Monthly Archives: June 2013

Writer-mind impressions of Atlantic City (with a writing prompt)

photo(1)I’ve lived in New Jersey for more than nine years now, and you’d think I’d have gone to Atlantic City before today. But thanks to the World Championship of Sand Sculpting, that omission has been rectified.

Why yes, there IS a World Championship of Sand Sculpting. And to be completely fair, there was some impressive work on display. It made the sand castle Anna and I made on the beach later seem rather…lacking…by comparison, even though we had a moat, dammit. A moat!

Atlantic City fascinated my writer-mind, much as our visit to Japan did a few months back. (For another perspective on that trip, check out my wife’s Lonely Planet piece on animal cafes! Being married to a travel writer has its privileges.) Anyway, it wasn’t that Atlantic City was all that alien — though it did have its moments. Rather, it was chock full of those little details that I know I’m going to end up using, in spirit if not in literal fact, in my fiction.

For example:  Continue reading

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Women in The Daedalus Incident

I’m really very pleased to have had the opportunity to talk about the female characters in my debut novel, The Daedalus Incident. This comes courtesy of Justin Landon of Staffer’s Book Review, who was gracious enough to offer me a guest post today.

I’m quite conscious of the role women have played in the genre through the years. There’s been an evolution — one that’s come in fits and starts — of female roles in SF/F, from damsel-in-distress to outright protagonist. If we as authors are going to write about the future, it behooves us all to give genuine consideration to the evolution of women’s roles in whatever futures we come up with.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I hope that Daedalus does its little part in that evolution. Check out the guest post for more.

And I have to give Justin a great deal of thanks for his support of Daedalus over the past year. As he described a few months ago, Night Shade Books asked him to provide feedback of a couple of titles in their pipeline…one of which, I can now say, was mine. I didn’t know it at the time, but his ideas and insights likely helped shape the book into what it is today.

Given his role in Daedalus‘ path to publication, Justin didn’t feel right giving the book a full-on review, but he was kind enough to publish a “not review” in support of the book’s ebook launch, saying he really enjoyed it. He concludes:

…this is the right kind of novel to be the first from the new publisher of Night Shade titles. It is representative of the kind of fiction the list has been known for in the past, and hopefully will be known for moving forward.

Again, many thanks for everything, Justin.

#SFWApro

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Tor.com excerpt, SFSignal review and a podcast

Happy Monday indeed! It’s been an eventful day for The Daedalus Incident, with a new excerpt, a major review and a nifty podcast interview.

First off, the folks at Tor.com ran a substantial excerpt of The Daedalus Incident — the entire first half of chapter 2, in fact. So if you want a good sense of what I’m up to, click on over and give it a read! Thanks to everyone there for giving me some prime digital real estate.

Next, Paul Weimer (@princejvstin to followers of his reviews and photography) reviewed Daedalus in the Hugo-award winning SFSignal — and saw fit to give it four out of five stars, calling it “an ambitious and fun romp.” Click here for the full review, which concludes:

Overall, The Daedalus Incident is, especially in its Space Fantasy parts, entertaining and fun to read and despite its delays in publication, I hope it reaches its deserved audience, and that the author has the opportunity to explore the universe of the Daedalus, especially, much further.

Paul’s review is very thoughtful and shows off his deep knowledge of the genre. I respect his reviews a lot, so I’m quite gratified he liked it. As for exploring the universe further…I’m workin’ on it, believe me.

In addition to the review, I’m the guest today on the SFSignal Podcast, hosted by Patrick Hester, now available for download wherever fine podcasts are found. The interview is slightly dated; I didn’t know what would become of Night Shade Books (since acquired successfully by Skyhorse Publishing) and my book (now available for the Kindle, Nook and Kobo, with print coming soon). But it’s a fun chat, and we talk a lot about Daedalus and The Gravity of the Affair, as well as beer and other topics, so give it a listen.

Finally, there’s only a few days left in Stefan Raets’ giveaway of The Daedalus Incident, so click on over and sign up to win a print copy of the book.

Many thanks to Tor.com, Paul, Patrick, SFSignal and Stefan!

 #SFWApro

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Listen to a sample of the Daedalus audiobook!

All right, this is freakin’ cool.

As you probably already know, you can pre-order The Daedalus Incident audiobook, which is due out July 19. What I didn’t know until today was that Amazon posted a sample on its audiobook page.

And it sounds fantastic.

The bit they posted was a snippet from the beginning of Chapter 2, when we first hear from Lt. Thomas Weatherby as he writes in his journal to his father. Bernard Clark is the narrator for the Weatherby sections, and does he ever nail it.

I was a touch leery of listening to the audiobook because, well, I already have the characters’ voices in my head, and wasn’t sure whether hearing someone else’s interpretation would drive me up a wall. But this narrator…I could listen to him all day.

Kristin Kalbli is the other narrator for the book; she’ll be doing the sections featuring Lt. Shaila Jain in the 22nd century Mars setting. Sadly, they didn’t post samples of her work, but if it’s anything like Mr. Clark, it’s gonna rock.

Check it out, and if you like audiobooks, pre-order it! And even if you’re not an audiobook fan, the sample makes a nice intro to what you’ll find in the book, should you prefer to experience Daedalus in writing.

#SFWApro

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Review redux and a Daedalus giveaway

When Stefan Raets reviewed The Daedalus Incident for Tor.com several weeks ago, there was still a lot of uncertainty about when and how the book would come out. Now, with Daedalus available in most major ebook formats (and print coming soon), Stefan was kind enough to re-run his review on his own blog, Far Beyond Reality.

The folks at Skyhorse/Night Shade liked Stefan’s review so much, they’ve put it on the back cover of the book itself. To refresh your memory, this is part of what Stefan said:

The Daedalus Incident is a true genre-bender. It mixes alchemy, quantum physics, and historical figures in ways you haven’t seen before…it’s adventurous, original, and a blast to read.

Be sure to check out the whole thing on Stefan’s blog. And to sweeten the deal, Stefan and I have teamed up to offer a giveaway of The Daedalus Incident to one lucky reader! So click over to the review on his blog; you’ll find the giveaway details at the bottom.

Note that since I don’t yet have print copies in hand, it could take a few weeks before I’m able to drop your copy in the mail. If you can’t wait that long — which I would totally understand — you can order the ebook today and be reading in, like, mere minutes. Instant gratification!

As part of my continued celebration of holy-crap-my-book-is-finally-out, I’ve got a couple of awesome things lined up for next week. So stay tuned!

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Answering Chuck Wendig’s 10 questions

There’s a few reasons while I keep the swearing to a minimum here on my blog. The biggest one is that my kid (and my Official Author Photographer) will probably read this at some point — and well before she’s ready to see her dad drop f-bombs.

The other is that, despite whatever writing skill I may possess, no salty language I put forth will approach the sheer quality of the dizzying, euphoric, creative profanities that spew forth from the mind of Chuck Wendig. Plus, he’s an awesome writer in general.

I’m over at Chuck’s blog today, answering 10 questions about The Daedalus Incident. I loved the questions, loved the tone of his blog and had a blast answering them.

He also gives a ton of great writing advice and has more than a few amazing books of his own, so when you’re done reading about Daedalus — including a new tidbit from the book itself! — check out the rest of his stuff.

#SFWApro

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Guest post on historical fantasy up at SFSignal

Just a quick note: I’m guest posting at the Hugo award-winning SFSignal today, talking about historical fantasy. Given that it’s my subgenre at the moment, I enjoy writing it very much, but I’m also well aware of the pitfalls of playing with history.

And if you’re a fan of science fiction and/or fantasy…man, you really need to be reading SFSignal. They do a great job there.

While I’m here, I also got a great review this past weekend from European book blogger Michael Below, proprietor of Edi’s Book Lighthouse. His verdict on The Daedalus Incident:

“This amazing mix of alternate history, science fiction and mystery is highly entertaining and stands out like a lighthouse in the fog of books.”

Read the whole review here. Thanks, Michael!

Daedalus is now available via Kindle, Nook and Kobo, with print coming soon. Hope everyone’s enjoying it thus far, and if you did, I’d be mighty grateful if you wrote up a review on Goodreads or your venue of choice.

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Daedalus available for Kobo and Nook e-readers! Kindle too!

The rollout of The Daedalus Incident continues! I’m happy to report that the ebook is now available on the Nook and Kobo devices, in addition to being available on the Kindle. And, you know, it makes a fantastic way to spend those Father’s Day gift cards. Just saying.

I still haven’t seen it up in the iBooks store yet, so Apple users, hang tight. It’s coming!

Thank you to everyone who went out and bought Daedalus over the past few days. It’s really gratifying to know that people actually have it in their hands, especially after all we went through to get it out there! And if you’ve read it and liked it, I would certainly be mighty grateful for a review on whatever site you purchased it from, or on Goodreads!
#SFWApro

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Buy The Daedalus Incident on Kindle NOW!

Well, that was fast.

I’m really quite pleased to announce that The Daedalus Incident is now available as an ebook for Kindle users! That’s right, it’s up, it’s live, and you can spend your money on it and read it NOW.

So…what about other formats? And print? Audiobook?

The folks at Start Media tell me that Daedalus will be available via Kobo and Apple in a couple of days. The Nook takes longer, apparently, and we’re talking up to four weeks there. I don’t have links yet, because they’re still processing, but I’ll be sure to post here soon as I have something.

The print version is still on Amazon, B&N and elsewhere with a July 9 release date. I’m not sure how solid that is at the moment, so if I get that confirmed, or if it changes, I’ll let you know. I figure mid- to late July is probably more likely. Of course, you can pre-order it in print now, and when it shows up, it’ll be like your little Christmas in July.

Everyone at Start Media worked hard to get the ebook out quickly, and I’m really grateful to them for fast-tracking it. I know Skyhorse is working equally hard to get the print version out to you folks as soon as humanly possible.

As for the audiobook, Audible isn’t tied to the Skyhorse/Start folks for its release, so you can count on July 19 as a solid release for that. And of course, you can pre-order it now!

So if you have a Kindle, have at it! If you don’t, hang in there. It’s coming soon!
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Guest post: J.M. McDermott on running with the herd

Today I’m swapping guest posts with the awesome J.M. McDermott, author of the Dogsland trilogy and many other excellent works. You can find my guest post in defense of genre-blending here. And if you’re interested in more of J.M.’s works, check out his Amazon affiliate store or look him up at your local independent bookstore.

Take it away, Joe. I’d be proud to be in your herd.

***

So, let’s begin this post with a fact: Goats need a friend. A goat by itself is a very sad, suicidal goat that will not be well-adjusted and will not be a prancing happy goat. Goats, man: They need other goats. A chicken, by itself, will not be a good chicken. It will not know what to do. It will not know where to go. These animals that flock and herd are lost without other animals to accumulate a sense of belonging.

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