Hey there, tri-state-area geeks! Tor Books and Tor.com are pleased to announce a massive science fiction and fantasy reading coming to New York City later this month. We’re teaming up with the excellent AIDS-relief organization Housing Works to host an evening celebrating Geek Week—featuring award-winning authors Jo Walton, Charles Stross, a live set by Ninja Sex Party, Tor giveaways, and more! This marks the first time that either author has appeared in NYC (yes, we mean EVER), and it promises to be a fun, illuminating, and geeky good time. And it all goes down at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012) on Tuesday, February 22 at 7:00 p.m.
But that’s not all: since our illustrious blogger Jo Walton will be in attendance, please stick around after the reading for a makeshift Tor.com meetup with authors, Tor and Tor.com staffers, and more, at a nearby location to be decided. (In other words, we’re not sure where we’re going yet, but watch this space and we’ll tell you where to find us.)
Even cooler: this event is part of Housing Works Bookstore Cafe’s GEEK WEEK Sale and Extravaganza, 2/19 through 2/25. 30% off sci-fi, fantasy, comics, vintage vinyl, science and math books all week, plus extra geeky events!
Jo Walton’s novel Tooth and Claw won the World Fantasy Award, and the novels of her Small Change sequence—Farthing, Ha’penny, and Half a Crown—have won acclaim ranging from national newspapers to the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award. A native of Wales, she lives in Montreal.
Her new book Among Others (Tor, January 2011), has just been published and already is gathering a wide variety of critical acclaim and fan devotees. Startling, unusual, and yet irresistibly readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment. Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude, Jo Walton has created the perfect book for anyone who has ever found solace from a beloved story, or found courage and inspiration from the written word and the worlds created by their favorite authors.
Charles Stross is a Hugo and Nebula nominated author who burst upon the SF scene with a number of innovative and impressive short stories, including the 2005 Hugo winning novella “The Concrete Jungle.” He is the author of the genre-warping “Merchant Princes” series and the “Laundry” novels that have garnered him nominations for both the Hugo and Nebula awards, including one in 2009. “The Merchant Princes” series has been acclaimed by as diverse a critical crowd as NYT columnist Paul Krugman (the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics), science fiction icon Orson Scott Card (author of Ender’s Game), and mainstream publications Time Out, Salon.com, and The San Francisco Chronicle. The most recent in that series, The Trade of Queens (Tor, 2010) returns hard-nosed series protagonist Miriam Beckstein, a thirtysomething divorcee and financial investigative journalist from 21st-century Boston, in her struggle to save the Clan during the aftermath of multiple-universe spanning nuclear attacks.
He is a pal of Ken McLeod, Iain M. Banks, Bruce Sterling, and Cory Doctorow (with whom he is currently collaborating on a book due out fall 2012 from Tor). He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with his wife, Feòrag NicBhride, in a flat slightly older than the state of Texas.
And between the readings: a live set by Ninja Sex Party, whose mission is simple: Rock your body with music. The two members, Danny Sexbang and Ninja Brian, are not only masterful lovers but also musicians of the highest caliber imaginable by you. (Don’t worry, guys, they’re geeks too—if you have any doubt, check out their Sacred Chalice video.)
Oh, hey, if you use the Facebooks, please tell us and everyone you’re coming at this event page so we can be excited in advance. Hope you can make it!
