Jeff VanderMeer's Blog, page 19

On the heels of the news that Authority has made the NYT bestseller list, the Spanish edition of Annihilation is being released–today, in fact! I’ve previously blogged about how much I love these editions from Destino. The care and work they’ve put into the Southern Reach series–the enthusiasm and the smarts–has me really energized!

Destino has a great page for the Southern Reach here, including a cool video, and you can find them on twitter, too: @_Southernreach

The OF Blog has already weighed in on the translation, calling it “terrific.”

There have been a lot of pre-pub mentions and reviews in Spanish media, and soon I hope to collect and link to them. I’ll also be posting an interview with the artist responsible for those great covers: Pablo Delcan. In the meantime, here are some highlights from the US publication of Annihilation in case you missed them. Annihilation was an Amazon and GQ pick, among many others, and blurbed by Warren Ellis, Kelly Link, and Karen Joy Fowler, among others.

–”Binge-reading,” front page of the NYT

–Cover iterations, NYT slideshow

–The Power of Nature, USA Today interview

–Music Notes, at Largehearted Boy

–Reviews by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, NPR.org, The Globe & Mail, The Guardian, and Salon.com (Laura Miller)

–Radio interviews with Bookworm and Studio 360, as well as a Wired.com podcast and print interview with Buzzfeed.

Spanish-Language Annihilation–from Destino! originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 20, 2014.

(Me with Eric J. Lawrence and Michael Silverblatt in back.)

–Read the first chapter of Authority here.

–Interactive map and other Authority goodies here.

Authority, the second Southern Reach novel, has gotten off to a good start–I’m told it’s made the next New York Times bestseller list!! This on the heels of Annihilation topping Locus Magazine’s trade paper bestseller list for May.

In addition, Bookworm broadcast their interview with me, conducted while I was in California for the LAT Festival of Books. Michael Silverblatt’s program has been a favorite of mine for a while–check out these great interviews with Will Self and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for example. This time around Eric J. Lawrence, who does a music program out of the same radio station, sat in and contributed to the conversation. I had a lot of fun, and both hosts were very kind as we talked for about 20 minutes before doing the interview, about a variety of fascinating topics–I kinda wish that bit had been recorded too. For one thing, they got me past this kind of wince I’d developed expecting the genre-vs-mainstream question. I was also quite touched that Silverblatt had brought into the studio every book of mine he’d been sent, stretching back to the 1990s.

I also annotated this excerpt from Authority for PoetryGenius–I’m rather happy with how this turned out, with “found objects” I added. Hope you’ll check it out.

So on top of all of that, you can imagine how surreal I found this: Entertainment Weekly picking Authority for their Must List along with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Steve Carell–this after their enthusiastic review in the magazine itself and a shout-out to Annihilation on their site’s Shelf Life feature.

Interviews have appeared at Raw Story, BuzzFeed, Bookmunch, Tor.com, My Bookish Ways, and LitReactor. I’ve tried to put a lot of care into my responses, and I hope you enjoy them. Radio/podcasts have included Studio 360 and Rick Kleffel’s awesome Agony Column.

In addition to Authority making several best-of-month lists, I’ve also been blessed with some truly great reviews, including those by Michael Matheson, the Raging Bibliophile, Nisi Shawl at The Seattle Times, The Times (UK), Pete Sutton, Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column, My Bookish Ways, Bookmunch, and Geekadelphia. Also, this piece about What Writers Can Learn from Authority.

There’s a lot more coverage coming, a cool new project I’m involved with that’ll be announced next week, and also an interview on To the Best of Our Knowledge, among other things.

I also just want to say–I really appreciate your support for these trippy, weird novels. It means a lot. If you enjoy them, please keep recommending them to friends, neighbors, and even enemies and frenemies.

Finally, here are some out-of-context paragraphs from Authority for your enjoyment. You can hear me read them out-loud on this City Lights podcast, along with an exclusive excerpt from Acceptance, the third novel, out in September, and, of course, a reading from Annihilation.

***

She’d already managed to attach an ironic weight to his name, so he felt as if he were the sinker on one of his grandpa’s fly rods, destined for the silt near the bottom of dozens of lakes.

This, too, had at one time been new, perhaps sometime in the Cretaceous Period, and the building had probably been there then in some form, reverse engineered so far into the past that you could still look out the windows and see dragonflies as big as vultures.

Along the walls, at shoulder height, both rooms were lined with flaccid long black gloves that hung in a way that Control could only think of as dejected.

He had a sudden impression of there being two Whitbys, one lurking inside the other. Or even three, nestled inside one another.

Then he thought he detected a faint murmur of the tone of the kinds of sloth-like yet finicky lunatics who stuck newspaper articles and internet print-outs to the walls of their mother’s basements. Creating—glue-stick by glue-stick and thumbtack by thumbtack—their own single-use universes. But such tracts, such philosophies, rarely seemed as melancholy or as simultaneously earthy yet ethereal as these sentences.

They were huddled around the world’s smallest conference table/stool, on which Control had placed the pot with the plant and mouse.

Like, if someone or something is trying to jam information inside your head using words you understand but a meaning you don’t, it’s not even that it’s not on a bandwidth you can receive—it’s much worse. Like, if the message were a knife and it created its meaning by cutting into meat and your head is the receiver and the tip of that knife is being shoved into your ear over and over again…”

If you quacked like a scientist and waddled like a scientist, soon, to non-scientists, you became the subject under discussion and not a person at all.

According to a labyrinthine hierarchical chart that resembled several thick snakes fucking each other, the Southern Reach was under the army’s jurisdiction here, which might be why the Southern Reach facility, closed down between expeditions, looked a bit like a row of large tents that had been made of lemon meringue frosting. Which is to say, it looked like any number of the richer Southern Baptist churches Control had been familiar with in his teenage years, usually because of whatever girl he was dating.

“Abuela to bishop’s seven” as a move had set them both to giggling.

“This is a box full of accusations,” Grace said, holding it toward him like an offering. With this jewelry box, I thee despise.

The screaming had gone on and on toward the end. The one holding the camera hadn’t seemed human. Wake up, he had pleaded with the members of the first expedition as he watched. Wake up and understand what is happening to you. But they never did. They couldn’t. They were miles away, and he was more than thirty years too late to warn them.

It was an old scar by now for Control, even if it seemed like a fresh wound to every scavenger that tried to dip their beak or snout into it, to tear away some spoiled meat.

To reanimate the emotions of a dead script, he had started thinking of things like “topographical anomalies” and “video of the first expedition” and “hypnotic conditioning”—inverse to the extreme where ritual decreed he hold words in his head like “horrible goiter” and “math homework” to stop from coming too soon during sex.

Sunday. An ice pick lodged in a brain already suffused with the corona of a dull but persistent headache that radiated forward from a throbbing bolus at the back of his skull. A kind of pulsing satellite defense shield protecting against anything more hostile that might sag into its decaying orbit.

“Well, it’s the high ceilings, isn’t it? Makes you see things aren’t there. Makes the things you do see look like other things. A bird can be a bat. A bat can be a piece of floating plastic bag. Way of the world. To see things as other things. Bird-leafs. Bat-birds. Shadows made of lights. Sounds that are incidental but seem more significant. Never going to seem any different wherever you go.”

The truth was, if the man who had looked like the high school quarterback had turned into something monstrous and torn him out into the night, part of Control wouldn’t have minded, because he would have been closer to the truth about Area X, and even if the truth was a fucking maw, a fanged maw, that stank like a cave full of putrifying corpses, that was still closer than he was now.

Now he would inhabit the very center of corridors. He would put no hand to any surface. He would behave like a ghost that knew if it made contact with anyone or anything its touch would slide through and that creature would then know that it existed in a state of purgatory.

Megalodon mad. Megalodon not happy. Megalodon have tantrum.

(Image by Jeremy Zerfoss, featured in this John Scalzi Big Idea post…)

“VanderMeer’s masterful command of the plot, his cast of characters, and the increasingly desperate situation will leave the reader desperate for the final volume in the trilogy.” – Starred review, Publishers Weekly

Authority News: Bookworm, City Lights, NYT Bestseller List, Entertainment Weekly’s Must List, Teasers, and More originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 16, 2014.

(Click for larger view.)

With Authority, the middle book of the Southern Reach, launching this month, I thought it was a good time to reveal these “Go Retro” covers for the Southern Reach trilogy. Designed by the extraordinary Matthew Revert, they don’t appear as the covers for any of the actual editions of the novels, but one can hope. I’m a big fan of Revert’s design style and these covers came about as the result of a conversation we had about cover design after he did some work for my Wonderbook last year. Besides, it kinda fits if you read this review of Authority or this Big Idea feature. Yeah, there’s a fair amount of seventies and early eighties influence in these books, repurposed and assimilated. For an excerpt from the novel, check out the first chapter at io9 and this excerpt at PoetryGenius featuring image-heavy annotations from yours truly.

I like the idea of these editions being found by readers in some dusty ill-lit corner of a used bookstore in the early 1970s. An unexpected find, like the ones that led me in the 1980s to find authors like Edward Whittemore and Frederic Prokosch. I still haunt used bookstores looking for those kinds of unexpected discoveries, and I still make finds that I treasure to this day.

To do these covers justice, I’ve created my own new book descriptions modeled on back cover copy from several 1970s mass market paperbacks in my library. Granted, they’re teetering between serious and satirical…

ANNIHILATION: A mysterious wilderness in which the animals are changing! A tunnel into the earth, not on any map! An expedition divided against itself! In an adventure unlike any other, will the old ruined lighthouse guide them to safety or wreck them on the rocks? Come visit Area X with the biologist on the twelfth expedition. Nothing is at it seems, and nowhere is safe…

AUTHORITY: Beware the rabbit–especially when there are two thousand of them tasks with clandestine special ops. Heir to a spy dynasty, John Rodriquez will pass through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole when he takes over as director of the super-secret Southern Reach agency. Charged with discovering the mystery behind Area X, Rodriguez is running out of time and the clues just keep multiplying like the rabbits in the Southern Reach’s bizarre experiments. Reality is a fractured mirror in this game of parsing truth from untruth.

ACCEPTANCE: In the triumphant conclusion to the Southern Reach trilogy, a desperate new expedition crosses the border into Area X seeking the truth. But will Area X oblige them? This mind-blowing climax is haunted by demons and shadows–and owls. Travel into the past with a lighthouse keeper and explore the history of the Southern Reach secret agency. Bear witness to horrors and miracles. Who will be chosen? Who will fall…and what will rise? Only the owl knows.

The Southern Reach Goes Retro with Covers by Matthew Revert originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 12, 2014.

(Shot of bloggers/reviewers kind enough to chat with me via Skype from Madrid)

One thing I’m really excited about later this month is the release of the Spanish-language edition of Annihilation, from Planeta de Libros imprint Destino. The editors there, and everyone associated with the project, have been great to work with–and they have exciting ideas about how to market and promote the trilogy. It just feels like a great fit.

Earlier this past week, I Skyped with interested bloggers/reviewers who were kind enough to gather at a Madrid bookstore to talk about Annihilation. They asked some great questions, including one that stymied me: What animal from Annihilation would I like to be! It was a lot of fun, and I appreciated them taking time to discuss the novels.

As you can see, they’ve done an amazing job with the look-and-feel of the Southern Reach trilogy. They’ve also set up a Southern Reach twitter feed at @_Southernreach (note the underscore) and a great web page here.

Here’s the advance reader copy of Annihilation, presented in a modified slipcase with Jeremy Zerfoss’s map of Area X and other goodies. Below you’ll also find the full set of covers by Pablo Delcan–please check out his site. He’s a genius, in my opinion. Just such great work. (You can click on any image in this post for a larger version.)

If you read in Spanish, please check out the series. The Spanish editions have been created with love, attention to detail, and a lot of hard work.

Spanish Edition of Annihilation: Pablo Delcan Art, Video, Skyping with Madrid originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 10, 2014.

In recent weeks, my Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction has won the British SF Association’s award for nonfiction and been named a finalist for the Hugo Award and the Locus Award. Congrats also to the main art contributor, Jeremy Zerfoss, for being up for a Hugo with me for Wonderbook. A special shout-out to main text consultant, Matthew Cheney, too, and my wife Ann, whose help was amazing on this project. As well as Luis Rodrigues who designed the website and Gregory Bossert who created the trailer.

It’s been incredibly rewarding to see such great reader reaction to the book–it’s being taught at more and more universities, including Brown. I’ll be using it as a text to teach from at Yale, Shared Worlds (teen writing camp), and the Clarion workshop this summer, too. Thanks to readers for making this a title that’s been hard for booksellers to keep in stock–and for engaging with the book’s sense of humor in such a marvelous way. I’ve also been pleased with how much Wonderbook has caught on as a general creativity guide outside of creative writing, and as a source of inspiration across media.

The main purpose of this post is to thank the dozens and dozens of text and art contributors to Wonderbook from all over the world. You’re the ones who help make Wonderbook work for so many readers, and also make it a reflection of the richness and depth of science fiction and fantasy, not just the reflection of one person’s perspective. So thank you–I’ve name-checked you below. Those readers who haven’t encountered some of these writers before, I endorse them all whole-heartedly. You should seek them out.

The accompanying Wonderbook website has a ton of content, too, all of which went up at the same time the book was published last October.

MAIN TEXT CONTRIBUTORS

The main text, written by me, is about 90,000 words. The Appendix includes features on LARP and Games in the context of fiction by Karin Tidbeck and Will Hindmarch respectively, in addition to a 7,000-word exclusive interview on craft with George R. R. Martin.

Here’s the full list of writers who have short essays (sidebar articles and spotlight features) interwoven into the layout. Most are original to Wonderbook.

Joe Abercrombie

Lauren Beukes

Desirina Boskovich

Matthew Cheney

David Anthony Durham

Rikki Durcornet

Scott Eagle

Karen Joy Fowler

Neil Gaiman

Lev Grossman

Ursula K. Le Guin

Stant Litore

Karen Lord

Nick Mamatas

Nnedi Okorafor

Kim Stanley Robinson

Peter Straub

Catherynne M. Valente

Charles Yu

I also conducted a lot of interviews for Wonderbook, and also used some material from interviews I’d done for other venues and quotes from conversations with writers who saw various parts of Wonderbook in a beta version. One advantage of the longish gestation period for the project is that I could discuss sections with various people and then change the text if I thought something had been left out or could be better expressed.

So within the book you’ll find wisdom and experience from the following writers, listed below. Some interviews for the book, like ones with James Patrick Kelly, Stant Litore, and Leena Krohn, appear exclusively on the (in progress) Wonderbook website. (I also made use, with permission, of substantial material from lectures by Karin Lowachee, Nick Mamatas, and Ekaterina Sedia.)

If someone has an asterisk by their name, Wonderbook interview Q&A that didn’t make the book is on or will probably be posted to the website.

Tobias S. Buckell

Matthew Cheney

John Chu

John Crowley*

David Anthony Durham*

Matt Denault

Junot Díaz

Brian Evenson*

Jeffrey Ford*

Lisa L. Hannett

Will Hindmarch

Jennifer Hsyu

Stephen Graham Jones*

Caitlin R. Kiernan*

David Madden

Michael Moorcock

Ian R. MacLeod*

Kate Maruyama

Cassandra N. Railsea

Thomas Ligotti*

Johanna Sinisalo*

Vandana Singh*

Catherynne M. Valente

Kali Wallace

Charles Yu*

In addition, many writers’ work is quoted from, including that of Amos Tutuola, Brian Evenson, Elizabeth Hand, Greer Gilman, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Lisa Tuttle, Premendra Mitra, and Lewis Carroll.

DISRUPTION DRAGONS

Basically, after there was a rough draft of the entire book in a near-final layout, I sent a PDF to various writers and asked them to create a “yes, but” statement for sections where they thought additional interrogation was needed or where they disagreed with the text in some way. This, to me, begins the necessary process for readers of thinking about what’s being read and reacting to it, not simply accepting what is put in front of them. So you’ll find very wise and useful Disruption Dragons in the page margins from:

Nathan Ballingrud (x2)

Kelly Barnhill

Matt Bell

Desirina Boskovich

Amal El-Mohtar

Kij Johnson (x2)

Brian Francis Slattery

Sofia Samatar

Karin Tidbeck

REVISION LIZARDS

For the revision chapter, I thought I’d ask some writers about their specific experiences revising a particular novel. The results are capture on two pages of somewhat whimsical Revision Snakes, with their eyes showing the number of revisions. You’ll find accounts from:

Daniel Abraham

Aliette de Bodard

Tobias S. Buckell

Jesse Bullington

Jim Hines

Simon Ings

Stephen Graham Jones

Richard Kadrey

Nicole Korner-Stace

Karin Lowachee

Ian R. MacLeod

J.M. McDermitt

Nene Ormes

T. A. Pratt

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Patrick Rothfuss

Sofia Samatar

Pamela Sargent

Delia Sherman

Peter Straub

Jeffrey Thomas

Lisa Tuttle

Carrie Vaughn

***

In addition to Jeremy Zerfoss’s original art and diagrams (about 150 individual pieces) and author photos for sidebar essays, the following artists and photographers are represented in Wonderbook. Many have multiple pieces in Wonderbook. If someone known only for their writing is listed, I’ve put the nature of their artistic contribution in brackets. If the art was commissioned specifically for Wonderbook, I’ve put an asterisk by the name. The artists are primarily from North America and the U.K., but also France, Finland, Spain, Serbia, and Poland, among others.

ART

Ninni Aalto*

Joe Abercrombie [map]

Hawk Alfredson

Aeron Alfrey

Mo Ali

Kristen Alvanson

Gregory Bossert*

Michael Cisco [diagram]*

R. S. Connett

Molly Crabapple

John Coulthart

John Crowley [writer’s journey diagram]*

Leo and Diane Dillon

Rikki Ducornet*

Scott Eagle

Stephen Fabian

J.J. Grandville

Richard A. Kirk

Stant Litore [diagram]*

Tomasz Maronski

Ian Miller

Nnedi Okorafor [art/novel structure]

Victo Ngai

Matthew Revert*

Óscar Sanmartín

Eric Schaller

Dave Senior

Ward Shelley

Ivica Stevanovic*

Ben Templesmith

Jason Thompson

Ben Tolman

Sam Van Olffen*

Charles Vess

Myrtle Von Damitz III*

PHOTOGRAPHY

Kyle Cassidy*

Patrick Eriksson

Leila Ghobril

Tessa Kum*

Angel Rodriguez

Jorge Royan

Paul D. Stewart

Henry Söderlund

Mariana Tavares*

Ann VanderMeer*

Robert K. VanderMeer*

Corrie White

Wonderbook: Thanking the Contributors originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 8, 2014.

Over at John Scalzi’s blog, I’ve got a Big Idea post talking about how you haunt a novel. Apparently, it involves Stanley Kubrick, thousands of white rabbits, and you. You can also eyeball a great original piece commissioned for the feature: a bunny experiment diagram by Jeremy Zerfoss of Wonderbook fame.

The conspiracy theorists in Room 237 so firmly believed their version of the truth that I began to think at times that their ideas might have merit. But my own personal obsession with the documentary mostly concerned perception and technique. For example, in Kubrick’s slow fades as he cuts away to the next scene you often see characters and places coming into contact for a brief moment…hauntings created by juxtaposition. There’s also a scene in the movie with a television playing in the middle of a room…but the television has no cord, impossible for the time period. Watching The Shining, you may not consciously notice the lack of a cord, but your subconscious goes on red alert. Something is wrong, even if you can’t put your finger on it.

Haunted by Rabbits: the Southern Reach and Authority–What’s the Big Idea? originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 8, 2014.

Blackstone’s interview with my about the Southern Reach series.



This week, Blackstone releases the audiobook of my novel Authority as well. It’s read by the actor Bronson Pinchot, who does a rather amazing job. It’s a riveting performance, and Pinchot’s decisions on characters like the Voice are spot-on. Even his decisions on the very opening little snippet:

In Control’s dreams since he came to the Southern Reach it is early morning, the sky deep blue with just a twinge of light. He is staring from a cliff down into an abyss, a bay, a cove. It always changes. He can see for miles into the still water. He can see ocean behemoths gliding there, like submarines or bell-shaped orchids or the wide hulls of ships, silent, ever-moving, the size of them conveying such a sense of power that he can feel the havoc of their passage even from so far above. He stares for hours at the shapes, the movements, listening to the whispers echoing up to him…and then he falls. Slowly, too slowly, he falls soundless into the dark water, without splash or ripple. And keeps falling. Sometimes this happens while he is awake, as if he hasn’t been paying enough attention, and then he silently recites his own name until the real world returns to him.

He gets the cadence perfect on the first sentences, giving them a kind of relaxed intensity and dreamlike quality, which then sharpens into the present moment with the last sentence. The choices for the various voices are also great, and he does a magnificent job of slowing down in certain sections and speeding up a bit where needed.

There are a fair number of coiled, circular, and absurd passages in Authority. To encompass all of that in one performance–to get across hints of dark humor and then also move all the way to extremities of horror–is quite a feat. I’m entirely in awe of it, and also appreciative. The right reader makes a huge difference to me as a writer, especially with the series so fresh in my mind. The right reader also helps you see your own text more clearly.

Even if you don’t normally buy audiobooks, you might want to check this one out. You can listen to a sample here.

Here’s more information on the novel, too.

The bone-chilling, hair-raising second installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy For thirty years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X—a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez (a.k.a. “Control”) is the team’s newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than two hundred hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves—and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve.

“The second volume of VanderMeer’s trilogy…In this sequel, VanderMeer supplements his evocative descriptions of the unnatural Area X with the shadowy, dusty, seemingly half-forgotten offices in which Control spends his time…The book strengthens and develops the narrative arc while remaining fully coherent on its own, revealing more and more secrets about Area X all the while. VanderMeer’s masterful command of the plot, his cast of characters, and the increasingly desperate situation will leave the reader desperate for the final volume in the trilogy.” –

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Authority isn’t a book that just picks up where the last one left off. Instead, it’s packed full of new pleasures, not only new characters and settings but whole new kinds of writing.” – Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

Blackstone’s Awesome Audiobook of Authority, Read by Bronson Pinchot originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 7, 2014.

(What is the Séance & Science Brigade? Why is their calling card from tarot? Read the novel to find out. Image by Jeremy Zerfoss.)

This is the release week for my novel Authority, in the US, UK, and Canada! The novel received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, has been blurbed by Robin Sloan and Brian Evenson, and made several best-of month and best-of week lists, with many more high-profile reviews to come.

FSG has a great page with the first chapter for your reading pleasure and an interactive map of the island in Area X–go check it out! That page also has a whole list of bookseller links if you scroll down.

Also do not forget the amazing audiobook, narrated brilliantly by Bronson Pinchot! I can’t recommend it enough.

Here’s more about the novel:

After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X—a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization—has been as series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray. John Rodrigues (aka “Control”) is the Southern Reach’s newly appointed head. Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X. But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he’s pledged to serve. In Authority, the second volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, Area X’s most disturbing questions are answered… but the answers are far from reassuring.

How You Can Help!

If you like my fiction and want to support Authority, here are some of the things you can do to help.

—Buy the book now from your preferred bookseller, and preorder the final volume, Acceptance.

–Buy the book during release week. You can find direct sales links here.

—Review the book. Blog, review site, or on social media. Any mention, especially noting whatever you really liked about the book, helps immensely.

—Review it on Amazon. Go to the Amazon sales page for the book and tell other readers what you liked about it. A quick and easy way to help get the word out and create interest.

—Make sure local booksellers carry it.

—Request it from your local library. Making sure your local library knows about Authority, which notonly increases library orders but allows multiple people to enjoy the book.

—Spread the word through twitter and facebook. Tell people about the novel through social media, using your favorite link about the book.

The Southern Reach Trilogy: Authority Release Day! originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 6, 2014.

(Click for larger image)

One of the great joys of having the Southern Reach novels out from FSG has been their commissioning art from Eric Nyquist, with great design work by Charlotte Strick. This week that joy was amplified by getting a kind gift from Eric of one of his original prints and a journal with the interior art from my novel Acceptance on the outside; I’ll be writing my next piece of fiction in this journal, for sure.

The same day, I received from FSG advance reader copies of Acceptance, with his wonderful art. The fresh, clean, crisp, and yet complex nature of this art and the interior front-back cover illustrations has, I think, played a major role in how readers perceive the series. It gives them an entry point that is intriguing and different, but not off-putting.

Two of the interior pieces, pictured below, have been chosen by the best-of anthology American Illustration, as well. And to my mind, the cover of Authority (here as animated gif) is a thing of inspired absurd beauty that perfectly undermines the title, as intended. Authority is out May 6, riding some momentum from being on best-of-month and week lists (like PW’s) and I’m glad that Eric’s art will help readers connect with the novel. While also having its own separate integrity.

Eric Nyquist and the Southern Reach Series originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on May 2, 2014.

Well, it’s been a ridiculously busy spring, with Annihilation taking off, including a featured review in Entertainment Weekly, and great press in GQ, the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Salon.com, and many more. I’ll share links in a separate blog post in a week or so. In the meantime: all three animated gifs for the Southern Reach series!

The next leg of the tour is swiftly approaching, and here are all the details. Authority is out May 6 and Acceptance in early September.

LOS ANGELES

Sat. April 12 at 4:30pm, Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (USC Campus)–Panel “Fiction: Outside the Margins,” with Aimee Bender and Karen Joy Fowler. Moderated by Joy Press. Taper Hall, THH 101. Followed by book signing.

–Also catch me at 1pm at Black Clock (booth #121) and 3pm at Skylight (booth #138)

–I’ll be at the LAT book awards Friday night, too.

Mon. April 14 at 7:30pm, Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in Redondo Beach (2810 Artesia Blvd., Redondo Beach CA)–Reading from Annihilation, signing, and discussion. As well as teasers from Authority. Check out their facebook page for the event here.

–From 12 noon to 1pm on April 14, catch me at io9.com, answering questions; their bookclub is discussing Annihilation.

Thurs. April 17 at 7:30pm, California State University Channel Islands (One University Drive, Camarillo, CA, at Del Norte 1500)–”In Other Worlds: An Evening of Fantasy and Science Fiction,” with Jeff VanderMeer, Sofia Samatar, and Nikko Nguyen. Reading and Q&A. Samatar is the 2014 recipient of the Crawford Award for her novel A Stranger in Olondria (published by Small Beer Press).

ARKANSAS

Thurs. April 25 thru Sat. April 26, Arkansas Literary Festival (Main library campus and other venues)–Wonderbook Workshop, discussion of Annihilation (with slideshow), school visit. Check the schedule for my events.

UPCOMING EVENTS (more info soon, with more events TBA)

May 8–WORD Bookstore tumblr (virtual event; answering questions online)

July 9–Hub City Bookstore (Spartanburg, SC)

July 10–Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh/Durham, NC)

July 12–Malaprop’s (Asheville, NC)

July 15–Hub City Bookstore (introducing Carrie Vaughn; Shared Worlds event; date tentative)

July 25-26–Comic-Con (San Diego; with Ann VanderMeer)

July 30–Mysterious Galaxy (Clarion Writers Workshop event, San Diego, with Ann VanderMeer)

Aug. 14-28–United Kingdom Book Tour (WorldCon, Edinburgh, Bath, and more; with Ann VanderMeer)

Aug. 29—31, Decatur Book Festival

Aug. 31–Blue Train Books event (Hogansville, GA)

Southern Reach Annihilation Book Tour Schedule: LAT Festival of Books and More originally appeared on Ecstatic Days on April 10, 2014.