SF Website Pimpin’ — Plus an Open Pimp Thread!

Posted on January 16, 2006    Posted by      48 Comments

Two sf book sites to pimp to you today, neither of which has anything to do with me. First, Tobias Buckell has begun serializing the first third of his upcoming book Crystal Rain on the special Crystal Rain section of his Web site. The first three excerpts (and the following subsequent ones) are here; the book itself comes out on February 7. This is Toby’s debut, and it’s been getting good buzz from the folks who have snuck into the trap-filled vault in which the manuscript resides to get an advance glimpse (well, those who made it past the lasers and mines and zombie ferrets, that is). So here’s a chance for a sneak peak without endangering yourself.

Second, writer David Louis Edelman is trying to get ahead of the curve for his debut novel Infoquake, which is described as a “science fiction business thriller”; his book isn’t out until July, but the Infoquake book site is pretty well built-out, and includes the first three chapters as well as an author introduction and reference materials. It seems very much to be like a DVD extras disc for the book, which is not a bad way to do things.

Also, while I’m in a pimptastic mood, let me congratulate my pal Lauren McLaughlin, whose story “Shelia” has been selected for inclusion in the upcoming Hartwell/Cramer-edited “Year’s Best SF” anthology. She rocks.

Finally, I now hearby declare this to be an open pimping thread, which means not only do I offer up the comment thread for this post for you to note your current and upcoming projects (or friends’ projects), I actually demand it. Get your pimp on, my friends! Or get the hell out. Really, it’s just that simple.

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48 Comments on “SF Website Pimpin’ — Plus an Open Pimp Thread!”

  1. Oh, damn, now I’ve got to hurry up and write a novel or something before Scalzi’s pimping thread runs out! Let’s see… It was a dark and stormy night…

  4. Coming up the last weekend in February, it’s Potlatch 15! A small, book-oriented science fiction convention with a fannish flavor, Potlatch rotates up and down the West Coast. This year it’s in Seattle! No guests, just members. Our BOH (Book of Honor) is The Avram Davidson Treasury.

    It’s my favorite convention — that’s why I’m on the committee.

  7. Thanks muchly, John. Being mentioned alongside Toby several places in the blogosphere this morning is a real treat, considering that he’s several years younger and much better looking than I am.

    Btw… “Old Man’s War” was a Hanukkah gift for my own Old Man this year, and rumor has it that he absolutely loved every word of it.

  12. Free pimpage is too good an opportunity to miss – the paperback of my first book COLD GRANITE is out in the UK NOW, or you can still get the US hardback edition! If you buy lots you can throw them at people you don’t like. They’re heavy enough to do some real damage.

    And if you still have people to injure, go advance order your copy of DYING LIGHT too. You know it makes sense. Or something…

    Ooh, I feel all dirty now.

  13. Escape Pod‘s been pimped enough here recently, so I’ll just…

    (Wait! What am I thinking? There’s no such thing as being pimped enough!)

    Anyway, if anyone here has a short story you’d like to hear podcast, we’ve just raised our payment rates. We now pay $50 for non-exclusive audio rights, and yes, we’ll take reprints. This comments thread is the first public venue in which I’ve announced this.

  15. Pass up on free pimpage? Not likely! So:

    I’ve been sports car racing at a club (amateur) level for a few years now and I’ve been documenting everything as I go, including race reports from each week-end. It does NOT assume you’re already a race fan or car geek, and I include a FAQ and some definitions, as well as pictures and video (way more video this season, actually). Trying to get it knocked together for a book proposal, too.

    Read all about it, starting with my original interest in racing, at IJS Motorsport. Thanks.

  16. I got nothin’ for myself, and they’re not friends, but the characters kind of feel like old friends. Does that count? ‘Cause I can Pimp me some authors.

    Dave Barry just put out Dave Barry’s Money Secrets: Like: Why Is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar? C.J. Cherryh’s book, Pretender, is coming out in March. Woo Woo! That’s some good stuff, Maynard. And then in April? Yeah. We’ve got us some Wolf Who Rules by Wen Spencer and Engaging the Enemy By Elizabeth Moon. Let’s see. May brings me Harris’ Definitely Dead and Butcher’s Proven Guilty. Then, June is a smogasbord of goodies. I’ll be salivating over Kushiel’s Scion by Carey, Smoke & Ashes by Huff, and A Fistful of Charms by Harrison. And of course, in July, Ms. Vaughn will bring out another Ms. Kitty. Baen’s Books? Oooooooooh, Yeaaaaaaaah.

    (Breathes into a paper bag to stop hyperventilating) I’m such a book junkie.

    How’d I do?

  18. I have a podcast in and about Lojban, the Logical Language.

    http://www.nemorathwald.com/jbocradi/jbocradi.html

    Jbocradi is offered in multiple formats. We have popular but patent encumbered MP3 audio, delivered through one of several mutually incompatible feed formats collectively known as RSS. We also have the open OGG audio format delivered through RSS’s competitor Atom. Atom and OGG are standards compliant and able to last into the future, but not widely adopted. What else would you expect from speakers of Lojban?

  19. I too have had my share of pimpage here. But again, as a reminder to SF & fantasy writers looking for review attention for their work, and are willing to risk the fact that they’ll be getting a real review and not a Klausner-style “high-school book report,” go here. Plus, when I’m actually working and not reading too much SF, I work in film, and my impressions of that business are in my blog here.

    That should leave me thoroughly pimped today.

  20. My partner Mary has put her novellette-length poem “O Susannah” online under a CC license: http://www.pantoum.org/chapbooks/osusannah/fulltext.html It’s a hard-SF epic lesbian mission to Pluto in multiple meters – and a ghost story too.

    Meanwhile, I’ve created some astronomical/astrological symbols for the large moons of the other planets: http://suberic.net/~dmm/graphics/moons/
    If anyone has characters who might have a need for such things, feel free – I’ve given the symbols to the public domain.

  22. thanks, scalzi!

    Hyphen magazine has just released its eighth issue. Hyphen is the only national Asian American news and culture magazine. Issue eight contains articles about: the Iranian American guy who thinks he’s found Atlantis, the Japanese American guy who died a hero in the Spanish Civil War, how the Vietnamese Americans are gonna rebuild New Orleans, how amateur Korean American girls get pimped in LA clubs, ‘n stuff. You can get it by going to the website: http://www.hyphenmagazine.com and checking out the listing of stores that carry it in your area, or by subscribing online. Support indy media!

    Other magazine has a blog, where I’m blogging on Sundays and other days. Check ‘er out, and consider subscribing to the print magazine as well.

  23. I would like to pimp Lois McMaster Bujold. More info can be found at http://www.dendarii.com/

    Lois is the author of the award winning Vorkosigan series as well as the Chalion series, the latest, The Hallowed Hunt, came out last May.

    She also a new work called The Sharing Knife but it has not been scheduled yet.

  24. Well, since you’re demanding it, I recently finished posting the first half of my two-part novel The Promised King, which I serialized last year in blog-format, here. I’m still working on Book Two, and it’ll be a while before I start likewise posting those chapters, but the entirety of Book One is up.

    (Oh, it’s an Arthurian epic fantasy about King Arthur’s return.)

  25. Thanks, John!

    Earthling, the culture & lifestyle magazine of the imagination, won’t launch its quarterly print edition until later this year — but meanwhile, our blog is posting a bunch of awesome book reviews, many of which are sf/fantasy, and others of which are science, history, philosophy, geek humor…

  27. Cool, I just so happen to have my first ever published story (a stand alone novella clocking in at just under 30,000 words) coming out in a couple of months. It is called Drums of the Nunne’hi . If you like your fantasy dark, by all means pick up a copy.

    Thanks for the opportunity to pimp it.

  28. Well, since you insist! I am but a wee young thing (21 years of age to be precise), but I’m cobbling together projects with my good photographer friend Amy Forston (18 years old), one of which is called Modan Na Bunkai and is quite awesome. And there’s my own writing, which is going slower than I’d like it to, but I should probably give myself a break in that respect.

    Another one of my friends that is worth keeping an eye on, is a friend of mine Andreas, who is the guy behind Danish industrial/hiphop/polka music projects Intelligent Pushing (on preview, he’s taken mp3s down so there’s not much there, damn him) and A vs I (beware flash!) – he’s just turning 20 now, and is lining up tours and gigs already. Talented lad. Oh and not to forget Alex Dewars, a Scottish painter friend of mine who produces (and sells quite successfully) some of the most extraordinary portraits I’ve ever seen.

    That’s all. Phew.

  30. I have a story in the upcoming issue of Black Gate magazine. That would be #10.

    It’s a good mag, even if they do occasionally buy my work.

    And I’m pleased to see Josh GD here. Hi, Josh!

  31. Two things to pimp:

    First, a la Chad Orzel, my blog Cognitive Daily has moved over to the new Science Blogs collective here.

    Second, I’m podcasting my memoir, Small Journeys, and the second installment is finally up over at Word Munger.

    All pimpage aside, John, since you’ve expressed an desire to evangelize science, I’d be interested in what you think of the ScienceBlogs concept: the top science bloggers (yours truly, perhaps, excepted), all collected together in one slick package.

  33. Pimptastic thread, John.

    First, allow me to recommend the Cosmos Collector’s Edition DVD Boxset by the late Carl Sagan. “A vital document for humanity,” Amazon.com proclaims. It’s a truly wonderful series, and 25+ years later it still holds up.

    Second, his son has a SF trilogy, and since the poor guy doesn’t know much about self-promotion, I might as well help him out: Idlewild and Edenborn are in hardcover and paperback, with the third book, Everfree, hitting stores on May 18th. Links go to sample chapters, reviews, etc. Also, I’m pretty sure he writes a blog.

  34. “Mayfly,” a story I wrote with Peter Watts, will be in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best SF; the same story prompted the reviewer in Booklist to call us “rising sf stars,” which is kinda funny. And you mentioned Tobias Buckell, but didn’t mention that he’ll also have a story in the Hartwell Year’s Best. I also have a story coming this month in Julie Czerneda’s MYTHSPRING, which is a YA book about Canadian history and myth.

    D

  36. Enjoying Captain Confederacy, Will, but I have to confess that I found it through Neil Gaiman rather than here.

    As for myself, I’ll pimp my webcomic, Phantast Staffing Services, which supplies heroes, henchmen, and data entry specialists to the universe.

    I’ll also pimp my need for an artist/partner so I can bring the darn thing off of hiatus and back to a regular schedule.

  38. Well, if you don’t already have a copy of The Crown: Ascension (boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl turns out to be 8,500 years old, much hilarity ensues) it’s still on sale on Amazon, and it’s my debut novel. If you’re scared, you can read seven chapters for free on my web site.

    Moreover, I’ve been publishing my new serial novel Faraway online, one chapter every two weeks. It’s all written already, so I just do quick polishes before posting it. Set in the same basic continuity.

    I am currently debating whether or not to write The Crown: Rise and Fall first (I have a huge problem in the first act that i haven’t figured out) or just jump ahead to the big set of short stories set in that continuity, which is almost a no-brainer and which I’ve written a lot of already.

    Thank you for your time and indulgence.

  41. Dang, John, you’ve got a lot of talented readers. Not that I’m surprised by that. Although I am a bit surprised to see Nick Sagan referring to himself in 3rd person. (Already got Everfree shipping from Amazon as soon as it comes out.) ;)

    I’m going to pimp something completely different: Etsy. It’s a spot for independent crafters to sell their wares, which run the gamut from Lovecraftian necklaces to Hairy Eye Pins (now you can really give someone the hairy eyeball). Several hundred new items go up for sale on a daily basis, so if you don’t see something you like now, you might tomorrow.

  42. GP Taylor’s books (www.tersias.co.uk) Tersias and Wormwood are both a good scare–he got famous for his self-published book Shadowmancer but, IMHO, Tersias and Wormwood are better. I’m biased, as I’m working with Taylor on his autobiography.

  43. I run Telltale Weekly, a spoken word audio site (just got a nice little write-up in Asimov’s) that has a few Tobias Buckell short stories for sale, and a few TB freebies coming in February. Other free works I’ve narrated include a Kelly Link story and a Pratt/van Eekhout story, the latter for Escape Pod.

    And I’m currently working on a project called Guidevines for Writers, a Wikipedia-style (user-editable) database of markets and resources. It’s kind of in public-beta mode with about 400 entries, and I plan to officially announce it when it hits 1,000 entries or at the end of the month, whichever comes first.

  44. [actual science, not SF, but pimpin’ is as pimpin’ does]

    Submitted for your consideration: The Violent Universe, by Kim Weaver.

    It’s an excellent introduction to high energy astronomy and what scientists are learning with satellites that aren’t Hubble, such as the Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes.

    Informative, attractive, engaging, and I’m mentioned in the acknowledgements!

  45. Thanks for the free pimpitude, Scalzi. I feel used up and kind of dirty (but in a good way). To add to the pimpage, I have a very nasty little story called “The Perfect Man” coming out on Salon.com “any day now” according to my editor over there. Peace.

  46. You mean … I get to pimp myself? And I just brought a brand new purple velour suit and matching glass cane and tiger-skin loafers, too.

    I’ve got a blog over at http://www.garygibson.net, and two books out from Tor UK – latest is Against Gravity. I was actually going to give you a copy of that, John (I’m one of those two mildly drunken Scots who staggered up to you and said hello at the Orbit book party at the Glasgow Worldcon), but er, forgot.

    You already mentioned the Nova Scotia anthology of Scottish writers, including Charlie Stross, Ken McLeod and Hal Duncan on your blog – you can find out more about that at http://www.gsfwc.org.uk

    You know, I feel all used and dirty too, now. But I *like* it.

    And take a look at increasingly acclaimed Glasgow fantasy author Hal Duncan at http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com.

    Thanks John!

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