Two New Books in 2016 That Have Me In Them. Well, Three. Actually, Five
Posted on May 2, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
As we all know, I don’t have a new novel out this year — although the mass market paperback of The End of All Things is out May 31, hint, hint — but that doesn’t mean I’m not showing up in new books in 2016. Above you’ll see two new books that I’m in, one already out, and the other upcoming. The one that’s already out is The Books That Changed My Life, edited by Bethanne Patrick, in which notable folks (including, uh, me) talk about the books that made a real impact on them. Other folks featured in the book include Margaret Atwood, Rosanne Cash, Dave Eggers, Kate Mulgrew and Al Roker. This is a pretty wide net, folks.
The one that hasn’t come out yet is Mash Up, which is the printed version of the audio anthology Rip-Off! which you may recall came out about three years ago. The audio version did very well — nominated for an Audie Award, whilst Mary Robinette Kowal’s contribution scored a Hugo — so it’s lovely to finally see this anthology in print. And as you can see on the cover, this is a hell of a line up of authors. Mash Up will be out June 7th — also, coincidentally, the release date of the other anthology I’m in this year, Black Tide Rising, which features a story I co-wrote with my pal Dave Klecha. Basically I have a very busy two weeks coming up at the end of May and early June.
So, that’s three books in 2016 so far! Plus my audio-first novella The Dispatcher should be out later this year (with the print version from Subterranean Press to follow after the audio’s exclusive period), plus, speaking of Subterranean, I’ve turned in another book project to them a couple of weeks ago, which should be out later this year. I’ll wait until Subterranean officially announces that before I say anything else about it.
So, to recap:
- The Books That Changed My Life — already out.
- Mash Up — out June 7.
- Black Tide Rising — also out June 7.
- The Dispatcher — scheduled for this year in audio.
- Secret SubPress Project — also scheduled for this year (I think!).
And the mass market paperback of The End of All Things, out May 31st.
Wow, for not having anything out in 2016, I sure have a lot of things out in 2016.
So basically, you’re screwing Tor out of their fabulous advances and then writing for other publishers!
We’re on to you, Scalzi. No matter what you do, we can expose the crime in it. You’re the Hillary Clinton of SF.
Um, by the way? Your productivity is pretty astounding. I read this post and thought, “Crap, I should go do something RIGHT NOW.”
Oooh, 2 new books from Subterranean Press! They do such a great job putting together very attractive books, then shipping them with great care. The words inside are good too. Having heard you read the opening to The Dispatcher, I’m looking forward to that, and having heard nothing about the secret other project, I’m looking forward to it too.
No novel. Sigh. Back to the keyboard, content monkey! ;-)
You’re no slacker.
Advice needed–
I’m not in to the whole “zombie apocalypse” thing (nothing personal, just doesn’t ring my bell), but my baby brother is obsessed with the idea. And his birthday is coming up. Is Black Tide Rising appropriate for a young-for-his-age 15/16 year old? I don’t want to censor his reading, but I don’t want to blow his mind, either. And I’m not crazy about the bikini-clad women on the cover, but I would love to get him a gift that supports his interests.
Thanks!
Kimberly:
I haven’t read the other stories in the anthology, so I can’t say. But if he’s already big on zombies (and all the violence, etc it entails) then I suspect there will be little in the anthology to shock him.
If your brother has read a wide variety of other zombie books, I don’t think anything in the Black Tide Rising series is likely to mess him up. There are two factors that might cause concern, though:
1) These “zombies” aren’t undead. They’re living victims of a deliberately designed virus that destroys most mental faculties and turns the afflicted into murderous psychopaths. To me at least, that’s way worse than animated corpses, if only because it brings up moral issues in killing them. It’s not that uncommon a twist on zombies these days, though, so your brother has probably already run into it.
2) Ringo has a – tendency? – to mention how attractive underage teenage girls can be. As best I can tell, this is one of the things that really appeals to some of his hard-core fans. In this series it mostly manifests in one or two mentions a book about the older teenaged girl (about your brother’s age) sunbathing. There are also other sexual elements in the stories that in my opinion aren’t out of line or explicit, but I can’t tell you what’s appropriate for your brother. The only thing that honestly squicked me was the short-ish bit in I think the third book where a 12 or 13 year old girl had shared a lifeboat with a 17 year old boy and managed to get pregnant even though he never laid a hand on her. Compounding things was an older character mentioning that they should probably start having regular sex since it will, as we all know, make the pregnancy easier.That part was really bad, but it was easy for me to ignore. Your brother, who knows.
Another great thing about The Books That Changed My Life (and, full disclosure here, I’m the acquiring editor who worked with Bethanne Patrick) is that a portion of the proceeds are going to 826 National, a non-profit that helps organize creative writing programs for children aged 6 to 18.
The book that changed Scalzi’s life is one that would totally be on my shortlist — I certainly recall discovering it and being totally absorbed in its pages right around the time he must have, and probably rereading it and its sequels (and a related series!) at least half a dozen times each…
John & Peter–
Thank you so much for your input– you’ve been a big help!
My brother is fascinated with the idea of zombies, but as point of scientific and ethical speculation; he hasn’t consumed much (possibly not any) zombie-related media yet. He’s still very satisfied with Percy Jackson, Fablehaven, and Harry Potter; this sounds like a big leap for him. I think I will keep this in mind for later and wait until he finds his own way to the genre. Who knows what summer-vacation reading will bring?
Oh yeah, in that case, don’t start him off on this series. I’m trying to think of good zombie reads in the Percy Jackson/Harry Potter end of the pool, but I’m more familiar with the older teen books. I can list a couple of possibilities, but I’m only familiar with the first one.
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. Fantastic fantasy series, which I personally liked better than the Lord Of The Rings. The second book, The Black Cauldron, has Our Heroes trying to stop a zombie army by stealing and destroying the titular cauldron that creates its soldiers. I wouldn’t recommend this specifically for zombies, but it sounds like something your brother would enjoy.
Zombie Tag by Hannah Moskowitz. Haven’t read it, might be a bit young.
By The Grace of Todd, by Louise Galveson. Haven’t read it, but my coworker liked it a lot. It’s not zombies, though, just a bunch of small minions created by the crud under a kid’s bed.
Dead Jed series by Scott Craven. Described as “Shaun Of The Dead meets Diary Of A Wimpy Kid.”
Ooh, these sound like they’re right up his alley! Thank you!