Lou Interview on Diabolical Plots

I am interviewed today by Carl Slaughter on his blog Diabolical Plots. We talk about the criteria that goes into selecting manuscripts for Pyr books, how my admittedly rather diverse media background prepared me for editing science fiction and fantasy, and my philosophy in anthology editing. Thanks to Carl for conducting this interview. Here's a sample, but please check the whole thing out.

You’ve also been nominated several times for anthology editor.  Give us a thumbnail sketch of your vision for anthologies, past, present, and future.
LA:  Well, I don’t know if I’m going to do any more anthologies in the future. I’ve turned my attention to my own fiction, and given the copious amounts of free time I don’t have, any and all snatches of personal time I have that is not claimed by my family goes into my own creations. But when I did anthologies, my goal was to never simply present reprint collections of themed stories, but to ask questions of where I thought the genre was, where it was going next, and where it should be. Each of my nine anthologies are attempts to engage the dialogue of speculative fiction in a moment, whether that was my frustrations with the limits of post-cyberpunk fiction in Live Without A Net, or my desire to explore the intersection of sword and sorcery values with modern, “realistic” fantasy in Swords & Dark Magic(co-edited with Jonathan Strahan). Every anthology is a question put to the field and hopefully a collection of answers.

Fearsome Journeys

One half of the Swords & Dark Magic team has a new (and ongoing) anthology series featuring stories of military fantasy and swords & sorcery. This May, Jonathan Strahan debuts The Fearsome Journeys: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy. The authors appearing in the launch volume include Trudi Canavan, Elizabeth Bear, Daniel Abraham, Kate Elliott, Saladin Ahmed, Glen Cook, Scott Lynch, Catherynne M. Valente, Ellen Klages, Ellen Kushner & Ysabeau Wilce, Jeffrey Ford, Robert Redick and KJ Parker.

As an enormous fan of swords & sorcery, as well as many of the authors in the inaugural volume, I'll be rooting for this to succeed. Meanwhile, I see that Amazon has the trade paperback of Swords & Dark Magic up for only $6.40 at the moment, if you were tempted to try it out and hadn't done so yet.

The Heirs of Sword and Sorcery

In the September issue of Locus magazine, Gardner Dozois has a favorable review of The Sword & Sorcery Anthology.He recommends it as a good starting point for an introduction to S&S (which it is). However, he does add that the older material is stronger than the newer, which he feels strays into slipstream. He says, "I would have liked to see more stories here from Joe Abercrombie, KJ Parker, Scott Lynch, Steven Erikson, Garth Nix or James Enge, the heirs of the form." Interestingly, all six of these authors are in Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery,which I co-edited with Jonathan Strahan.

Here's an idea: Perhaps they should be read together as unofficial companion volumes.

However, while we're talking about the contemporary heirs of the sword & sorcery mantle, we must give shout outs to Saladin Ahmed, Howard Andrew Jones, Violette Malan, Ari Marmell, Jon Sprunk, Michael J. Sullivan, and Sam Sykes. Likewise, R. A. Salvatore looms large in the field, and I've been very impressed. I've also been mightily impressed with the Pathfinder Talesline of tie-in novels, and much of the short fiction appearing on the e-zine Beneath Ceaseless Skies. We are in something of a renaissance for sword and sorcery. Long may it continue.

2011 World Fantasy Award Nominations

The 2011 World Fantasy Award nominations have just been announced, and it is very, very gratifying to see that Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery is up for an award in the category of "Best Anthology." Yours Truly is also nominated in the "Special Award, Professional" category for editing at Pyr. I'm having a happy afternoon.


Incidentaly, this means:

• 2011 Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor Long Form, nominee
• 2011 World Fantasy Award - Special Award, Professional nominee
• 2011 World Fantasy Award, Best Anthology, nominee: Swords & Dark Magic (editor, with Jonathan Strahan)
• 2011 Chesley Award for Best Art Director, nominee
• 2011 Locus Award finalist: Swords & Dark Magic (editor, with Jonathan Strahan)
• 2010 Hugo Award for Best Editor Long Form, nominee
• 2010 Chesley Award for Best Art Director, nominee
• 2010 Shirley Jackson Award nominee: Swords & Dark Magic (editor, with Jonathan Strahan)
• 2009 Hugo Award for Best Editor Long Form, nominee
• 2009 Chesley Award for Best Art Director, winner
• 2008 Hugo Award for Best Editor Long Form, nominee
• 2008 Philip K Dick Award, nominee: Fast Forward 2, (editor)
• 2007 Hugo Award for Best Editor Long Form nominee
• 2007 Chesley Award for Best Art Director nominee
• 2006 World Fantasy Award - Special Award, Professional nominee

2011 Locus Award Finalists

The 2011 Locus Award Finalists have been announced and it's with great pleasure that I discovered that Ian McDonald's The Dervish House (which I edited for Pyr) is up in the category of Best Novel as well as Swords & Dark Magic, (which I co-edited with Jonathan Strahan for Eos) in the category of Best Anthology. And from that anthology, Joe Abercrombie's "The Fool Jobs" is in the category of Best Novelette.

Swords & Dark Magic: You Ought to Read It

The website Stella Matutina has reviewed Swords & Dark Magic, which they call a "gem." They say:

"I enjoyed almost all the stories. Strahan and Anders have assembled a strong collection from a talented group of authors. The plots are tight, the stakes are personal and the writing’s a pleasure to read. Even when the plot didn’t quite engage me, the prose kept me reading. ...All in all: good stuff. If you like secondary world fantasy, or have any interest in the authors who contributed, you ought to read it."

The Shirley Jackson Awards

The 2010 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees have been announced, and I am delighted to report that the sword & sorcery anthology that I co-edited with Jonathan Strahan, Swords & Dark Magic, has been nominated in the category "Edited Anthology." Congratulations to all the nominees, and to all the contributors of Swords & Dark Magic.

"Goats of Glory" - Steven Erikson
"Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company" - Glen Cook
"Bloodsport" - Gene Wolfe
"The Singing Spear" - James Enge
"A Wizard of Wiscezan" - C.J. Cherryh
"A Rich Full Week" - K. J. Parker
"A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet" - Garth Nix
"Red Pearls: An Elric Story" - Michael Moorcock
"The Deification of Dal Bamore" - Tim Lebbon
"Dark Times at the Midnight Market" - Robert Silverberg
"The Undefiled" - Greg Keyes
"Hew the Tint Master" - Michael Shea
"In the Stacks" - Scott Lynch
"Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe" - Tanith Lee
"The Sea Troll's Daughter" - Caitlin R Kiernan
"Thieves of Daring" - Bill Willingham
"The Fool Jobs" - Joe Abercrombie

In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. The Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented at Readercon 22, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Swords & Dark Magic - Best Heroic Fantasy of 2010

Larry Nolen has posted his list of the Best Heroic Fantasy of 2010, a list of seven novels and two anthologies. I'm very proud to see Swords & Dark Magic, which I co-edited with Jonathan Strahan for Eos books, place at #7, while Pyr author Adrian Tchaikovsky's Salute the Dark came in at #8.

Speaking of Swords & Dark Magic, Larry writes:

Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “The Sea-Troll’s Daughter” brilliantly subverts the ugly/evil, handsome/good stereotypes embedded in so many tales, as the hero becomes more the villain and the presumed villain takes on heroic qualities that are the inverse of those presented in more traditional tales. Gene Wolfe’s “Bloodsport” is perhaps one of his better short fictions in recent years, as he still manages to confound and entrap the reader with the metaphysical qualities of the first-person narrator and his possible unreliability. These two stories alone, combined with several solid if not spectacular contributions from the likes of Steven Erikson and Michael Moorcock, help make Swords & Dark Magic a recommended anthology of heroic fantasy.

Of Salute the Dark he says:

The narrative arc that concludes in the fourth volume, Salute the Dark, is sharp, with little sense of extraneous detail thrown in to create a false sense of ponderousness. Tchaikovsky also weaves in elements from other subgenres such as steampunk to create a setting that feels different from traditional heroic fantasies. Combined with his quasi-magical totemic use of insects (beetles, wasps, bees, spiders, moths, mantis, ants, etc.), the atmosphere feels fresh. Tchaikovsky’s characters are complex and yet direct, which allows the author to develop and transform their personalities and actions as necessary. By the time the introductory plot arc concludes with Salute the Dark, the reader will have found herself wondering just where from here Tchaikovsky is heading with his overall series, considering how well he concludes several character and subplot arcs.

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.

Swords & Dark Magic: Elitist's Best of 2010

Elitist Book Reviews have just published their Best of 2010 list, and I'm thrilled that Swords & Dark Magic, the sword & sorcery anthology I edited along with Jonathan Strahan for Eos books, is on the their list. Also included are no less than ten books by Pyr authors (which I naturally also edited), making the total of Lou-related works in the list eleven out of seventeen books! I'm 65% of their year!

The full list:

GEOSYNCHRON by David Louis Edelman
James Barclay's novels -- ELFSORROW and SHADOWHEART
SWORDS & DARK MAGIC edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders
THE RAGGED MAN by Tom Lloyd
Adrian Tchaikovsky's novels -- EMPIRE IN BLACK AND GOLD, DRAGONFLY FALLING, BLOOD OF THE MANTIS and SALUTE THE DARK
MR. MONSTER by Dan Wells
TOME OF THE UNDERGATES by Sam Sykes
TWELVE by Jasper Kent
SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY by Mary Robinette Kowal
THE BIRD OF THE RIVER by Kage Baker
BLACKOUT and ALL CLEAR by Connie Willis
NIGHTS OF VILLJAMUR by Mark Charan Newton