Category Archives: Books

May 22, 2015 · 9:23 am

I have a story in the forthcoming Unidentified Funny Objects 4 anthology!

Well, here’s something new and different. I’m quite excited to announce I have a short story in the upcoming SF/F humor anthology Unidentified Funny Objects 4, edited by Alex Shvartsman and due out in November.

My story, “Confessions of an Intergalactic Art Fraud,” will join new original stories by the likes of Piers Anthony, Esther Friesner, Gini Koch, Tim Pratt and the prolific and indefatigable Mike Resnick, and a couple of classic stories by Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin.

Yep, somehow I’ve ended up in an anthology with Gaiman and Martin and so many other exceptionally talented writers. The mind, it boggles.

The cover by Tomasz Maronski is just perfect, isn’t it? Here’s the complete table of contents: Continue reading →

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May 20, 2015 · 5:00 pm

A brief Venusian Gambit excerpt, and a new review of Daedalus

There were a couple of things that hit the Internet over the past couple days I wanted to flag for you guys, especially if you’re fans of the Daedalus series. The books keep chugging along, and yet again, I’m really pleased and humbled with the reception. Thanks for your support and your ratings and reviews! Here we go:

On the Page 69 Test blog, I talked about The Venusian Gambit and discussed some of the elements of the story found on — you guessed it — page 69 of the book. It’s a pretty neat exercise, and I think page 69 of Gambit doesn’t disappoint. Click here to read it, along with the entire page from the book.

Over at SFFWorld, Rob Bedford reviewed The Daedalus Incident and had many nice things to say about it, such as:

The Daedalus Incident is a clear indication of a writer with an interesting and fun story to tell who possesses writing and storytelling skill. All three books have been well-received and I very much look forward to finishing my journey along with Weatherby and Jain through the Solar System in both (maybe more?) universes. Recommended.

Read the whole review here. My thanks to Rob, a man who knows his beer and books.

Finally, I did a guest post today for the New York City Writers Network on how my two decades of experience in journalism and communications prepared me for fiction writing far better than I had realized. There are definitely days where I still have to pinch myself when I realize this whole novelist thing is working out well, but in retrospect, I had been building toward it for a while. Check out the post here.

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May 19, 2015 · 9:21 am

The Gravity of the Affair free for a limited time

Here’s a little incentive for folks to dive in to the Known Worlds of the Daedalus series: The tie-in novella The Gravity of the Affair is now free on Kobo Books, iTunes and Google Play until the end of the month.

This stand-alone story features British naval hero Horatio Nelson’s very first command as an inexperienced lieutenant — on the seas of Ganymede. It loosely ties into some of the events in the first novel, The Daedalus Incident, but is a complete stand-alone tale of adventure at sea and in the Void ’round Jupiter.

Why just Kobo, iTunes and Google Play? Mostly due to pricing policies at the various ebook vendors. If you’re a B&N Nook reader, we managed to get the price down to 99 cents — cheaper than your morning coffee! And for Amazon fans, the price remains at $2.99…for now. (We expect that to drop once Amazon’s hamster-powered algorithms notice the price change on other sites.)

Furthermore, if you want the Audible version, you can get it for just $1.99 — still cheaper than your morning coffee! — and have Bernard Sotero Clark read it to you. (He’s also one of the two narrators for the entire Daedalus series, and both he and Kristin Kalbli really knocked it out of the park.)

So maybe you’ve heard that The Venusian Gambit was pretty good, but you’re still weighing whether this whole sailing-ships-in-space thing is your brand of vodka. Here’s your zero-risk chance to find out. Enjoy!

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May 18, 2015 · 5:45 pm

New interview at SFFWorld, and what’s next at the Qwillery (with giveaway!)

Couple of new items came out today in the parade of all things having to do with The Venusian Gambit.

Over at SFFWorld, Dag Rambraut interviewed me about the series, publishing and writing — there was a great question about sensibility in writing that particularly caught my attention. When I first started, I tended to err on the side of characters making sensible decisions. While characters should, of course, behave according to their personalities and internal logic, the demands of the story often call for a bit more mayhem. Striking that balance is one of many things I’ve learned to do. Check out the full interview here.

And over at the Qwillery, I wrote a guest post on wrapping up the Daedalus series, and what might be next. I’ve had a few folks remark that they’re sad the series is over — which, really, warms my black writer’s heart to no small degree — but for me, it’s kind of been over now for a few months. So I got to riff a bit on what that means, and what’s next. Here’s the post; my thanks to Sally and the gang for having me on.

Speaking of the Qwillery, they’re giving away a signed copy of The Enceladus Crisis as part of that post; you have until May 28 to enter, so get clicking!

Finally, for those attending Phoenix Comicon, I wanted to point out that the now-traditional Drinks With Authors is a go. It’s happening Saturday, May 30, at 6 p.m. at the Sheraton in the Valley of the Sun room — which is possibly the best name a room could possibly have. There will be door prizes and raffles (including, perhaps, some books by yours truly), with all proceeds to benefit the Kids Need to Read charity. Come see authors in their natural habitat — i.e. where drinks are served — and help kids get books. No brainer, right?

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May 14, 2015 · 9:42 am

The Reddit AMA is now live! And I’ve invaded Chuck Wendig’s site, too.

Let’s kick this morning off right. The Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) on Reddit’s r/Fantasy is now live. Click here to post your questions, and I’ll circle back at 9 p.m. ET to answer. Ask about The Venusian Gambit, the Daedalus series, other writing, travel, beer, whatever. Note that I’m also doing a thing in this AMA where you tell me what you’re reading, and I choose a craft beer to accompany your book. Yep, book-and-beer pairings. This is how I roll.

**segue** And I’m also rolling through Chuck Wendig’s blog today! **/segue** The Great Bearded One offered me a full-blown guest post at Terribleminds, then wrote an incredible introduction that left me laughing so hard my kid gave me the stink-eye. So I’m over there talking about the writing process, and how mine different from yours and my wife’s and Chuck’s and how that’s OK.

So check out the guest post, and go ahead and ask me anything on Reddit. Be sure to swing by r/Fantasy later this evening for the answers.

EDIT: The Reddit AMA was a lot of fun. Click here to read through it. My thanks to the gang at r/Fantasy and everyone who participated!

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May 8, 2015 · 5:30 pm

Interview on Publishers Weekly radio, plus Gambit Audible pre-orders

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of returning to Publishers Weekly Radio to talk once more with Rose Fox and Mark Rotella. We had a great chat about getting the Daedalus series published, writing, community…you name it. You can listen to it here, or download it from iTunes. They interview so many awesome authors on the show (Ken Liu! Brandon Sanderson! Gay Talese! Joyce Carol Oates!), so it’s a real honor to do this one. My thanks to Rose and Mark for having me on again,

And here’s a bit of good news for audiobook fans — the Audible edition of The Venusian Gambit is now available for pre-order. It’ll be available on June 23. Why then, as opposed to, say, now? No idea. But it’s coming, and it has the same awesome narrators, Kristin Kalbli and Bernard Sotero Clark, that did the first two books. So get it queued up!

Finally, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, and there’s been a lot of stuff out there on The Venusian Gambit and yours truly — interviews, guest posts, podcasts, reviews, etc. Yes, we basically wallpapered the Internet with the book, if only to remove the chance of anybody being unaware it exists. The good people at Night Shade Books created a handy-dandy blog post with everything done so far — and what’s coming up.

And with that, I segue into a weekend of domestic bliss, including helping out at the 5th grade car wash fundraiser and running a 5K with the family, plus celebrating Mother’s Day. Next week: More stuff, plus my r/Fantasy Reddit AMA on Thursday, May 14. And as a reminder, there’s just nine days left to win a signed copy of The Daedalus Incident in the Qwillery’s giveaway.

Have a good weekend, gang.

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May 6, 2015 · 5:45 pm

A new Gambit review, plus interviews on publishing and editing

First off, thanks to everyone who’s been so supportive of The Venusian Gambit this week. Your blog posts and Twitterings and reviews mean a lot. I appreciate it!

I also appreciate this review from Tracey “TrinityTwo” of the Qwillery, who had this to say about the final book of the Daedalus trilogy:

Part of the beauty of this series is that it’s not simply sci-fi, it’s also daring exploits, nail-biting espionage, brilliant war tactics, and mortal danger experienced by characters the reader truly cares about. In short, it’s kick-ass action with great human drama…. The conclusion of the series is very satisfying; the conflict is resolved in an explosive burst of action with results that made me a bit emotional. I was honestly sad to reach the last page. I will definitely miss reading about Jain and Weatherby’s exploits. The Venusian Gambit is truly sci-fi magic that you won’t want to miss.

That’s pretty much the definition of an awesome review. Thanks to Tracey and Sally for all the good stuff the Qwillery does. The Qwillery is doing a giveaway of a signed copy of The Daedalus Incident, by the way — click here and sign up by May 17 to win!

A couple interviews landed today as well:

Over at Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing, I talked with Robert Junker about, well…my adventures in sci-fi publishing. We talked about the writing and editing, self-publishing vs. traditional, and which beers I’m geeking out on at the moment. Great interview, Robert!
And the illustrious Dan Hanks had me on his site 10:07 to talk about editing. Dan’s a fellow writer and we had a good deep dive on how the books came together, my writing process, the contributions of my fantastic agent and editors — you name it. Check it out!

Finally, an early heads-up for everyone. I’m going to be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on r/Fantasy on Thursday, May 14. Basically, you stop by in the morning, lay down a question or two in the as-yet-unposted-thread, and I’ll swing back in the evening to answer. (You do need to be a registered Reddit user to chime in, but it’s an easy thing to do.) Really looking forward to this one, as r/Fantasy is a pretty awesome community.

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May 5, 2015 · 6:00 pm

Launch day! SF Signal reviews The Venusian Gambit, plus My Favorite Bit

Well, the day has come, and the final installment of the Daedalus series has set sail. All the great reviews and fan anticipation around The Venusian Gambit have made me feel very proud, more than a little humbled…and, I’ll happily admit, somewhat relieved! I’m quite happy it’s been so well received, and grateful to everyone who’s been reading the series.

Today, SF Signal published its full review of The Venusian Gambit. We put a snippet of Paul Weimer’s review on the back cover, but here he goes into more detail. Such as:

Exciting action and strong diverse characters; good use of asynchronous time streams in character development…. A fine end to the trilogy that has grown along with the author…. The Daedalus series is a fun and entertaining science fantasy series that is compulsively readable. With a clear maturing of the author’s characterizations, in addition to his refinement of his sense of plotting and action in the concluding volume, I look forward to what Martinez’s pen will bring us next.

To be fair, I write in Word, because a pen would be prohibitively time-consuming! But I wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment, and I’m very grateful to Paul for all his support for the series.

Also today, I wrote a guest post for Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog: My Favorite Bit about The Venusian Gambit. There were a lot of favorites in this book, from the grand battle between Englishmen and French zombies (and Venusian lizard-aliens and 22nd century mech-explorers) to the various characters that I grew attached to as they evolved through the series. But my favorite bit ended up being…well, read the guest post!

The release also warranted a very nice blog post over at KT Literary, and made the new release page over at Locus. It’s been a good day.

Later tonight: The now-traditional celebratory fancy beer! Because that’s how I roll. Later this week: More interesting stuff!

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May 4, 2015 · 5:45 pm

Talking historical fantasy on Tor.com

It’s launch week! Which means I’m going to assault the Internet with all kinds of interviews and guests posts about my work. Apologies in advance, though I’ve tried to make it, you know, interesting and stuff.

Today, for example, I’m over at Tor.com with a guest post: Five Books About Fiction History. Except that I really couldn’t do just five. I mentioned something like 11, I believe. Whatever…there’s a lot of great historical fantasy and alternate-history books out there, and I wanted to spread the word. Check it out!

Also, I’m participating in an International Thriller Writers roundtable this week on series titles. The Daedalus series was kind of named almost by default, because we wanted the second and third books to remain tied to The Daedalus Incident. But it seems to be working, so I won’t complain.

And tomorrow, The Venusian Gambit hits shelves! And ebook readers, because we live in the future. Can’t wait!

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May 4, 2015 · 9:41 am

The Venusian Gambit acknowledgements

As is now tradition, I’m posting the acknowledgements from The Venusian Gambit here on the blog. This is my way of saying thanks to all the awesome folks who helped me put this book — and the entire series — out there for you to read. And if I missed anybody, I apologize! The more I do this, the more I realize just how many folks it takes to do this stuff, and I’m immensely grateful to everyone who had a hand in it.