News: Predator Offer, Steampunk Con, Italian Pirates, Weird Tales, German Shriek, and More

(Stephen Youll's original artwork for my Predator novel.)Lots of news to report, with more to follow next week. I've put it all in one post so if you want to skip it...it's easy to! (Oh, and although the final TOC isn't set, Strahan has taken "Fixing Hanover" from Extraordinary Engines for his year's best.)Predator ContestFirst off, the cool new BookSpotCentral is offering a great contest--a signed copy of my Predator novel AND a Predator figurine for each of five winners. The figurine does double duty as an ink stamp. They're also running an interview with me about the experience: "Here it was just like, 'Don’t show the Predator doing soft-shoe, eating ice cream, or reading the newspaper.'" Amazon also just asked me to write about the experience, resulting in this blog post. Thanks again to Rob Simpson and Victoria Blake at Dark Horse, and to Jay Tomio at BookSpotCentral.Guests at the Steampunk Convention (Sunnyvale, CA)Next weekend, we'll be guests at the Steampunk Convention, along with Jake Von Slatt, Greg Broadmore, the band Abney Park, and more. We'll have a couple of panels and a signing. (And, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, we will be doing a signing at Borderland Books in San Fran at 7pm.)Fast Ships, Black Sails Pirate NewsAs the release date for our pirate anthology approaches, some exciting news: highly respected publisher Newton Compton picked up the Italian rights at the Frankfurt Book Festival. The Night Shade edition is picking up rave advance reviews from Locus, Publishers Weekly, and elsewhere. Gardner Dozois even seems impressed--and he's hard to impress!(Final cover)This is just good old fashioned fun, folks. With a great line-up, including Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Garth Nix, Rachel Swirsky, Carrie Vaughn, Howard Waldrop, and Naomi Novik. The Nix has already been picked up by a year's best, and we expect more to follow. Also, this is a rare short story from bestseller Novik. She doesn't write short fiction. You owe it to yourself to pick this one up, whether you like pirates or not. We're bringing the funny, the serious, and flat-out pulse-pounding adventure this time around. You can order it off of Amazon right now. (Ignore Amazon's weird lingo on the sales page.) Also,Weird Tales NewsMy wife Ann is fiction editor at Weird Tales, and the latest issue--featuring international writers--is now out. In the old days, you'd never have seen an international writers issue of WT, so major kudos to Ann and creator director Stephen Segal. Also, WT just did a total website redesign, and they're offering the entire last issue for free download. Great fiction by Peter Atwood, Nick Mamatas, Kelly Barnhill, Norman Spinrad, Karen Heuler, and others. One of my favorite stories of the year is also in this issue: Ramsey Shehadeh's "How I Got Here". I know some reviewers and genre gatekeepers are having difficulty adjusting to the new Weird Tales. All I can say is: you're missing out. Shehadeh's "How I Got Here" coupled with his "Creature" in a prior issue constitute an amazing one-two punch for a new writer. Yes, that's right--these are his first two published stories. And both are crazy good. This is the future of dark fantasy fiction. Check it out. I'll be appalled if one of those Shehadehs isn't taken for a year's best. Period.German Shriek Out From Klett-CottaThe German edition of Shriek: An Afterword is now out with a lovely cover based on the other editions. It's beautiful, with French flaps and the inside boards are a vibrant green to match the front cover. Major thanks again to Hannes Riffel and crew.K. Tempest Bradford: Guest Blogging Second Week of DecemberI'm extending the guest blogging period here at Ecstatic Days by one week, and am thrilled that Tempest has agreed to be that blogger.Geoff Ryman at AmazonThis past week Ryman was our guest at Omnivoracious, and I did five posts including his short essays. He's got a new book out from Small Beer Press. He's also a little suspicious of blogging. I understand the suspicion. One thing I have noticed recently is that those writers who blog about very personal things then don't have that in the reservoir of material they can use for their fiction, because they've already used it up. That's one reason you don't see me baring my soul here. You've got to keep the important stuff for the fiction.Shriek Limited from Wyrm PublishingThe Church CD accompanying the Shriek limited edition has gone to press, I've got signing sheets, and both of those things mean that the book will be out by the third week of November, if all goes well.Finch UpdateWork on the novel goes well, and I've just heard from Underland that they will be doing a sumptuous 50- to 75-copy limited-limited hardcover for core fans along with the trade paperback. Here also is a rough mock-up of a cover John Coulthart did for me. I've never written a novel while the publisher was asking for cover ideas and other info before. As a highly visual writer, the tone of the images associated with a book are very important. Thus, this cover, which conveyed to Underland the tone I wanted and also protected me from images destructive to my writing process. (A comparable situation, although much worse, would be John Le Carre faced with the prospect of erasing from his mind the vision of Alec Guiness as George Smiley so he could continue to write about him.) I have no idea how much of this will be included in the final design. The quote is of course placeholder text.