Monthly Archives: December 2012

The Big Idea: Martha Wells

Martha Wells’ richly imagined Books of the Raksura series reaches a climax in the latest installment, The Siren Depths. And while the adventure takes place on a fantastic world far away, many of the themes in the book are rooted back here in the real world, and with Wells’ own personal history. She’s here to […]

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Whatever Holiday Shopping Guide, Day Four: Fan Favorites!

For the first three days of the Whatever Shopping Guide 2012, I’ve let authors and creators tell you about their work. Today is different: Today is Fan Favorites day, in which fans, admirers and satisfied customers share with you a few of their favorite things — andyou can share some of your favorite things as well. This is a […]

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The Human Division Episode Release Dates + Cover Art Reveals + More!

Lots of news about The Human Division to get to today, so let’s just dive in: One: The Human Division begins its eBook episodic run on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, with the release of “The Human Division, Episode One: The B-Team” in DRM-free eBook form at most major eBook retailers, including Apple, Amazon and Barnes […]

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And To Close the Evening, This May Be My Favorite Redshirts Review Yet

It’s brief enough to quote in full. It’s from Nick Harkaway from this longer “a year in reading” column over at The Millions: John Scalzi’s Redshirts is a little bit of genius. It starts out as a very funny Star Trek in-joke and then crosses the rubicon to become a somewhat disturbing examination of that joke before diving into […]

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Dear Whateverians: Choose My Pose!

Well, now it is on: Jim C. Hines has formally challenged me to a pose-off, and in doing so has offered me three choices of pose. Here is the first choice: Here is the second choice: Here is the third choice: Which to choose, which to choose? I can’t decide. So I’m going to let […]

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Whatever Holiday Shopping Guide, Day Three: Arts, Crafts, Music and More

The Whatever Holiday Shopping Guide 2012 continues, and today we move away from books and focus on other gifts and crafts — which you can take to mean just about any other sort of thing a creative person might make: Music, art, knitting, jewelry, artisanal foodstuffs and so on. These can be great, unique gifts for special folks […]

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The Big Idea: Mark Yohalem

Today’s Big Idea is slightly different: It’s about a video game, not a book. Because (and not only because I am currently in the process of writing a video game myself), I figured, what the heck. So, today writer Mark Yohalem tells you the idea behind Primordia, in which two of mankind’s heirs embark on […]

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The Story Board Ep. 5 – “Life Online: Putting the Meme in Memoir”

So, Patrick Rothfuss, Jenny Lawson, Wil Wheaton and I got together to talk about blogging about ourselves and other topics, and off we went for ninety minutes. It’s fun! And we swear a lot, because it’s me and Pat and Jenny and Wil. You’ll love it. P.S.: Sorry about being so choppy. It’s Wil’s fault.

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Hey Look! The Chicon 7 Opening Ceremonies!

In which I played talk show host! I had my own house band and everything! If you’re interested in just my opening monologue, it starts at about 2:50. But honestly, if you have the time and you’re a science fiction fan, it’s worth it to watch the whole thing, because the interviews with Mike Resnick, […]

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The Transporting Poetry of Spam Coding

I found this in my spam queue. I found it oddly poetic. *** {I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It’s|It is} pretty worth enough for me. {In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website owners|web owners} and bloggers made good content […]

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Meet the Folks at Jay and Mary’s Book Center

You know when you call Jay and Mary’s Book Center to get signed, personalized books from me for the holidays? These are the fine folks who pick up the phone — indeed, that’s Jay right there in the middle. It’s easy to say “support local business” and think of it in the abstract, but in […]

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Announcing the “Rip-Off!” Audio Anthology: You Pick the Cover

I’m not sure I mentioned this here before, but I am one of the authors featured in a new audio anthology called Rip-Off! that’s coming from Audible this December 18th. The idea behind the anthology is kind of cool: noted science fiction and fantasy authors take the first line of a well-known work of literature […]

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The Big Idea: Robert Boyczuk

Author Robert Boyczuk decided that if one is going to “borrow” themes and ideas for one’s book, then one should “borrow” from the biggest and best. So from whom did Boyczuk borrow from for The Book of Thomas? He explains below. ROBERT BOYCZUK: How a small-minded guy like me came up with a Big Idea […]

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Whatever Holiday Shopping Guide 2012, Day Two: Non-Traditionally Published Books

Today is Day Two of the Whatever Shopping Guide 2012, and today the focus is on Non-Traditionally Published Books: Self-published works, electronically-exclusive books, books from micro presses, books released outside the usual environs of the publishing world, and so on. Hey, I put my first novel up on this very Web site more than a dozen years ago […]

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Whatever Holiday Shopping Guide 2012, Day One: Traditionally Published Books

Welcome to the first day of the Whatever Shopping Guide 2012 — My way of helping you folks learn about cool creative gifts for the holidays, straight from the folks who have created them. Today’s featured products are traditionally published books (including graphic novels and audiobooks); that is, books put out by publishers who ship books to stores […]

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The Big Idea: Joe Monti

It sometimes amazes people, in this increasingly digital age, how much book covers still matter. They do: They are literally the icons representing the words within. As co-editor of the anthology Diverse Energies, Joe Monti has some definite ideas about covers, and how they have an impact on readers (and the sales that hopefully follow). […]

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