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Category: Ego Boosted and/or Destroyed

Phantasm Japan Reviews

Published by Tim Pratt on September 19, 2014

I have a story, “Those Who Hunt Monster Hunters,” in new anthology Phantasm Japan. People seem to like the book, and the story.

An early reader, Cecily Kane, called my story  “One of the best feminist stories ever in SFF. I am inarticulate with ‘!!!!!’ Like I cannot believe a dude wrote this. I am stunned.” That was nice to see.

Here’s a review from Skiffy and Fanty (and I’ve excerpted the flattering-to-me bit below):

My favorite story… It’s funny; I’d asked the editor for a review copy of this just as I’d uncovered an unconscious bias of mine, which is that I almost never read books set in Japan. It took about twenty seconds of critical self-analysis to realize that such a reflexive avoidance is probably because Japanese women are so frequently fetishized, particularly in the West. Tim Pratt’s “Those Who Hunt Monster Hunters” addresses this objectification, in which a neckbearded “douchebro” is the antagonist. It’s a revenge tale that should be delightful for women who’ve had some grossly entitled dude become their problem. (Uh, I expect it’d be all of us that fit into that category.) It isn’t just entertaining from the intersectional feminist perspective, though; it’s funny and devastatingly sad at once.

(It’s a rave for the book as a whole too.) I am happy.

 

Twofer Tuesday

Published by Tim Pratt on April 12, 2012

So it turns out that with the day job, fatherhood, husbandhood, and the busiest Deadline Season of my life, this journal is one of the things that gets left undone. (Other things include: basic hygiene, exercise, cleaning my house.) I am managing to twitter near-incessantly, so if you’re simply dying for my company, follow me at twitter.com/timpratt.

I had a pretty great day on Tuesday. In the morning, I got word that I’d sold a short novel/long novella to a publisher I’ve wanted to work with forever. I don’t want to be more specific until I have a contract (lest it turn out to be a cruel, cruel joke), but I will say it’s a book I loooove and am so happy to send off to a good home. That means I have at least one book of fiction coming out in 2014, so that’s nice.

Later on Tuesday, another of my editors got in touch to ask if I’d be interested in writing a sequel to one of my books, to which I replied, “Yes, please,” so that will also likely see print in 2014, assuming all goes to plan.

I’ve sold two stories on the same day before, and I’ve sold two books to the same publisher on the same day before, but I’ve never sold two books to two different publishers on the same day before. One of those little achievements it never occurred to me to even wish for. (Granted, “sold” is a bit of a stretch for the second one, since it was more of a, “Hey, are you interested in doing this?” and won’t even see a contract for many a month, but I’m counting it anyway.)

I celebrated with ice cream. Perhaps I should stop celebrating things with food. But it’s the habit of a lifetime.

Not Quite Three/Very Nearly Four

Published by Tim Pratt on November 7, 2011

Happy Monday!

NaNo: 2900 words yesterday. I would’ve written more, but I had to do a bit of research. Sometimes I think the internet search histories of fiction writers and serial killers must be distressingly similar.

A few miscellaneous catchups:

My wife Heather Shaw and I sold a novelette collaboration to PodCastle — a Xmas story! We don’t have a final title yet, but it’s our “Christmas Carol/Ghost-Finder” mash-up. Basically, after Marley’s ghost departs, Ebenezer Scrooge goes out and wakes up a young occultist, and tells him, “Fix my spirit problem.” (It’s not really a “mash-up” in the usual sense — we only used a little bit of Dickens’s actual text, mostly in the dialogue from the spirits.) We couldn’t actually use William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki as a character (the timelines of the stories don’t mesh), but we named our character Hodgson in homage. Anyway, I really like it, and you’ll get to hear it in time for the holidays.

I’ve been asked to write a (shorter) Xmas story for another podcast too. And so I shall!

Richard A. Lupoff gave my new novel Briarpatch a fantastic review. “Briarpatch is pretty much sui generis. A couple of other novels do come to mind: Fritz Leiber’s Our Lady of Darkness and Douglas Dorst’s Alive in Necropolis.” Not bad company.

It’s my son’s fourth birthday tomorrow. Four years ago today, I was extremely anxious. And tomorrow, instead of worry, exhaustion, and emergency surgery, we get singing and cake! (Though we don’t get to welcome a new family member or see our lives utterly transformed for the better, so I’d still give the edge to the day of his birth in terms of awesomeness. Still though: singing and cake!)

Antiquation

Published by Tim Pratt on September 20, 2011

My novelette “Antiquities and Tangibles” is up at Subterranean. This is the “happiness story” I’ve mentioned before, and I think it’s one of the better things I’ve written in a while. Read it, please. I hope you like it.

There’s a good review of Welcome to Bordertown at Strange Horizons. Nice words:

Tim Pratt rocks the hell out of “Our Stars, Our Selves,” wherein Allie Land, lesbian lead singer of the outfit “Allison Wonderland” is hilariously pursued by a poser elf-lord… Pratt’s prose sizzles.

Yeah, I’ll take that.

Briarpatch is available in e-book form! In assorted delicious formats!

First Briarpatch Review

Published by Tim Pratt on August 29, 2011

Steven Klotz has the first review of my new novel Briarpatch, and it’s a very kind one. He’s been a big fan of my work generally, so it means a lot to me when he says:

This is my favorite Pratt so far and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their fantasy mixed with contemporary reality, but is searching for something more (and weirder) than the typical urban fantasy.

You can pre-order the book at Amazon or Powell’s or a bunch of other places. It’s out in a couple of weeks!