Masked and Anonymous

Lubbock Online has posted a review of my superhero prose anthology, Masked. They write:

"Verdict: Thumbs up. Any sort of anthology like this is going to have some good stories and some not-so-good stories, and I'm glad to say that most of these fall on the good side of the equation. Far and away, my favorite stories were the ones by Gail Simone, Bill Willingham, and Paul Cornell, but the majority of the stories in this book are just plain great. ....Not a perfect anthology, but certainly one of the better ones of this type I've seen. if you're a superhero fan, this is definitely something you'll want to pick up."

Podcast: Comic Book Outsiders Discuss Masked

This week on the podcast Comic Book Outsiders, they are discussing my anthology Masked. I was interviewed on Comic Book Outsiders back in November as a guest, and am eager to hear what the book club has to say now.

Masked: A really good collection!

There's a wonderfully positive review of Masked up at Tales from the Bookworm's Lair. Reviewer J. Andrew Byers goes story by story, but says in summation, "this is a really good collection... I really, really enjoyed this one, and would love to see a follow-up volume, also edited by Lou Anders and featuring many of these authors."

J. Andrew, from your lips to Superman's ears!

Locus Magazine's 2010 Recommended Reading List

Locus magazine has posted their 2010 Recommended Reading list, and I'm proud to say that works I edited are all over it. Ian McDonald's The Dervish House is in the Novels-Science Fiction category, James Enge's The Wolf Age is in the Novels-Fantasy, and Swords & Dark Magic (co-edited with Jonathan Strahan) is in the Anthologies-Original category. From Swords & Dark Magic, Joe Abercrombie's "The Fool Jobs" is in the Novelettes category, as is Steven Erikson's "Goats of Glory" and Scott Lynch's "In the Stacks" and K.J. Parker's "A Rich Full Week." In the Short Story category, Ian McDonald's "Tonight We Fly," from my anthology Masked, joins another contribution from Swords & Dark Magic, Garth Nix's "A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet." Congratulations to all the authors for their tremendous work, and to everyone on the list.

Works I Edited in 2010: The Complete List

Well, it's that time again. The Hugo Awards are now open for nominations, so here is a handy-dandy list of all the books that I edited in 2010, which details not only all of Pyr's output and the two short story collections as well. Many of these books and stories are deserving of consideration, and I'll detail the artists who did these covers as well. So...

Pyr's 2010 Publications:

Kay Kenyon's Prince of Storms (in hc and paperback). Cover art by Stephan Mariniere.
Kay Kenyon's City Without End (reprint). Cover art by Stephan Martiniere.
Paul McAuley's Gardens of the Sun. Cover art by Sparth.
David Louis Edelman's Geosynchron. Cover art by Stephan Martiniere.
Joel Shepherd's Petrodor. Cover art by David Palumbo.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Empire in Black and Gold. Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Dragonfly Falling. Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Blood of the Mantis. Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
George Mann's Ghosts of Manhattan. Cover art by Benjamin Carre.
Ian McDonald's Ares Express (reprint). Cover art by Stephan Martiniere.
Mark Chadbourn's The Devil in Green. Cover art by John Picacio.
Mark Chadbourn's The Queen of Sinister. Cover art by John Picacio.
Mark Chadbourn's The Hounds of Avalon. Cover art by John Picacio.
Matthew Sturges' The Office of Shadow. Cover art by Chris McGrath.
Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Son. Cover art by Michael Komarck.
Ian McDonald's The Dervish House. Cover art by Stephan Martiniere.
Tom Lloyd's The Ragged Man. Cover art by Todd Lockwood.
Jasper Kent's Twelve. Cover art by Paul Young.
Sam Sykes' Tome of the Undergates. Cover art by Paul Young.
Mark Hodders' The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack. Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Salute the Dark. Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
Joel Shepherd's Tracato. Cover art by David Palumbo.
Pierre Pevel's The Cardinal's Blades. Cover art by Jon Sullivan.
James Enge's The Wolf Age. Cover art by Dominic Harman.
Clay and Susan Griffith's The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire Book 1). Cover art by Chris McGrath.
James Barclay's Elfsorrow. Cover art by Raymond Swanland.
James Barclay's Shadowheart. Cover art by Raymond Swanland.
James Barclay's Demonstorm. Cover art by Raymond Swanland.
Tim Akers' The Horns of Ruin. Cover art by Benjamin Carre.
Mike Resnick's The Buntline Special. Cover art by J. Seamus Gallagher.

30 novels in 31 bindings. Quite a year. Pyr itself turned 5 and hit our 100th title. I've posted a round up of various Best of 2010 posts over at the Pyr blog. Ian McDonald's The Dervish House and Clay and Susan Griffith's The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire Book 1) seem to be making the most Best of lists, but Pyr novels are appearing all over!

Turning to short fiction, I edited 33 individual stories, detailed below. The Hugo Awards defines a short story as anything less than 7,500 words, a novelette as being between 7,500 words and 17,500 words, and a novella as being from 17,500 words to 40,000.

Pyr released one novelette in 2010, James Enge's "Travellers' Rest," which was made available as a free ebook in both ePub and Kindle formats. Cover art by Chuck Lukacs. 8,471 words.

Beyond Pyr, I edited two short fiction anthologies (making this a year in which I am personally eligible in both the long form and short form categories, in case you are wondering). Each contained very many deserving short stories, novelettes, and novellas. They were:

Masked (Gallery Books). Cover art by Trevor Hairsine:

• "Cleansed and Set in Gold" by Matthew Sturges (9,825 words)
• "Where their Worm Dieth Not" by James Maxey (6,868 words)
• "Secret Identity" by Paul Cornell (4,795 words)
• "The Non-Event" by Mike Carey (6,093 words)
• "Avatar" by Mike Baron (4,483 words)
• "Message from the Bubblegum Factory" by Daryl Gregory (9,514 words)
• "Thug" by Gail Simone (5,746 words)
• "Vacuum Lad" by Stephen Baxter (6,733 words)
• "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows" by Chris Roberson (11,404 words)
• "Head Cases" by Peter David & Kathleen David (5,474)
• "Downfall" by Joseph Mallozzi (18,181)
• "By My Works You Shall Know Me" by Mark Chadbourn (6,636 words)
• "Call Her Savage" by Marjorie M. Liu (8,955 words)
• "Tonight we fly" by Ian McDonald (4,998 words)
• "A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too)" by Bill Willingham (15,932 words)

Swords & Dark Magic (co-edited with Jonathan Strahan, Eos). Cover art by Benjamin Carre. (Deluxe edition, Subterranean Press. Cover art by Dominic Harman).

• "Goats of Glory" - Steven Erikson (10,301 words)
  "Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company" - Glen Cook (9,973 words)
  "Bloodsport" - Gene Wolfe (5,562 words)
  "The Singing Spear" - James Enge (3,455 words)
  "A Wizard of Wiscezan" - C.J. Cherryh (10,543 words)
  "A Rich Full Week" - K. J. Parker (9,912 words)
  "A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet" - Garth Nix (5,068 words)
  "Red Pearls: An Elric Story" - Michael Moorcock (17,206)
  "The Deification of Dal Bamore" - Tim Lebbon (7,425 words)
  "Dark Times at the Midnight Market" - Robert Silverberg (8,177 words)
  "The Undefiled" - Greg Keyes (4,254 words)
  "Hew the Tint Master" - Michael Shea   (11,489 words)
  "In the Stacks" - Scott Lynch (14,643 words)
  "Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe" - Tanith Lee (10,715 words)
  "The Sea Troll's Daughter" - Caitlin R Kiernan  (9,957 words)
  "Thieves of Daring" - Bill Willingham  (2,219 words)
  "The Fool Jobs" - Joe Abercrombie (8,372 words)

And that's it for 2010. Apart from tooting my own horn, I do sincerely hope you will check out all the many deserving writers and artists in the list above.