VanderProjects: Toward 2011 and Beyond
Ann and I have a decent idea now of our joint projects coming out in 2011, along with my solo projects and collaborations. (Ann's also working hard on Weird Tales, and should have some important announcements about the magazine in January.) Not as many books as in 2009 or 2010, but these are all major undertakings and we're extremely proud of them.MARCHMy nonfiction collection Monstrous Creatures (Guide Dog Books) will debut at FogCon in San Francisco. The book collects the last five years of the best of my nonfiction from the New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Essays, articles, reviews, opinion pieces, interviews with China Mieville and Margo Lanagan, etc. There will be a 50-copy limited edition with additional content, probably previously unpublished, featuring a different cover based around the art by Jeremy Zerfoss pictured below. (Main cover by Eric Orchard.)
MAYThe Steampunk Bible (Abrams Image; created with S.J. Chambers) is a 214-page coffee table book about steampunk in all of its various manifestations, with over 150 full-color images. There are other books on steampunk coming out next year, but they all focus only on the maker/art side of things (and we'll probably bring some of these to your attention on a SB website). This is the only comprehensive overview.
JUNEThe Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (co-edited with Ann VanderMeer; HarperCollins/Voyager) is, quite simply, a showcase for some of the world's best imaginations in fiction and art. The conceit of having stories revolve around items in the Dr. Lambshead's cabinet worked more beautifully than we could have imagined to highlight a variety of traditional and avant garde approaches to fantasy. The full table of contents will be revealed in January, but includes everyone from Ted Chiang to Garth Nix, Holly Black to Helen Oyeyemi, Alan Moore to N.K. Jemisin, Minister Faust to Mike Mignola. An oversized hardcover.
OCTOBERThe Weird (co-edited with Ann; Atlantic/Corvus) is a definitive 750,000-word reprint anthology covering a century of weird fiction. Alfred Kubin, Bradbury, Murakami, Butler, Kafka, Kelly Link, Angela Carter, etc. The cover below is a rough mock-up of the final.
NOVEMBER 2011 - APRIL 2012Ann and I are currently talking to ChiZine Publications about doing Leviathan 5: The Next Wave, with an open reading period starting in late 2011 and extending into the spring of 2012, for publication in spring of 2013. This anthology, the latest in the World Fantasy Award winning and PKD award finalist series, would focus on weird fiction and fantasy from newer writers. We would do something fairly unprecedented in the history of genre and have between 15 and 25 assistant editors in other countries so that many writers who do not write in English would be able to submit. Up to 30,000 words of the 100,000 words might be fiction newly translated for Leviathan 5. More on this as it develops.