ŷ������

I had a great time last month for To The Best of Our Knowledge with host and executive producer Steve Paulson. He asked great questions and it was just a very energizing and fun experience.

They’ve also posted the Extended Interview on the site. The short version will be broadcast this weekend that also includes interviews with Neil Gaiman and Ursula K. Le Guin, among others.

I was also really happy that they had me record another three-minute bit on a favorite book, and in this case I picked Alfred Kubin’s amazing The Other Side. I don’t know when that will run.

originally appeared on on June 12, 2014.

(Finished covers)

One of the great pleasures of seeing the Southern Reach trilogy in print has been the ingenuity and sophistication of the foreign language editions. Among the absolute best of the many versions are Destino’s covers for the Spanish editions. Destino commissioned artist and designer Pablo Delcan to create these covers, which capture the surreal vibe of the novels as well as the theme of transformation running through the narrative.

I caught up with Delcan via email this month to ask him about how he created these striking images, and to share with readers some early versions. You can experience more of his amazing work . Spanish readers can also check out the Destino and also check out updates on twitter .

The style you used for the Southern Reach novels is different than your other work for book covers. Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to do these covers, and why in this style?

The style I used for these covers was originally used for a Jules Verne series I did a few years ago, each one of these covers was created by abstracting naturalist illustrations. For Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, for example, I gathered images of different sea creatures and abstracted them into patterns.

It was about giving a twist to the natural and known world, a way of making it fictional and distorted. The style worked well for the Southern Reach trilogy because the writing does something similar, it’s about bending the rules of what we know is possible to create something fictional, Area X, the border��

When Ferran Lopez and Sabrina Rinaldi, from the Editorial Planeta art department, reached out to me they pointed repeatedly at this Verne series. We knew we would follow the idea of the plant, the rabbit and the owl from the FSG covers that Eric Nyquist illustrated. [Seen below]

Around that time I had been playing around abstracting objects and photographs of toys and angel figures in similar ways to see where else I could take this.

These covers were influenced by these experiments. Some of the earlier sketches for the Southern Reach distorted the images to a point that it was very hard to discern what it was, I really liked those.

Is the constraint of having to focus on particular subject matter, like when you do book covers, useful to you sometimes in creating art?

It’s an important part of the foundation, having a specific subject or a brief to follow makes this task objective and informs the process. Artists or writers talk about the fear of the blank page, for designers is most often than not something already there.

Although I think striving for a balance of release from this constraint is just as important. It’s what makes what we do interesting and fun, it brings something new and unexpected to the work.

Is the Southern Reach cover art digital? What kinds of technique went into creating it?

These covers were an exercise of appropriation, the most important part was finding these images. The plant comes from an illustration of a Fritallaria imperials beautifully drawn by Pierre Joseph Redouté in the early eighteen hundreds, the hare and the owl are Audubon engravings. Once these images were found and we liked the way they worked as a group I used a Photoshop filter to create this effect, it’s simply a tool that pulls and mirrors the image. My role in this case was a bit destructive.

What was the most difficult part of creating the covers?

The most difficult part was making them look like a series of independent but correlating covers, it had to be obvious at first sight that they all belonged together. There was a fair amount of tweaking to make sure each one was different enough from the others by adjusting the color, the amount of abstraction and the direction of the gesture.

Do you have any particular influences when it comes to art?

I do, I grew up in a house that was used as my grandmother’s ceramic studio and my mother’s art studio in Menorca. My father is a film-maker and animator, I’ve inevitably been very influenced by their their work. I’ve also had mentors that have influenced the way I work, Peter Mendelsund and Carin Goldberg, both brilliant designers.

Artists like William Kentridge, James Turrell, Louigi Serafini, Louise Bourgeois, William Kentridge and others have also been influential in some way or another. It’s hard to pinpoint these things, so much of our surroundings ends up finding it’s way into the work.

What kind of fiction do you like to read? (And did you need to read or sample the Southern Reach books before you created the art?)

I honestly read very little, most of what I read are manuscripts for book covers. But I’m always excited to work on science-fiction covers and it hasn’t been often.

I did read the first one of the S.R. books before designing the covers and it did help. It always helps, the better you understand what you are doing and the more responsible you become of giving it the proper face.

I’m a huge fan of Vladimir Nabokov, so I was thrilled to see you’d done a cover for a Nabokov book. How much freedom did you have on that project? What were you trying to convey?

This was the first commercial commission I ever got. I was so excited to be designing a book cover that I completely neglected the fact that it was for Nabokov. It was designed overnight and delivered first thing in the morning, it was approved immediately and I thought the world of book cover design was magical, which it is, but not to that extent.

The idea for the cover was given to me by Peter Mendelsund who hired me to do this cover, he called me into his office sketched out a crown on a notepad and scribbled the title inside and that was it. I then made it with black paper and photographed it on a light table. The shattered crown is supposed to convey the idea of a monarchy overthrown.

What projects are you working on now?

Right now we are working on a rebranding for Imaginal Disc a production company that promotes and explores the overlap of art and science in film. We’ve also been working on book covers for some non-fiction books, some sporadic spot illustrations for the New York Times, three-dimensional installations, wall paper designs, sculptures and several animations.

I’m trying to move the work we do at the studio into different mediums, furniture and pottery is something that we will be doing next.

originally appeared on on June 9, 2014.

Ann VanderMeer and I will be editing The Big Book of Science Fiction for Vintage. Here’s the official announcement:

Hugo Award winner Ann VanderMeer’s and NYT bestselling Jeff VanderMeer’s THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION, an oversized, 800-page, time capsule of the last hundred years of the sci fi canon to Tim O’Connell at Vintage, by Sally Harding at The Cooke Agency (NA).

Most of our work will be research–a lot of reading. But we will also have an open reading period for reprints. You’ll be able to submit links or electronic manuscripts of your own work or recommendations of rare or often overlooked stories you think deserve our attention. Clearly if we’re covering a century, we won’t be just focusing on the contemporary scene.

As ever, we’re committed to including work from a diverse array of sources. And, as with prior large-scale anthology projects like The Weird and The Time Traveler’s Almanac, we will go fairly far afield. Expect a book that gives you the classics but also material that will surprise you.

It may be a few months before we set up the submission process, but we’ll make sure it’s widely publicized.

originally appeared on on June 9, 2014.

(To see the comments, .)

It’s been a busy week and I haven’t had time to post anything until now, but imagine my surprise Sunday afternoon when several friends told me Stephen King had tweeted that he was loving the Southern Reach trilogy, calling it “Creepy and fascinating.��

This was just a couple of days after I had my mind blown when Vernon Reid, founder of the band Living Color, tweeted that he’d finished Annihilation and Authority and loved them, writing, “”Truly visionary, epic, the best SF since Perdido Street Station…VanderMeer has done something extraordinary in the Southern Reach. Wild. Bizarre. Romantic. Evocative of Gibson, Lovecraft, Kafka. Thank you for creating something original in a world that’s referencing itself to death. It is refreshing.��

Honestly, consider my month and year made. And this was on top of N.K. Jemisin giving a .

In other news, I’ve just finished up some last tiny tweaks to the third novel, Acceptance, and also will post a tour schedule for the rest of the year. It includes awesome events with the likes of Charles Yu, Lev Grossman, and Lauren Beukes, among others.

originally appeared on on June 5, 2014.

From a work in progress��

Pink Rose Salt (Andes) is too delicate to be mournful, yet presented as a defiant rock, so that you must work to break off its plaintiveness and in that struggle realize you were wrong all along.

Maldon Sea Salt is deceptive in its raucous and rowdy shouting–it wants to punch you in the shoulder and gift you with a golden retriever and kick the ball around, and yet has a hidden core of vulnerability.

Sel Au Vin (Cotignac) carries memories of some long-ago cabernet sauvignon cut through by a bitterness that dissolves into a bold and assertive independence, before, finally, revealing at its core a remote and eviscerating solitude.

Oak Smoked Chardonnay Salt juxtaposes accents of delicate charcoal with the ancient and wise puzzles released from the wood, creating a kind of laid-back tall tale on the palate.

Yet Hickory Smoked Sea Salt has a swagger that makes the Oak Smoked seem stodgy and provincial–like a novelist who’s only good at describing one particular wooded lot in Pennsylvania. Hickory Smoked is lurching solid on the deck of a boat and reeling in the nets and then going out drinking late at bars. Rinse. Repeat.

Polish Rock Salt is quarry-sound, practical and trust-worthy, with not a hint of deviousness right through to the clean aftertaste.

Hawaiian Pink is the aftermath of a dive into the sea around noon, punctuated by seeing a parrot fish, then crawling back onto the beach, lounging under a hat, hoping for a f—ing beer not seen in commercials but not getting it.

Pinot Noir Flake Salt sits like coral on the tongue, cuts to the back of the throat, recedes into a delicate froth and memories of a short story by Boris Vian.

Black Truffle Sea Salt has a richness that begs to be tasted grain by grain, descending to the tongue by way of a golden set of tweezers, perhaps crafted during the early Renaissance and acquired by Catherine the Great; too much and you’ll be lost forever.

Oh for the love of god I need water.

originally appeared on on May 30, 2014.

(Oh–there it is. Finnish Weird. Popping up amongst the ‘shrooms.)

Finnish Weird now has a fruiting body: of this delectably strange Nordic truffle. Download these infectious spores or enjoy them right there online.

In addition to iconic Finnish writer Johanna Sinisalo’s editorial, “Rare Exports,�� Finnish Weird includes an essay “Finnish Weird From the Land of the North�� by Jussi K. Niemela and features Emmi Itaranta, Jenny Kangasvuo, and Tiina Raevaara. Fiction and interviews and essays all come with a great visual presentation, too.

Mentioned in the nonfiction is It Came From the North, an anthology of the Finnish fantastic edited by Desirina Boskovich from our own Cheeky Frawg Books. In honor of Finnish weird, we’ve for one week only. If you’d prefer a different seller, (although we can’t discount that version).

So go read Finnish Weird and check out It Came From the North if you’re so inclined.

originally appeared on on May 28, 2014.

(Google honoring Rachel Carson, born on this day in 1907)

For your summer reading consideration…first off , including Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson:

This was the famous naturalist’s first book, and it contains her observations of several coastal environments in the 1930s. Taken just as an intricately detailed account, Under the Sea-Wind has a mesmerizing rhythm that places the reader under a spell. But not only does this book fascinate with its documenting of the lives of animals and the environment around them, it describes pre-World War II landscapes that today do not exist in quite this complexity. This chronicle is thus also an important account of our natural history.

I also contributed to a Conde Nast Traveler list of summer reading, along with David Sedaris and several others. I chose Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book as my classic summer read. Go .

My novel Authority made this , along with work by Emma Straub, Haruki Murakami, and more.

Authority’s also on this , along with intriguing titles by Emma Donaghue and John Waters.

�Ҳ�’s includes…um, you know, Authority, but also some *other* books that might be of interest.

If you’re looking for some rock-solid trade paperback fiction, includes quite a few interesting titles, including David Eggers�� The Circle. In a first for me, Authority also pops up on the list.

I should also point out if you want some summer listening, in which Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan have a conversation with me. I think it turned out really well. Other recent episodes feature the likes of Joe Abercrombie. (I also highly recommend any of Bookworm’s interviews, except the one .)

And, if you have a question through early June, I’m –at least one a day.

Finally, FSG Originals for my novel, for those who are interested.

originally appeared on on May 27, 2014.

Having been involved as a publisher and as an editor in commissioning translations, I know what a difficult job it can be—and how the best translators are seeking a kind of truth about the words and the work so that they can convey it properly.

Every once in a while I’ll get questions about my novels from a translator commissioned by a foreign language publisher. I value these interactions because translators have to be careful readers. I tend to learn something about my own work. Sometimes, too, a translator will find an error, which I can then correct in the English-language editions.

Recently, , the translator for the Italian edition of Annihilation, emailed me a series of questions. She needed, she said, to “make sure that I got everything right to do justice�� to the book. While completing translations “all sorts of doubts come to mind…I don’t know if other translators do the same as me (meaning: are a nuisance like me), but I really need to get attuned to your writing as much as I can, also in anticipation of Authority…��

It’s not a nuisance at all, but a blessing—as it is any time you get to correspond with someone immersed in something you’ve written.

But I did think it might be interesting to readers to have a sense of what questions translators ask. So, with Mennella’s permission, you’ll find the bulk of her questions and my replies set out below.

Mennella has previously translated works by Edgar Allan Poe, Kathy Acker, William Vollman, George Saunders, Doris Lessing, and many more, so I believe I’m in good hands.

Annihilation and the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy will be published by Einaudi in Italy.

(Mennella)

I saw that, throughout the book you often use the word “fuzzy�� “fuzziness��. Could you please explain if you mean simply something blurred, or else, or more?

Good question. I guess it depends on context, and if I use it too much, I should probably cut a few. If you could give me examples of a couple you particularly were wondering about?

If you walked along the beach, riddled through with the holes of fiddler crabs, you would sometimes look out to see one of the *giant reptiles*, for they, too, had adapted to their habitat. (p. 12)

I mean alligators, really, but given so few things are named and alligators tends to mean “Florida�� to people here, I did not get specific.

We did not feel confident taking our attention from the boar to *untie the container of handguns from our gear* and open its triple locks. (p. 16)

There are guns in a separate case that has been tied to their backpacks.

“Interesting,�� she said in a flat tone *as she loomed over us*, wiping the cobwebs from her clothing (p.28)

This is one of the few indicators that she is both taller and larger than the other members of the expedition. So she is towering over them a bit. But towering is too dramatic.

The first thing I noticed on *the staging level* before we reached the wider staircase that spiraled down�� (p. 41)

Basically, the tower opens up on to a level before the main staircase that winds down below. She’s calling it a staging level, like the level at which you would collect your thoughts and make your plan, before going further down?

Bullfrogs moved in, the wriggling *malformed dots* of their tadpoles always present. (p. 44)

Tadpoles are malformed dots because they’re like dots with a tail attached to some degree. And since I’m continually making the reader think twice about what they’re reading, it’s better to say “malformed dot�� than “they looked like commas�� or something like that.

Inevitably *my focus netted from* my parents useless lectures of worry over my chronic introversion�� (p. 45)

Her obsession with the pool has the result of making her parents lecture her

Things only I could see: That the walls *minutely rose and fell* with the tower’s breathing. (p. 48)

She can only barely see that the walls rise and fall, like a person’s chest while breathing, for example. Just barely, just a hint of movement.

I imagined the surveyor could not see it at all. *In no scenario could I imagine the anthropologist alive.* (This symmetry between the two “imagine�� should be mantained? Secondly, “in no scenario etc…�� means “it was no longer possible for me to imagine that the anthtropologist was still alive��?

I don’t think you have to maintain that symmetry, although it is intentional. Part of the kind of deliberate way the biologist describes things does include intentional repetition, as if she’s linking things that way. And yes—she doesn’t believe the anthropologist is alive. Or could be alive.

I had spent most of my time becoming familiar with the *natural* transitional ecosystems, with the flora and fauna and the cross-pollination I could expect to find.

I think you can just cut natural as repetitious.

Some part of the brightness wanted to return to darkness at once, and *the logic of this related to nerve, or lack of it*. (p. 83)

She’s saying if she had the nerve and listened to what the infection told her, she’d go right back down into the tower. That there’s a kind of logic to that, but it’s connected to her gathering her nerve or gathering her courage to do so, on some level.

Despite my attempt *to sustain the aria in my head*, I experienced a jarring return to reality as I worked through these possibilities (p. 92)

Just that she feels like there’s music playing as she’s walking because she’s kind of in a state of ecstasy, although a close reading should make it clear this is because of the infection.

Then, too, that other effect of the spores, the brightness in my chest, *continued to sculpt me as I walked*,

She’s being changed by the brightness, she’s changing. Sculpt to make connection to the people who have been totally transformed.

p. 115 At night, now, *their outliers* try to creep in through the gaps in our wall defenses.

Advance guard, so to speak

p.117 We were all in the dark, scrabbling at the pile of journals, and if ever I felt the weight of my predecessors, it was there and then, *lost in it all*. (i.e. I felt this weight when I was lost in my search through the pile of journals?)

Yes—the weight of history

p. 124 A *rough wheeze* again, and the film of confusion�� (is it like she is softly laughing again, as in “she said with a wheezing chuckle��, a couple of paragraphs above?)

Yes—a wheezing chuckle is rough, though. A wheeze as of allergies and of course, of blood in her throat.

p. 125 Perhaps I should have left the psychologist alone, let her die without providing any answers, *but I could not find that level of grace within me*.

She can’t find the kindness to just let her have the dignity of her death without an interrogation.

p. 135 Surveyor needs *reinforcement* (is it reference to the behavioral/motivational theory?)

Yes—the surveyor needs further conditioning or reinforcement to get with the program

p. 149 There should have been an *awareness of comfort* at being spared the pain of my wounds, *but I was being haunted in my delirium*.

She should’ve been fine with not feeling any pain, but the delirium accompanying it is giving her odd visions.

p. 158 and so I fought it because I had work to do first. This work might also, if I was left to it without *any strange intercession*, put everything in perspective

She feels Area X has contaminated her and might be in a way watching and able to act to stop her in her work��

p. 159 *Feed Area X but do not antagonize it*, and perhaps someone will, through luck or mere repetition, hit upon some explanation, some solution, before the world becomes Area X.

Feed as if the expeditions are human sacrifices.

p. 164 Afterward, they dragged the bodies from the landing and buried them *high up on the beach* a little distance from the lighthouse.

The beach has the sea oats and bluffs more or less before you get to it—so you’re walking down through sand dunes. And up to them.

With reference to the word INITIATION (the title of the first chapter). Is it just another way to say “beginning��, just rhyming with immolation, integration etc., or are you also meaning that the biologist is being “initiated�� to the Tower?

Like an initiation ceremony. Definitely a rite or ritual-based meaning. It can also of course mean beginning, but a word that invoked ritual too is useful.

p. 27 *“Paralysis is not a cogent analysis?��* she said to me with a pointed stare. �� It was only later that I realized the psychologist had tried *to bind me* with a hypnotic suggestion meant for me and me alone

The first bit could be interpreted as “being frozen is not a good way to deal with this,�� but it’s really supposed to be an unusual phrase for hypnosis purpose—it could also make sense but an almost-sense is fine. “Bind me�� is like being bound by a spell. Trying to continue to use the jargon of the supernatural to describe what may be entirely natural.

p. 109 I wasn’t in the habit of engaging in small talk, nor in *broad talk*, as I liked to call it.

A riff on “broadsheet�� but also the idea that topics like religion, etc., are “broad�� compared to the “small�� talk of talking about the weather. Just made up, though, so whatever works.

p. 166 My husband refused because he suspected from some of the readings *in the journal* (in the journals?) that “this idea of return through the same means as our entry might in fact be a trap.��

yes, journals—good catch

p. 168 After reading the journal, I was left with the comfort of *that essential* recurring image of my husband putting out to sea in a boat he had rebuilt

Immutable? Like, this final image frozen in her head. Something that captures the heart of him.

p. 169 Not coincidentally, by nightfall, the brightness was *thrushing up through my lungs and into my throat again* (like something fluttering in her lungs?) so that I imagined wisps of it misting from my mouth. I shuddered at the thought of the psychologist’s plume, seen from afar, like a distress signal. I couldn’t wait for morning, *even if this was just a premonition of a far-distant future*

No. Thrushing to me would be more like a wave almost physical in terms of the sensation, pushing up through. Thrushing is my own made-up construction, though. So you could go to pushing. But “thrushing�� also to connotation “thrashing��, “a thrush�� and thrush, an infection of the mouth by a kind of fungi. So almost the physical sensation of a bird “thrushing�� up through the throat.

She’s seeing the green flame as a harbinger of her own future, her own fate.

p. 169 I had generations of expeditions that *had ghosted on ahead of me*

They went on expeditions before her.

p.172 *Give back to that which gave to you*, (are you quoting someone or��) came the thought, not knowing what I might be feeding, or what it meant for the collection of cells and thoughts that comprised me.

Nope. But the suggestion that she’s suggestible by Area X.

p. 177 a kind of echo of an arm in *constant blurring motion*, continuously imparting to the left-hand wall a repetition of depth and signal that made its progress laboriously slow��*its message, its code of change, of recalibrations and adjustments, of transformations*. (slow progress: i.e. slow message, slow recalibrations, adjustments��.etc?)

Think of a hummingbird’s wing re the blurring motion. As for the other, its progress is also its message, because it is going slow because it is writing.

p. 181 �� then the pain distributed like a second skin inside *the contours of my outline*.

Almost like she’s wearing another skin under her real skin, a sensation like that. Really, she’s describing pain in the deep epidermis.

p. 182 …With nothing to lean against, I fell like a sack, *crumbling before something that was never meant to be, something never meant to invade me.* I sucked in air in great shuddering gasps.

Crumbling with awe or exhaustion faced by the unknown, by something that she feels is not real in some way, and referring back to the fact she was infected early.

originally appeared on on May 25, 2014.

Popular Mechanics asked a number of writers, including me, for our thoughts on what the next Stars Wars movie should be–and you can read .

Mine, on the other hand, were too revolutionary and way too subversive to make it into the feature. As a practicing curmudgeon, and someone fairly ambivalent about the Star Wars franchise in general, I wasn’t too surprised or at all concerned about this development. BUT the truth must be told. So, here’s my idea for the next Star Wars movie in all of its amazing glory…GRUNTBARK MUST HAVE HIS DAY!

***

A worm-hole in time opens up and the actions of the resistance result in Ewoks never existing. Meanwhile, a resurrected Darth Vader, cloned from a ham hock and a piece of loose scrotal skin, becomes obsessed with mazes and builds a death star around another death star, and then puts a death star around the outside of that, replicating this action until it threatens to encompass the known universe. The resistance must stop Scrotal Ham Vader from surrounding them with a death star from which they can never get out. This leads to a huge battle that features dozens of Vader replicants that have been deployed on the various death stars in place of the ineffectual storm-troopers. Only Chewbacca’s great-great grandson Gruntbark can find the secret celestial sentient light saber foretold of old, the knowledge obtained from a message sent from the past by Yoda on an ancient un-hackable 8-track cassette. As a new horror concocted by Vader—mobile, roving garbage compacters—crushes rebels left and right as they try to delay the expansion of the death stars, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

originally appeared on on May 25, 2014.

(Check out the FSG site for Authority with interactive .)

ŷ������ has all the info on their site, but basically they’ve launched a new section where you can ask authors questions directly. What amounts to the beta launch includes a plethora of writers, including yours truly. You can see what questions I’ve answered and ask me a question yourself. Below find the links for the other participants.

I’ll be answering two or three questions a day through early June, at the very least. Although I’m laser-focused on the Southern Reach trilogy, feel free to ask me anything you like. I’ve already asked my own questions of Robin Sloan, Margaret Atwood, and Isabel Allende. (Click on images to enlarge.)

originally appeared on on May 22, 2014.