I wrote up this huge piece for the Reader Request Week 2006, and then my browser locked up and I lost it all. In my resulting fury, I managed not to destroy my computer with an aluminum baseball bat, but only barely. I’ll try to reconstruct what I was writing in slightly briefer form and post it soon, but in the meantime, allow me to share a little bit of book news which is making me happy.

The Ghost Brigades is going into a second printing after two weeks, which makes me squee in a very unmanly way, and also serves notice to those of you who have a thing for first editions to get to the stores quickly. The book was also #23 on Ingram’s Hardcover Fiction list last week, Ingram being one of the largest book distributors in North America. So that’s a nicely w00table moment.

Incidentally, one of my favorite quotes about TGB, from a blog review: “When it comes to writing science fiction novels, John Scalzi is proving to be Shaker furniture.” Just as long as I don’t have to be celibate.

One other quick note: I am informed by Subterranean Press that the number of available copies of Agent to the Stars is now down into the double digits. Neat.

Okay, enough self-pimpage for one day. A reader request post is coming soon.

The Scalzi family has been awash in illness and irritability over the weekend; nevertheless I managed to finish a short story I’d been fiddling with off and on for a while now, as (sort of) part of the cliche issue of Subterranean magazine, called “How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story.” You can guess what the cliche is here. I say it’s “sort of” part of the magazine because the short story is being printed up in a chapbook that will go out as a premium for the folks who purchase the special hardcover limited edition of the magazine.

Why isn’t it included in the magazine proper? Well, aside from being turned in horrendously late for the purposes of the magazine (which is of course well into pre-production), I’d've been loath to take space in the magazine for myself that could have been used for someone else. An editor making space for his own stuff at the expense of other work seems a little cheesy. But as an add-on? Hey, why not.

In any event, it’s an interesting short story in a technical sense, because it’s almost entirely dialogue. Which would make it an interesting audio short, I think; I suspect I might try my hand at doing an audio version at some point in the near future. Until then, the only way you’ll see it is if you get the limited edition hardcover version of Subterranean #4. Of course, I’ll let you all know as soon as that and the regular version of the magazine are available for pre-order. It shouldn’t be too long now.

For those of you desiring The Ghost Brigades review goodness, there’s a review of the book up on Science Fiction Weekly, from Paul Di Filippo. He gives the book an “A-” and says: “In our current world, where rival civilizations seem doomed to continually clash, Scalzi’s novels stand as intriguing thought experiments on the nature of war, peace and the uneasy states between those extremes.” I’m deep, damn it!