Black Tide Rising eARC Now Available
Posted on March 10, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 14 Comments
As some of you may remember, I co-authored a short story to go into the Black Tide Rising zombie apocalypse anthology, edited by John Ringo and Gary Poole, which will be out in bookstores on June 7th. But if you just can’t wait that long, you should know that Baen Books, the publisher, is offering the “eARC” for sale right now, which you can download and stuff into your e-reader of choice. In addition to my story, co-written with my friend Dave Klecha, the anthology also features stories by John Ringo, Eric Flint, Sarah Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z. Williamson and the proverbial “more.”
The story Dave and I wrote is called “On the Wall,” and it features two characters, named “Dave” and “John,” who are standing watch on a compound wall during a zombie apocalypse, talking about life, the universe, and zombies. You know, as you do when you’re standing watch on a wall during a zombie apocalypse. It was fun to write, and nice to have it wanted for this anthology.
Also, it’s my first story involving zombies! And that’s something. Check it out if you like, in eARC or when the anthology is officially published in June.
(As a minor postscript, I saw a discussion of the eARC online where someone was wondering why my bio for the anthology was one sentence long when the other author bios were generally longer. It’s because the bio I sent in to the editors was one sentence long. That’s all. For the record, my editorial experience on this anthology was perfectly lovely.)
It looks like an excellent birthday present to myself come June…
would be nice if they could spell your name.
“On the Wall by John Sclazi & Dave Klecha”
@Kansu – That’s why it’s an eARC. Hopefully that little typo, and many others will be fixed before it goes to publication.
My my, the interest in certain quarters to NOT buy the book, but then also TO buy the book, because of certain authors in it, must be strong.
So I assume the eARC is coming out in the same year as the book, so if there is a Hugo nomination we don’t have to go through another round of “in what year is it eligible”.
Kansu:
As SB noted, this is an ARC version, which is not meant to be the finished version. Errors will pop up and (hopefully) corrected before the final. You could let them know that one is there!
Mike:
It’ll be published the same year the ARC comes out, yes.
Josh Jasper:
Probably. I have fatigue on that score at this point, personally.
Hope I’m not overstepping to point out that the book is also available in Baen’s June bundle of ebooks. You get half the book on March 15th and have to wait until June 7th to get the rest, but the bundle also includes several other books that I think are worth getting.
Death’s Bright Day by David Drake is the newest RCN book. I haven’t read them all, but the first couple were good reads.
Galactic Games is a collection of science fiction sports stories. Going by the cover it includes George R.R. Martin’s “Run To Starlight,” which is excellent. I assume the alien horse racing is “The Great Kladnar Race,” which is hilarious. The other authors look good, too.
Three Faces of Asprin includes Robert Asprin’s The Cold Cash War and The Bug Wars, which I’ve never seen available in e-format before.
http://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/monthly-baen-bundles/id/1999
To offer another point of data, Scalzi will also be appearing in another anthology at the end of March, a collection of essays called The Books That Changed My Life, and the bio he sent along with his contribution was also, if I’m recalling correctly, one sentence long. Maybe even the same sentence! I guess I’ll find out after I read the zombie story.
(Full disclosure: I’m the acquiring editor on that book. It’s a pretty good one, if I say so myself, but that’s thanks to 101 other people. All I had to do was accept it!)
Just finished rereading the first four books in the series. So excited to get this.
Then I remember what JoshJasper said.
Love the books. Hate the author. Moved on.
“… who are standing watch on a compound wall during a zombie apocalypse, talking about life, the universe, and zombies.”
“Jay and Silent Bob and Zombies”
May you have much success. Glad you had fun writing it.
Interesting cover art. Clearly Las Vegas cocktail waitresses/cheerleaders are leading the fight back against the zombies.
I guess they tend to have lots of experience dealing with shambling, drooling undead things….
Loved the story, it stood out among the many fine entries in the very fun addition to the main series by John Ringo.
John: I just got the eARC, and I’m making what I think is my first ever comment on your blog to tell you how much I enjoyed your story. I enjoyed most of the others too, particularly Eric Flint’s, but yours stood out for its distinctive style and execution. It was the funniest story, and a nice change of pace from the others, while still providing all the zombie killing one could want from a zombie apocalypse story. Well done. Though it appears, based on your post here, that the character names changed between writing and posting of the eARC? Can you talk about that?