Graham Sleight

I’m spending a lot of time working on The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction at the moment – and please note that we have both a Twitter feed and a Facebook page – but news today of an entirely different project. This is The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, and published by CUP on (it says here) 31st December 2011. The lovely cover, left, is by John Picacio.

My chapter in the book is on religion and fantasy literature and, as you can see from the CUP site, there’s a stellar line-up of other contributors. You can pre-order either the hardback or paperback from Amazon now.

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I’m just off to the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where I’ll be appearing on a panel about critical writing done from outside academia. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that The Unsilent Library - the book on new Doctor Who edited by myself, Simon Bradshaw, and Tony Keen – is now out, and can be ordered from Amazon.

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I’ve just updated my list of forthcoming books in the Gollancz Sf Masterworks series to the 100th title, due April 2012. Of the six new titles I’ve added, I’m especially glad to see Cecelia Holland’s Floating Worlds and Algis Budrys’s Rogue Moon, books that formed my sf reading tastes a few decades ago. I doubt, however, that Gollancz will be recycling the cover art from the fondly-remembered late-80s editions…

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Well, the DVD of The Ark is out, and indeed debuted at No 1 on the UK TV DVD chart: I somehow doubt, however, that this was due to my presence as a talking head on it. Also out are the new SF Masterworks editions of Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine and Priest’s The Prestige, both with introductions by me; and the SF Foundation’s book on Doctor Who, The Unsilent Library, co-edited and with a paper by me.

Meanwhile, I’ve just blogged over at the Locus Roundtable about the National Theatre’s new production of Frankenstein, and a piece about Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos sequence appeared in the February edition of Locus - also online.

And, in other news, the most fascinating (if profane) work of speculative fiction I’ve read recently is the fake tweets of @mayoremanuel : if you missed him before he vanished into a time vortex, or lack the requisite lifelong knowledge of Chicago politics, Bill Shunn has the necessary briefing.

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Since the preview DVDs and press releases have gone out, I can now tell you about my small part in the forthcoming BBC DVD release of the 1966 Doctor Who story The Ark. A while ago, I went down to a recording studio in Kentish Town, where m’colleague Simon Guerrier and his brother Tom pointed a camera at me and asked me questions about the influence of H.G. Wells on Doctor Who - an influence especially relevant to this story. At this stage, I can’t remember the details of what I said – and nor have I seen the final cut of the documentary Simon and Tom produced, which appears on the DVD. (All I remember, in fact, is that the recording studio was filled with extremely nice guitars, which I had to restrain myself mightily from playing around with.) However, I do know that the documentary also features such luminaries as Kim Newman, Dominic Sandbrook, Tony Keen, and Matthew Sweet. The DVD is out on February 14th, and can be pre-ordered from amazon here.

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First of all, if you’re visiting having followed links from my tor.com post on Christopher Eccleston’s time in Doctor Who: hello and welcome! If you want to find out more about the various projects I’m working on, this is probably the best place to start. Secondly, if you haven’t yet seen the post, it’s over here. It’s part of tor.com ‘s splendid “Twelve Doctors of Christmas” series, also featuring contributions from Paul Cornell, Nicholas Whyte, Seanan McGuire, and others.

Among other things, I’ve also updated the list of forthcoming books in the SF Masterworks series, for which I and Adam Roberts are currently writing introductions. In the meantime, I’m spending a lot of time proofing The Unsilent Library and doing last rewrites on The Doctor’s Monsters: more news on both soon…

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I’ve just added a new page giving details about The Unsilent Library, a book I’m editing along with Simon Bradshaw and Antony Keen about the revived series of Doctor Who. It should be out early next year.

In other news, I’m currently working on rewrites to The Doctor’s Monsters, bringing it up-to-date to cover the 2010 series of Doctor Who and, believe it or not, working on things that aren’t to do with Doctor Who. I’ve been finishing off editorial work on a couple of issues of Foundation which should be out before the end of the year; writing introductions to the forthcoming Gollancz editions of Sirius, The Difference Engine and The Prestige; talking about mathematical sf at the Locus Roundtable; updating entries for the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (currently at 11, 106 entries versus 6,571 in the previous edition); contributing program ideas for the next installment of Readercon; and plotting a couple of new ventures which I hope I’ll be able to talk about here shortly.

More updates soon, I promise, just as soon as I get to Inbox = 0 …

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