Smugglers’ Stash and News

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Smugglers’ Stash in which Thea is away and Ana vies for blog domination! Muwahaha.

Anyways, these are some of the things that were in my mind last week…

Forbidden Planet Signing & Giveaway:

Forbidden Planet is one of my favourite places in the whole wide world – a haven for geeks and book-lovers and a place I MUST visit every time I go to London. It is with the utmost delight that we partnered up with the London Megastore to promote Amanda Hocking’s visit to the store. She will be signing copies of Switched at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore next Saturday (January 25) from 1 – 2pm ( I will be there!). You can read more about the event, the book and enter a giveaway of Switched (open to all) HERE.

The Kitschies: 2011 Finalists:

The Kitschies are the annual UK awards for those books which best elevate the tone of genre literature i.e. the most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works published in 2011 in the UK. This year’s finalists are:

The finalists for the Inky Tentacle for Cover Art:

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch; illustration by Stephen Walter, design by Patrick Knowles (TAG Fine Arts) (Gollancz)
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan; design by Peter Mendelsund (Canongate)
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco; design by Suzanne Dean, illustration by John Spencer (Harvill Secker)
Equations of Life by Simon Morden; design by Lauren Panepinto (Orbit)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd; illustration by Jim Kay (Walker Books)

The finalists for the Golden Tentacle for Debut:

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick (Tor)
God’s War by Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Quirk)
The Samaritan by Fred Venturini (Blank Slate Press)

The finalists for the Red Tentacle for Novel:

The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington (Orbit)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Tor)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd (Walker Books)
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Sandstone)
Osama: A Novel by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

The winners in all categories (including the discretionary Black Tentacle) will be announced on February 3, 2011 at the SFX Weekender 3 but members of the judging panel will be sharing their thoughts on the finalists at Pornokitsch between 16 January to 27 January.

Tor.com 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards:

Speaking of awards…

What were the best science fiction/fantasy stories you read this past year? Or the best comics? Or the best covers?

Forget about “the best,” really, what new releases in 2011 did you enjoy the most?

Whatever those selections may be, now is your chance to vote for them in the Tor.com 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards! From now until 11:59 PM Friday, January 20th, we’re encouraging Tor.com readers (and SFF fans in general) to vote for their favorites in the following four categories.

Best Novel
Best Short Fiction
Best Comic
Best Book Cover

Learn more about it HERE.

Tales to Terrify podcast:

We were delighted to hear that our good blogging friend Harry Markov is now an assistant editor to a brand new Horror podcast called Tales to Terrify. Here is the skinny:

Something creeps in between the cracks of your opened browser tabs. It hisses and whispers behind the static of your headphones. It’s there, when you touch the keys on your keyboard. You can only catch a silhouette in the corners of your screen.

Yes, your computer has been possessed and the ghost that will haunt your browsing history from Friday, January 13th onward is “Tales To Terrify”.

Tony Smith, Hugo award winner for his internationally renowned science fiction podcast Star Ship Sofa, dares to allows the scariest, spookiest and creepiest horror stories that have been published to speak as the producer and editor of your new favourite horror podcast.

The voice of “Tales to Terrify” is award winning author and narrator, Lawrence Santoro, who has known dark tales since early childhood. Functioning as assistant editors are new comer writer and reviewer, Harry Markov and multi-tasking writer and slush reader, Sarah Hendrix. The task to bring disturbing visual content falls on our art director Church H. Tucker.

“Tales to Terrify” will gather together fiction from both established and break-through voices in horror from around the world to interpret horror in all of its nuances and manifestations. In the shows to come you will hear already published stories by names such as Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Lebbon, Gary McMahon, Gemma Files, Caitlin R. Kiernan and Nick Mamatas among many others.

“Tales to Terrify” will function as horror-centric hub for fans of fiction, art, movies and other horror-dominated genres.

Hush now and let us haunt your feed.

You can check it out HERE.

A Wrinkle in Time: 50 Years, 50 Days, 50 Blogs Celebration:

In honor of the 50th anniversary of A Wrinkle In Time, we have joined a multi-blog celebration extravaganza. For 50 days, starting Monday, January 16, 50 different blogs will be creating original content to celebrate the book’s anniversary. We join the fun on February 1 talking about one of the characters in the book. And in true Smugglers’ spirit, we picked THE VILLAIN!

Read more about the tour and all the blogs taking part HERE.

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

On Monday, Ana posts her review of The Man Who Rained by Ali Shaw and ponders about what exactly makes this book Literary Fiction instead of Fantasy (nothing, that’s what).

On Tuesday, Ana posts her Not-Quite-A-Review of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, her most anticipated read of 2012, bar none. Thea follows with her DNF review of Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel.

On Wednesday, it’s Thea’s turn again with a review of Deep Sky by Patrick Lee, The Rook by Daniel O’Malley, the third Scifi Thriller in the Travis Chase trilogy.

On Thursday, Ana is back with a review of Everneath by Brodi Ashton, a retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone (and maybe also of Iris and Osiris and of Orpheus and Eurydice and and yeah, you get the picture).

Finally, on Friday, we post a joint review of Fracture by Megan Miranda.

Phew. That’s it from us today! As usual, we remain…

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers