Book Updatery, 5/12/08
Posted on May 12, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 18 Comments
A couple of things relating to books of mine:
* I finished and delivered an updated manuscript for Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998 – 2008 to Subterranean Press last night. See, I told you having a clean office makes me productive. There had been a previous version of the book that went up to 2005, but when we decided to tie the release of the book to the 10-year anniversary of Whatever, I went back and updated. The book now features material from 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well. This made me happy because it gave me an opportunity to cut out some of what I thought was the less successful material from the previous version, and to re-sequence the book to make it more like the Whatever reading experience. The end result: a much stronger book overall.
That said, the majority of the text in the book is still from 2005 or before, i.e., before more than the large majority of who reads Whatever today showed up round these parts. I think for a lot of these folks it will be an interesting exercise in blog archeology.
For those of you hankerin’ for Hate Mail, the release date is September 13, 2008 — the ten year anniversary of me starting the Whatever. Subterranean is going to release it very much like it released You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop Into a Coffee Shop, which is to say it will be a signed, limited edition. Naturally, me being me, I’ll let you know when the pre-order page is up over at Subterranean Press.
* The UK version of The Ghost Brigades just had its release (they’re a bit behind the schedule over there) and got a nice review in The Guardian, which wrote that the plot was “a neat scenario, allowing Scalzi to pose questions of identity and morality while telling a fast-paced, entertaining action adventure story.” Well, yes, that was the plan, so I’m glad the reviewer thought it worked. The review also noted that I was writing military science fiction “without the triumphalist excess of most American examples of the sub-genre,” which for some reason made me giggle. The Old Man’s War universe is just not set up for triumphalism, you know?
* For those of you staying up nights wondering when, oh when, the German version of The Last Colony would be out, the answer is: next month. There, now you can sleep well for the first time in months. Also, note the cover art, which is the exact cover art of both the German versions of Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades, with the exception of the background color. It’s nice to see my publisher getting some good mileage out of their purchase. That said, I wonder if Mark Salwowski, the artist, got paid three times or just once. Hopefully three times. I also wonder if Ken MacLeod is annoyed with me for stealing his cover art three times now. Sorry, Ken. Bring it up with Heyne.
Wunderbar! Ich warte atemlos darauf, mein Herr.
I thought I recognised that image! The survivors of the Singularity are gonna get medieval on your uploaded ass, Scalzi!
Hey, I’m just an author. It’s not like I have control of the cover art.
I’m confused. Which comes first in the series, Old Man’s War or The Cassini Division? If I’ve already read OMW, can I read The Cassini Division, or were there spoilers in OMW?
The cats are complaining about not being on the Cover AGAIN…. (Per your heading )
So translating into German is faster than translating into British? Odd, that.
So, I’m a little unclear – will there be a big release of the Whatever book as well, or only the limited edition? I’d like to read it, but not for $60.
I don’t suspect the limited edition will cost $60. Coffee Shop was $35; this one will probably be priced similarly. There might be a lettered edition with extra goodies which would cost more.
Heyne, huh? The people who put a soup ad in Pratchett’s Sourcery and robed in a cover from an entirely different fantasy novel to front the double edition of Colour of Magic and Sourcery. (Note to future Pratchett readers: there are No Cars in his novel (yet)).
Some things don’t change then.
Heh. Well, no soup ads in my book, as far as I know.
Shame, you’d be a shoo-in for a Campbell’s award…
(sorry)
I was just scrolling down and saw “Die, Letzie Kolonie” and had an image of Scalzi writing a sort of “Mean Girls” novel, wherein the high school bitch, Letzie Kolonie, makes the lives of her classmates a living hell, etc.
Then after about a second, my German kicked in.
It was good for a laugh, and lead my brain down the whole strange path of Scalzi writing a series of “Sweet Valley High” books.
John, John, John…
How can you say your book stole Ken MacLeod’s cover art? They look nothing alike. For starters, the light source on your covers appear to come from the reader’s right whereas on MacLeod’s cover it appears to come from the reader’s left — totally different…
Besides — if there should happen to be some similarity between them (and I’m not saying there is), shouldn’t Ken MacLeod apologize to you for so blatantly stealing your cover art before you even had a chance to write your books?
Just spotted Die letzte Kolonie in the wild today on the new SFF releases table in a bookstore in Bremen, Germany.
I would have snapped a photo, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera.
That’s still excellently cool, Cora. Hopefully I will get my copies soon.
I couldn’t find a perfectly relevant place to post this, but “book updatery” seems close:
Where are the ebooks? I’m on the Tor email list for free ebooks, and loved The Old Man’s War. So, I go to the Tor site to purchase the other two in the trilogy. You know, purchase? Me Give Money for Books?
I can’t see any method on the Tor site to do so. Did this fall through? Are your works being published as ebooks? If so, in what formats, on what sites?
I’m a new fan enthusiastically ready to buy everything you’ve published, yet I seem stymied by your publisher.
What’s the story?
Just to let you know: I get my german copy (a pre-order) on May 8th from my internet bookdealer, so it must be out here in germany for some days now.
Just finished reading it (I know, I am slow) – pretty cool stuff, thanks for the great story. But I am bit frustrated that the Diary of Jane is in the back of the book with a nice comment, that it could be read before you read the bigger story – but actually you read that comment not until you have finished The Last Colony story first (a bit mind-boggling, I know).
Do you have any idea, if Heyne will publish the next installment (probably with a blue background or something like that ;-)), too?
Heyne has not yet made an offer on Zoe’s Tale, and I can’t say whether they plan to. I wouldn’t mind, however; they seem to do well by me.