As you may know, Justin Landon (of Staffer’s Book Review) and Jared Shurin (of Pornokitsch) have been working on a collection of the best genre-related non-fiction content published on the web in 2012. The book, called Speculative Fiction 2012, just came out from Pandemonium Fiction and contains fifty reviews and essays from the wonderful world of genre blogging across an amazing range of styles and opinions. (Full disclosure: the book contains one of my reviews.)

You can currently purchase Speculative Fiction 2012 in paperback as well as ebook formats. All proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to Room to Read, a charitable organization that supports literacy and gender equality around the world. In addition, many of the writers (including me) have donated the payments for our essays to the same charity.

With fifty separate entries, the list of contributors is rather long… but here goes: Joe Abercrombie, Daniel Abraham, Niall Alexander, Elizabeth Bear, Rob Berg, Liz Bourke, Maurice Broaddus, Myke Cole, Kate Elliott, Katherine Farmar, Chris Gerwel, Christopher Garcia, Daniel Goodman, Ana Grilo, Niall Harrison, Dan Hartland, Matt Hilliard, Kameron Hurley, Thea James, N.K. Jemisin, Paul Kincaid, Lady Business, Rose Lemberg, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Cynthia Martinez, Tim Maughan, Foz Meadows, Jonathan McCalmont, Martin McGrath, Aidan Moher, Ken Neth, Larry Nolen, Abigail Nussbaum, Christopher Priest, Stefan Raets, Adam Roberts, Tansy Rayner Roberts, CS Samulski, Penny Schenk, Ro Smith, Maureen K. Speller, Aishwarya Subramanian, Matthew Surridge, Sam Sykes, Gav Thorpe and Lavie Tidhar. (And: the gorgeous cover was designed by Sarah Anne Langton.)

I’m not going to post a full review of the book, partly because it could be considered a conflict of interest (given that the book contains one of my reviews, and many of the writers are friends and acquaintances), but I can honestly say that the range of material included here makes the book very much worth it. I’ve by now read through most of the essays, and I’m truly impressed, not to mention somewhat intimidated, by the insight and ability displayed by some of these writers. (Honestly, I’m not sure why they let me in!) In either case, if you’re looking for a snapshot of the best genre-blogging of last year and would like to support a great charity, consider picking up a copy!

And… if you’d like to submit something for consideration, Ana Grilo and Thea James (of the excellent Booksmugglers site) will be editing next year’s edition and are currently accepting submissions.