This is not the swine flu!

04Nov09

Okay, I love World Fantasy, but I came back with a head cold, which today blossomed into fever, body aches, and massive sinusoidal activity. I went home from work and crashed hard. As I type this I’m riding a wave of ibuprofen and sudafed. Also, the ringing in my ears sounds like Jethro Tull. I’m hoping it will pass soon.

It was a great convention, though. I made new friends and kept the old, one is silver, the other is… hey aqualung…. Okay, I’m back.  While in San Jose I got to hang out with Team Pandemonium: my first editor, Fleetwood Robbins, my second editor, Chris Schluep, and my copyeditor, Deanna Hoak. Only cover artist Greg Ruth was absent (but I was on a panel where the moderator asked me to talk about the cover).

Speaking of covers, Chris brought along the first printed copy I’d seen of The Devil’s Alphabet. A very nice moment, getting to hold that first warm copy.

I also learned this weekend that Publisher’s Weekly named it one of the top 100 books of 2009 — one of only five in the science fiction/fantasy/horror category. They said:

This subtle, eerie present-day horror novel mercilessly dissects and reassembles the classic narrative of a man returning to his smalltown birthplace, where the familiar folks have become strange creatures.

So dissection and reassemblage — that’s pretty cool. And to be in such good company: China Mieville’s The City and the City (also edited by my man Chris Schluep),  The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (he’s a friend o’mine), Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, and Ellen Datlow’s anthology Lovecraft Unbound (which my Lovecraft-obsessed son will undoubtedly get). Buy them all for Christmas.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon Pandemonium lost the best novel award to Jeff Ford and Margo Lanagan, two stellar writers. I’m getting used to losing to Jeff, and if he wasn’t so good, and a nice guy to boot, might start to bother me.  But as my daughter pointed out, Neil Gaiman also lost. So that makes Neil and I, like, equals, right? (Right….)

Okay, off to take more pills and lie down. Just as soon as this flute solo dies down.


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Fantasy World

28Oct09

Tomorrow morning I’m off to my favorite con, the World Fantasy Convention, being held this year in San Jose, California. (Yes, you can start humming the song now. ) Pandemonium is up for Best Novel, and my goal, when I lose, is to smile manfully in such a way that people buy me consolation drinks. I have to make this pay somehow.

I’ll be appearing at the panel “Contemporary Rural Fantasy” at Sunday  10:00 AM. Everybody’s heard of urban fantasy — these days, that mostly means chicks in leather pants killing vampires — but this panel asks if there is such a thing as rural fantasy. I doubt the panel will answer that question — con panels don’t have a reputation for resolving much of anything — but we can always hope for controversy, right? I shall make the case for Suburban Fantasy being the most important genre of our field, and then storm out in anger.

World Fantasy is my favorite because it’s small (capped by its bylaws, a wonderful thing), it’s professional (mostly writers and editors and agents, with no costumes allowed), and the number of great people this con attracts  is pretty stunning. I’ll be seeing my editor there, hanging out with people I admire, and trying not to say anything -too- stupid.

But what I’m most looking forward to is reconnecting with some good friends, and finally meeting in person some people who I’ve only talked to through teh internets. And if this is like any previous year at WFC, I’ll be meeting one or two strangers who will turn out to be lifelong friends.

Gotta pack!


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Sucked into the clockwork!

25Oct09

You know how the other day I was talking about the great stuff at Clockwork Storybook? I swear I didn’t know that they were about to ask me to join their illustrious (literally — some of them are illustrators) group.

The CWSB people–Chris Roberson, Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges, Bill Williams, and Mark Finn — mostly write comics and prose, and that prose is mostly SF and fantasy. They critique each other’s work, support each other, and blog about the writing craft on their website.

I met Chris at the 2008 WorldCon in Denver, and then at last year’s World Fantasy Convention in Calgary he introduced me to his friend Bill Willingham. Cue fanboy moment: I had read Bill’s comic series The Elementals back in college and loved it. He was the first writer I read who put heroes and villains in the real world and showed how complicated that could be. Years later, you can see that influence in my first novel, Pandemonium.

Now, cue second fanboy moment: at the very same table in that bar in Calgary, Chris introduces me to Paul Cornell. He wrote several episodes of the new Dr. Who (including the amazing “Father’s Day” episode ) and also does comics. He just finished a run on Captain Britain and is next working on Dark X-Men. He’s also a gifted prose writer and funny as hell.

Also also, Paul is joining Clockwork Storybook too, along with comic writer and novelist Marjorie Liu, and comics/screenplay/novel writer Mark Andreyko. Call us the class of ‘09. And hey, now there are nine of us.

As I just told Matt Sturges, I have a lot more to learn from them than I’ll be able to contribute in return — but that won’t tempt me to turn down their offer. This’ll be fun.


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Clockwork Storybook Ticking Again

18Oct09

One of my favorite blogs, Clockwork Storybook, is active again. CS is a group blog by comic and prose writers Chris Roberson, Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges, and Bill Williams. These guys have been friends for years, and their blog is an ongoing discussion about the craft.

So many good discussions going on:

Just great stuff. Tune in.


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Publishers Weekly has sympathy for the devil

12Oct09

I’m home today, hanging out with daughter Emma who is herself hanging out with (probably swine) flu, when Chris Roberson sent me news of this new starred review on the Publisher’s Weekly site:

The Devil’s Alphabet Daryl Gregory.

Gregory (Pandemonium) produces a quietly brilliant second novel. As a teen, Paxton Martin left the town of Switchcreek, Tenn., to escape a scandal and the retrovirus that afflicted many of the town’s inhabitants. Many died hideously, and most survivors turned into strange creatures: towering argos, parthenogenic betas, enormously obese charlies. A decade later, Pax returns home to attend the funeral of a close friend who has committed suicide. Hoping to avoid his estranged father, Pax plans to leave immediately after the funeral, but he soon finds himself caught up in both the complexities of his old life and the deep quantum weirdness that Switchcreek has become. A wide variety of believable characters, a well-developed sense of place and some fascinating scientific speculation will earn this understated novel an appreciative audience among fans of literary SF. (Dec.)

So, good news on flu day. I’m thankful.


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Year’s Best Fantasy 9

05Sep09

Got a nice package in the mail, the other day. Year’s Best Fantasy 9, edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, is being published by TOR.com, and and you can get it at their online store (and probobably elsewhere as well).

Nice cover, eh?

Nice cover, eh?

The table of contents starts with Elizabeth Bear’s Hugo-winning story and goes on to include some other great stories — some of which are available online:

  1. Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear
  2. “The Rabbi’s Hobby” by Peter Beagle
  3. “Running the Snake” by Kage Baker
  4. “The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm” by Daryl Gregory
  5. “Reader’s Guide” by Lisa Goldstein
  6. “The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D.” by Al Michaud
  7. “Araminta, or, the Wreck of the Amphidrake” by Naomi Novik
  8. “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” by Catherynne M. Valente
  9. “From the Clay of His Heart” by John Brown
  10. “If Angels Fight” by Richard Bowes
  11. “26 Monkeys and the Abyss” by Kij Johnson
  12. “Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita” by Debra Doyle & James MacDonald
  13. “Film-Makers of Mars” by Geoff Ryman
  14. “Childrun” by Marc Laidlaw
  15. “Queen of the Sunlit Shore” by Liz Williams
  16. “Lady Witherspoon’s Solution” by James Morrow
  17. “Dearest Cecily” by Kristine Dikeman
  18. “Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta” by Randy McCharles
  19. “Caverns of Mystery” by Kage Baker
  20. “Skin Deep” by Richard Parks
  21. “King Pelles the Sure” by Peter Beagle
  22. “A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead” by Richard Harland
  23. “Avast, Abaft!” by Howard Waldrop
  24. “Gift from a Spring” by Delia Sherman
  25. “The First Editions” by James Stoddard
  26. “The Olverung” by Stephen Woodworth
  27. “Daltharee” by Jeffrey Ford
  28. “The Forest” by Kim Wilkins

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Making my saving throw

03Sep09
Ah, my first game.

The gateway drug that led me to D&D and Champions.

Randolph Carter writes the gaming blog Grinding to Valhalla. He regularly interviews SF & fantasy authors,with a slant toward how gaming—including roleplaying games, computer games, and board games—influenced the writers.  From reading Pandemonium, he somehow sensed (I’m shocked) that I may have played a few RPGs in my day.

We talked about my gaming history—all the way back to Chainmail, people!—the differences between GMing a game and writing a story, which demon I’d play if they made Pandemonium into an MMO, why I avoid playing those online games anyway, and passing the torch:

“Now my son, who is 13, runs his own games. I’m as proud of that as any ex-high school athlete whose son has learned to throw a 90 mph fastball.”

The interview is here.


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Next Step: Evoking Stephen King’s Sales Figures

25Aug09

Kirkus Reviews has the first professional review of my new book that will be out in November, The Devil’s Alphabet. I was pretty happy with the first few paragraphs, and then I got to the last sentence :

Engaging sophomore effort from the author of Pandemonium (2008) paints a highly original portrait of a town irrevocably changed by a bizarre disease. … [Snipping the plot summary]

The plot sometimes meanders, but the talented author has a wonderful eye for detail, and his descriptions of how the horrific mutations have affected every aspect of small-town life are both compelling and creepy.

Evokes the best of Stephen King: Gregory is a writer to watch.

Frankly, I would have been happy evoking the worst of King. Certainly the mediocre of King. But this, this is just gravy.

And it occurs to me that I’ve been doing a poor job of promoting this book. Details, the opening chapter, and a picture of the disturbing cover, are all here.


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Daryl’s World of Fantasy

04Aug09

So here’s a dream come true: getting nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Pandemonium is in the list with these worthies:

The House of the Stag, Kage Baker (Tor)
The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)

I’ve heard good things about some of these upstarts. People tell me that Neil Gaiman guy is pretty good. And oh yeah, Jeff Ford? I still have my earlobes, Jeff! (See the Whoosh and Thunk below.)

–d


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Quick! Hand me my cape!

03Aug09

Editor Lou Anders just announced the pending publication of With Great Power, an anthology of superhero stories that will be appearing from Pocket Books in 2010–maybe in time for Comicon next May. As Lou says, these stories not parodies or pastiches, but prose takes on heroes and villains, by science fiction writers, comics writers, and writers who do both forms. Not only am I thrilled to have a story in the book, I’m thrilled I get to read it.

Some days, it’s good to be fanboy.

The TOC:

Introduction: The Golden Age by Lou Anders
“Cleansed and Set in Gold” by Matthew Sturges
“Where their Worm Dieth Not” by James Maxey
“Secret Identity” by Paul Cornell
“The Non-Event” by Mike Carey
“Avatar” by Mike Baron
“Message from the Bubblegum Factory” by Daryl Gregory
“Thug” by Gail Simone
“Vacuum Lad” by Stephen Baxter
“A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows” by Chris Roberson
“Head Cases” by Peter David & Kathleen David
“Downfall” by Joseph Mallozzi
“By My Works You Shall Know Me” by Mark Chadbourn
“Call Her Savage” by Marjorie M. Liu
“Tonight we fly” by Ian McDonald
“A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too)” by Bill Willingham


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