"I READ A SCI-FI BOOK Y'ALL and will read one again but ONLY when Ben writes another one." All hail the Leesa Cross-Smith. And the Orphans too, yo.

All hail indeed. And much appreciative for the Cross-Smith we are. Excerpt? Of course.

"I read this from cover to cover, MY FIRST TIME and I would probably read Ben Tanzer writing abt anything, tbqh, bc I like how he writes and describes things and how dude-ish the whole thing is. Very Dude-ish."

Bad at Sports podcast we are.

We are long-time Bad at Sports fanboys, not to mention one-time interviewers there of, and being on their podcast might be more than a thrill, it might even be biblical. We are also quite appreciative for the opportunity to talk Orphans, Lost in Space, The New York Stories, Curbside Splendor, This Podcast Will Change Your Life and so much more. So we hope you dig it, and that it changes your life, if only for a moment at that.  

Manny's Lost in Space The New York Stories Orphans Tacos Doughnuts Hypertext Magazine Interview.

There is The New York Stories. There is Lost in Space. There is Manny's. And there is definitely much appreciated interview with the Christine Rice. Excerpt? Totally.

CR: You mentioned how hard it was when Lost in Space came out and didn’t get the reviews you’d thought it might. And how your writing momentum seemed to stall. You said that you might have horizontal momentum. Can you talk a little bit about that?

BT: Might might even be strong, but I was hoping for something, and maybe even desperate for a certain kind of response, because my prior book Orphans, had received reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, but what’s important there – and something I needed to pay closer attention to later – is that I thought if I garnered those kinds of reviews, other things might happen – agents might call, or books festivals – which on paper is embarrassing to even say, but I thought those things could happen, and they didn’t, and so I thought, maybe the next one, I’ll get those kinds of reviews again, and it will compound in some fashion, but then Lost in Space while well received, was ignored by the trade publications, which was really hard, and left me wondering where that left the act of creating books for me? The act of writing, the ideas, the compulsion and desire to write, never stalls, but building some kind of presence, or at least the act of getting there, can feel like it has. I thought I was building towards something slowly, book by book, but I may not be, and so I’m working on being more Zen about all of it regardless.

"Imaginative, entertaining, and beautiful." Orphans. Much appreciated Goodreads goodness and love.

For real. All of that. Excerpt? Word.

"Ben Tanzer is among my favorite writers. His stories are witty, colorful, and always heartfelt with a uniquely Tanzer style. Orphans is a sci-fi novel on the surface, but at its core it tells of family, love, and longing."

The New York Stories (and Orphans) - and so many quite fine books - is Small Press Pittsburgh at the Polish Hill Arts Festival, yo.

The IPPY is in the house, yo.

The New York Stories (and friends) is Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap, yo.

Quite humbled to share that Orphans has won the Bronze medal in the Science Fiction category at the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

We are as surprised as you are. More here. If that's your thing of course. If not, cool.

In which City Lit Rag reprints our Orphans interview with Loren Kleinman and we in turn share it with you.

For real. Both the reprint and the sharing. Feels good, right? Indeed. Excerpt? Word.

LK: Do you ever run into someone who says, “You write WHAT?”

BT: I have several lives. Writer. Office worker dude. And parent. All of which I keep fairly separate, though people I work with know I write, even if I don’t talk about it much. As parent, however, I am engaged in things like drop-offs and fundraisers, and parent gatherings, and in that world, while people know about my day job, I’m mostly not known as a writer. Still people occasionally find out about the books, and sometimes they even read them, and when they do, they usually say things like, whoa, what, the drugs, and the violence, and the blow jobs, is that fiction, because you, that so doesn’t seem like you worker, dad, guy, right?

"Tanzer keeps the story focused on human frailty." Orphans. Preach.

And yes, we would really like preach to be a thing. Is that cool? Also, excerpt? Word.

"The story is smart and absurd and even eerie in parts which is a new bent for the author. The scifi elements never go off the deep end -- they always feel believable, trusting the reader to grasp everything without all the details."

Chicago Writers Conference we were.

.@BenTanzer says Always Be Writing. He's like Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross, but a whole lot nicer. #cwc2014

— Andrew DeYoung (@the_younger) October 25, 2014

This publicity workshop by @BenTanzer is "changing my life." Learning to rise above the clutter. #cwc2014

— Jennifer Inglis (@Jennifer_Inglis) October 25, 2014

@BenTanzer informative energetic enthusiastic #cwc2014

— Derek Rempfer (@DerekRempfer) October 25, 2014

Can't believe this, but I'm actually a little jazzed about publicity. Thanks @BenTanzer! #cwc2014

— Christina Brandon (@ladywinegeek) October 25, 2014

Much appreciated Clayton Smith Orphans Tweet hype we are.

@disneymyway1 I haven't read it yet, but @BenTanzer's Orphans is on my list. I feel safe vouching for it. His essays are terrific.
— Clayton Smith (@Claytonsaurus) August 28, 2014

"An unflinching, cerebral look in the mirror." Orphans. Fanboy Comics. Love.

Quite love. And endlessly appreciated. Excerpt? Word.

"Orphans is a powerful read, thoughtful and penetrating, less ferocious than caustically inquisitive. And, while it takes place in the future, the questions it provokes are for us to answer now. What is the country we are building? Where are we heading, and who is taking us there? Like Orwell filtered through Philip K. Dick, Ben Tanzer’s Orphans is an unflinching, cerebral look in the mirror, and you won’t like what you see."

And then there was the time we learned on Twitter that Orphans won the 24th Annual Midwest Book Award in Fantasy/SciFi/Horror/Paranormal.

Congrats to @BenTanzer for winning the 2014 Midwest Book Awards in Fantasy/SciFi. It was a true #honor for Spireseeker to be a finalist!
— E.D.E. Bell (@edebellauthor) May 16, 2014

More here.

Wherein Timothy Moore talks Orphans, Bald New World, Annihilation, new dystopias, and the loss of identity. And our brain nearly explodes.

Like totally explodes from the geeked-out, fan boy excitement. So, please do take a look, and if it is your wont, we are excerpt as well.

When it comes down to it, all three books are very different and ask different questions about identity. All are worth reading and analyzing and questioning.

"For myself, I'll never stop questioning.

I believe that we are more than our jobs. We are more than what we like on Facebook, what we read, what food we eat. We are more than our skin. Our race. Our personality. Who we love. Even our biology.

But I can't stop wondering. How much more?"

"Imaginative and sobering." Orphans. Small Press Reviews. Sweet. Totally.

Quite sweet. Much appreciated. And drinks on us Small Press Review (and Lavinia Ludlow), many, whenever, and however, we next, and somehow meet. Excerpt? Word.

"Like most of Tanzer’s work, chapters are fast-paced, succinct, and contain no fat, dead ends, or draggy dialogue. Background details unfold naturally through flashbacks and stream-of-consciousness inner monologue, and paint a vivid image of Norrin’s internal struggles."

We are awfully cool Orphans interview at the Clarkesworld Magazine.

Very cool in fact. We are also terribly appreciative. So do hit it. Excerpt? Word.

What were some of the surprises for you along the way while writing the novel?

I don’t map my books out in great detail anyway, but I always know where the story is going, and where it will end. Yet, there is a scene late in the book where the protagonist is thinking of confronting his clone, or Terrax, and reminisces about an accident his son had. In that scene which I hadn’t totally thought through beforehand, I had no plans to write about an accident, much less channel an accident my own son had, but there it was, it seemed perfect, and I ran with it.

The other kind of surprises though seem more self-serving to me, but there were ideas that I fixated on while writing that I didn’t necessarily have a reference point for, but have since become a more pronounced part of the news and culture. I had read an article in the Nation somewhere along the way about how the top one percent of the population possesses something like ninety percent of the nation’s wealth, which at the time was still a newer reality, and so I referred to these members of society in Orphans as “1-Percenters.” This was before the term “the 99 percent” had any traction however. Further, the idea to write about flash mobs protesting the Corporation emerged from a conversation I had with a writer friend of mine, but that conversation was long before Occupy Wall Street.

The characters in the book are also aware that someone, somewhere, is constantly listening to everything they say, and that is something that felt “near future” to me, but even then I cut some of that out so as to not seem too out there. Of course since then, all of the stories about the NSA have come out and now I realize I couldn’t have been excessive enough.

"Ben Tanzer not only creates a world, he creates an attitude." Orphans. The Peter Tieryas Liu. Wonderbar.

Mass appreciations to the Peter Tieryas Liu for his thoughtful, and kick-ass, review of Orphans. He was even kind enough to provide illustrations, yo. Drinks on us brother, many, somewhere, soon, maybe even Chicago, yes? Yes. Excerpt? Cool.

"In a world controlled by a massive Corporation, there is no room for ethics. Only survival. Tanzer doesn’t moralize, but instead, paints guilt with dystopian brushes. Unfortunately, even family has its odd twists. The unspoken barriers, the scarcity of words in expressing exactly what we feel, the dumb decisions, the mistakes we see coming and are unable to prevent, all culminating in Terraxes, essentially clones to replace Norrin Radd once he’s off selling Martian bridges. He gets a substitute to stay with his family, a second Norrin who potentially sleeps with his wife while he’s away, representing everything he feels he neglects. In future earth, everything is replaceable; your identity, your flesh, even your love. Everything has to have a price tag, including memories."

There is Shooting' It with Jayme K.

And quite appreciative we are, yo. So big thanks to the Jayme K. and please do hit it.

"Skipping across genres into the future." Orphans. Goodreads love.

And much appreciated love at that. So big thanks to the Jason Fisk, and drinks, many brother, on us, all post haste and such. Excerpt? Word.

"I have been a fan of Tanzer’s writing for awhile now; what I have most appreciated about his work is the human element that never fails to be at the core of all of his fiction. I was very pleased to find that human element in Orphans."