Hugo award-winner ROBERT REED‘s Diamond trilogy—SLAYER’S SON, CORONA’S CHILDREN, and GREAT DAY—set in his “Great Ship” universe to Sean Wallace at Prime Books by Merrilee Heifetz of Writers House.

Read Bob’s essay that includes news of the three-book deal in an essay, Bob announces his new 3-book contract with Prime Books — see the full details in his essay, “Generous Possibilities,” on his The Word From Bob page.

“The Smell of Orange Groves” by Lavie Tidhar will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2012 edited by Rich Horton. T.J. McIntyre interviews him on the story.

I noticed connections in this story to other stories of yours as far as the setting goes, like Cloud Permutations, for example. For those who would like to read more of your stories in this setting, where should they look. Do you have any other upcoming works set in this same world you would like to mention?

Most of my science fiction stories take place in a sort of shared universe / future history, including, as you mentioned, my novella Cloud Permutations and my forthcoming novel from PS Publishing, Martian Sands.

“The Smell of Orange Groves”, however, takes place within a cycle of short stories all set in the Central Station area of Tel Aviv, somewhere in the future. A couple of others have also been published, and I hope, once I’m done with them, to publish them together as a mosaic novel.

MORE: Read the rest of the interview here!

“After-Words” by Glen Hirshberg will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2012 edited by Paula Guran. Jennifer Konieczny interviews him on the story.

Aaron says neither Ariel or his father could “understand about why saving books from extinction might be worth fighting for.” How do you feel about publishing moving towards e-books and away from traditional books? Do you use an e-reader?

I do use e-readers, and to my surprise, I love them. But I love them primarily because they give me opportunities to read even more, and to access difficult-to-find material. I think it remains to be seen whether the move to e-books will wind up good for writers, for readers, etc. I love books, and will always have them in my home and life, but I don’t feel it my duty or mission to proselytize for them. I’d rather proselytize for great writing. There’s an opportunity here to loosen the stranglehold that a staid, snarky, smug few have exerted over what constitutes good writing and who will have access to it for too long. I don’t have any particular faith that will happen. But we can all dream…

MORE: Read the rest of the interview here!

“Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin” by Adam Callaway will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2012 edited by Paula Guran. Stacey Friedberg interviews him on the story.

Everything here hints at something larger – the unspoken relationship between Tomai and the girl, the giant termite that consumes the world’s wood supply, even Kork’s special pole. How much of this world exists in your head beyond this story, and how did you come up with it all?

Lacuna is a strange beast. I fancy myself a bit of a worldbuilder. It takes me a solid week to plan out a new world, meticulously sketing out fauna, religion, planetary physics, and what have you. With Lacuna, I come up with a character and explore the city through their eyes. In essence, I know nothing more about the city than the readers do.

Lacuna is also a reactionary city. A few years ago, I read Walter Moers’s The City of Dreaming Books, and China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. They were two of the most wildly imaginative works of fiction I had ever read. I wanted to create my own Bookholm (the main setting in Moers’s novel), but with the trashheap chic feel of New Crobuzon. The early Lacuna stories were all obsessed with writing and writers, but as I wrote, I thought about what goes into all these books we love. Papermaking on a large scale is a brutal, dangerous process, and when you combine that with the dirty underworld that is lampblack creation, I had the grimy, industrial setting I needed to tell my stories.

MORE: Read the rest of the interview here!

“After the Apocalypse” by Maureen McHugh will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2012 edited by Paula Guran. Erin Stocks interviews McHugh on the story. 

It’s potentially easy to write off Jane’s behavior, especially around men, as a coping mechanism given the circumstances, but her decision at the end is a strong one. Why does she decide to abandon the one responsibility she still has?

I don’t know that I can explain Jane’s behavior. I would hope that reading the story, people find her behavior believable and human. It’s quite gratifying to me how many people have been horrified by the story because morally I find her action unforgivable. That said, I don’t find it unthinkable. I have a lot of sympathy for Jane and find a lot of myself in her. I expect people to cope, damn it, and I don’t forgive easily when I think they aren’t. At the same time, who hasn’t dreamed of escaping the burdens of responsibility? I’ve never actually done any of the things that Jane has. I never sold furniture, I was never a runaway on the street, I’ve never even had a daughter. I’ve behaved a lot better than Jane. But I suspect Jane would survive a disaster a lot better than I would. I’m pretty sure she’s a lot tougher than I am.

MORE: Read the whole story here!