This Just In....News from The Agony Column

07-19-03: New McMillan title from Rick DeMarinis and Chuck Palahniuk's travelogue

New McMillan title from Rick DeMarinis The latest novel by Rick DeMarinis from McMillan. Terry D'Auray's review of Rick DeMarinis' 'A Clod of Wayward Marl' made that book swound awfully appealing to me. I've got to admit that things about the book that she found less than gratifying were particularly the things that sounded most interesting to me. SoI was stoked when Dennis McMillan sent me these scans of the cover and flaps from his forthcoming title by this unique writer. The front and back flaps from the new Rick DeMarinis novel 'A Sky Full of Sand'. Certain to be the usual high-quality production, I'm curious as to what the heck the book is actually about. It's not usual to mix drunks and Democritus on the DJ flap. It's also nice to see a DJ flap that doesn't recount the whole plot of the novel. McMillan also notes the starred review of Bob Truluck's latest in Publisher's Weekly. Terry loved 'Street Level', and her review made it sound good to me. My take is that you should probably try to pre-order the title from M is for Mystery or one of the other bookstores in which Truluck is appearing, and make a point of seeing him. I'm told he's something of a character...

Chuck Palahniuk's travelogue You have to love a travelogue that features pasties on the front cover. Last year, when I talked to Chuck Palahniuk in an interview, he mentioned that he was having his tour guide to Portland published -- and here it is. Featuring Katherine Dunn (all hail 'Geek Love', may it remain forever unsullied by a bad film adaptation), recipes for crepes and lots of the nuttiest street people, 'Fugitives and Refugees' looks to be a rather unusual travelogue, to say the least. It appears that Random House under the Crown imprint is publishing a series of these by famous writers. I'm looking forward to the Barry Lopez guide to Northern Spain. I just finished Palahniuk's 'Diary' and enjoyed it thoroughly; since it's not out, this will do nicely. It's funny and weird and bound to scare more people away from Portland than it attracts. What more can you ask from a travelogue?

07-15-03: Janis Ian SF Anthology and Jasper Fforde's Literary DVD

Janis Ian SF Anthology Janis Ian inspired the stories in this anthology edited by Mike Resnick. Here's a new release where the promo actually does the project justice. "STARS is a truly unique undertaking, and an immensely personal one as well. It was born at a 2001 World Science Fiction Convention, when Mike Resnick began introducing Janis Ian to the many writers whose work she had adored for decades. When Janis discovered that these writers were as enamored of her music as shww was of their writing, this exciting creative venture took root." The many writers look intriguing, and this is a huge hardcover release. It's fascinating what gets published!

Jasper Fforde's Literary DVD The cover of Jasper Fforde's newsest novel, now out in the UK. One of the many DVD style extras include in this book is this advertisement for a FootnotesPhone. If there is any writer who can give the movies a run for their money, it's got to be Jasper Fforde. Reading his books is tons of fun -- they're fast, funny and ultra literate without any of the usual deadweight associated with litrachur. But now, he's going for the movies throat with his newest. It includes this little announcement at the beginning: "This book has been bundled with Special Features including: the making of wordumentay, deleted scenes fromj all three books, outtakes and much more. To access all these bonus features, log on to http://www,jasperfforde.com/specialfeatures.html and enter the code word as directed." Fforde's website is beautifully designed, and just so you know he's a manly man who creates it writing in raw HTML; none of the poofy Dreamweaver crap for him! NO, I don't know what the code word is; we'll both have to read the novel and find out! But among the special features are several of his wonderful advertisements, see the sample above.