A Few Personal Updates February 8, 2011 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Just thought I’d drop a quick note with some personal updates.

Over at the Big Other, Rachel Swirsky recommends my story “The History Within Us,” as an SF&F work with broad appeal.  She says, “…it’s weird and strange and wonderful, and of particular interest for the way it deals with genocide and memory.” Also recommended are stories by Ted Chiang, N.K. Jemisin, and Kij Johnson, among others.

Rachel also lists “The History Within Us” in her 2011 Story Recommendations, saying it is “A stunning, emotionally resonant far-future apocalypse, in which the alien setting only serves to enhance the questions the story poses about genocide, humanity, and memory.”

Publishers Weekly reviews The People of the Book, and says, “Chabon blends reality and fiction in his fascinating account of how his life was affected by meeting golems [in] “Golems I Have Known, or, Why My Elder Son’s Middle Name Is Napoleon: A Trickster’s Memoir.” The most science-fictional tale, Matthew Kressel’s “The History Within Us,” explores Jewish and alien concepts of the afterlife 6,000 years in the future. The line between fantasy and scripture blurs in Rachel Pollack’s “Burning Beard,” which explores Joseph’s gift—or curse—of dream interpretation.” (The online review seems to have vanished.)

I have to say that, though I’m of course biased, that The People of the Book is one of the most consistently good anthologies I’ve read in a long time.  Nearly every story moved me, but my favorite was Peter Beagle’s “Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel.”  Other great stories are by Michael Chabon, Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, and Theodora Goss.  I recommend you head over to Amazon right now and get a copy just on the strength of that Table of Contents (myself excluded of course).

And there’s also a brief interview with me over at the Interstitial Arts Foundation (IAF), where I talk about all the cool things in Sybil’s Garage you may or may not have known about.

Also, Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Tales is available on Amazon, and it contains my story “The Hand that Feeds,” as well as fiction from Amal El-Mohtar, N.K. Jemisin, Mike Allen, Shira Lipkin, Shweta Narayan and others.  Judging by the early buzz, I have a nagging sense that this anthology will be on several awards lists next year.

That’s it for now.  Thanks for letting me blather on about myself.  Tag, you’re it!