IN SUMMARY...

With posts fast and furious, long and billious, on this blog, I thought I'd sum up where we are and what's going to be happening soon, as well as highlight a couple of info blogs, since I still am having trouble updating my links on the sidebar...

Cool Info/Review Blogs

Joe Gordon at Forbidden Planet has one of the most active and information-heavy blogs on the internet when it comes to genre novels and graphic novels. I check this one out every day.

George Walkley & Co., using some former Alien Online reviewers, are carving out a very strong review site called Sussurate. Highly recommended.

Contest and Book Sale

The Book Sale is ongoing and I'll update Thursday with some new material, as well.

The worst last line contest ends August 15th. It's been great fun, and even more entertaining have been the number of emails lauding and damning me for cutting Nick Mamatas' entry. The winners will probably be announced around the end of August, perhaps a little sooner.

Guest Blogger

Kameron Hurley of the incendiary and fascinating Brutal Women will be guest blogging on VanderWorld for the last two weeks of August (or from approximately this weekend on) while I pursue some research at Lake Baikal (an unexpected opportunity created by a colleague at Argosy). Some intel on Kameron:

Kameron Hurley is a Clarion West grad, and got her BA in history at the U of Alaska in Fairbanks, focusing on South African political history. She received her MA from the U of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa with a dissertation on the history of women's resistance against Apartheid. She currently lives in Chicago. Her most recent work has appeared in Talebones and Strange Horizons.

Upcoming Interviews & Features

I'll be posting a five-question interview with Cory Doctorow this week and hopefully a feature about Kim Westwood, one of the few up-and-coming writers of promise who does not yet have a book out through which to focus attention on her writing.

Shameless Promotion

I'll have stories in all three of these fine publication-anthologies this summer/fall:

Argosy #5, edited by James Owen - This all depends on my research at Lake Baikal, but with any luck I will have a mind-blowing, world-changing story in #5. We'll see how it goes.

Polyphony #5, edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake - My "The Farmer's Cat" appears in the fifth installment of this brazenly slipstream/surreal/absurdist anthology, along with a ton of great contributors.

TEL, edited by Jay Lake - My short dark story "Lost" appears in this anthology from Mr. Lake, along with experimental, lush work by a host of talented folks.

Coming in February of next year, New Wave Fabulist Stories from Omnidawn press, which will include my own "The Secret Paths of Rajan Khanna."

Evil Monkey's Friday Smack-Down

Contrary to the discussion below, Evil Monkey's weekly column will not begin until September due to a slight conflict over subject matter and focus. (I've moved the discussion below here to make the contest blog entry slightly less enormous...)

(Evil Monkey: "Jeff. Two things."
Jeff: "Let's start with the first one."
Evil Monkey: "You're calling it the Evil Monkey Worst Last Line Contest, but you're not letting me judge it."
Jeff: "No. You have many fine traits, like scratching your balls or hitting someone with a coconut from a hundred feet, but judging a worst last line contest is not one of them."
Evil Monkey: "I think my feelings are hurt."
Jeff: "Oh, do you have those? ...Look--consider it an honor. Like--like the Bob Hope Memorial Classic in golf or bowling or whatnot."
Evil Monkey: "But he's dead. And he was a sucky comedian."
Jeff: Points taken. I'll think about it. Now, what's the second thing."
Evil Monkey: "You cut Nick Mamatas' entry. Aren't you a little worried about that?"
Jeff: "No. It was utterly disgusting and even if it had a certain genius sick humor shine to it, it still read like an enhanced version of every Splatterpunk novel I ever read back in the early 1990s. He'll live."
Evil Monkey: "But he might come after you armed with a quip or something."
Jeff: "Well, then, you'll just have to protect me."
Evil Monkey: "But I like him more than I like you."
Jeff: "You'll have to chose sides, then."
Evil Monkey: "How about we make a deal?"
Jeff: "I already give you about five cases of bananas a day."
Evil Monkey: "No, no. Something more substantive."
Jeff: "What, then?"
Evil Monkey: "I want my own blog column. Once a week. On Fridays. You know, to express myself. I don't get to express myself enough."
Jeff: "Oh, you don't, do you?"
Evil Monkey: "...No. I don't, Jeff. You get to spout long entries about playing pool and other boring stuff week after week, and all I get are these teasing little parenthetical conversations with an imaginary author."
Jeff: "I'm not imaginary."
Evil Monkey: "Well, one of us is, and it ain't me, Whitebread."
Jeff: "We're not going there. Okay, I'll give you a column."
Evil Monkey: "Do you want to know what I'm going to call it?"
Jeff: "Do I have a choice?"
Evil Monkey: "I'm going to call it Evil Monkey's Friday Smack-Down. Because it makes sense, see. I'm Evil Monkey. It'll be posted on Friday. And I'll be smacking down anything that moved in the past week. Sometimes it'll actually be more like a grind down or a be-atch slap or a stomp down or a crack down or a dust up or fisticuffs or a riot or a disco or..."
Jeff: "Okay, okay. I get the idea."
Evil Monkey: "But I promise--I won't throw my own feces against the wall."
Jeff: "Thank God for that. Now, can I go offline and get some shut eye."
Evil Monkey: "Oh, it'll be monstrous, and wonderful, and horrible, and insane, and glorious, and-and instructional."
Jeff: "...Night, Evil." Evil: "Night, Jeffrog.")