SEARCHING FOR GREY MATTER: Stuff you need to be reading
Question: Name three books and three short stories that everybody should read?
BOOKS
Jesse Bullington’s The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart (Nov. 15 release)—A brilliant first novel set in the middle ages and featuring two of the craziest rogues in all of literature, with plenty of fantastical trappings.
J.G. Ballard’s The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard (U.S. edition)—Amazing, visionary short fiction that rewires your brain and has influenced generations of writers.
Samuel Delany’s The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (reprint)—This selection of essays on writing and also on how to read SF had a huge impact on me as a beginning writer in my teens. Even better, it’s now available with an introduction by Matthew Cheney.
STORIES
“Acception” by Tessa Kum, in Baggage (out in Feb. 2010)—Using an alternate version of herself as the main character, sent to a refugee camp, Kum writes an exceedingly political yet layered novelette that addresses head-on key issues related to Australian culture and ethnicity.
“Creature” by Ramsey Shehadeh (Weird Tales, March/April 2008)—Using influences from the comics and from fantasy, Shehadeh creates a compelling and moving story set in a post-disaster setting and featuring the titular “creature.” Just a great debut story.
“The Seven Deadly Hotels” by Bruce Holland Rogers (part of his subscription service and reprinted in Best American Fantasy 2) – One of Rogers’ many great stories over the years, this one about a succession of bizarre hotel experiences. It’s both light and momentous, and utterly enjoyable.
Award-winning writer Jeff VanderMeer has just finished the final novel in his Ambergris Cycle, Finch. With his wife, he recently edited Fast Ships, Black Sails and Best American Fantasy 2. His short fiction has or will soon appear in Black Clock, Tor.com, and two year’s best anthologies. He writes nonfiction for The Washington Post Book World, Omnivoracious, The Believer, the B&N Review, the Huffington Post, and many others. He also co-edits fiction anthologies with his wife, Ann VanderMeer (fiction editor of Weird Tales), and The Church recently completed a song cycle based on his last novel, Shriek: An Afterword. Visit him online at http://www.jeffvandermeer.com.
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