An Unfathomable Cavalcade of Riches
Posted on June 27, 2006 Posted by John Scalzi 26 Comments
A banner day for SF/F lovers, today is, because four big novels drop into the stores: Fellow Campbell nominee Sarah Monette’s The Virtu, which has gotten a lovely starred review in Publishers Weekly (“This sequel is every bit as original and satisfying as its predecessor”); Scott Lynch’s debut novel The Lies of Lock Lamora, which received a starred review in Booklist (“Expect it to be among the year’s most impressive debuts”) and whose movie rights have already been snapped right up; This year’s Best First Novel Locus Award winner Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron : A Novel of the Promethean Age, which is also nicely reviewed (“Campbell-winner Bear overturns the usual vision of Faerie, revealing the compelling beauty and darkness only glimpsed in old ballads and stories like ‘Tam Lin'”); and last but certainly not least fellow Hugo-nominee Charlie Stross’s Glasshouse, which — surprise, surprise — is getting all sorts of reviewer love as well (“Stross’s wry SF thriller satisfies on all levels, with memorable characters and enough brain-twisting extrapolation for five novels”). The question is not which to buy, merely which to buy first. That’s my question, anyway.
Actually, I do have a complaint, which is that all of these are coming out just as I’m buckling down to finish The Last Colony, meaning that even if I buy them — which I will — I won’t be able to enjoy them until after the end of July. And that’s just cruel. Really, I can’t understand why they didn’t put my needs first. Writers can be so mean sometimes.
As I’ve just unleashed a veritable torrent of pimpery here, I declare the comment thread below to be a self-pimp zone: If you’ve got a something you want to promote, this is a fine place to do it. No link too self-serving! Pimp yourself! Pimp your friends! Hours of fun for the whole family!
My new science fiction novel “The Mars Run” recently received two very complimentary reviews.
Ron Miller, the Hugo-nominated writer and artist, said “It reads very much like a three-way cross between early Heinlein, Joe Haldeman and Allen Steele,” and “[the heroine] is tough, resourceful, likeable and altogether realistic and who she is and what she becomes is really what the book is all about.”
Paige Lovitt of Readerviews said, “I highly recommend this book to science fiction fans. You will enjoy the futuristic yet realistic aspects of the tale while you watch the heroine evolve into a force to be reckoned with.”
Click the link above to read the novel online (free) or buy it!
Argh I didn’t get the first post!
I’ll cut straight to the chase: I’m writing a novel and posting the installments online, chapter by chapter, Dickens style. It’s science fiction but it reads more like historical fiction, so if that interests you, please do check it out. My name links to the prologue.
If you’re a Java programmer looking for the finest development experience available, you owe it to yourself to try IntelliJ IDEA. I wrote most of the static analysis functionality, and about half of the smaller refactorings.
If, on the other hand, you’re looking for high-quality art glass, try Siyeh Studio, run by my wife. She also has a how-to book in production, but it’s way too early to pimp that.
Sometimes the Chinese “water torture” is exacted on people who are impatient. It is so cruel to make you want and wait for something so near yet so far. Just today, J.K. Rowling is dropping hints about who will die in the last Harry Potter book causing severe anxiety among readers.
I’m not pimping her book but the first e-mail I got today was from my daughter who is now in college and has been a Harry Potter fan from Day One.
Pimpin’ ain’t easy (I’m the first one with that lame reference?), but my article, “Three Stars and a Chili Pepper” is up at Academic Commons: http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/Ugoretz-social-software-folksonomy
Pimping the University of Nebraska Press Blog (www.nebraskapress.typepad.com). They got a bunch of writers in to write about lots of different subjects, including science fiction (that’s my section). They publish both some original sf and a lot of old sf that you’ve heard of but never read (latest has been the second edition of a great Mary Shelley novel called The Last Man and some awesome Burroughs stuff.) So check it out.
I just want to give some props to Chris Gerrib, whose novel, “The Mars Run,” has a particularly gripping first chapter. For his site, follow his link in the first post of this thread.
http://www.epithna.com/index.php?action=view_article&ID=10
The lone story on my Web site so far…I promise to fix the color and font size ASAP…and more stories are coming…
Why, thanks, Lars – glad to know somebody’s reading it! Like he said, click on my name to see the reviews and get to the book.
Now I’ll go look at Lar’s stuff.
Pimpage! Thanks John.
I feel the need to pimp No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews’ in August, Tanya Huff’s A Confederation of Valor in December, and Elizabeth Moon’s Command Decision in Feb 2007.
I’ll even throw out a pimpfest for the World Cup Soccer Tourney. It’s been such fun to watch the players perfect their acting skills.
I’ll pimp my company, U-Turn Media which works to bring things like yesterdays Cat Video to your mobile phone. Just one more way to help you waste time and money!
I’ll pimp my ongoing explorations of the world of Second Life, which are chronicled in this topic on Electric Minds (or use this link to read it all from the beginning). Many pictures are included, under the “paperclip” icons on the posts. Strange new worlds, pretty girls (and lots of dancing), celebrityspotting…it’s all here.
I’ll tak an opportunity to pimp others, though it’s also to my own benefit:
The little micropress I help run, Tropism Press, has two new projects out recently. First, the fifth issue of our ‘zine Flytrap, is out, with fiction by Barth Anderson, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ruth Nestvold, and others:
http://tropismpress.com/flytrap.html
And our first chapbook collection, the beautifully illustrated Tales of the Chinese Zodiac by Jenn Reese, is also available:
http://tropismpress.com/zodiac.html
FULL ON SELF-PIMPING!!!
Okay, so I own a yoga studio in Maine. Portland Power Yoga is the name, Power Vinyasa Yoga is the Game! We practice in a heated room to make ourselves shiny, sleek and toxin-free! Mention The Whatever and maybe I’ll float you a class on the cheap! Mention that you’re John Scalzi and I will buy you dinner after class. I often quote The Old Man’s War in class. For real.
I make music under the name Brittney Sparse. A few free tracks or for download at my site. You can also buy some of my other CD’s over at CD Baby. I will use the money to buy more science fiction. And candy. Mmmm, candy.
And I am finishing up my novel and my first short-story, but I haven’t gotten them ready to publish yet. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Thanks for the pimping. I think I’ll go get my kid form camp now!
CRT
The most I can pimp is the 3rd grade youth baseball team I coach. Go Hooks!
(We got the name and logo of the Corpus Christi Hooks http://www.cchooks.com. It coulda been worse. We coulda been the geoducks. Yuck.)
I don’t have anything to pimp, but wanted to say thanks for the leads on new good books!
If anyone out there is a Stirling fan, his third book in the dies the fire trilogy is now available to be pre-odered on Amazon……I can hardly wait!!!
If you like my Subterranean story (or if you don’t, darn it!), you can read yet another tale of mine at TQR and there’ll be one in, I’m told, the August issue of Son and Foe.
I don’t have anything else to pimp. Yet.
Jo Walton’s alternate-history mystery novel Farthing got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, glowing reviews at Locus and BoingBoing, and even Kirkus didn’t hate it. (Er, however, while I strongly recommend the book myself, I equally strongly recommend that you don’t read the reviews…this is a book best read as unspoiled as possible. Just buy it, OK?)
What’s more, it comes out at the start of August — see, John, Jo knows how to accomodate you.
What’s more, I’ve already read Farthing — and agree that it is fabulous.
Lynne Flewelling’s Oracle’s Queen is also out today. It’s so new it wasn’t on the shelf and the guy at Barnes and Noble had to go get it from the back. And this wasn’t this morning. No. It was about ten minutes to closing. Anyway, if it’s as good as the first two, several people on my gift list will be getting the trilogy for the holidays.
Be careful about “pimping” the IRS might just jump on your tail.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2125434
Oh goodie. I promised I’d do this.
Via Warren Ellis’ blog, I came across Another Sky Press at http://anothersky.org. So far there’s but a single offering, _Click_ by Kristopher Young, who is also the proprietor of the place. The press is founded on what he calls neo-patronage, which is basically me and you supporting the artist directly as we see fit. To that end, you can read the novel for free online, albeit as scanned page sets, or purchase a copy for the base cost of printing and postage, plus whatever contribution if any you want to make to the artist. I think the idea rocks.
I bought the book, paid USD$25 for it to be shipped to Australia, compared to the base price in the USA of about $6. It’s good too. I thought it’d be something like Neal Stephenson’s _Snow Crash_, but it’s not. The nearest I could describe it with my limited reading range is like a young, punk Haruki Murakami just beginning to explore his powers.
The cover art by Jesse Reno is great too.
There. Pimped.
Oh, and I need a new job BADLY, but that’s another thing entirely.
Well, since you asked, you can see my latest short film by going here:
http://www.viostream.com/goldeneye/
And clicking on Meaningful Touches. Is it worth mentioning that it’s:
a) A sci-fi movie?
b) Only 7 minutes long?
c) Only on this web site because it was up for an award?
Thanks for the head-up on all the great books coming out. They will be great fodder for my (PIMP AHOY!) book reviews website:
http://www.spiralgalaxyreviews.com
Thanks for the opportunity! (Loved “Old Man’s War” (you can read my REVIEW of it at the aforementioned REVIEWS site), waiting to buy “The Ghost Brigades,” already looking forward to “The Lost Colony.”)
Nah, I’d rather pimp Scott and Elizabeth’s books, both of which I read and LOVED in galley form. I loved them so much that I went out and bought the real thing, so as to keep our beloved writers in caffeine and chocolate.
Really, gang, these are AMAAAAAAAZING books!