Ah, it’s the obligatory End of Year post. Isn’t it time for 2022 to be over already?
Previous posts: 2021, 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 (but who’s keeping track).
Well, it was a beast of a year. Did some film work – that was fun. Wrote a beast of a novel. Wrote too many short stories. Published too much. The usual. Let’s get this over with, shall we?
Novels
Maror came out in hardcover from Head of Zeus in August. You should read it. It’s also one of the Economist‘s best books of 2022, so that’s nice. The Guardian called it “a masterpiece of the sacred and the profane [and] a literary triumph.” So. You know. Did I mention you should read it?
Neom came out in trade paperback from Tachyon in November. If you liked Central Station… etc. Publishers Weekly say that “fans of literary sci-fi are sure to be enchanted by the imaginative worldbuilding and tenderly wrought characters.” There’s also a limited edition for collectors due from PS Publishing.
The Hood, meanwhile, came out in paperback from Head of Zeus. I don’t think anyone read this one which is… a shame, really. It’s great.
Oh, and there’s a new edition of my debut novella, An Occupation of Angels, published in paperback by Jabberwocky.
Anthologies
The Best of World SF: Volume 2 came out in hardcover from Head of Zeus in October. It’s huge.
The Best of World SF: Volume 1 came out in paperback in the meantime. It was also published in an Italian edition, which was nice.
Awards
Not much to report on this front.
The Escapement was a runner-up for the Philip K. Dick Award, which was nice. Probably my favourite recent novel, to be honest and, like The Hood, somewhat under-read.
The Best of World SF: Volume 1 was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Anthology. Also nice.
The Candy Mafia was nominated for Mississippi’s Magnolia Book Awards in the 3rd-5th Grade category, and won the Alabama Camellia Children’s Choice Book Award for Grades 4-5 Fiction. Nice!
Games
I wasn’t as much into mobile game making as last year. I released Impossible Marbles, though, and a beta of Yeti Falls.
But to be fair I was working on a lot of animation projects this year instead.
Short Stories
Ah, now we get into the meat of it all. Faaaar too many of those!
- It Happened in Loontown. Published at Apex Magazine. Balloon noir! (also coming soon as an original animated film).
- Seven Vampires: A Judge Dee Mystery. Published at Tor.com. the first of the two Judge Dee stories for this year. Who doesn’t love a vampire mystery?
- Dr Wasp and Hornet Holmes. Published at Nightmare Magazine. I think of this as sort of Philip K. Dick in a wasp colony.
- Vagrants. Published in Future SF Magazine. Slice of life science fiction (I was on a bit of a 1950s vibe this year).
- Schlafstunde. Published in Apex Magazine. Neo-Neanderthal Cyberpunk! A genre I totally made up.
- Terrible Things are Happening to Donkeys. I did this one for the Royal Literary Fund. It’s sort of weird lit, I guess.
- Sirena. Published in The Dark Magazine. Horror about vending machines, because, you know. shudder.
- Junk Hounds. Published in Clarkesworld Magazine. Back to science fiction! About the collectors of space junk in orbit.
- Aleph. Published in Nature. A short about a self-aware AI that was a lot of fun to do, and also, hey, Nature!
- Judge Dee and the Mystery of the Missing Manuscript. Published at Tor.com. How did we get to 10 already! The second Judge Dee mystery for the year was particularly fun to write.
- The Portal Keeper. Published in Uncanny Magazine. Possibly my favourite (and one of my favourite ever) it’s a low-key fantasy about the person who stays behind when everyone else goes on magical adventures.
- “Radicalized”. Published in ParSec. Short twist-in-the-tail horror. Yeah I was on a bit of a horror kick this year.
- “Hava”. Published in The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories, ed. Maxim Jakubowski. Crime.
- “The Case of Baby X”. Published in Black is the Night, ed. Maxim Jakubowski. This is a really great noir story, actually. I think.
- “The Waiting Place”. Published in New Worlds, ed. Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther. Surrealist.
- “The Shadchen of Venus”. Published in Unidentified Funny Objects 9, ed. Alex Shvartsman. About a matchmaker on Venus. This was fun!
Next Year
Not slacking off, sadly!
The Circumference of the World is finally coming out (probably my most-delayed ever book). Tachyon will publish in trade paperback. I’m really happy with the final draft of this.
Adama, the next lit novel, will be out in hardcover from Head of Zeus.
Not to mention The Best of World SF: Volume 3!
And there should also be a new children’s book coming.
Also various editions of books scheduled for France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Poland and so on.
Short stories-wise, there are stories forthcoming in Asimov’s, F&SF, Apex, and a bunch of anthologies.
I could go on, but let’s stop there and take the rest of 2022 off…
Lavie Tidhar 