Jeff VanderMeer Books In Order

City Of Saints And Madmen

From the vignette incorporated into the cover design to an encrypted story mischieviously embedded within the book and a major new novella, ‘The Cage’, the deluxe hardcover version of City of Saints & Madmen represents an innovative re imagining of the original trade paperback published in 2001. The 55,000 words of new material, work from seven artists, and the subtle but important revisions to the four main novellas, make the hardcover an entirely different book from the Locus recommended trade paperback. City of Saints & Madmen holds a number of unique pleasures for readers with a strong sense of play and literary adventure. At least two or three elements of the hardcover have rarely, if ever, been attempted before in fiction. ‘I like the idea of books as artifacts, a concept that sometimes slips away from us in this electronic era. I had a lot of fun putting this book together working with artists, graphic designers, for example. The encrypted story turned out to be more involved than I thought it would be. The numbers in the encryption refer to words in the four main novellas. I quickly found that using an ‘of’ from one section of a novella created a different emotional resonance than from other sections. The reader who takes the time to decrypt the story will be rewarded by seeing both the decoded story and the four main novellas in a different light.’ Readers have been beguiled by VanderMeer’s strange and ancient metropolis, a city that developed in the author’s imagination almost by accident. ‘I never set out to create Ambergris it just sort of happened. One night, I woke up at about midnight and suddenly had this image in my head of a busy street and a missionary looking up at a woman in a third story window. I sat down and typed out the first few pages of Dradin, In Love. After I finished that piece, I realized the setting had infinite possibilities. I’ve been gratified by the response from readers and critics. And I’ve tried to build on the original novella and flesh out a complete setting while still retaining a sense of mystery.’ As Michael Moorcock writes in his introduction, ‘Examining VanderMeer, one is reminded of the glories of Angkor and Anudhapura combined with the bustle and swagger of Captain Conrad’s Indonesia, the adventurous intrigues of Byzantium and Venice, the brutal Spice Wars of the Dutch. But sometimes it is as if Proust intrudes, insensed and reminiscent. VanderMeer describes a world so rich and exaggerated and full of mysterious life that it draws you away from any intended moral or pasquinade deep into the wealth of the world’s womb.’ The ‘mysterious life’ alluded to by Moorcock manifests itself most uniquely in the form of the gray caps or ‘mushroom dwellers,’ the indigenous race slaughtered and driven underground by the first settlers of Ambergris. This event, the subsequent retaliation, and the uneasy co existence with dangerous subterranean neighbors, has shaped most all historical and social issues in Ambergris. ‘The thing that most intrigued me about Dradin, In Love, when I tried to distance myself from the text, was the presence of the gray caps. Who they are and how they fit in is something I’ve given a lot of thought to and will continue to explore even in the material I’m writing now.’ VanderMeer’s work has appeared in ten languages in 17 countries, including in such magazines and an thologies as Asimov’s SF Magazine, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Interzone, The Third Alternative, Nebula Awards 30, Best New Horror 7, The Year’s Best Fantastical Fiction, Infinity Plus: The Anthology, Dark Terrors, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy 2001. Forthcoming books include the mass market paperback Veniss Underground, also from Prime, and the nonfiction collection Why Should I Cut Your Throat? from Cosmos. VanderMeer has also completed work as co editor on two ambitious projects: Leviathan 3 Ministry of Whimsy/ Prime and The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases Chimeric. He is 33 years old and can be reached at vanderworld@hotmail. com.

Shriek

An epic yet personal look at several decades of life, love, and death in the imaginary city of Ambergris previously chronicled in Jeff VanderMeer’s acclaimed City of Saints & Madmen Shriek: An Afterword relates the scandalous, heartbreaking, and horrifying secret history of two squabbling siblings and their confidantes, protectors, and enemies.

Narrated with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions by ex society figure Janice Shriek, this afterword presents a vivid gallery of characters and events, emphasizing the adventures of Janice’s brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a secret that may kill or transform him; a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever; and the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies who have been waiting underground for their chance to mold the future of the city.

Part academic treatise, part tell all biography, after this introduction to the Family Shriek, you ll never look at history in quite the same way again.

Finch

In Finch, mysterious underground inhabitants known as the gray caps have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law. They have disbanded House Hoegbotton and are controlling the human inhabitants with strange addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human labor to build two strange towers. Against this backdrop, John Finch, who lives alone with a cat and a lizard, must solve an impossible double murder for his gray cap masters while trying to make contact with the rebels. Nothing is as it seems as Finch and his disintegrating partner Wyte negotiate their way through a landscape of spies, rebels, and deception. Trapped by his job and the city, Finch is about to come face to face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever.

Leviathan

The World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award finalist Ministry of Whimsy, publisher of the Philip K. Dick Award winning The Troika, presents the latest installment of the original anthology series Leviathan. Featuring Zoran Zivkovic’s short novel The Library. From Michael Moorcock to L. Timmel Duchamp, Jeffrey Ford to Brian Stableford, Leviathan 3 showcases the best of contemporary fantastical fiction. Also including work by Rikki Ducornet, Carol Emshwiller, James Sallis, with translations of Gautier and Gourmont.

Veniss Underground

In his debut novel, literary alchemist Jeff VanderMeer takes us on an unforgettable journey, a triumph of the imagination that reveals the magical and mysterious city of Veniss through three intertwined voices. First, Nicholas, a would be Living Artist, seeks to escape his demons in the shadowy underground but in doing so makes a deal with the devil himself. In her fevered search for him, his twin sister, Nicola, spins her own unusual and hypnotic tale as she discovers the hidden secrets of the city. And finally, haunted by Nicola’s sudden, mysterious disappearance and gripped by despair, Shadrach, Nicola s lover, embarks on a mythic journey to the nightmarish levels deep beneath the surface of the city to bring his love back to light. There he will find wonders beyond imagining and horrors greater than the heart can bear.

By turns beautiful, horrifying, delicate, and powerful, Veniss Underground explores the limits of love, memory, and obsession in a landscape that defies the boundaries of the imagination. This special edition includes the short stories The Sea, Mendeho, and Moonlight ; Detectives and Cadavers ; and A Heart for Lucretia and the novella Balzac s War, offering a complete tour of the fantastic world of Veniss.

Why Should I Cut Your Throat?

Why Should I Cut Your Throat?? is an engaging, sometimes controversial look at the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror from a man with almost two decades of experience as a reviewer, fiction writer, and editor. The reviews, interviews, essays, and articles collected herein are insightful and entertaining, sure to appeal to the casual reader and the hardcore genre fan alike. Written from the perspective of a writer, not an academic, the work is lively and engaging, full of humor and sharp observations. New Journalism style reports from conventions and book tours provide an often hilarious insider’s view of the genre.

The Day Dali Died

In this new collection from World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer, car accidents, Angkor Wat, dead whales, flower vendors, dogcatchers, classic television shows, frogs, and the moon are transformed by the author’s imagination into something unique and magical. Showcaseing his Rhysling Award winning poem ‘Flight,’ reprinted in Nebula Awards 30, The Day Dali Died also provides a selection of short short fictions including ‘Bullets and Airplanes,’ ‘The County Fair,’ and ‘How Benjobi Song Came to Rule Iphagenia’ original to this collection. From lost books to mythic journeys into the surreal, The Day Dali Died showcases VanderMeer’s talent for both epiphany and precise detail.

Secret Life

Secret Life is the definitive collection by a young writer widely regarded as one of the best fantasists in the world. Jeff VanderMeer has handpicked these 23 stories three written exclusively for this collection, which reflect a diversity of approaches to key questions about the human condition: mortality, love, obsession and creativity – all shot through with dark humor and irony. Secret Life represents the author’s continuing effort to stretch the narrative boundaries of fiction while still entertaining the reader. Yet all of these stories are related thematically: transformation and what it means to be human – and the reader too will be transformed, into one of the faithful, a confirmed believer in the short fiction of Jeff VanderMeer.

Strange Tales of Secret Lives

This clever, sly collection of ‘secret lives,’ lovingly illustrated by Mark Rich, is the perfect holiday gift for fans of Tim Burton, Edward Gorey and Gahan Wilson. It’s also the latest quirky adventure from Booksl*ut comics columnist and World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer. VanderMeer’s previous projects include the wildly successful The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. Mark Rich’s copious illustrations and the playful design by Seattle graphic designer Jacob McMurray bring VanderMeer’s hilarious short shorts to vivacious life.

The Surgeon’s Tale and Other Stories (With: )

In a world where magic is fading and science begun to ascend, a young surgeon in medical school experiences an obsession so forbidden that its realization will change him forever. ‘She looked as if she were asleep, still with that slight smile, floating on the thick sargassum, glowing from the emerald tincture that would keep the small crabs and other scavengers from her. She looked otherworldly and beautiful.’ Sometimes life is not enough. Also including five more stories of dark wonder from Rambo and VanderMeer, from ‘The Dead Girl’s Wedding March’ to ‘The Farmer’s Cat.’ Enter a world of rat suitors, severed arms, and Fungi Et Fruits de Mer, served up with prose both appetizing and uncanny. Dark fantasy has never been quite so decadent…

The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature

Steampunk a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science fiction culture is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more. The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.

Monstrous Creatures: Explorations of Fantasy Through Essays, Articles and Reviews

An entertaining, eclectic chronicle of modern fantastical fiction, Monstrous Creatures delivers incisive commentary, reviews, and essays pertaining to permutations of the monstrous, whether it’s other people’s monsters, personal monsters, or monstrous thoughts. A two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, Jeff VanderMeer is one of speculative fiction’s foremost voices. For the past 20 years, he has not only written weird literary fiction translated into 20 languages, but written about it extensively, influencing the way people think about fantasy through reviews in major papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as through interviews, thoughtful essays, blog posts, teaching, and guest-speaking. Monstrous Creatures, a follow-up to his 2004 nonfiction collection Why Should I Cut Your Throat?, collects all of his major nonfiction from the past five years, including such controversial pieces as ‘The Romantic Underground,’ ‘The Triumph of the Good,’ and ‘The Language of Defeat.’ Interviews with writers like Margo Lanagan and China Mieville are an added bonus, creating a dialogue with VanderMeer’s own interpretations of the monstrous in the fantastical.

The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals: The Evil Monkey Dialogues (With: )

Whimsically illustrated, this bite sized bestiary is the deciding vote on which fantastical creatures are kosher. Embarking on an undomesticated romp from A to Z, the ritual cleanliness of E.T., hobbits, Mongolian Death Worms, and the elusive chupacabra are discussed. This hilarious kashrut is the offspring of a debate that began on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog, between his alter ego, Evil Monkey, and his editor/wife. Addressing questions such as Is a vegetable lamb a vegetable or a lamb? Does licking the Pope make you trayf? What exactly is a Pollo Maligno? and Is Sasquatch roast stringy? this irreverent abecedary is a perfect gift for anyone seeking to broaden their imaginary culinary experiences guilt free.

Forever Midnight (By:John Shirley)

The year is 2117 A.D. Humanity has seized the stars, using reverse engineered alien technology to explore the far reaches of space. For a hundred years, the Predators, sad*istic extraterrestrial hunters, have been a dim memory. For a hundred years, we’ve been safe. That ends now. Cast in daylight for years at a time, the almost eternally lit jungle planet known as Midnight is the home to more than a thousand colonists, explorers building a haven on a new world. But the settlers aren’t alone. The Predators have been on this planet all along. When the ravenous creatures attack an arriving spacecraft and capture the settlers as both slaves and prey for their hunt, terraforming the planet takes a back seat to a new fight for survival.

Flesh and Blood (By:Robert Greenberger,Michael Jan Friedman)

In 1987, the first Predator movie was released, garnering an Oscar, huge audiences and an instantly loyal fan base. Five years later came the first of the best selling Predator novels. What accounted for the success of the series? It combined seemingly disparate genres science fiction, action and horror with unforgettable characters for a fresh experience. In this novel by New York Times bestsellers, Michael Friedman and frequent writing partner Robert Greenberger, humans have all but destroyed the earth, creating an opportunity for unscrupulous moneymakers to take advantage of the destruction. One family, the Ciejek clan, have made their fortune exploiting Earth’s misfortunes. But with power comes corruption. The members of the Ciejek clan are at each other’s throats, enlisting the help of the fearsome Predators to settle the score. When the Predators arrive, however, the brutality they unleash is far beyond what the Ciejek family could have imagined.

South China Sea

On a remote South China Sea island, a deadly hunt is underway…
but not the kind of expedition the participants expected. In this remote, jungle covered island somewhere between Thailand and Indonesia some of the most exotic animals in the world have been gathered as the prizes in a challenge of human against nature. The hunters come from all walks of life. Each has come to the island for personal reasons, some secret, some deadly. But when the encampment’s owner, ex Khmer Rouge Colonel Rath Preap, finds the fences cut and his security men missing, it’s clear that the game has turned. And as the hunters battle for survival, they discover there is another creature out for blood…
an adversary that has faced death on a thousand worlds a Predator with an unstoppable lust for conquest!

Turnabout (By:Steve Perry)

Deep in the Alaskan forest, ranger Sloan comes across the torn and bloody carcas*ses of Grizzly bears. Searching a human cause for the massacres, he discovers a team of poachers hunkered within the Alaska wilderness, waiting for the chance to score a big kill. He also finds evidence of the most fearsome killers in the universe: the Predators.

Steampunk

Replete with whimsical mechanical wonders and charmingly anachronistic settings, this pioneering anthology gathers a brilliant blend of fantastical stories. Steampunk originates in the romantic elegance of the Victorian era and blends in modern scientific advances synthesizing imaginative technologies such as steam driven robots, analog supercomputers, and ultramodern dirigibles. The elegant allure of this popular new genre is represented in this rich collection by distinctively talented authors, including Neal Stephenson, Michael Chabon, James Blaylock, Michael Moorcock, and Joe R. Lansdale.

Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded (With: Gail Carriger,Cherie Priest,Daniel Abraham,Stephen Baxter,,Caitlín R. Kiernan)

Blending the romantic elegance of the Victorian era with modern scientific advances, the popular Steampunk genre spotlighted in this collection is innovative and stimulates the imagination. This artfully assembled anthology of original fiction, nonfiction, and art can serve as an introduction to the Steampunk culture or provide dedicated fans with more fuel. Stories of outlandishly imaginative technologies, clockwork contraptions, eccentric hero*ines, and mad scientists are complemented by canon defining nonfiction and an array of original illustrations. This collection showcases the most sensational Steampunk talents of the last decade, including Daniel Abraham, John Coulthart, William Gibson, and Margo Lanagan, and demonstrates exactly why the future of the past is so excitingly new.

Fast Ships, Black Sails

Do you love the sound of a peg leg stomping across a quarterdeck? Or maybe you prefer a parrot on your arm, a strong wind at your back? Adventure, treasure, intrigue, humor, romance, danger and, yes, plunder! Oh, the Devil does love a pirate and so do readers everywhere! Swashbuckling from the past into the future and space itself, Fast Ships, Black Sails, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, presents an incredibly entertaining volume of original stories guaranteed to make you walk and talk like a pirate.

The Dying Earth / Mazirian the Magician

The stories included in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisdom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home in Vance’s lyrically described fantastic landscapes like Embelyon where, The sky was a mesh of vast ripples and cross ripples and these refracted a thousand shafts of colored light, rays which in mid air wove wondrous laces, rainbow nets, in all the jewel hues…
. The dying Earth itself is otherworldly: A dark blue sky, an ancient sun…
. Nothing of Earth was raw or harsh the ground, the trees, the rock ledge protruding from the meadow; all these had been worked upon, smoothed, aged, mellowed. The light from the sun, though dim, was rich and invested every object of the land…
with a sense of lore and ancient recollection. Welcome. The Dying Earth and its sequels comprise one of the most powerful fantasy/science fiction concepts in the history of the genre. They are packed with adventure but also with ideas, and the vision of uncounted human civilizations stacked one atop another like layers in a phyllo pastry thrills even as it induces a sense of awe at…
the fragility and transience of all things, the nobility of humanity s struggle against the certainty of an entropic resolution. Dean Koontz, author of the Odd Thomas novels. He gives you glimpses of entire worlds with just perfectly turned language. If he d been born south of the border, he d be up for a Nobel Prize. Dan Simmons author of The Hyperion Cantos.

Cugel’s Saga / Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

‘Vance sees himself in the tradition of popular fantasy writers, but his classic writing style is also comparagle to Homer’s Odyssey, and Cervante’s Don Quixote. Though the Cugel tales may lack the scope and pathos of the greatest adventure yarns, in the twenty-first century, they may be as close as one gets to the celebration of epic human perseverance.’–editor, Brilliance Audio Cugel’s Saga, published 17 years after Eyes of the Overworld, is the second novel that features the scoundrel and trickster, Cugel. Again, Cugel tests wits with Iucounu and acquires rudimentary powers himself. ‘Cugel the Clever [is a rogue so venal and unscrupulous that that he makes Harry Flashman look like Dudley Do-Right. How could you not love a guy like that?…
. Judging from the number of times that Cugel has come back…
you can’t keep a bad man down.’ -George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire. ‘Cugel the Clever [is a liar and thief in a doomed world of liars and thieves…
. Probably the least attractive hero it would be possible to find, struggling through a universe like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, a hero only in that nearly everybody else he encounters in that universe is on the make too, and yet the Cugel stories are howlingly funny.’ -Kage Baker, author of Empress of Mars.

The Eyes of the Overworld / Cugel the Clever

The Eyes of the Overworld is the first of Vance’s picaresque novels about the scoundrel Cugel. Here he is sent by a magician he has wronged to a distant unknown country to retrieve magical lenses that reveal the Overworld. Conniving to steal the lenses, he escapes and, goaded by a homesick monster magically attached to his liver, starts to find his way home to Almery. The journey takes him across trackless mountains, wastelands, and seas. Vance s career began when he was in the merchant marine and continued through extended stays in exotic cities. Through cunning and dumb luck, the relentless Cugel survives one catastrophe after another, fighting off bandits, ghosts, and ghouls stealing, lying, and cheating without insight or remorse leaving only wreckage behind. Betrayed and betraying, he joins a cult group on a pilgrimage, crosses the Silver Desert as his comrades die one by one and, escaping the Rat People, obtains a spell that returns him home. There, thanks to incompetence and arrogance he misspeaks the words of a purloined spell and transports himself back to the same dismal place he began his journey.

Rhialto the Marvellous

Rhialto the Marvellous takes up the personal and political conflicts among a conclave of two dozen magicians of Ascolais and Almery in the 21st Aeon. The shocking appearance of the Llorio the Murtha, a powerful female force from an earlier aeon threatens to unbalance nature by ensqualming or feminizing the magicians. This triggers a tremendous struggle for power and the other mages turn against Rhialto. Hoping to reestablish his rightful place, Rhialto travels to other aeons to restore the missing Perciplex which projects the Mostrament, the constitution of the association. In his final adventure, Rhialto must, ultimately, travel to the very ends of time and space to confront an old adversary whom he had wronged and must commit further misdeeds to restore order. Out of this welter of exotic politics, values systems, personal eccentricity, and magic, the figure of Rhialto slowly comes into focus and takes on dimension. He is a vain, apparently superficial man, not ashamed to demonstrate his melancholy to enhance his reputation. But he is courteous, patient, and subtle, even kind. He is self aware and introspective as Cugel never could be the wisest and most sympathetic of all of Vance’s wizards.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance

Thank You, Mr. Vance, by Dean Koontz. 2009 by Dean Koontz. Preface, by Jack Vance. 2009 by Jack Vance. The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale, by Robert Silverberg. 2009 by Agberg, Ltd. Grolion of Almery, by Matthew Hughes. 2009 by Matt Hughes Company Ltd. The Copsy Door, by Terry Dowling. 2009 by Terry Dowling. Caulk the Witch Chaser, by Liz Williams. 2009 by Liz Williams. Inescapable, by Mike Resnick. 2009 by Mike Resnick. Abrizonde, by Walter Jon Williams. 2009 by Walter Jon Williams. The Traditions of Karzh, by Paula Volsky. 2009 by Paula Volsky. The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod, by Jeff VanderMeer. 2009 by Jeff VanderMeer. The Green Bird, by Kage Baker. 2009 by Kage Baker. The Last Golden Thread, by Phyllis Eisenstein. 2009 by Phyllis Eisenstein. An Incident in Uskvesh, by Elizabeth Moon. 2009 by Elizabeth Moon. Sylgarmo’s Proclamation, by Lucius Shepard. 2009 by Lucius Shepard. The Lamentably Comical Tragedy or the Laughably Tragic Comedy of Lival Laqavee, by Tad Williams. 2009 by Tad Williams. Guyal the Curator, by John C. Wright. 2009 by John C. Wright. The Good Magician, by Glen Cook. 2009 by Glen Cook. The Return of the Fire Witch, by Elizabeth Hand. 2009 by Elizabeth Hand. The Collegeum of Mauge, by Byron Tetrick. 2009 by Byron Tetrick. Evillo the Uncunning, by Tanith Lee. 2009 by Tanith Lee. The Guiding Nose of Ulf nt Bander z, by Dan Simmons. 2009 by Dan Simmons. Frogskin Cap, by Howard Waldrop. 2009 by Howard Waldrop. A Night at the Tarn House, by George R. R. Martin. 2009 by George R. R. Martin. An Invocation of Incuriosity, by Neil Gaiman. 2009 by Neil Gaiman.

Breaking Windows

Edited by Luis Rodrigues, Breaking Windows features a well balanced presentation of stories, interviews, and essays from the avant garde Fantastic Metropolis website. Featuring a stunning cover by Hawk Alfredson, Breaking Windows includes such contributors as Michael Moorcock, Jeff VanderMeer, China Mieville, Carol Emshwiller, Andrew S. Fuller, Zoran Zivkovic, Dan Pearlman, John Dodds, Rhys Hughes, Jeffrey Ford, Colin Brush, Barrington Bayley, Rachel Pollack, Aleksandar Gatalica, Nathan Ballingrud, Luis Filipe Silva, Joao Barreiros, L. Timmel Duchamp, James Sallis, Andrew Hedgecock, Jeff Topham, and Paul Witcover.

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Twentieth Annual Collection

For twenty years this award winning compilation has been the nonpareil benchmark against which all other annual fantasy and horror collections are judged. Directed first by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and for the past four years by Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, it consistently presents the strangest, the funniest, the darkest, the sharpest, the most original in short, the best fantasy and horror. The current collection, marking a score of years, offers more than forty stories and poems from almost as many sources. Summations of the field by the editors are complemented by articles by Edward Bryant, Charles de Lint and Jeff VanderMeer highlighting the best of the fantastic in, respectively, media, music and comics as well as honorable mentions notable works that didn t quite make the cut but are nonetheless worthy of attention. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: 20th Annual Collection is a cornucopia of fantastic delights, an unparalleled resource and indispensable reference that captures the unique excitement and beauty of the fantastic in all its gloriously diverse forms, from the lightest fantasy to the darkest horror.

Last Drink Bird Head

Last Drink Bird Head is a variation on a surrealist writing game: we gave the phrase to over 70 writers and asked them Who or what is Last Drink Bird Head? The results run the gamut from the hilarious to the terrifying, with each writer bringing their signature style and voice to the enterprise. All proceeds on Last Drink go to ProLiteracy. org. WHAT IS PROLITERACY? Help promote worldwide literacy through the ProLiteracy organization. ProLiteracy champions the power of literacy to improve the lives of adults and their families, communities, and societies. We envision a world in which everyone can read, write, compute, and use technology to lead healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives. For more information, visit ProLiteracy. org. Contributors: Daniel Abraham, Michael Arnzen, Steve Aylett, KJ Bishop, Michael Bishop, Desirina Boskovich, Keith Brooke, Jesse Bullington, Richard Butner, Catherine Cheek, Matthew Cheney, Michael Cisco, Gio Clairval, Alan M. Clark, Brendan Connell, Paul Di Filippo, Stephen R. Donaldson, Rikki Ducornet, Clare Dudman, Hal Duncan, Scott Eagle, Brian Evenson, Eliot Fintushel, Jeffrey Ford, Richard Gehr, Felix Gilman, Jon Courtney Grimwood, Rhys Hughes, Paul Jessup, Antony Johnston, John Kaiine, Henry Kaiser, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Tessa Kum, Ellen Kushner, Jay Lake, Tanith Lee, Stina Leicht, Therese Littleton, Beth Adele Long, Dustin Long, Nick Mamatas, JM McDermott, Sarah Monette, Kari OConnor, Ben Peek, Holly Phillips, Louis Phillips, Tim Pratt, Cat Rambo, Mark Rich, Bruce Holland Rogers, Nicholas Royle, G Eric Schaller, Ekaterina Sedia, Ramsey Shehadeh, Peter Straub, Victoria Strauss, Michael Swanwick, Mark Swartz, Alan Swirsky, Rachel Swirsky, Sonya Taaffe, Justin Taylor, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jeffrey Thomas, Scott Thomas, John Urbancik, Genevieve Valentine, Kim Westwood, Leslie What, Andrew Steiger White, Conrad Williams, Liz Williams, Neil Williamson, Caleb Wilson, Gene Wolfe, Jonathan Wood, Marly Youmans, and Catherine Zeidler