Craig Laurance Gidney

Gears of the City by Felix Gilman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This sprawling novel is a mess–full of dark magic, horror and bits of beauty. It has a plot that is rather vague and hazy. The structure shifts and changes, like the city it describes. At its best, Gears Of The City mixes the high gothic style of Mervyn Peake with the fever dream surrealism of Lautremont’s Maldoror. There are times when Gilman’s invention overpowers his storytelling skill, and some of the characterization is weak. But the overheated, imagistic prose keeps the dark marvels coming.

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Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories will be the February selection for California Men’s Gatherings book club in Los Angeles.

I feel so honored!

Information is here:  http://www.thecmg.org/V5/021111SC.asp

I have two stories in the forthcoming anthology From Where We Sit:  Black Writers Write Black Youth (Edited by Victoria A. Brownworth).  The allegorical “Circus Boy Without A Safety Net,” and the darker tale of sexual abuse, “Bereft.”  The book comes out in February.

I acquired 3 stories printed in the forthcoming issue of Icarus:  The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction.  I’d be awfully happy if you bought the magazine–or subscription!

The seventh issue of Icarus released next week: Winter 2010 has several stories that will contribute to your shivers, of delight and dread. Hauntology is a genre of music that combines voices from obsolete recording technology with modern electronics. “Lonesome Road,” by Matt Cheney, is almost a literary version of hauntology, a different kind of ghost story—postmodern, but chilling all the same. Distant voices also play a role in Sunny Morvaine’s “The Shapes of Shadows,” a mysterious tale of alien technology. Esoteric knowledge, lust and revenge spill through the pages of Alejandro Omidsalar’s “Abbadon’s First Rule,” a tale of horror and black comedy. And “Bargain Books” asks the question, is invisibility a blessing or a curse for gays? “Blue Moon,” this issue’s poem, shows that mothers don’t always know best. Hal Duncan is one of my favorite authors. Every time he publishes a short story, the field of gay speculative fiction is that much richer. So we hope you take some delight in Craig Gidney’s interview with the man.

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I appear on the following panels with, among others, Nisi Shawl and Mary Robinette Kowal.  I’m quite excited.  My first time in Portland.

Sat Nov 13, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.: Gender and Writing
Gender free? Gender neutral? Stereotyping? How gender affects our writing. What writers do to write effectively in the opposite gender’s point of view, and whether they really do get away with it.
Nisi Shawl, Keffy R. M. Kehrli, J. A. Pitts, Craig Gidney, and Donna McMahon in Jefferson/Adams

Sat Nov 13, 12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.: Writing the Other: Races and Cultures
Speculative fiction often takes steps toward being more egalitarian, but there are still huge challenges ahead. Issues of appropriation, respect, stereotypes, and taking chances. How to get educated and still write naturally and from the heart.
Nisi Shawl, Donna McMahon, Rory Miller, Craig Gidney, and Mary Robinette Kowal in Roosevelt.

I will be at Capclave (a con just outside of DC) this weekend.  I’m not on any panels, but I will hanging around and might have some goodies from Lethe Press!