Steampunk Book Delivered!

Jeff Vandermeer's Steampunk book has arrived! A dark shadow swept across my house this morning and I thought a thundercloud had obscured the sun but it was a bloody great iron-clad Zeppelin that Jeff had commisioned to deliver my free book.
Ok, ok, it was my usual postman... but he was on a steam-powered bicycle. Oh, all right, he was on foot... but his shoes were emitting large clouds of vapour (well the weather in Wales is particularly warm for this time of year)
Anyway, I promised Jeff I would photograph the novel in a typical steam-powered environment and so I jumped into my road-going vaporetto (it's like the Venice type taxis but I've converted it to caterpillar-tracked locomotion so it's multi-terrain) and made my way down to Swansea's Industrial Museum and took a few photos, here they are:

First up is the book's flyleaf with a sketch of Jeff's Zeppelin with a dedication from him and his lovely wife Ann and a command of 'Ballast Away!' I just hope the ballast was dropped over an uninhabited zone!


Next we have little old me holding Steampunk next to a concept FTL steampowered dragster...



And here we have Steampunk enjoying a bit of Welsh sunshine next to a steam-powered wormhole generator...


And you though Wales only invented Tom Jones and laverbread eh?

Thanks for the book, Jeff and Ann. I look forward to reading it.

CONE ZERO

To say I am honoured and pleased to be among the fourteen authors who have been chosen for inclusion in DF Lewis's Nemonymous 8, or Cone Zero as it will also be known, is an understatement.

Nemonymous is a unique publishing venture because Des does not attach the authors' by-line to his or her story. The authors are noted in the fly-leaf and the stories are in random order thereby preventing any bias towards 'named' writers etc. There will be fourteen tales in Cone Zero and those were selected from hundreds of submissions, they will all have to contain something about the phrase Cone Zero but can be about any subject. The authors selected for this exciting anthology are allowed to say they have been chosen but must not divulge the name of their story. In about eight months time Des will make know to the world who wrote what by releasing the information online and it will also be published in the next Nemo book 9.

Cone Zero is pencilled in for a launch in July 2008 and Des has a competition going (probably with a prize, knowing him) for the first person who correctly guesses the 14 authors, well here is one! He also does a competition when the books are out for who can guess correctly which author wrote what story, again a ground-breaking idea and Jetse de Vries of Interzone won last year's.

Des's Competition:

HERE'S A NEW COMPETITION (15 April 2008): The names of the 14 'Cone Zero' authors will be announced as soon as the book is published. Meanwhile, please write to me at bfitzworth@yahoo.co.uk with your assessment as to who these authors will be. These authors are able (if they wish) to announce elsewhere about being in 'Cone Zero' with an unnamed story and I've already tracked down some of these references for myself by various means. You can have as many goes at this as you like, each go being taken separately. The prize for the most right is a free 'Cone Zero' and any other Nemonymous editions you haven't already got. If there is a tie, there will be a tie question. (The authors themselves are not eligible to enter)