Despite its lackluster appearance, this edition of The Ship That Sailed to Mars is the closest most of us are likely to come to enjoying the magic of William Timlin’s imagination. Although this book was published in 2011, this is the first chance I’ve had to review it and compare it to an original copy.
–Karen Haber
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SPECIAL FEATURES
Hal-Con 2013 • The Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition • Spotlight on Deborah Biancotti, Author
Hal-Con 2013 took place at Musashi Urawa Community Center in Saitama, on the weekend of April 28-29. For those who have attended conventions here in Japan, one comes to expect terra-incognita, a place where silver-suited men comfortably mingle with genre-steeped bibliophiles. It wouldn’t seem out of place, for example, to see Ultra-man carrying a stack of Joe Haldeman novels in one hand and ‘‘One Piece’’ comics in the other. Hal-Con, which was started by fans who wanted to broaden the knowledge of both Japanese-and English-language science fiction in Japan, is a more literary-focused convention. As such, it fills a much-needed gap for those of us who love the fiction and the art.
Guest of honor interview with Joe Haldeman and Preston Grassmann, Kyoko Ogushi, translating; Guest of honor Naoyuki Katoh discusses model-making with Tadaomi Sunahara, and Yoshikazu Asahina
As has become the custom of this convention, a foreign writer and a Japanese cover-artist are chosen as the guests of honor. This year, it was Joe Haldeman and Naoyuki Katoh.
I was invited to give the guest of honor interview once again, and as a fan of The Forever War (and Haldeman’s work in general), I was glad to have the opportunity to discuss his themes at length. He talked about his insights on writing, the depiction of war in fiction, the 1968 Galaxy poll regarding the position of writers on the Vietnam War, his meeting with Heinlein, and his latest novel. It was fascinating to hear how his friendship with Heinlein was unaffected by political and ideological differences.
There was a panel with cross-genre writer Enjoe Toh, who won both the Akutagawa Prize (considered to be the premier literary award in Japan) and the Japan Science Fiction Award. He talked about his approach to writing, literary influences, and his future plans. Regina Glei led a panel on Traditional vs. Indie Publishing, outlining the pros and cons of dealing with publishers. Participants were invited to design a world from scratch in the Build the World panel, which included the details of the world’s ecology and xenology. The fantasy genre was represented by only one panel this year with Paranormal Romance. This genre is just beginning to break dawn here in Japan, but fans of Stephenie Meyer seem to want more and the market is poised to respond.
Hal-Con 2013 Guests of honor: Joe Haldeman and Naoyuki Katoh; Con Organizer Tomoki Kodama & his wife Etsuko; Regina Glei
The attendance was somewhat down from last year, which may be a result of the timing (it’s the holiday season here). There could have been a broader range of panels and more on fantasy, but the interaction of the fans and the enthusiasm of the participants made up for that.
More information about Hal-Con can be found at
–Preston Grassmann
The Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition was held April 26-28, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara CA. This year’s theme was Steampunks in Space, with writer guest of honor Gail Carriger and maker guest of honor Thomas Willeford. According to conference organizer Ariane Wolfe, attendance was ‘‘disastrously low’’ at around 600, compared to 1,000 in 2010 and 1,400 in 2011 (with a break in 2012 for financial reasons). Wolfe speculates that the proliferation of local competing steampunk events contributed to this marked decline and notes that ‘‘in 2008 when we began, we were the only game in town; people traveled from all over the US and even abroad to attend. Now steampunk events are popping up like mushrooms, which is great in the sense that folks have more events to choose from, but it’s not economically viable in such a small community.’’
Mark Anderson & Ariane Wolfe (convention organizers), Guests of honor: Gail Carriger, Thomas Willeford; Talia & Michael Dashow; Salem Evans, Jude Feldman at the Borderlands Table
Despite lower attendance, con-goers report enjoying their time at Nova Albion, with programming including panels on topics such as ‘‘Early Victorian Occult: Mesmerism, Witchery, Ghosts, and Druids’’, ‘‘Learn to Tie your Cravat like a Gentleman’’, and ‘‘Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Arts of Sherlock Holmes’’. Maker-oriented demonstrations and classes were available on topics from 3D printing to laser-etching leather, and, for the truly adventurous, bustle-building.
The Friday-night Victorian Ball and Saturday-night ‘‘Venusian Swamp Hop and Hootenanny’’ lasted well into the night, with ballroom dance classes, diverse performances, and a costume contest. The costume highlight of the convention was John Harrington’s airtight Gentleman Spacefarer, with a glass helmet, and a working set of bellows, with cooled air pumped into the suit through two fans.
Programming included a Carriger reading from the forthcoming Curtsies & Conspiracies, a presentation by artist Michael Dashow with a generous how-to session offering tips on using Photoshop to paint steampunk heroines, and a publishing panel with Carriger, Ryvenna Lewis, Andrew P. Mayer, Phoebe Longhi, J. Daniel Sawyer, Kitty NicIaian, and convention co-organizer Mark Anderson.
Due to low attendance, the conference is in the red financially this year, with plans for 2014 up in the air as a result. For more information as it arises, visit
– Francesca Myman
SPOTLIGHT ON DEBORAH BIANCOTTI, AUTHOR
Deborah Biancotti lives and writes in Sydney, Australia. She’s been shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award for her first novella, and her first short story collection was shortlisted for the William L. Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Book. She’s also won Aurealis and Ditmar awards for her short story writing. Both her collections, A Book of Endings and Bad Power, are available from Twelfth Planet Press. Deborah is currently working on a novel series and has a new story coming out in Exotic Gothic 5. She’s available mostly in the Twitterverse (as deborah_b) and via her website at
You’re well known for your short stories, with a couple of acclaimed collections, but we hear you’re working on novels, too. What can you tell us about them?
Deborah Biancotti (2011)
I have about one and a half books in a contemporary science fiction series that I’ve spent the past year on, and I am having a ball. I guess it’s a kind of a corporate paranoia tale. Is that a thing? I think it’s a thing. There should be more of this thing, I think.
I don’t know when I realized that the story I was telling was longer than one book, but at some point I realized I didn’t want to stop hanging out with this character I’d built. I love how she throws herself into things and then barely stumbles out the other side.
Yeah. Turns out, novel writing is a blast. Or maybe I just got lucky on this one, ’cos my previous attempt at writing novels wasn’t this much fun.
You write a lot about Sydney – what makes the city appealing as a setting?
Well, not to sound lazy, but it’s the city I live in. So that’s appealing. But Sydney fascinates me more the more I find out about it. It’s Australia’s oldest post-colonial city, but by world standards it’s still quite young. Sometimes it reminds me of ancient European cities, like Rome and Naples and Madrid, say. All traffic chaos and corners where detritus is busily building into its own shapes. Sometimes, instead, what you notice is its alcoves of villages, like Chippendale and Erskinville (Chippo and Erko, to those in the know). The village thing is a little like New York, where you can be in a perfectly large metropolis one minute and then suddenly find yourself strolling along a quiet street towards the most perfect local bar you’ve ever come across.
And then sometimes – perhaps more obviously - it’s reminiscent of coastal cities like Vancouver, San Francisco and Boston, where the water has as mu
ch of a presence as the land.
I think there’s something haphazard about Sydney; something tragically awkward about a city perched on the edge of a stolen land. Corporate buildings with shiny steel girders and deep blue windows clash with the pastels and beige of the eighties boom. Local pubs and cafes are dug into the red brick and peeling paint of the falling-down Art Deco buildings.
You contributed to the Ishtar anthology, which also had stories by Kaaron Warren and Cat Sparks. What can you tell us about the project?
Ishtar was one of those dream projects. Mark Deniz of Gilgamesh & Morrigan Presses came up with the idea of a three-novella anthology around the subject of Ishtar. He then approached us to write the historical, contemporary and futuristic stories. I was thrilled to get the contemporary story (I think I might’ve made a pitch for that one), although it was daunting to be in the potential position of the ‘‘sagging middle.’’ It was probably that worry that motivated me to write a thriller-style story told in present tense. And wow, writing in present tense is an incredibly energizing experience. I strongly recommend it.
Kaaron generously shared her research, and after a couple of initial discussions, we pretty much made our own ways through our stories. I think it’s part of the magic of the project that the resulting anthology hangs together so well; I mean, apart from the effort and teamwork, of course. The collection and stories were nominated for a few awards locally and my novella was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award.
You’ve described yourself as a ‘‘tired idealist.’’ Care to elaborate?
Alfred Adler said it’s easier to fight for your principles than it is to live up to them. I think for a long time I took that as a personal challenge. I wanted to walk the walk. So I tried to live a life of justice and intelligence and grace. I guess you could say I was an angry youth for a long time, long after I could manage to call myself a youth at all.
But if you’re lucky enough to get older, you begin to realise that a lot of the ideals that drive you really are very hard to hold onto in the real world. In the space of one year a while ago, I had two people I worked with basically tell me to a) be less honest and b) care less about the quality of what I was doing. And not even in a very roundabout way, but to actually say, ‘‘Your problem is, you’re too honest.’’ I hadn’t even realized I had a problem until then.
The worst bit was, I realized they were right, that the ideals fiction had fed me – of justice and equality, say, or the ‘‘rightness’’ of reward and loss – were a waste of time for the real world. I began to wonder why we weren’t teaching ‘‘real life’’ skills to kids in school. Like, ‘‘how to deal with bullies,’’ ‘‘how to suck up to your loser boss,’’ ‘‘why being a jerk gets you the desk with the view,’’ ‘‘how to not be bothered when the bad guys win.’’ I mean, it really obsessed me for a while.
I figured if I was going to survive, I either had to a) get rid of my juvenile ideals, or b) hold onto them & become sidelined. And you know what? I chose the latter even though I thought it was the dumb choice. I know I’m supposed to say that it made me a better person or a stronger person or there was some intrinsic pay-off for holding onto the ideals which defined me. But actually I don’t think it is the ideals that define me. It’s my dumb decision to stick to them that most shows what I am.
An idiot. Too old to learn to be somebody new.
You’re often described as a horror writer. Do you write to the horror audience, specifically?
I don’t. But I think if you write honestly, a lot of what you say will look like horror. That is to say, there is a dark and difficult side to life, and sometimes we write about it in order to exorcise it, and sometimes we write about it to embrace it, to remind ourselves about what it is to be human. Which is, messy and complicated and corrupted and aspirational and sometimes hopeful, sometimes hopeless.
I think it’s the acknowledgement of that darkness which makes people who write horror amongst the most welcoming and down-to-earth people to work with.
–Deborah Biancotti
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US FORTHCOMING BOOKS BY AUTHOR
The following list includes current or past books we haven’t seen, plus upcoming releases. Hardcover and trade paperback books are so noted. If there is no indication, books are mass market paperbacks or we’re not sure.
There are two lists; the first, selected titles, all originals, is arranged alphabetically by author. This listing includes simultaneous UK & US publications and 1st US editions. The second listing is complete, arranged by publisher and by month. We are no longer listing stock reissues unless there is some indication (such as a price or cover change) the book will actually have a new printing.
This listing contains about 1,750 titles, approximately 1,200 of them originals.
We try to keep our database as accurate and up-to-date as possible. Please send corrections and updates to Carolyn Cushman, c/o Locus.
The list is tentative and subject to change, especially in later months. Unless otherwise noted, books are originals. (r) is reprint, (h) horror, (ya) young adult, (nf) non-fiction, (c) collection, (a) associational, (na) novella, (nv) novelette, (ss) short story, (om) omnibus, (tp) trade paperback, (eb) eb, (gn) graphic novel, (x) media tie-in, (ph) pamphlet.
AARONOVITCH, BEN
Broken Homes, DAW, Feb 2014 (1st US)
ABRAHAM, DANIEL
Balfour and Meriweather in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs, Subterranean Press, Oct 2013 (eb, hc)
ANDERSON, COLLEEN, ed.
Tesseracts Seventeen: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast to Coast (with Steve Vernon), Hades/EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy, Oct 2013 (eb, tp)
ANDERSON, POUL
The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 6: A Bicycle Built for Brew, NESFA Press, Feb 2014 (c, hc)
ANDERSON, TAYLOR
Destroyermen: Storm Surge, Penguin/Roc, Jul 2013 (eb, hc)
ANDREWS, ILONA
Magic Rises, Ace, Aug 2013 (pb, eb)
ARMSTRONG, KELLEY
Brazen, Subterranean Press, Dec 2013 (na, hc)
Omens, Penguin/Dutton, Aug 2013 (hc)
ARNASON, ELEANOR
The Big Mama Stories, Aqueduct Press, Jul 2013 (c, eb, tp)
ASARO, CATHERINE, ed.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2013, Prometheus/Pyr, May 2013 (eb, tp)
ATWOOD, MARGARET
MaddAddam, McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Aug 2013 (hc)
MaddAddam, Random House/Doubleday/Talese, Sep 2013 (1st US, hc)
BALLINGRUD, NATHAN
North American Lake Monsters, Small Beer Press, Jul 2013 (c, eb, tp, hc)
BARKER, CLIVE
Chiliad, Subterranean Press, Jan 2014 (c, hc)
BARLOW, TOBY
Babayaga, Farrar Straus Giroux, Aug 2013 (1st US, eb, hc)
BARNES, JOHN
The Last President, Ace, Sep 2013 (eb, hc)
BAXTER, STEPHEN
Iron Winter, Penguin/Roc, Nov 2013 (1st US, eb, hc)
BEAR, ELIZABETH
The Book of Iron, Subterranean Press, Sep 2013 (na, hc)
One-Eyed Jack, Prime Books, Nov 2013 (eb, tp)
BEIKO, SAMANTHA, ed.
Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (with Sandra Kasturi), ChiZine Publications, Jul 2013 (eb, tp)
BERNOBICH, BETH
Allegiance, Tor, Oct 2013 (eb, hc)
BEUKES, LAUREN
The Shining Girls, Little, Brown/Mulholland Books, Jun 2013 (1st US, h, eb, hc)
BISHOP, ANNE
Murder of Crows, Penguin/Roc, Mar 2014 (eb, hc)
BLEDSOE, ALEX
Wisp of a Thing, Tor, Jun 2013 (eb, hc)
BLOCK, FRANCESCA LIA
Love in the Time of Global Warming, Macmillan/Holt, Aug 2013 (ya, hc)
Teen Spirit, HarperTeen, Sep 2013 (ya, eb, hc)
BOND, GWENDA
The Woken Gods, Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry US, Jul 2013 (ya, eb, tp)
New Earth, Tor, Jul 2013 (eb, hc)BOWES, RICHARD
If Angels Fight, Fairwood Press, Sep 2013 (c, eb, tp)
BRENNAN, MARIE
The Tropic of Serpents, Tor, Mar 2014 (hc)
BRIGGS, PATRICIA
Night Broken, Ace, Mar 2014 (eb, hc)
BROM
The Art of Brom, Flesk Publications, Aug 2013 (hc, art)
BROOKS, TERRY
Witch Wraith, Ballantine Del Rey, Jul 2013 (eb, hc)
BROWN, ERIC
Weird Space: Satan’s Reach, Rebellion/Abaddon US, Aug 2013 (tp)
BRUST, STEVEN
The Incrementalists (with Skyler White), Tor, Sep 2013 (eb, hc)
BUCKELL, TOBIAS S.
Hurricane Fever, Tor, Feb 2014 (eb, hc)
BURGESS. TONY
The n-Body Problem, ChiZine Publications, Nov 2013 (h, eb, tp)
CAMPBELL, RAMSEY
Ghosts Know, Tor, Oct 2013 (1st US, h, eb, hc)
CARD, ORSON SCOTT
Earth Afire (with Aaron Johnston), Tor, Jun 2013 (eb, hc)
CAREY, JACQUELINE
Autumn Bones, Penguin/Roc, Oct 2013 (eb, hc)
CARRIGER, GAIL
Curtsies & Conspiracies, Little, Brown, Nov 2013 (ya, eb, hc)
CARSON, RAE
The Bitter Kingdom, HarperCollins/Greenwillow, Sep 2013 (ya, hc)
CASTRO, ADAM-TROY
Her Husband’s Hands, Prime Books, Dec 2013 (c, eb, tp)
CHRISTIAN, DEBORAH
Splintegrate, Tor, Mar 2014 (eb, hc)
COATES, DEBORAH
Strange Country, Tor, Mar 2014 (eb, hc)
CONNOLLY, TINA
Copperhead, Tor, Oct 2013 (eb, hc)
COOK, GLEN
Working God’s Mischief, Tor, Mar 2014 (eb, hc)
COREY, JAMES S.A.
Abaddon’s Gate, Orbit US, Jun 2013 (eb, tp)
CROWTHER, PETER
Jewels in the Dust, Subterranean Press, Sep 2013 (c, hc)
DATLOW, ELLEN, ed.
Lovecraft’s Monsters, Tachyon Publications, Jan 2014 (eb, tp)
Telling Tales, Hydra House, Jun 2013 (tp)
DI FILIPPO, PAUL
WikiWorld, ChiZine Publications, Sep 2013 (c, eb, tp)
Locus, June 2013 Page 15
