Wizard’s Tower

Launch Day

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Yesterday I was in Bristol for the official launch of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion at Forbidden Planet. The folks in the store did us proud. They provided a really lovely display of books, and kindly had us sign all of their stock, which was a great experience for the various first-time writers who are in the book.

Thanks also to Andy Bigwood who provided some fine airship-related art for the display. And to the various steampunk fans from Bristol who turned up in full costume and made the day extra-special.

Various photos of the event have made their way online. Inevitably I am doing something embarrassing in all of them. Here are a few.

The crew #1

From left to right the various contributors are: Myfanwy Rodman, Steve Blake, Jonathan L. Howard, Pete Sutton, me (obscuring Ken Shinn & Ian Millsted), Roz Clarke, John Hawkes-Reed, Deborah Walker, Piotr Åšwietlik, Andy Bigwood. Only Christine Morgan (lives in Seattle) and Scott Lewis (at a friend’s wedding) were unable to attend.

Here’s another with a better view of Ken and part of Ian.

The crew #2

Finally here we are busily signing a huge pile of books. There’s a great view of Ian in this one. Also a great view of my back. All you authors who complain about wrist injuries from signings? Mostly you get seats. The wrist pain is nothing to the lower back problems.

Signing frenzy

I don’t know how many books we sold on the day yet, but I do know that a lot of the stock will be going to London, and from there some of it will be going to other FP stores around the country. All of the FP stock has been defaced, so if you want a copy that doesn’t have my scrawl in it you’ll need to get it from Tangent or from the piranhas.

New Airship Review

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

A new review of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion has been posted at the CultDen website. I’m pleased to see that it is very positive. I particularly liked the last paragraph:

The book does capture the feel and history of Bristol very well, indeed some of the stories feature true historical characters, but this is not a book that should only be read by locals. Bristol is merely the setting, the strength of the writing should appeal to audiences anywhere. At the start I asked “is it any good?”. Well, yes it is, very good indeed. If you like Steampunk, you’ll love this. If you’ve never read Steampunk, you should give the book a go anyway, I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

So why not give it a try? You can get it from our ebook store, from Tangent Books in Bristol, and from most major bookstores.

Airship Launch – March 8th, Bristol

~ Cheryl

There will be a launch event for Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion at the Bristol Forbidden Plant store on Saturday, March 8th from 1:00pm. Most of the contributors should be there to sign books. I do have apologies from Christine Morgan who lives in Seattle, and Scott Lewis has the sort of job that can take him away at a moment’s notice, but huge thanks are due to Stephen Blake and Deborah Walker for coming in from Penzance and London respectively.

Full details are available on the Forbidden Planet website. Right now it only mentions the hardcover for pre-order, but I’m assuming they’ll have paperbacks too.

You are, of course, all invited.

Independent Source for Paper Airships

~ Cheryl

Last week I promised you that you would be able to buy paper copies of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion without feeding the piranhas. You should, of course, be able to order it from any decent bookshop. However, you can now also order the paperback from our good friends at Tangent Books.

Tangent is a small press based in Bristol and selling mainly local-themed books. They have some excellent material on Banksy, and are also the paper publisher for Adventure Rocketship.

Right now they only have the paperback in stock, because that’s all we have. A couple of cartons of the hardcovers are on order, and once we have them Tangent will put it on sale.

Negotiations are underway for an independent source for the book in the USA.

In Flight

~ Cheryl

Airship Shape & Bristol FashionI’ve been stupidly busy over the past couple of days and have therefore been a bad publisher. Thankfully a whole lot of stuff was set up in advance. You can now buy paper copies of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion. Your best bet is currently The Book Depository, who are giving some nice discounts and free shipping.

Paperback (14% off)
Hardcover (27% off)

I hope to have it available through the fine, independent bookstore at Tangent Books in a day or two.

The books are currently available at our store. Other major ebook retailers will follow in due course.

First Airship Review

~ Cheryl

The first review of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion has come in, and I’m pretty pleased about it. You can read it here.

And because we will have paperback editions on sale at the BristolCon Fringe event tonight, it seemed only fair to let the rest of the world get at some copies as well. Ebook editions are now available from the bookstore. Full release through other stores will happen on Thursday.

Kontakt In Stores

~ Cheryl

For those of you who prefer to buy your ebooks from piranhas rather than people, copies of Kontakt, our anthology of Croatian SF, are now available from the usual outlets:

And doubtless all of their other stores around the world too. It should also be in B&N and Kobo.

Airship In The House

~ Cheryl

Airship Shaped & Bristol FashionThis morning three large cartons of Airship Shaped & Bristol Fashion arrived at Jo Hall’s house in Bristol. Any contributors who live close to Jo can make arrangements with her to collect their copies. For other local people, we will have copies on sale at the Fringe event on Monday, which I shall blog about tomorrow.

There are no hardcovers yet, but I’m hopeful that we’ll have a proof of the hardcover for people to look at on Monday. If not it will definitely be at my LGBT Superheroes talk on the following Sunday.

The ebooks are ready and have been going out to reviewers. If you want one, let me know.

And if all goes well with and Amazon everything should go on sale late next week.

I’m still trying to find a venue for a proper launch event, but in the meantime the good folks at BristolCon are looking to do something a bit different. You are all invited to Bristol’s first Airship Ball. There will be food, celebration, cosplay, music and even actual writers performing parts of their work. Tickets here. Extra cheap if you buy a copy of the book.

Airship Ball

We Have Kontakt

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

KontaktI trailed Kontakt yesterday, and wasn’t expecting to put it out for a day or two. However, circumstances have conspired to allow me to make it available today, so I am doing so. I wrote a preface for this book. Here it is in full.

In April 2012 the European Science Fiction Convention (Eurocon) took place in Zagreb. I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest, and thus made my first ever visit to Croatia. The English-speaking world knows that country perhaps best for the magnificent city of Dubrovnik whose mediaeval fortifications were used for King’s Landing in the Game of Thrones TV series. Worldcon regulars may also remember that Zagreb has occasionally bid to run the convention, though we had not seen much of Croatian fandom. I had little idea of what to expect, and was blown away by the friendliness, enthusiasm and organizational skills of the people that I met.

One of the best things that the convention did was to put together an anthology of Croatian science fiction and fantasy, translated into English, and gave it away free to all attendees. Sadly that amounted to only a few hundred copies. The book did not go on general sale, so the wider world has been unable to witness the talent on display. Despite that, Zoran Vlahović’s story, “Every Time We Say Goodbye” was shortlisted for the 2013 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards, thereby raising interest in Croatian SF. Thankfully the editors, authors and publishers have allowed me to put together this ebook edition to bring their work to a wider market.

Croatia is an amazing country. The writers whose work you will find in this book have all lived under a Communist government as part of the former Yugoslavia. They have all lived through a War of Independence in the 1990s. In the past Croatia was on the Christian frontier holding back the Ottoman Empire, and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Like nearby Transylvania, it has a strong tradition of vampire legends. Now it is part of the European Union, and very much looking to the future. All of this informs the fiction you will read here. I’m delighted to be able to bring it to you.

My thanks go to the editors, Darko Macan and Tatjana Jambrišak; to Petra Bulić and her team at SFera who put on the convention and co-published the book; to all of the authors; and to Mihaela Marija Perković and her family who have looked after me so well on my visits to their country.

And here’s the contents list:

  • Introduction by Darko Macan
  • Bloodhound by Milena Benini
  • Hi-Tech Sex Lib by Dalibor Perković
  • Give Me the Shuttle Key! by Tatjana JambriÅ¡ak
  • The Corridor by Darko Macan
  • The Dead by Aleksandar Žiljak
  • River Fairy by Ivana Delač
  • De Cadenza by Danijel Bogdanović
  • Every Time We Say Goodbye by Zoran Vlahović
  • Avaleon and the Black Feather by Katarina Brbora
  • Time Enough, and Space by Goran Konvični
  • Fingers by Danilo Brozović
  • The Executor by Zoran KruÅ¡var

Great Ship, Great Value

~ Cheryl

The Memory of Sky - Robert ReedI don’t only talk about women writers here, honest. There are plenty of men whose work I read too. One of my favorites is Robert Reed. I reviewed his novel, Marrow, back in 2002 in Emerald City. Reed has written several novels abut the Great Ship since, and now there is a stupidly good bargain available.

The nice folks at Prime have released an omnibus edition contain three whole novels — a grand total of over 235,000 words — in a single volume. And by getting it as an ebook you can avoid eye stain and broken wrists. (Also the paper edition won’t be available for a few more weeks.) So, get over to the bookstore and pick up The Memory of Sky for just £5.99.

Bookstore Software Updates

~ Cheryl

While I’m on the subject of the bookstore, I am in the process of making various improvements to the site.

All product entries should now have a list of category tags so that you can see at a glance what sort of content they have.

I have also started adding little badges to products that have won or been finalists for awards. I’ll need to go through the site and check everything we have to get those up, but here’s an example: On A Red Station Drifting by Aliette de Bodard. This should also serve as a reminder to awards that they really should have logos that can be easily downloaded from their websites.

Finally the Wizard’s Tower Twitter feed is now syndicated on the bookstore site, so you can see at a glance what new books have been added.

There will hopefully be more good news about software updates in a week or two.

Oh, and you’ll note that I am now using the word “finalist” rather than “nominee” for works that get on award shortlists. This is because I’m very much over seeing people describe themselves as a “Hugo nominee” because they got their mum to put their book on a nomination ballot.

New from Prime & Masque

~ Cheryl

I have some new items in the bookstore from Prime and Masque. Here you go, lucky people.

The Bone Whistle by Erzebet YellowBoy — just beyond novella length and priced as such, it has some really good reviews.

The Dark #3 — the latest issue of this new dark fantasy and horror magazine, which is already achieving critical acclaim. This issue includes a story by one of my tips for the Campbell this year, Benjanun Sriduangkaew.

Handsome Devil, edited by Steve Berman — a themed anthology of stories about wickedly handsome men. It includes stories by Liz Hand, Pat Cadigan, Theodora Goss, Tanith Lee and many others.

Her Husband’s Hands and Other Stories — a collection from the very talented Adam Troy Castro.

Full Steam Ahead, Mr. Brunel

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Airship Shaped & Bristol FashionSo, it looks like this is finally achieving lift off.

I am hoping that we’ll have paperback copies available at the BristolCon Fringe event on February 17th. The ebooks will probably be in the bookstore before then. There will be hardcovers too. I don’t expect to sell many of them. They are mainly something I’m doing at cost for the benefit of the contributors. But hey, if you want one, we’ll sell them.

The books should be available from both Amazon UK and Amazon US. However, we are looking at having another option for people who want to order the physical book in the UK (my store isn’t really set up to do paper). And if you are in the Bay Area I plan on getting some copies shipped to Kevin that you’ll be able to buy at BASFA.

Here’s some information about the book.

Take a walk around Bristol, and history seeps from the walls. The city can claim more than its fair share of firsts, including the first iron-hulled steamship, the first female doctor, the first chocolate bar and the first use of nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic, the invention of the Plimsoll line, the first undersea telegraph cable, the world’s first test tube baby and the first transplant organ grown from stem cells, and a large share of the world’s first supersonic airliner. Now, from this fertile ground comes an anthology charting other realities and alternate histories, in a collection as rich and varied as the true history of this great British city.

— Gareth L. Powell

Bringing together tales from the light and dark sides of Steampunk. Living ghosts, walking ferns and ingenious androids populate versions of the city at once familiar and peculiar. Above them soar the magnificent men, and women, in their flying machines. Whether they’re seeking release, revenge or adventure, the characters in these stories will draw you down the side-streets of Bristol to the brass and steam filled worlds you never dreamed were there.

Contents

  • Case of the Vapours, by Ken Shinn
  • Brassworth, by Christine Morgan
  • The Lesser Men Have No Language, by Deborah Walker
  • Brass and Bone, by Joanne Hall
  • The Girl with Red Hair, by Myfanwy Rodman
  • Artifice Perdu, by Pete Sutton
  • Miss Butler and the Handlander Process, by John Hawkes-Reed
  • Something In The Water, by Cheryl Morgan
  • The Chronicles of Montague and Dalton: The Hunt for Alleyway Agnes, by Scott Lewis
  • The Sound of Gyroscopes, by Jonathan L. Howard
  • Flight of Daedalus, by Piotr Åšwietlik
  • The Traveller’s Apprentice, by Ian Millsted
  • Lord Craddock: Ascension, by Stephen Blake
  • The Lanterns of Death Affair, by Andy Bigwood

Edited by Roz Clarke & Joanne Hall.

Cover by Andy Bigwood.

More from Muse It Up

~ Cheryl

Added to the bookstore today we have:

There’s quite a bit of short fiction there, so its quite cheap. Also I’d like to draw your attention in particular to The King’s Ransom as it has won a bunch of awards and comes with a reading guide for use in schools.

Recommended Reading

~ Cheryl

The Locus Recommended Reading List was published over the weekend. As some of you will know, I am one of many people who have an input to this. I’m very pleased with how things went.

It has been an interesting year. I have read precisely two of the books on the Science Fiction list, though there are another seven I would like to read. I’ve done a bit better in Fantasy, but the fact that I have read five of the nine books on the Debuts list tells you a lot about the focus of my reading. The Collections list is frankly amazing, and almost all down to hard-working small presses.

I’m a bit disappointed that Adventure Rocketship didn’t get a mention. Jonathan Strahan did say on the latest Coode Street that he had lobbied to get Tim Maughan’s “Flight Path Estate” listed, but the competition is intense. Even the folks at Tor.com were a bit disappointed, so I can’t complain. There are plenty of Clarkesworld stories listed, but that is expected these days.

There are a number of books that are listed that I have in the bookstore. Here are some highlights.

A Philippines Typhoon Charity Anthology

~ Cheryl

Outpouring - Dean Francis AlfarAs generally happens when a major natural disaster strikes, creative people get together to help raise money for the relief effort. Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) has been no exception. This book, however, is somewhat different, having been produced in The Philippines, and containing many local writers.

Outpouring is the brainchild of Dean Francis Alfar, and is published by Flipside, the company for whom Charles Tan works. The writers include a few well known names such as Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Ken Scholes, Jeffrey Ford, Jason Erik Lundberg and Dean’s wife, Niki, but most are less well-known and a few are making their debut. However, with Dean in charge I am sure that the quality will be very high. And, of course, all of the proceeds are being donated to help the relief effort, specifically to the Philippine Red Cross.

Talking of which, although PayPal will take their usual cut, Wizard’s Tower Books will pass on 100% of revenue from the book to Flipside.

So there you have it. A chance to sample some fine writers, mostly from far-flung parts of the world, and to help with a charity relief effort as well. The book is only available as an epub, but it should be easily convertible to mobi via Calibre and similar tools.

If you would like to learn more about the speculative fiction scene in The Philippines, I interviewed Dean and Charles for Small Blue Planet.

New Titles from Muse It Up

~ Cheryl

I have had a busy morning adding lots of new titles to the store. This is what our friends from Muse It Up have for you:

Two New Books

~ Cheryl

I added two new books to the store over the weekend. They are as follows:

Trading Rosemary is a novella by Octavia Cade from Masque. It has a very interesting premise — a word in which memories are currency.

12:19 by Michael Infinito is a horror mystery from Must It Up. Breathless stuff.

By the way, talking of the website, some of you may have noticed that digital delivery is now not always available immediately on placing an order. This is a result of changes in the way that Shopify does things. The current delivery service that I’m using isn’t able to cope with this change, so I’m investigating alternatives.