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!

[Many more details beneath the cut]

And that, my friends, is that: this year’s Steampunk Fortnight event must draw to its scheduled close. We hope you’ve been following along on the site, but even if you haven’t, it’s certainly not too late: the dozens of blog posts, gaggle of short stories, handful of excerpts, and bounty of giveaways indexed at the Steampunk Fortnight homepage will remain there indefinitely for your perusal and commentary.

[Many thanks below the cut!]

A Different Engine	Day After the Cooters
The Perdito Street Project	Internal Devices

These stories are also available for download from major ebook retailers.

A few weeks ago, when we contacted our steampunk compatriots and regular Tor.com bloggers to ask them if they wanted to contribute to Steampunk Fortnight, we got a lot of good ideas, but none quite as unexpected as one from the inimitable Eileen Gunn, who responded to say:

I may be coloring a little bit outside the lines, but that's
what lines are for. I promised to write four pieces of flash fiction, tuckerizing four people who donated to Clarion West’s Write-a-thon this summer. I think it would be fun to write four short-shorts, each in the style of a different formative steampunk tale.

Aha!, we thought. That idea is just crazy enough to work...and work it did, spectacularly. Consequently, on the last four weekdays of Steampunk Fortnight,  we will be presenting one of Ms. Gunn’s stories every morning, each one featuring a real benefactor of that glorious institution, Clarion West. You will certainly want to stick around to see the results.

Art for the series by Fyodor Pavlov and Lawrence Gullo

Ladies and gentleman! We are excited today to present you with something very rare indeed: a glorious exclusive wallpaper by the esteemed Ms. Sydney Padua.

If Ms. Padua’s name doesn’t ring any bells, then the name of her comic—2D Goggles: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage—probably will. If you need still more information, you could consult Jaymee Goh’s interview with Ms. Padua on these pages last year, or our reprint of a story about L&B making a great exhibition of themselves. But whatever you do, aquaint yourself forthwith.

One thing that Lovelace and Babbage fans are united on is the fact that there is not enough Lovelace and Babbage, so we were honored to be able to comission a new piece that you—yes, you!—can use to festoon your desktop or mobile computing platform. Sydney calls this piece “Beam Us Up,” for reasons that I imagine will become clear.

Note: You need to be a registered user on Tor.com to download the wallpapers. (Don't worry, that's free and quick.)

[Download links below the cut]

If our convention giveaway post left you in a state of “Why don’t I live in Seattle/Philly/Santa Clara!”-induced despair, then perhaps you need a steampunk event of your very own. This list will attempt to gather some of the many upcoming events where you can get involved in the community—or at least observe the phenomenon in its natural habitat.

[Proceed beneath the cut to see what’s going on near you.]

Steampunk events are one of the hardest times of the year for the Tor.com staff, because we get the opportunity to ogle some of the finest steampunk acoutrements in the world...and then send them to someone else.

This first giveaway of Steampunk Fortnight is no exception, since RockLove jewelry is offering one of the striking pendants from their Anthology line. The line is comprised of eight “exotic historical relics for the historical traveler,” each of which comes on a 21” chain and real or fanciful historic significance.

The Captain, The Nomad, The Traveler

[Duck behind the curtain for more information and a FREE SHIPPING offer for these or other RockLove shinies]

Last year at around this time, Tor.com was deep in the throes of Steampunk Month, our first attempt to focus on a specific topic for a short period of time and see what we could say about it. A year later, steampunk is still hunting for the tiniest glimmers of recognition within mainstream culture. Whereas, in our corner of the world, you can’t take more than a few steps without encountering a glittering new dirigible or an old standby whose brass accents are being buffed to a high sheen. Everyone has an opinion about steampunk these days.*

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t new people coming to the scene every day, new paths being forged, and new twists on the already mind-boggling resurgence of Victorian science fiction. For the next two weeks (October 20-November 3, 2010), Tor.com will survey the field and see where some of these developments are headed, as well as trying to discuss some of our favorite topics with new depth.

Welcome to Steampunk Fortnight. Everything old is new again, again.

* Though, if you don’t, that’s fine too: the introduction and many of the posts in last year’s Steampunk Month are a great place to start.

[Continue to the Steampunk Fortnight homepage for a preview of our plans and a list of all content posted thus far.]

STEAMPUNK FORTNIGHT ON

I have no doubt some of our readers were saddened to arrive at Tor.com’s doorstop on the first of October and not see the intrepid visage of the H.M.S. Stubbington gazing back at them. But Tor.com has not entirely lost its clockwork heart, and so I am pleased to announce that our little ætherweb community has decreed a  Steampunk Fortnight, to be celebrated from 20 October to 3 November of the year two thousand and ten. The Fortnight will occasion the return of many of the features you remember fondly from last year’s Steampunk Month, including scintillating blog posts, engaging adventure fiction, copiuous giveaways, and much more.

But that’s not all! This year there will be a real-world analogue to our ætherweb event: Tor.com, in collaboration with our compatriots at Tor Books, is sponsoring a Literary Corner at this year’s Steampunk Indie Market in Brooklyn, New York on October 24th. The event will feature readings from original works by N. K. Jemisin, Felix Gilman, Genevieve Valentine, Lev AC Rosen, Leanna Renee Hieber, and G. D. Falksen; recitations of steampunk classics by Nina Lourie, Ay-Leen the Peacemaker, and Nasty Canasta; and free tea and scones (baked by yours truly). Please see the Steampunk Literary Corner page for all the information you could desire.

Last, but certainly not least: We’re looking for a few good souls to volunteer at the Steampunk Indie Mart, assisting models, merchants, and organizers from the steampunk community. You will be richly rewarded with an array of steampunk books and swag, the aforementioned refreshments, and the glory and honour of serving your local artisan community. If you’d like to help out, please send a letter of intent to (press.inquiries)(at)(gmail.com). It shall be glorious!

I suppose it was inevitable that the world would discover them eventually: hometown heroes Idiots’Books—Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson, whose work on these pages includes the gloriously weird One Page Wonders, “How Tor.com Is Like (And Not Like) Your Average Two-Year-Old,” and a series of eighty-one (!) illustrations for our edition of Cory Doctorow’s Makers—are the primary subjects (a.k.a. human guinea pigs) of Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Creative Pairs, a series of articles about the nature of collaboration from the illustrious Slate Magazine.

If you’re ready to become an Idiots’Fanperson, consider starting with the glorious Ten Thousand Stories, or the mind-boggling Six Degrees of Francis Bacon, or even with a blog post about their curiously undisappointing children. And, of course: stay tuned, for it is utterly impossible to predict what these Idiots might do next.

Since it’s Tor.com’s second birthday, we’ve decided to celebrate by paying homage to the greatest and most geektacular thing about the number two: evil twins. And what better way to celebrate this beloved (and often belabored) classic trope than to throw The Ultimate Evil Twin Party? So dust off your eyepatches and sinister goatees, invite all your swinging’ single doppelgänger friends over for some double trouble and get ready to party with some of the evilest twins around...

[Everything you need to know to embrace The Enemy Within.]

Our final Tor retrospective question before our actual birthday celebration comes to us courtesy of Kristin (again!) and Jeff Shreve:

Where do you see Tor/science fiction/themselves in another 30 years? What will be your favorite memory from the NEXT 30 years?

The results, including a genuinely science fictional scenario from Beth Meacham, and some input from the younger generation of Toroids, are beneath the cut.

[To infinity, and beyond!]

Today’s question celebrating the thirtieth birthday of Tor Books was suggested by editor Kristin Sevick:

What was your most gratifying—or most embarrassing—fanboy or fangirl episode since you went pro?

It was no real surprise to find that the anecdotes that emerged feature some of the biggest stars in the specific universe; and it’s no exaggeration to say that one of the biggest fangirl perks of my own (relatively) short career has been getting to work alongside people with stories like these.

[Beneath the fold: Beth, Claire, David, Irene, Melissa, and Patrick talk Asimov, Bloch, Clarke, and more]

For the next stop in our brief series commemorating the thirtieth birthday of SF publisher Tor Books, I’ve asked some of our long-time employees to tell me their funniest memories. Practically everyone who responded started off their story with some variation on, “But the stories we can’t share are even better!” I suspect you’ll have to corner these guys in a bar to hear those stories, but they’ve still managed to relate a fantastic crop of memories that won’t get us into too much trouble, and are even (mostly) worksafe.

[Comedy gold from Beth, Claire, David, Jim, Melissa, and Patrick]

As shouts of surprise and delight ring out over the blogosphere in response to the 2010 Locus Award Finalist list, Tor.com has a few shouts of surprise and delight of our own: not only were our stories “First Flight” by Mary Robinette Kowal and “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky finalists in the Best Novelette category, but Tor.com itself is a finalist in the Best Magazine category—a first for us! Congratulations to Mary and Rachel, to Patrick Nielsen Hayden (who edits most of our prose fiction), and to all the other nominees. The awards will be given out at the Locus Awards Ceremony, held during the Science Fiction Awards Weekend, which is June 25th to 27th in Seattle, Washington.

As you may have heard elsewhere in the blogosphere, Tor.com’s corporate cousin—and the employer of many of its staffers—Tor Books is turning thirty years old on Friday, April 23rd. To commemorate the occasion, we’ve asked some staffers who are also Tor.com community members to tell us a few odd and charming anecdotes, some of which have not been retold in years...or possibly ever. We’ll highlight one question each day until Friday, at which point we’ll celebrate Tor’s birthday proper with more exclusive glances into the secret lives of Toroids. Happy birthday, cuz!

[Early memories from Beth, Claire, David, Irene, Jim, Melissa, Patrick, and Teresa]

Those of you who were with us this time last year may remember Sean Bieri’s charming 12 Days of Zombie Christmas gag cartoons, which were linked around madly by countless people with even the slightest penchant for zombie humor. Now that the season is upon us again, it’s the perfect time to revisit the series—or make its acquaintance, if you haven’t.

But we’re not just reminding you of these comics because December has rolled back around. Rather, we are reintroducing them to mark the fact that, in addition to all the cool merch announced when we opened the Tor.com stuff store, we have also created seven cards based on our favorite Zombie Christmas comics. To see what’s on offer, you can go directly to the Sean Bieri section of the stuff store. Even better: for today (Thursday 12/3) only, you can get 50% off 10 or more cards (of the same type or a mix), by using the code 12DEALSCARDS.

Now, if only I could find a nice, juicy brain to send along with these cards...

Believe it or not, the zombie apocalypse is only Liz Gorinsky’s second favorite apocalypse.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Steampunk Month Photo Contest! The entries (all of which can be viewed at the Tor.com Steampunk Photo Contest Flickr group) were so neat that it was nearly impossible to choose just eight.

But choose we eventually did. Your sneak preview is below...

...but you'll have to click through to the entry itself for the full story.

[Winners, under the fold]

Steampunk Month is over (boo hoo), but I wanted to remind everyone that one contest is still running: the Steampunk Month Photo Contest. You have a bit less than an hour left to enter, for a chance at some excellent prizes. There’s some fierce competition, but you can still get in the game: just take one of your awesome steampunk-y Halloween photos, slap on a Tor.com dirigible, and add it to our Flickr group. The full rules are at the original post. We look forward to seeing your contributions!

(Image courtesy of Donna Ricci. Just one of the many great entries so far!)

Liz Gorinsky is an editor at Tor Books. She is sadder than you are that Steampunk Month has ended.

As much as we like giving things to you with no strings attached, we also like making you work for your prizes. Consequently, we bring you the official Tor.com Steampunk Month Photo contest, which is…exactly what it sounds like: We’re giving some of our readers with a bit of costuming skill and a bit of photography-fu the chance to win fabulous prizes like:

A gift certificate from Clockwork Couture
Two passes to the Steampunk World’s Fair in March 2010
A gorgeous Victorian/Steampunk-style gold pocket watch	Perfumes from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Phoenix Steamworks series

Keep reading to find out how you can throw your hat in the ring.

[Details within]