Day: November 15, 2006

First, here’s a picture of the flat for the upcoming mass market paperback of The Ghost Brigades which will be out in May, just prior to the release of The Last Colony. Note the Campbell shout-out in the corner; my guess is that will be on the next couple three books.

Second, here’s a nice bit of news: Apparently Old Man’s War is one of Amazon’s 2006 Top 10 Customers’ Favorites in Science Fiction & Fantasy. This is to say that OMW was one of the ten best-selling SF/F titles on Amazon this year, that was released in 2006 (apparently OMW manages this because it’s counting the trade pb release as a “new” release, and a December 27, 2005 release date counts as “2006”).

What I find really interesting about this list is that out of the 10 titles on the list, only two (OMW and Hunters of Dune are SF; the rest are fantasy, and of those five of them are paranormal fantasy (i.e., werewolves and vampires and whatnot). I don’t know that this list has any correlation to what’s selling in SF/F outside Amazon, but in terms of what’s selling online, it’s food for thought. Me, I’m just glad the book seems to be selling well. And look! Naomi Novik’s on the list, too! Fine company.

I regret to say I didn’t make Amazon’s Top 10 Editors’ Picks for Science Fiction & Fantasy, but Charlie Stross and Jeff VanderMeer did, among others, so congratulations to them.

Here’s Ghlaghgheee, getting into the whole “Im In Ur [noun], [present participle verb] Ur [noun]” thing all the IntarWeeb Catz seem to be doing these days, while she’s checking the Hebrew version of Old Man’s War for translation errors, a task which I can honestly say she is as competent to perform as I. I’m happy to say that so far she has not noticed any major problems. I shall make the kibble flow in appreciation today, I will.

The book itself looks pretty nifty, I have to say. I’ve caught myself holding it upside down a couple of times, on account that Hebrew books read from right to left, and then I feel pretty damn stupid when I catch myself. I also notice there are a couple of placed where footnotes have been added in — from what I can tell the translator has put them in when there’s some idiom that doesn’t elegantly translate out of English, or there’s some US reference that’s not clear to anything but us USians (I noted one of the footnotes had the words “Semper Fi” in the Roman alphabet, the phrase being the motto of the US Marines). Fair enough.

Can’t wait to get copies of the book in other languages, too. Call me a dork, but I think it’s cool having versions of my words in languages I don’t understand.