I was pleased to receive in Tuesday's mail my contributor copies of The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy, edited by Mike Ashley, a trade paperback published in the U.S. by Running Press and in the U.K. by Robinson. The first story in the book is my 2001 Starlight 3 story "Senator Bilbo." In his introduction, Ashley defines "extreme fantasy" as "those stories that took a basic idea, whether simple or complicated, and developed it to some extreme, beyond what the reader might normally expect. ... In all of the stories, the authors have taken a fantastic idea -- and I mean fantastic in both its senses -- and then seen how far they can push it."
Ashley also writes in the introduction, "I have presented the stories in sequence from the least to the most extreme, so your imagination can expand as you work through the book." And the first words of his headnotes to my story are: "We begin our journey in what ought to be the relative safety of the Shire."
I'm delighted to be in the book, which includes some of my favorite stories -- Ted Chiang's "Tower of Babylon," Jeffrey Ford's "Boatman's Holiday," Michael Swanwick's "Radio Waves" -- as well as a number I look forward to reading. Authors include Orson Scott Card, R.A. Lafferty, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Moorcock, Howard Waldrop, Liz Williams, etc. ... and William Hope Hodgson, with a story written 96 years ago.
1 comment:
Hello,
I'm sorry to publish this message in the comment, and don't having contact you be mail, but the process seems a little to complicate to me !
In order to publish a anthology in 2009 of various French, Hispanic and Anglosaxon authors, I'm looking for short stories between 10000 and 50000 signs (with blanks).
The editor, Kymera, is French, so the anthology will be in this langage. The theme of the anthology is about "Legends" in the broadest sense of the term. The genre of the texts will include Science Fiction (cyberpunk, steampunk, space opera...), fantasy, mystery, horror (Cthulhu-esque or not !) or fantastic... The short story has to present or protagonize some character(s) with legendary origins, skills or names... It could be a heroe, a god, an historical character of note, or an ordinary dude that usurps some legendary identity. The legendary aspect of the text can also be found in a place particulary linked to the idea of legends, be it Olympe, Avalon, Kamelot, Atlantis and so on... It could also be about an urban legend !
If accepted, the publication of the short story will be payed 20 € (30$). As a small publisher, we cannot afford much...
Our production is mainly based on US comics (Strangers in Paradise, Runners, Damned, Starchild, Pop gun war...), mangas, but we also publish novels (Mythworld of James Owen, official Aliens novels...).
If you are interested in participating, you can contact the anthologist (me :) at jacques.fuentealba-at-gmail.com) or the editor Eric Bufkens at eric-at-kymeracomics.com for further informations,
Cordially,
Jacques Fuentealba
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