Ann VanderMeer was the fiction editor for Weird Tales for five years and won the Hugo for her work there. She is also an award-winning publisher, and co-editor with Jeff on Best American Fantasy, Fast Ships, Black Sails (pirates), Steampunk, New Weird, The Weird, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, and many more.

Jeff VanderMeer is a three-time winner, thirteen-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award. His Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, the world's first full-color, image-based writing guide, is now out from Abrams Image. His Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) will be published by FSG, HarperCollins Canada, and The Fourth Estate (UK) in 2014, as well as 12 other countries. The film rights have been optioned by Scott Rudin Productions and Paramount Pictures. Prior novels include the Ambergris Cycle (City of Saints & Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch) and Veniss Underground. His short fiction has appeared in American Fantastic Tales (Library of America), Conjunctions, and many others. He writes nonfiction for The Washington Post, the LA Times, The Guardian, and many others. He has lectured at MIT and the Library of Congress and helps run the Shared Worlds teen SF/Fantasy writing camp out of Wofford College.

Odd? - Volume 1 edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

ODD? is a new anthology devoted to eclectic fiction, favoring a fantastical, horrific, magic realist, or surrealist approach. You might also call it strange or even weird. But as the subtitle of "Is it odd or are you too normal?" suggests, "odd" is a truly subjective evaluation. One person's "what the heck?!" is another person's "eh—saw that yesterday."

ODD contains reprints (some of them not available otherwise except in expensive limited editions), previously unpublished stories, and new translations of classic and hard-to-find stories. Authors in include Caitlin R. Kiernan, Jeffrey Ford, Hiromi Goto, Nalo Hopkinson, and many more. We are committed to bringing you odd material from all over the world, from the past one hundred years, all of it bound together simply by dint of being idiosyncratic, unusual, out-of-the-ordinary.

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Introduction

Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Welcome to ODD?, a new anthology series devoted to eclectic fiction, usually with a fantastical, horrific, magic realist, or surrealist approach. You might also call it strange or even weird. But as the subtitle of "Is it odd or are you too normal?" suggests, "odd" is a truly subjective evaluation. One person's "what the heck?!" is another person's "eh—saw that yesterday." You'll have to tell us just how "normal" you are by emailing us with your reaction to ODD?

We have to admit, to us, with all of the anthologies we've edited and the different kinds of fiction we enjoy, our recognition of what's odd and what's not might be skewed…but even though you might call us jaded, we think we've put together something…unusual. Whether it's Jeffrey Ford's sustained ode to "Weiroot" or Karin Tidbeck's disturbing explorations of the body in "The Aunts" (original to this anthology), Amos Tutuola's rumination on "the deads" or the Hans Strobl's phantasmagorical adventures of a disembodied head, you should find at least something you'd consider odd. (Just don't be surprised if your friends think it's normal.) This first volume is also accompanied by a professionally produced short film featuring a song about a certain Myster Odd (just type "ODD?" into YouTube).

Each volume of the biannual ODD? will contain reprints (some of them not available otherwise except in expensive limited editions), previously unpublished stories, and new translations of classic and hard-to-find stories. We are committed to bringing you odd material from all over the world, from the past one hundred years, all of it bound together simply by dint of being idiosyncratic, unusual, out-of-the-ordinary. In part, too, ODD? allows us to bring you all kinds of wonderful fiction that hasn't fit the focus of our other anthologies or magazines and that might not otherwise find a good home.

Finally, many thanks to our contributors as well as Neil Clarke, Jeremy Zerfoss, Danny Fontaine, Adam Mills, and Gregory Bossert for their help in getting this project off the ground.

Please visit cheekyfrawg.com for more information—and buy this ebook for your friends and other devoted readers of the odd. The contributors receive a very generous percentage of the proceeds.