Look what just arrived in the mail:
Yes, it’s one of five printed and bound copies of the completed manuscript of Zoe’s Tale that exist in all the world. One copy is mine, one goes to my wife, and two are gifts. As for the fifth copy… well, some of you will recall that I auctioned off a bound manuscript copy of The Last Colony in late ’06 to benefit the John M. Ford Book Endowment for the Minneapolis Public Library. That auction did pretty well, and as it happens I have a couple other charities in mind that I think could use some cash. So the fifth copy of ZT here is very likely to be auctioned. And soon.
But not yet. Details, as they say, are forthcoming. Patience.
Can I put in a word for an SF-related charity auction upcoming? I’ll email details.
Tully:
I’ve already narrowed it down to two choices and I’ll make my selection from between them. Thanks, though.
Can I put in a word for other possible charity auction donations anyway? Without offending or annoying you? :-)
Why don’t you wait until I have pimp thread. I’m about due for one.
Ok. Thanks.
Have you already mentioned where you went to bind it? Did you use Lulu or CafePress or something of the like?
Hey John – is that Athena on the cover?
Say hi to the wife for us!
I think once the fiction makes up more than half your income, it’s okay to put your name above the title on your own Lulu pubs.
Nice job, though.
(Also: they have tie-dye on Roanoke? Far out!)
Will Entrekin:
I used Lulu.
Matthew Combs:
It is indeed. And I will! Say hi to Shelley for me.
Jeff Hentosz:
Yeah, but then it would be garish.
Cool – great pic – I will say hi to S!
WOW. Nice!
John, very nice touch having the Russian editions of your books in the picture as well. I had to bring back old memories of high school Russian to read your name. “John” really doesn’t translate well.
Very amazing picture for the cover. I really like it.
Patience? Patience!11!!!iilll!!11???
Just who do you think you’re talking to?
I think that cover is better then the one Tor is planning on using.
Thanks, although, I like the Tor one a lot, myself. This cover, I would expect, wouldn’t sell anywhere near the number of the Tor one.
Oh, but this looks like a real literature cover, not some garish pulpy science fiction cover, which means you’d get all those fancy real literature aficionados reading it…
Yeah, for the first page. Then the whole “hey, this is science fiction” thing would kick in.
I like the cover on your Russian “Ghost Brigades”, too.
I just finished “The Last Colony” last night so I’m really anxious for Zoe’s Tale so hurry!
Also how is the name Zoe pronounced? And how can I type an e with two dots over it?
Oh, and I found a couple teeny tiny mistakes in “The Last Colony” so does anyone care and if so who should I tell.
Tripp:
E-mail me with the errors and I’ll forward them. If it’s about how many days in the Roanoke year, we know about that one already.
John:
OK. It is not the year thing. I know I am pedantic. Years of proof-reading computer manuals will do that to a person.
I am not criticizing.
I’ve pronounced the character’s name as “Zoey” rhyming with Bowey. Is that correct?
Yup.
What’s Athena think of it?
If she’s anything like my kid, I suspect she’ll need a copy for show & tell. Just saying.
Hope the auction sells big time.
Very cool! Can’t wait for the contest or the pimp thread or he videogame!
Nice cover, John, and entirely fitting! And here you were giving me the “I resemble that remark!” reaction to this line…
…that there’s something more than a little Mary Sue-ish about his depiction of the John/Jane/Zoe nuclear family.
…from my Last Colony review.
Jeez, it ain’t like I was saying it was a bad thing.
Fantastic photo. Personally, I’d much rather have that cover than the Tor one; spaceship sci-fi art just does nothing for me. I expect you’re right about what that would do to the sales, though.
Robin, did you know that the Cyrillic alphabet was brought to Earth by a race of space-faring 5-armed bonobos? It’s true. I swear. (Don’t ask where the 5th arm is located. You don’t want to know.)
ps. Happy Valentine’s Day, you wonderful, gorgeous woman.
(Robin is my girlfriend. Her face will turn bright red, if and when she reads this (if it doesn’t get mod-killed (yes, I’m a programmer, I love parenthesis)))
1. I’m not bright red Grant (#27) Happy Valentine’s to you too.
2. I never knew where Cyrillic came from but considering how weird it is to write, I’m sure that could be plausible. I like writing it with my two arms. . . 3 more might make me a bit uneven.
3. Personally the photo appeals to me more as a cover than the Tor cover shown in an earlier post (Or did I imagine that?)
Hooray! I too am awaiting the street date for this one. I plowed through Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony over the course of… I think 4 days. I’m slowly working through The Sagan Diaries because of the writing style is a bit harder for me to work with. I read Old Man’s War back in July while I was camping so I need my fix!
I think it is wonderful that you are going to auction one of the books of Zoe’s Tale. Please let us know when that event will happen. I have no doubts that the charities you have selected are worthy.
I have to agree with Tripp that some of the proof reading of previous books is not 100%. I noticed some typos in “The Android’s Dream” , but since I have been labelled as a pedantic asshole, I was reticent to call them out. Does it really matter? I mean, we have allowed most of the Journalists and Bush to refer to the regime as “Terror” not “Terrorists”. But since you are delving into the world of Young Adult readership, should the standards be different?
Is it me or is there a paperclip superimposed on the picture of Athena ?
That’s her hair being blown around in the wind.
Jessica,
I think its you. Looks like wind-blown hair to me.
Damn,
Too late. That’s what I get for looking at the picture again before posting.
personally i am thrilled you spelled zoë using the umlats. so will my own zoë. it’s too bad it is not available just yet because she is a fan and her 16th birthday is next tuesday.
great picture of athena!
#35, you triggered one of my pet pedanticisms, which is that the dots over the ‘e’ in Zoë aren’t an umlaut, they’re a dieresis (or trema). It’s written the same as an umlaut, but it has a different meaning.
Dieresis: naïve, Chloë, zoölogy, Citroën. Umlaut: Möbius, Müller. Hungarian double-acute: Erd?s.
Wim L:
my bad!
i’ll make a note of it. to be honest, here under the Big Top we just call them dots. when Zoë was three years old she would instruct people to spell her name Z-O-E-dot-dot.
Awesome. Can’t wait for the geeky goodness!
Cool Pic too!
Naturalist 30, paragraph 2, sentences 1-2:
I have to agree with Tripp that some of the proof reading of previous books is not 100%. I noticed some typos in “The Android’s Dream” , but since I have been labelled as a pedantic asshole, I was reticent to call them out.
I have found that sufficient groveling will remove the latter part of the label. Intentional mispellings (such as “labelled”) help also.
Out of fairness I have found a couple minor boo-boos in another SF book I am reading while awaiting more Scalzi. I chalk it up to budget cuts and an over-reliance on spell checkers but what do I know?
Hi, What is the (double) book on the left?! It looks very familiar but I can’t place it.
Intentional mispellings (such as “labelled”) help also.
Labelled is a perfectly valid spelling. Except, perhaps, if you aren’t from Canada, UK, Australia, or one of the other many countries that spells it that way.
Oooh, now countries spell? How charming. When I was a kid we were so poor only the people could spell.