Still have a bit of packing and other things to do before my flight, so, well, bye. If I get stuck in an airport I might log on and kvetch; otherwise I’ll catch up with the lot of you tomorrow, when I’ll be here. In the meantime, consider this an open thread. Try to keep the place spiffy until I get back, okay? Thanks.

Today’s the day: The Android’s Dream is now irrevocably out in the paperback form and ready for you to read it. Can you not see how it beckons to you fetchingly, promising tales of action, adventure, and sheep? You like sheep. You want to be with sheep, in a strictly friendly, non-carnal sort of way that does not impugn your natural desire for other humans. Just to be clear on the subject. Ask for it — nay, demand it — at your local bookstore, or at the various places you shop online. Don’t worry, your local bookstore owners like it when you demand they sell you a book. They told me so.

For those of you still riding on the fence as to whether you want to purchase this book and allow me to send my daughter to college one day, and also procure the Mustang V8 that will be the icon of my upcoming mid-life crisis (if I have a cool car I can’t possibly be on the downslope of mortality!), remember that the first chapter is up online for you to read and enjoy. It’s the one that is generally considered to have the best long-form fart joke in all of science fiction history, which admittedly is something of a specialty category, but you take what you can get.

As long as I’m self-pimping, let me also pimp some friends with books have just come out as well. To begin, my pal Josh Conviser’s second novel Empyre also hits stores today; it’s described by Publishers Weekly as “Robert Ludlum meets William Gibson,” which should make the heads of some people I know just explode (and I like it too, which is good). Also out today: Kristine Smith’s Endgame, the latest and long-awaited installment in Smith’s Jani Kilian series. Smith is a fellow Campbell winner, you know, so I have to represent for the team. She also provided me with a “Big Idea” piece, which I plan to drop into Ficlets either today (if I have time before I jet) or tomorrow. I’m also going to be doing an interview with Josh Conviser very soon, so prepare for that, too.

Speaking of representing for the Campbell set, yo, Campbell winner Elizabeth Bear and Campbell nominee Sarah Monette have collaborated on a new book, just out, called A Companion to Wolves, and the reviews are the sort writers would strangle kittens to get: Publisher’s Weekly gave the book a starred review and say the two “subvert the telepathic animal companion subgenre so thoroughly that it may never be the same.” Well, good. Subversion is fun. Oh, and hey: Campbell winner Wen Spencer’s latest paperback, Wolf Who Rules, is also coming out today. Today apparently really is Campbell Day in the bookstores. So as long as we’re on the theme, let me give a shout out to Campbell nominees Chris Roberson and Brandon Sanderson’s latest books, Set the Seas on Fire and Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, respectively. You go buy all these now.