Tag Archives: Venusian Gambit

May 19, 2015 · 9:21 am

The Gravity of the Affair free for a limited time

gravitycover-hiresHere’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!)

TVG-cover-finalCouple 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 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

TVG-cover-finalWell, 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

TVG-cover-finalAs 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.

***

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May 2, 2015 · 4:00 pm

Just 24 hours to go to bid on signed copies of the Daedalus trilogy

Con Or BustWe’re down to the wire in the Con or Bust charity auction, which wraps up on Sunday, May 3, at 4 p.m. EDT. Thus, as of this writing, you have just 24 hours to bid on a complete Daedalus trilogy, including The Venusian Gambit, all signed by yours truly and shipped to your very door.

This is the first charity gig where I’ve been able to offer all three books, which makes it pretty special to me. And the proceeds of this auction help people of color attend SF/F conventions around the country. People of color are sadly underrepresented at most of the cons I’ve been to — though the bigger the con, the better the representation — and we’re all the better for it when we share what we love with as wide a range of people as possible. So, I’m in, and I hope you are too.

To bid, just put your dollar amount in the comments section of this page. Should you win, the auction administrators will put us together so I can sign your books — personalized if you so choose — and send them out to you.

There’s a heap of other cool stuff up for bid as well, so I urge you to surf through and see what strikes your geeky fancy. In addition, you can donate directly to Con or Bust. Recently, a generous soul has offered to match donations made directly, so good karma on you if you help out that way. Find out more about the donations and match here.

That’s enough blog-reading for now; you have some bidding to do. Go forth, good luck, and thanks in advance for contributing!

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May 1, 2015 · 5:00 pm

The Venusian Gambit featured in ITW’s The Big Thrill and BuzzFeed Community

I recently joined International Thriller Writers, an organization for authors who write thrillers and the various sub-genres associated with them. Yes, I’m very much a science fiction/fantasy writer, but I think my work does share some DNA with more conventional thrillers — and a lot of other SF/F books do, too.

(Plus, I’m looking to do something a bit more closely aligned with the thriller genre at some point, so stay tuned there.)

Anyway, as a member of ITW, I got to do a write-up about thrilling SF/F — including The Venusian Gambit — for the latest edition of The Big Thrill, ITW’s monthly newsletter. Here’s hoping we get some traditional spy/crime thriller readers to take a walk on the weird side. Give it a click and check it out.

Also, Gambit was featured by Andrew Liptak in his “30 Science Fiction, Fantasy And Horror Books To Pick Up In May 2015” posting on BuzzFeed Community. As always, I’m delighted to be in such fine literary company, and my thanks to Andrew for seeing fit to include the book.

I know Amazon has already started delivering print editions of The Venusian Gambit, but everyone else still has to wait until Tuesday, May 5, to get it downloaded or buy it in a bookstore. But hey, that’s just four days away. Have a good weekend, go see Avengers: Age of Ultron (I know you already planned that) and then start reading Tuesday!

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April 24, 2015 · 8:47 am

The Venusian Gambit is at my house

And the circle is now complete. It’s a very lovely thing to see.

To be fair, I didn’t get all that teary-eyed, but there was definitely some warm fuzzies happening. This is the first time I’ve had all three books together on my shelf, and it’s a great feeling. The Venusian Gambit comes out on May 5, and I hope it looks just as spiffy on your shelves as well. Or on your e-reader. Whatever works for you.

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