The 2012 British Fantasy Awards

The British Fantasy Society has announced the jury for the 2012 British Fantasy Awards. The jury will deliberate on a shortlist of nominations, determined by the members of the BFS. The jury shall also have powers to add nominations where it identifies an egregious omission. The British Fantasy Awards will be presented during FantasyCon in September 2012.

The Satyr’s Head: new edition

The Satyr’s Head and Other Tales of Terror, edited by David A Sutton, is at long last available again. The book was originally published by Transworld/Corgi Books in 1975. This new edition, published by Shadow Publishing (£5.99), brings back into print ten chilling tales of the supernatural:

The Nightingale Floors by James Wade
The Previous Tenant by Ramsey Campbell
The Night Fisherman by Martin I Ricketts
Sugar and Spice and all Things Nice by David A Sutton
Provisioning by David Campton
Perfect Lady by Robin Smyth
The Business About Fred by Joseph Payne Brennan
Aunt Hester by Brian Lumley
A Pentagram for Cenaide by Eddy C Bertin
The Satyr's Head by David A Riley

The cover artwork is by Screaming Dreams' Steve Upham.

Where Are We Going?

Where Are We Going?, edited by Allen Ashley and published by Eibonvale Press, is officially launched on 2 March 2012 at the BFS Open Night (from 6.00 pm at The Mug House, 1-3 Tooley Street, London Bridge, London SE1 2PF. Their phone number: 020 7403 8343). The anthology’s theme is “Journeys. On Earth. No quests.” There are sixteen stories and one poem, all original to the book:

Dead Countries - Gary Budgen  

A Faraway City - Joel Lane

The Way The World Works - Ian Sales

A Guide to Surviving Malabar - Ian Shoebridge

The Human Map - Andrew Hook

 Journey to the Engine of the Earth - Terry Grimwood

The Discord of Being- Alison J. Littlewood  

Xana-La - Stephen Palmer

At the Rail - Andrew Coburn

The Bridge - A. J. Kirby

The Chain - Frank Roger

Our Island - Ralph Robert Moore

Underpass - Daniella Geary

Overnight Bus - Marion Pitman

Wake With The Light - Jet McDonald -

Future Prospects? - Geoff Stevens (poem)

Entanglement - Douglas Thompson

The book’s price is £16 hardback and £7 paperback on launch night, and all attending authors will be asked to sign copies of the book.

At some time between 6.30 pm and 7.00 pm, Allen Ashley will be announcing the “Postcard Competition”. This is a free to enter competition with simple rules - write an interesting postcard and win an Eibonvale prize.

Year's Best Science Fiction

The 2012 edition of Year's Best SF, edited by David G Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, is due this summer from HarperCollins. Between the covers you’ll find:

The Best Science Fiction of the Year Three -- Ken MacLeod 

Dolly -- Elizabeth Bear

Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Raindeer -- Ken Liu

Tethered -- Mercurio Rivera

Wahala -- Nnedi Okorafor

Laika’s Ghost -- Karl Schroeder

Ragnarok -- Paul Park

Six Months, Three Days -- Charlie Jane Anders

And Weep Like Alexander -- Neil Gaiman

The Middle of Somewhere -- Judith Moffett

Mercies -- Gregory Benford

The Education of Junior Number 12 -- Madeline Ashby

Our Candidate -- Robert Reed

Thick Water -- Karen Heuler

The War Artist -- Tony Ballantyne

The Master of the Aviary -- Bruce Sterling

Home Sweet Bi’Ome -- Pat MacEwan

For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Lonliness and I’ll Not Be Back Again -- Michael Swanwick

The Ki-anna -- Gwyneth Jones

Eliot Wrote -- Nancy Kress

The Nearest Thing -- Genevieve Valentine

The Vector Alphabet of Intersellar Travel -- Yoon Ha Lee

The Ice Owl -- Carolyn Ives Gilman

New and forthcoming books

Blake Charlton – Spellbound (Book two, sequel to Spellwright) Harper Voyager £7.99

Ernest Cline – Ready Player One (“Willy Wonka meets The Matrix”) Arrow £7.99

Lauren DeStefano – Fever (Book two of The Chemical Garden) Harper Voyager £9.99

Raymond E Feist – A Crown Imperilled (Is this the end for the kingdom? Part of the Riftwar Cycle). Harper Voyager £18.99

Andrew Fukuda – The Hunt (“When the sun goes down, start running.”) Simon & Schuster £9.99

Aidan Harte – Irenicon (Book one. “Pavane meets The Sopranos”) Jo Fletcher Books £18.99

S T Joshi – Black Wings of Cthulhu (21 tales of Lovecraftian horror). Titan £8.99

Juliet E McKenna – Darkening Skies (Book two of The Hadrumal Crisis). Solaris £7.99

Black Wings of Cthulhu

If you missed out on the PS edition, you’ll be pleased to learn that Titan Books is coming to the rescue with Black Wings of Cthulhu, edited by S T Joshi (due in March at £8.99). Subtitled “Twenty-one Tales of Lovecraftian Horror”, you know exactly what to expect. The 21 contributors in this anthology include: Laird Barron, Ramsey Campbell, Caitlin R Kiernan, Norman Partridge, Nicholas Royle, Darrell Schweitzer, David J Schow, Michael Shea, Michael Marshall Smith and Brian Stableford.

The book includes an introduction by S T Joshi, who is considered to be one of the foremost authorities on H P Lovecraft and is the author of the award-winning H P Lovecraft: A Life.

An added bonus: Black Wings volume two is also scheduled. HPL fans will be delighted.

Year's Best Horror & Dark Fantasy

The 2012 edition of The Year’s Best Horror and Dark Fantasy, edited by Paula Guran, (Prime Books) is due this summer. It’s a tasty ToC:

• “Hair” by Joan Aiken
• “Rakshasi” by Kelley Armstrong
• “Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin” by Adam Callaway
• “The Lake” by Tananarive Due
• “Tell Me I’ll See You Again” by Dennis Etchison
• “King Death” Paul Finch
• “The Last Triangle” by Jeffrey Ford
• Near Zennor by Elizabeth Hand
• “Crossroads” by Laura Anne Gilman
• “After-Words” by Glen Hirshberg
• “Rocket Man” by Stephen Graham Jones
• “The Maltese Unicorn” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• “The Dune” by Stephen King
• “Catastrophic Disruption of the Head” by Margo Lanagan
• “The Bleeding Shadow” by Joe R. Lansdale
• “Why Light?” by Tanith Lee
• “Conservation of Shadows” by Yoon Ha Lee
• A Tangle of Green Men, Charles de Lint
• “After the Apocalypse” by Maureen McHugh
• “Lord Dunsany’s Teapot” Naomi Novik
• “Mysteries of the Old Quarter” by Paul Park
• Vampire Lake, by Norman Partridge
• “A Journey of Only Two Paces” by Tim Powers
• “Four Legs in the Morning” by Norman Prentiss
• “The Fox Maiden” by Priya Sharma
• “Time and Tide” by Alan Peter Ryan
• “Sun Falls” by Angela Slatter
• “Still” by Tia V. Travis
• “Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear” by Lisa Tuttle
• “The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente
• “All You Can Do Is Breathe” by Kaaron Warren
• “Josh” by Gene Wolfe

Reliquaries of the Dead

Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead is now available from Ulysses Press (at $14.95). Edited by Stephen Jones, the anthology includes over two dozen stories and poems, including new and reprint tales. Contributors include Sarah Pinborough, Christopher Fowler, Lisa Tuttle, Tanith Lee and Robert Shearman (all new stories); and M R James, Richard Matheson, Peter Atkins, Kim Newman and Karl Edward Wagner (reprints).

As ever in a book edited by Stephen Jones, this looks to be a fine collection of horror stories. He says in his introduction: “Sometimes the dead are restless. Sometimes they come back.” Read all about the dead here…

Rumours of the Marvellous

Rumours of the Marvellous by Peter Atkins: fourteen of the writer's best stories. Limited to 250 signed and numbered copies, features an introduction by Glen Hirshberg, a cover painting by Les Edwards. Co-published by The Alchemy Press and Airgedlámh Productions.

You can read reviews of this excellent collection here, here and here.

Copies are available from here or Amazon UK.

Recent and forthcoming books

• Gail Carriger – Timeless (An Akexia Tarabotti Novel) Orbit £7.99
• Kate Griffin – The Minority Council (A Matthew Swift, Sorcerer, Novel) Orbit £8.99
• Benedict Jacka – Fated (The first Alex Verus Novel) Orbit £7.99
• Stephen Jones (ed) – Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead (new and reprint ghost stories) Ulysses Press $14.95
• Ken MacLeod – Intrusion (echoes of 1984 and Brave New World) Orbit £18.99
• T C McCarthy – Exogene (The Subterrene War, book 2) Orbit £8.99
• Weston Ochse – Blood Ocean (The Afterblight Chronicles) Abaddon £7.99
• Cherie Priest – Four and Twenty Blackbirds (An Eden Moore Story) Titan £7.99
• Jacqueline Rayner – Magic of the Angels (Doctor Who story) BBC Books £1.99