The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

To mark the US launch from Bantam of Jeff’s excellent City of Saints and Madmen The Interactive VanderMeer Experience (TIVE as it is known, not to be confused with TIVO) has jumped up a notch to publicise it. Gone are the days when authors would strap on a bass drums, cymbals and mouth organ before proceeding up and down outside the nation’s bookstores playing their one man band to attract the attention of readers.

This is probably for the best as anyone who ever heard William Faulkner doing it would probably attest (a wonderful writer but not the best one-man band). Besides, Jeff told me he avoided the one-man band shtick in his early days with the help of his blog companion, Evil Monkey, who used to play the barrel organ (made from old Trappist monk’s beer barrels) while he made Jeff wear a little Fez and dance for coins.

But no more of this, oh no! This is the 21^st century and Jeff is multimedia man, using the web, music and animation to raise awareness of his work, as well as the traditional reviews and bookstore appearances where he illustrates his versatility by astonishing audiences with his ability to pat his own head and rub his own tummy at the same time. And so TIVE brings us an Ambergris quiz, screensavers, desktop wallpaper, banners, music and flash animation. OK, I admit it, we posted on the cool animation last year, but it is so darned good we’re doing it again. Those of you who have read City will no doubt agree with me and those who haven’t yet had that pleasure, well that’s one of the reasons we’re doing this, to draw your attention to it.

Of course, this is based around the US edition, but it applies equally to the UK version, which was one of the first novels in the first ever Book Picks last spring for FPI. And since it roughly coincides with the UK launch of Jeff’s new novel of Ambergris, Shriek, it is still quite timely for readers here (indeed Shriek is in our brand new Book Picks in the latest FPI magazine and catalogue, while Jeff is one of the featured authors in the FPI Library article for this issue, which takes six contemporary male SF&F authors you should be reading as its subject). Besides, we make no apologies for bringing your attention to damned good books!