Book Notes; Big Idea & Book Haul Information
Posted on January 22, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 11 Comments
Various notes relating to things of a book-like nature:
1. Sent from my agent yesterday: The German version of The Android’s Dream, and the Russian version of The Last Colony. I’m particularly pleased by the Russian cover art, which now appears at least tangentially related to what’s going on in the book; I don’t know if it’s original artwork or not, however. I would also note the German version of TAD is substantially thicker than its English-language counterpart; German is not a compact language. Also in the picture: The “little sister” figurine given to me by my friend Dawn, who works at the videogame company that made BioShock. Athena’s comment upon seeing it: “Wow, that’s really creepy. Can I have it?” The little sister is currently guarding the Hugo. Get near it, and she’ll call a big daddy. And frankly, I’d like to see that.
2. Various authors have either inquired about or sent hopeful essays for the Big Idea feature. So to be clear: Yes, I’m still doing them, and yes, please feel free to inquire about them. I do recommend not writing up a Big Idea unless I’ve given you the go ahead, since in fact at the moment I don’t take every request and I’d hate for you to do work for no result. But it doesn’t hurt to ask. For those of you who sent in Big Idea inquiries in the last week, I have them and will get back to you in the next couple of days. Also in relatively short order I’ll have some announcements about Big Ideas in a larger sense. Don’t worry, they’re not going away. I’ll just be fiddling a bit.
3. It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of the Book Haul features, in which I crow about the books that get sent to me while you all yearn to pummel me for it. Oddly enough, this is apparently a popular feature, since I get a lot of folks asking for it, so I’m going to make an effort to do more of them in the coming weeks and months, contingent on, you know, publishers sending along books. I’ll get on that starting next week, I think.
Book Hauls, Big Ideas. All good. More of ’em please – as a pathologically lazy person, I’m all for finding out about books liked by people who like the books I like. Or people who write books I like. I like that.
I’m not loving the short-sleeved vest-come-spacesuit wear that John Perry has on in the cover art. Either he’s got a genetically enhanced body for his old soul, or he doesn’t. You telling us now that only the arms and legs are able to survive combat unshielded? Jane’s got the same sort of body and she doesn’t get the funky vest? I agree, the artist put some effort into drawing her frontal view and the vest would hide that, but … come on!
Sorry. You said you loved the cover art. I shouldn’t diss it. Maybe you really like that it looks like some of the 1960’s Heinlein covers. (stop. must. not. diss. it… argh!)
Anyway, nice to see that good ole’ Джон СкалЬци still gets published. Must be cool to be successful in multiple languages.
I didn’t say I loved the cover art; I’m just happy it doesn’t appear to be nicked from Warhammer 40,000.
Hello Mr. Scalzi,
funny coincidence. I´ve just finished the german version of TAD (which is available in germany since two weeks), then I checked a german stargate website and read the good Stargate Universe News – the news kicked me to my first visit of your blog – and there´s TAD again.
I´d like to thank you for this funny scifi book with fantastic ideas, altough the german backcover text suggests a complete different story.
I´m looking forward to your participation in the new stargate series, some fresh ideas seem to be desperately needed, considered the last season of Atlantis (or was it the budged?).
German may be a complex language, but at least the quality of our soft cover books (right term?) is better than the american originals, at least the ones I know.
Apologies for my poor school-english.
Greetings from Kolbermoor (Bavaria, near Munich)
Does Athena use creepy as a standard slang word? My 10 year old twins and their friends have been doing for while here in San Diego. I’m wondering if creepy as a “cool” word is in play in Ohio?
“Little Sister” reminds me of Degas “Little Dancer”. What do you think? (a copy of Little Dancer is up for auction at Sotheby’s, but this is a better picture)
http://www.nga.gov/feature/artnation/degas/thedancer_1.shtm
So what kind of half baked cheesy teeniebopper wet dream scifi art do you like? More googly eyed slerping aliens grabbing overly robust scantily clad damsels sporting ultra-super-nacho blasters? Hmm. Me too…
I like the book haul stuff because it alerts me to stuff that is coming out that I can order.
Glad you like the Little Sister John. And I’m thrilled that Athena thinks it is creepy. Maybe when she gets older she can see them in BioShock.
Ditto the appreciation for the book haul entries. One problem with buying books in the internet age is that websites are more suited to searching for books rather than just browsing the category. And when I make a trip to the bookstore, a recommendation from you is at least a benchmark for authors I haven’t gotten into yet.
I’m not an author, but I’d love it if you could do a Big Idea with Austin Grossman, for his “Soon I Will Be Invincible”. Just read it, and found it Way Cool.