Escaping the Genre Ghetto – Exploring the State of Speculative Fiction at Toronto’s SpecFic Colloquium

TORONTO, ON (September 7, 2010) – On October 23, 2010 authors, editors and readers will gather to explore the state of speculative fiction in Canada at Toronto’s SpecFic Colloquium.

Canadian speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) has been increasingly recognized internationally for the calibre of its authors and their insight into the nature of social and religious identities, the implications of new technologies, and the relationship between humankind and its environments.  “Our authors are breaking out of the genre ghetto,” says co-organizer Helen Marshall. “Their stories disrupt habits, overcome barriers of cultural perception to make the familiar strange.  They show us the speculative fiction can be an ideal tool for social examination and critique.”

The colloquium, a one-day event to launch the Chiaroscuro Reading Series, will deliver lectures by major names in the field on topics such as urban fantasy, cognitive science, queering the genre, and how Canadian science fiction is taking over the world, nicely.  The lectures will be followed by readings that showcase emergent and experienced Canadian speculative fiction writers.

Guests include Kelley Armstrong, Julie Czerneda, Guy Gavriel Kay, Tony Burgess, Gemma Files, Karl Schroeder, Peter Watts, David Nickle, Michael Rowe and Claude Lalumière. 

Sponsored by ChiZine Publications, an independent publisher of weird, surreal, subtle, and disturbing dark literary fiction, the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium will take place on Saturday October 23, 2010 in the Debates Room and Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle.   Register at http://www.specfic-colloquium.com/registration.htm.

For further information about the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium, visit http://specfic-colloquium.com. For sponsorship partnering, advertizing opportunities or media queries, contact Sandra Kasturi, co-organizer at sandra@chizinepub.com or Helen Marshall, co-organizer at helen@chizinepub.com.

Awesome Review of Objects of Worship!

The Left Hand of Dorkness reviews Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumière.

He says: "Now, before I bought this book I hadn't read anything by Lalumiere. I was taken in by the sales pitch put forth by the publisher, Brett Alexander Savory of Chizine (real nice guy BTW), and picked this up at Ad Astra earlier this year. I think the phrase that sold me was "gay zombies raising a human child". Yes, there are zombies in this book, in more than one story..."

Click here to read the review!

Review: People Live Still in Cashtown Corners

Paul Tremblay, who wrote In the Mean Time, reviews People Live Still in Cashtown Corners by Tony Burgess. Tony Burgess also wrote the screenplay for Pontypool, and the novel the movie was based on, Pontypool Changes Everything.

Click here to read the review!

Suite 101 Reviews Major Karnage!

Suite 101 calls Major Karnage a "Recommended Read for Science Fiction Fans".

The highlight: "Major Karnage is a fun read. It has likeable characters and tense moments, and some real tenderness in the relationship between Karnage and his soldiers. Sometimes it's hard to tell where it's going, but it's the trip that matters."

Read more at Suite101: Gord Zajac's Major Karnage

Ebook Prices Drop on Amazon

TORONTO, Ontario (September 1, 2010) - To encourage the adoption of eBooks, ChiZine Publications (CZP) has dropped the prices of their Kindle-edition books on Amazon.

Novels and short story collections that were priced at $9.95 have dropped to $5.95, and novellas priced at $6.95 are now $3.95. On Amazon.co.uk, novels and collections prices were lowered from £6.95 to £4.59, while the price for novellas dropped from £4.59 to £2.86.

“Our hardcovers are true collectors items, and our trade paperbacks are top quality, but eBooks are more convenient and portable,” CZP co-publisher Brett Savory says. “These new prices will encourage people to try something new from an author they’ve never read before.”

CZP has shown that there’s a taste for eBooks with their free eBook giveaway on Wowio.com in June 2010. Over 7,000 copies of The Choir Boats were downloaded that month, breaking Wowio’s record for the most eBooks ever downloaded in a featured eBook giveaway.

More recently, Wowio featured CZP’s newest title, Major Karnage, which was downloaded over 1,800 times in one week.

CZP’s eBooks are DRM-free and are available through www.chizinepub.com.

About ChiZine Publications

ChiZine Publications (CZP) is an independent publisher of weird, subtle, surreal and disturbing dark fiction. It is the book-length, print version outgrowth of ChiZine (www.chizine.com), an online professional market in operation since 1997 focused on the same type of story material. All of CZP’s publications are hand-picked by co-publishers and Bram Stoker Award-winners Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi.

Review of Chimerascope

Review of Chimerascope by Douglas Smith, taken from Ideomancer.

There are few misses in Chimerascope, a superb collection of Douglas Smith’s previously published speculative fiction, stuffed with Aurora nominees (and one winner) and Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror honorable mentions. Spanning a wide spectrum of classic sci-fi, stories inspired by mythology, and post-apocalyptic fiction, this is an collection you’ll want to own and re-read.

Smith’s greatest talent lies in creating and then exploring worlds fashioned by posing a deceptively simple question. If a man awoke each morning and died each night, each time waking in someone else’s body, as in “A Taste Sweet and Salty,” would he be able to escape? What if, as in the book’s opening story, “Scream Angel,” an alien species secreted a chemical substance that warped humans’ emotional responses—changing extreme lows into torrid, wonderful highs?

His aliens are fully-fleshed, complicated beings with tangible challenges. They are occasionally horrific (as in the dark “By Her Hand, She Draws You Down,” populated by an entity that absorbs the life force of humans by drawing their portrait on paper). But more often, like his humans, they must make terrible decisions without the promise of a happy resolution. “Memories of a Dead Man,” for example, presents the titular character at a crossroads where he could choose to abandon his quest for vengeance, or wallow in it.

Few of Smith’s stories end on a feel-good note. In his introduction, he writes, “[M]y preferred ending is bittersweet, because that’s how I see life.” And nowhere is that more true than in “Going Harvey in the Big House,” narrated by a man who is—and eventually chooses to be—no more than a cog in the world’s wheel. Given the opportunity to cast down the machine, Big G walks down the easier road with no regrets. Flawed characters are the hardest to write because they are the most realistic: like us, they are plagued by doubts, insecurities, and are woefully void of foresight. Smith manages to capture the sympathy inherent in Big G’s decision; he is, after all, only human.

Another standout is the masterful “State of Disorder,” which contemplates the flexibility and fluidity of time. A number of events occur during a single, three-course dinner: the fortunes of two men are swapped, retrospectively, in time; a child’s life is erased permanently from the timeline; and finally, all three participants finish the meal with the knowledge of what has occurred, and how—one is triumphant, another despairing, and the third seeks revenge. In the hands of a less skillful writer, it would have been chaos.

An introduction to the book by editor and sci-fi novelist Julie Czerneda adds little, as this collection stands handily on its own legs. However, the author’s notes Smith provides before (and sometimes after, to avoid spoilers) the stories are tremendously interesting; each augments the tales with how the story came to be, and why it was written. Smith refers twice to Roger Zelazny, and once each to Poe, Jack London, and Bogey, all as sources of inspiration. It’s a complex mix: one of the many reasons this collection succeeds so powerfully.

Click here to buy Chimerascope from ChiZine Publications!

Review for Sarah Court

Review from Booklist Online:

Lives of the people who live in five houses in one block on Sarah Court, just north of Niagara Falls, intertwine in these five chapters of tightly packed prose. River man Wesley Hill, who picks up the “plungers,” can’t dissuade his daredevil son, Colin, from going over the falls. Patience Nanavatti, whose basement was blown up by Clara Russell’s pyromaniac foster child, finds a preemie in a Walmart toilet. Competitive neighbors Fletcher Burger and Frank Saberhagen pit their children, pending power-lifter Abby Burger and amateur boxer Nick Saberhagen, against each other athletically. And there’s much more, as Davidson loops back and forth, playing with chronology to finish stories. There is a strong emphasis on fatherhood here, with wives and mothers largely absent, and the masculine bent is particularly obvious in a stupid bet—a finger for a Cadillac—over a dog’s trick. Given that a handful of characters suffer significant brain damage, caused as often by intent as by accident, the introduction of a mysterious alien being seems superfluous. In Davidson’s vividly portrayed, testosterone-fueled world, humans cause enough pain all by themselves.

Click here for more information and to purchase Sarah Court!