15 December 2005: Good news! Richard Harland's Daikaiju! story, "The Greater Death of Saito Saku" and Rosaleen Love's Daikaiju! story "Once Giants Roamed the Earth" have both been nominated in the Best Fantasy Short Story section of the Australian 2005 Aurealis Awards. Congratulations to the two authors. Let's hope the final outcome is a tie!

2 December 2005: A terrific review of Daikaiju! has just been posted. Read it here.

2 December 2005: UPDATE: An hilarious account of Frank Wu's performance (see 23 November), with pictures, can be viewed here.

23 November 2005: Frank Wu has just written to give notice that he will be doing a dramatic reading of his "Tragical History of Guidolon the Giant Space Chicken" on the weekend. This sounds very exciting! The details are here. Apparently Todd Tennant's Guidolon artwork will be used as part of the performance.

23 October 2005: It now appears that the e-anthology, which has languished through lack of time on the part of the senior editor, will now be published in early 2006 as a real-world, as distinct from virtual, book. Upgraded to genuine sequel, it is to be called Daikaiju! 2: Revenge of the Giant Monster Tales. I will post details as they are finalised.

17 August 2005: Ongoing achievements by Daikaiju! and Daikaiju! 2 authors will be posted to the new Contributor's News page. Be sure to check it out regularly!

15 August 2005: James Cooper -- another contributor to Daikaiju!2: Giant Monster e-Tales -- has just announced that his debut dark fantasy novel, The Midway, has been accepted for publication. Congratulations, James! Go here for more information.

4 July 2005: Paul A. Toth -- a contributor to Daikaiju!2: Giant Monster e-Tales -- has just announced the publication of his novel Fishnet and would like to invite you to the Release Party if you are within spitting distance of Ann Arbor. Go here for information.

2 July 2005: The e-anthology supplement to Daikaiju! is finally underway. Contributors have been contacted for permissions and the editing process will now forge ahead (slowly).

20 May 2005: King Komodo? Who's he? Find out.

12 May 2005: Newly posted -- The Drakenswode Correspondence: the beginnings of an email exchange between the editors and Mr Douglas Ormsham regarding certain discoveries made by the latter that clarify the heritage of his great-grandfather, Dr Hugo Drakenswode. This is definitely a story you should follow!

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The Reviews are starting to come in.

27 April 2005: A second launch recently took place in Canberra, Australia. Read about it here. And see Bob Eggleton and editor Robert Hood do the Goji Shie.

The book has appeared on the new release listings of nominated online booksellers (see here) and the orders are coming in. Get your copy soon!

eTales: To answer a question we are now being asked: YES, there will be a Supplementary eAnthology, containing excellent stories we could not fit in the print anthology. For information, go here.

28 March 2005

The launch of Daikaiju! has taken place, after a rather tight printing schedule and a hectic week. It all happened at Swancon XXX on 26 March, to a rousing audience and good sales. The book will soon begin to appear on the new release listings of nominated online booksellers (see here.)

You can read a report of the launch (and see some smiling faces) here.

19th January 2005

We have finally chosen the stories to be included in the anthology! It's quite a line-up!

You can find out what you're in for here.

14th December 2004

We're well on the way!

Only a few stories to go before we've finished reading the last of the new submissions. We are already working our way back through the shortlisted stories and have made a firm decision on about five that are now definitely IN! I will be announcing them on the site sometime in early January, once we've contacted authors, so keep an eye out.

Frankly, this anthology has produced better stories than I anticipated when we first had the idea to do it. The subject -- Giant Monsters -- has inspired writers experienced and inexperienced at a level that is quite remarkable. I feel for all those dedicated and talented souls whose work won't get in, often simply because we don't have enough room. The e-anthology will make up for some of this, but there will still be some regrettable omissions. I guess that's the nature of the game.

1st December 2004

The anthology is now closed to submissions!

We've got a heap of stories to get through for the first time -- and then comes the difficult task of deciding on the final line-up, choosing from a truly excellent shortlist that far exceeds in wordage what we are able to include.

Meanwhile, keep coming back here for ongoing news.

And expect a publication date toward the end of March 2005!

This is going to be a fantastic book, people! You won't want to miss it.

22nd November 2004

Nine days left for submissions!

And are we ever glad of that! It's been a long haul and we're getting rather exhausted -- even though the intensely hard bit is still to come. Authors whose stories were shortlisted early in the piece must be legitimately champing at the bit -- it's a long time to wait to find out if your story made it in! Sorry for the wait, people, but hopefully it will be worth it.

We did an inventory of shortlisted and "on hold" stories the other day, and there's rather a lot of them. More than can be included in the book itself. And they're still coming! So many great stories! Still, one of the reasons we've decided to do a supplementary e-anthology is precisely because of this fact. The decision-making process is going to be difficult indeed -- and we're very conscious that there is going to be disappointment. This anthology has generated a lot of interest -- and a lot of passionate interest. It has really brought out the fan in many writers... and the writer in many fans. It's a shame we can't make EVERYONE happy by including their work. Naturally, however, it can't be done, though we've gone as far as we can to bring universal joy to the kaiju-writing masses.

But the result promises to be magnificant! So, keep your ear to the ground listening for the pounding tread of those giant feet! They're coming soon!

22nd October 2004

Brian Thomas writes for DAIKAIJU!

Film commentator Brian Thomas is the latest kaiju-enthusiast to join the anthology. Brian is a correspondent and columnist for Cinescape magazine and his book Videohound's Dragon: Asian Action and Cult Flicks is a huge, thoroughly researched and clearly written tome on Asian cinema. (You can view it at Amazon.com by clicking here.) Though the title of Brian's piece for DAIKAIJU! hasn't been finalised yet, it will have something to do with Giant Monsters on film and will form part of the special supplement mentioned below -- now revealed as a Daikaiju Cinema Supplement (more on that later).

When we were discussing the nature of his piece, Brian commented: "I appreciate that this anthology is about the larger theme of Man and Really Big Monster, and I think I can write something about how that sits in our conscious and unconscious, and how it comes out in art -- specifically movies. Yeah, I could write a whole book on that, but I'll try to control myself."

15th October 2004

Todd Tennant will draw for DAIKAIJU!

Hot on the scaly kaiju tail of our announcement that multi-Hugo-winning artist Bob Eggleton would be doing the cover comes more exciting artistic news. This time it involves another great kaiju artist, Todd Tennant of American Kaiju fame. We asked Todd if he would consider doing an internal "pseudo cover" to appear at the beginning of a special supplementary section of the anthology... and he agreed! If you don't know Todd's work then you should, so go to the American Kaiju site right now to check it out. Having an original piece by Todd in DAIKAIJU! gives another great reason for acquiring the book once it's out.

As for the special supplementary section... well, you'll have to wait for news of that one.

16th September 2004

We are receiving so many stories now, our response time is getting badly stretched out of shape. In fact, given how close the deadline is (Nov. 30), you can probably assume that any story sent to us from this point on won't get responded to until after the closing date. We're sorry about that but, you know, we're not doing this full-time (more's the pity!) and just can't go any faster. (We are, in fact, reading everything and all of each story, often twice!) As well, we're getting so many good stories, the balancing act of choosing between them is becoming very tricky! We really want to see what we've got at the end before we get too carried away...

Hugo-winning Artist joins the crew!

The big news, however, is that the cover of the book is to be painted and designed by Bob Eggleton, multi-Hugo Award-winning artist. Bob has made a career out of painting Godzilla (on numerous book and magazine covers) and big monsters in general (in particular see his wonderful tome, The Book of Sea Monsters ... fantastic work!). For a taste of his excellent monster art, visit his website. And there's one of Bob's Godzie pics just below.

Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales is going to be a must-have, for Bob's own specially designed kaiju on its cover, if not for the stories themselves!