Tomio’s Want List is a subpostgenre of Jan-ken-pon (which has no known boundaries) that showcases items I run into that have to find here way on to my shelves, man-compound, longbox (with mylars), or deposit box. Usually, these are pretty much off the cuff, and often times (like most desires) are based on very little reason. There is reason here though, as you well know if you have had the pleasure of reading Alan DeNiro’s collection Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead, which was published by Small Beer Press, and in line with the quality you’d expect from everything they publish. Via twitter today I was led to this baby though:
I think I heard about Total Oblivion, More or Less as early as last year, as I think I saw DeNiro announce the sale to Bantam via Juliet Ulman. I’m not saying I have a spreadsheet or anything (but maybe I do–the imperial archives are rather extensive) , but Ulman is who I tend to view as the person who was was procuring all the good books Bantam/Dell used to publish (you can read an interview conducted by Jeff VanderMeer with Juliet over at Omnivoracious).
Book Synopsis (at Amazon):
“I remember the first time I began to understand that things might not be the same again.”
What’s a girl to do when her world is invaded by warriors from the ancient world? That’s the problem faced by sixteen-year-old Macy, who sees her quiet, normal life in suburban Minnesota turned upside down when things that should never be possible begin to transform the landscape all around her. The cable stops working, the phone lines die–and then the horsemen come to town. It’s not the same America that she last went to sleep in.
Ticketed to a refugee camp by the marauding Scythian armies, Macy and her family come to believe that heading down the Mississippi by boat is their one escape from the encroaching madness. But as they make their way downriver, Macy’s world just keeps getting stranger, and the wooden submarines, wasp-borne plagues, and talking dogs are the least of her problems: For in this upside-down world, old identities warp and family bonds are sorely tested.
While being a fan of short fiction, I always find myself intrigued by the jump to the novel by my favorites in the short form. Beyond that, I found some of my earliest adventures within pages written by Mark Twain , and anytime there’s talk about adventure on the mighty Mississippi*–no matter how fantastically removed– I don’t ask questions, I just get on board. More or less.
*another fine example is George R.R. Martin’s Martin’s Fevre Dream).
**You may want to check out an essay Mr. DeNiro allowed us to republish here at BSC, Why I Write Science Fiction: An Apology.
