I woke up to the lovely news that The New Voices of Fantasy has won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology!
Congratulations to Jacob Weisman and Peter S. Beagle and everyone at Tachyon for creating this wonderful book, and to all the other authors whose stories made it such a delight.
If you want a copy of this newly award-winning anthology, which includes my short story “My Time Among the Bridge Blowers,” head on over to Tachyon’s site and pick one up.
It’s here! It’s here and it’s gorgeous!
Today is the release date for Tachyon’s anthology The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman, with fiction from some of the most exciting authors around. It has been getting a glowing reception, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist. That mildly thumb-obscured picture above is of my contributor’s copy; this anthology is the only place to read my latest publication, “My Time Among the Bridge Blowers.”
If getting this book for free sounds cool to you, then you should know that, to celebrate the release, Tachyon is partnering with Goodreads to hold another giveaway. It’s running through Aug. 29, and you can enter here. If you think you might want to buy a copy, but would like to know a little more about it first, Tachyon has been aggregating reviews on their Tumblr page. They all seem to agree that the book fully achieved its goal of capturing the vibrant and diverse work that newer writers are contributing to the field, “authors who are ready to expand the definition of what fantasy can be, and what fantasy will be,” as Jacob Weisman writes in his introduction. Beyond the individual stories–all published since 2010, all stellar–this anthology serves to document an exciting time in the literature of the fantastic. As of today, you can hold that excitement in your hand.
The thing to do today on the internet seems to be to post about love. Well, specifically, to post the sentence “I love you” to your social networking sites. Now, naturally, I love no one. (Well, that’s a lie. I mean, it goes without saying that I love you. But since I love only you, that seems insensitive to speak of too loudly.) Perhaps that is why, when I think of the most recent rumination on love to deeply effect me, my mind falls on this, from The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle.
When I was a young man, and very well thought of, I couldn't ask aught that the ladies denied. I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins, And I never spoke love but I knew that I lied. But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them know The secret I shelter and savor and save. I wait for the one who will see through my seeming, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave." The years drifted over like clouds in the heavens; The ladies went by me like snow on the wind. I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled, And I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned. But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them see There's part of me pure as the whisk of a wave. My lady is late, but she'll find I've been faithful, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave." At last came a lady both knowing and tender, Saying, "You're not at all what they take you to be." I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking, And she swallowed cold poison and jumped into the sea. And I say to myself, when there's time for a word, As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved, "Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger, And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved."
This concept, “love may be strong, but a habit is stronger,” makes me wonder what really does go without saying. What can dissolve in a caustic silence, which one might mistake for stasis? Perhaps it is not empty sentimentality about sentimentality, but a recognition of the need for communicative renewal that makes internet I Love You day attractive.