There’s this magnificent effort currently ongoing at Kickstarter, Steampunk World: A multicultural steampunk fiction anthology edited by Sarah Hans. Here’s what is their main intent behind the creation of this fascinating anthology:

“Steampunk is fascinating. There's something compelling about the shine of clicking brass clockwork and hiss of steam-driven automatons. But until recently, there was something missing."

"It was easy to find excellent stories of American and British citizens... but we rarely got to see steampunk from the point of view of the rest of the world."

"Steampunk World is a showcase for nineteen authors to flip the levers and start the pistons and invite you to experience the entirety of steampunk.”

This original anthology will have nineteen award-wining authors in its lineup and here’s the whole roster lineup:
 - Jay Lake 
 - Ken Liu 
 - Nisi Shawl 
 - Lucy A. Snyder 
 - S. J. Chambers 
 - Jaymee Goh 
 - Rochita Loenen-Ruiz 
 - Lillian Cohen-Moore 
 - Philippa (Pip) Ballantine 
 - Balogun Ojetade 
 - Alex Bledsoe 
 - Indrapramit Das 
 - Emily Cataneo 
 - Malon Edwards 
 - Tade Thompson 
 - Nayad A. Monroe 
 - Lucien Moussa Shukri Soulban 
 - Benjanun Sriduangkaew 
 - Diana M. Pho 

The cover art as seen above is by James Ng and looks impressive to say the least. The anthology is currently funded at over $9,000, having met its goal of $6,000. But there’s more up such as a brand new cover by James as well as interior art for each story. So head over to their Kickstarter page and see which backer options interest you and join in.

Next up is an author whom I’ve admired for his stories and forthrightness. Recently Ari Marmell brought to light, a difficult situation that he has been facing:

“This is–in terms of both personal and professional pride–one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. That it comes in the middle of the holidays just makes it even worse. As many of my fans and friends already know, I suffer from a number of health issues, both physical and emotional. For a large chunk of this year, the dosages on my depression meds were wrong, leading to a long period where I was far less functional than I should have been. One of the results of that was that I got less work done this year than I should have."

"Well, on top of that, I have several payments that are past-due to me that have not yet arrived, and I’ve just had several months straight of unexpected expenses (personal, health-wise, pet-health-wise, and other). Bottom line, we’re deep in the red and I’m not sure about basic expenses or rent next month….”

Kindly read the rest of Ari’s post on his blog and please kindly consider helping out a good person in need.

Lastly Peter Clines, a favorite of mine, has revealed some info about the next three of his forthcoming works. Here’s what Peter said about each of the books and while giving their titles as well:

 1) The Albuquerque Door, which is what I’m working on now. My goal is to have this handed into my editor before my birthday. In a perfect world... you might see it this time next year. Maybe.

What’s it about? A very interesting high school teacher is sent to check up on a government-sponsored teleportation project and discovers that it’s gone... well, wrong. Really wrong. In many different ways.

Oh, yeah, and it ties into 14. Thought some of you might like that part. It’s not a direct sequel, but you could call it 14-adjacent, if you like. More of a side-quel. I’ve been calling it a Next Generation-Deep Space Nine kind of relationship.

2) Ex-Isle (book 5) is pretty self-explanatory. Broadway’s liking the Ex series enough to let me do another one. Which meant a few very last-minute tweaks to Ex-Communication and Ex-Purgatory to set up a few things...

I’ll be starting Ex-Isle right after my current project. Probably in May or June. If all goes really, really well, it might be in your hands summer of 2015. I’m kind of guessing on these release dates and a billion things will happen between now and then, so don’t hold me to any of these...

3) Not Highways is kind of a joke that grew out of the pitch I made to my editor at San Diego Comic Con. When he asked if I had a title, I said Highways and Byways. He and my agent glanced at each other (neither of them recall doing this... or so they claim), looked back at me, and almost simultaneously said “That’s a horrible title.” So in the months afterward, whenever we’d talk about the book, it was always Not Highways.

The actual pitch? “It’s kind of like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere crossed with Cannonball Run.” For the double-handful of you who were at Booktopia this summer, it’s the story I mentioned about the Model T Ford. If all goes according to schedule, I’ll be writing this next fall and you’ll get to read it... maybe in early 2016.

So there you have it, some cool things to look forward to and so from all of us here at Fantasy Book Critic, wish you all a very happy holidays and new year ahead.

NOTE: Steampunk World image courtesy of James Ng. Ari Marmell picture courtesy of Ari and Jessica Cargill. Peter Clines picture courtesy of the author.