However, my Serbian-reading audience can get a preview before publication (apologies to my English-reading audience, who will have to remain patient for a bit longer). Glossy magazine Fame has extracted two chapters from “The Fourth Loop,” and I provide the PDFs for those chapters below. Please enjoy.

Chapter 2 of “The Fourth Loop,” (PDF) from Fame #4, February 2008.

Chapter 3 of “The Fourth Loop,” (PDF) from Fame #5, March 2008.

Introduction to the New Website

It is friends that make life beautiful.

If it weren’t for the magnanimous assistance of my dear friend Jason Erik Lundberg, I would still have a hopelessly old-fashioned website.

It all started rather innocently. Jason emailed me recently, suggesting a digital step forward. His email address is included in my mailing list and I used to send him (as well as many other friends of mine) every now and then various items regarding my fiction writing: news, reviews, interviews.

Jason concluded, quite rightfully, that these were basically like blog entries in email form. So, why not do it properly: start a blog.

(More…)