Just Arrived, 11/26/10
Posted on November 26, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 14 Comments
For your Black Friday pleasure, a quick tour of titles what have come to my door:
* The Buntline Special, Mike Resnick (Pyr): Chicon 7’s Guest of Honor Mike Resnick is no stranger to trying out new subgenres of speculative fiction, so it shouldn’t be too surprising he’s exploring steampunk here, with this novel of an alternate 1880s America, featuring none other than Doc Holliday. And yes, you can expect other august personages of the US West to pop up as well. Out the first day of December.
* Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft (Torquere Press): Speaking of steampunk, here’s a collection of steampunk stories, featuring (as you might guess from the title) lesbian protagonists and characters. Authors include former Whatever guest blogger N.K. Jemisin, friends of Whatever Shira Lipkin and Rachel Manija Brown, Shweta Narayan and Amal El-Mohtar among many others. This one is currently scheduled for January 2011.
* The Wolf’s Hour, Robert McCammon (Subterranean Press): McCammon fans will be thrilled about this limited edition hardcover, which brings back into print McCammon’s celebrated 1989 dark fantasy/historical novel and adds a never-before-published novella “The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs” as an extra treat, plus illustrations by Vincent Chong (who does work on my own SubPress books). It’s out Tuesday and because it’s a limited edition, if you want it, you better move fast.
* Werewolf Smackdown, Mario Acevedo (Eos): The mass-market release of the latest installment of Acevedo’s paranormal series featuring Felix Gomez, undead private investigator. Out Tuesday.
* Rigor Amortis, edited by Jaym Gates and Erika Holt (Absolute XPress): This anthology of “flash fiction” zombie romance stories — yes, zombie romance — has my vote for the cleverest anthology title of the year. Out now.
* Back to the Moon, Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson (Baen): The Chinese sent a manned mission to the moon and now it’s up to the US to go after them… as a rescue mission. Will the plucky Americans be able to save the day — and four hapless Chinese astronauts? This novel’s authors both have a work history with NASA, with Johnson the current Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. So chances are good that the science here will mostly check out. Out December 7.
* Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson (Random House): The paperback version of the NYT Bestseller about the love of a widowed retired British military officer and a Pakistani widow from the nearby village. Will love bridge their cultural differences? I peeked at the end to find out. No, I won’t tell you. You’ll just have to find out yourself. This is out Tuesday.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand was absolutely charming.
Man, I’m so jealous that you got a copy of the McCammon (which I’d heard was sold out before the on-sale date). I read the hell out of that novel when I was a teenager. It’s still one of my two favorite historical werewolf novels of all time (the other being S.P. Somtow’s Moon Dance).
I know the lettered edition is sold out; I think the limited is still available (but not cheap).
Quite randomly — I made Schadenfreude pie for 12 people this weekend. It went over QUITE well. Thought I’d mention. (Hope you’re feeling healthier!)
…egh. Baen’s offering makes me quirk my eyebrows a bit. There better be a good reason why China wasn’t willing to send a rescue mission themselves.
If the lady on the cover of Mr. Resnick’s book is actually carrying a Buntline Special, it seems to have been damaged during shipping.
I believe I shall head out to the Book Covers Ilustrator’s Union Building in downtown Couer d’Alene, Idaho and protest most severely.
I became a teacher and a writer because of Ray Bradbury. (Harlan Ellison is my 2nd favorite writer–fiction and nonfiction.) Ray’s favorite writer is Poe. Once when he visited Richmond, Virginia, I got to walk through the Poe Museum with Ray. One month ago an artist friend in Richmod flew to LA to shoot a short film on libraries and interviewed Ray. Ray told him my book is “beautiful”–my hero. I have just discovered you on Twitter. I taught school for 30 years and loved every second of it. I am now a freelance writer. My book,www.knowords.com, The World’s Most Creative (And Dangerous) Quote Book, I worked on for 30 years. It opens in the middle as a door. Because I am a unknown, I am collecting famous creative blurbs for my pre-agent book. I had 10 copies to send to get those blurbs. I have a heart surgeon, make-up artist, writer Adriana Trigiani (on my site) and am waiting on news from Dean Kamen, David Baldacci, Oprah, and 2 more. David gave me his agent’s phone number, but I want those blurbs and requests for copies I’ve gotten on Facebook and Twitter first. I have sold photos and articles to local magazines for years. I am now writing slogans, Tweets, titles, mantras, copy, branding, product names, and other creative writing. I meet people once a week who have never heard of Ray Bradbury, David Baldacci, Harlan Ellison, the Kindle, ..Many have a college degree and never read anything. I discovered a secret while teaching all those years: If you get kids excited about words, reading and writing will flow. I am working on two books about that now.
My last year, I used an electric blue silk sheet, a large glass box, music, poker chips, and more to get students as excited about words as anything Apple will ever sell. I am writing a picture book and a teen novel about this. I look forward to reading your books.
“I remember when ‘whatever’ was a word; now it is just punctuation. Whatever.” I wrote that original quote before I saw your blog. Whatever. Follow me on Twitter. I won’t send you a million DMs. David Pogue used some of my tweets for The World According to Twitter and Keith Olbermann held up one of my Tweets making fun of Fox News. When I think of Harlan Ellison’s sales and Glenn Beck’s and Sarah Palin’s, it makes me sad. My late brother, a computer geek and science fiction lover, got to visit Harlan’s house and private library.
A Mike Resnick steampunk novel…
Generally I haven’t been much tempted by anything steampunk I’ve seen, even when the cover and the concept strike me as more than just the average ‘clever’. But a Mike Resnick steampunk will most likely find a home on my bookshelves. After the reading, of course.
I have a story in the Rigor Amortis zombie anthology. Thanks for the mention!
Huh. I knew Shweta Narayan in college and vaguely remember reading the beginning of an early draft of a fantasy novel at her place. Interesting to see that she’s made a further go of it. I should get in touch…
I’m sorry, I saw something about steam-powered lesbians and blanked for a second.
I’m currently reading Back to the Moon… and the copy-editor needs to be shot. Or maybe the publisher who approved it. Travis Taylor’s writings can be a little one-dimensional (i.e. good guy good, bad guy bad) and predictable in plot, but it’s not usually this unfinished.
I do love the science in it though.
@MasterThief. Yeah, and the fun part is getting them hot enough to produce steam… ;-> (of course, that’s fun with straight girls, too)
Is the Back To The Moon author the same Travis Taylor that wrote The Science Behind The Secret? Because if it is, I’m not sure I want to trust any science he might put forth.