Michael J. Martinez

Tag: Venusian Gambit

The Venusian Gambit reviewed at Amazing Stories
Good reviews, they do not get old. At all.

Alt-history guru Matt Mitrovich, proprietor of the immensely entertaining Alternate History Weekly Update, took to the pages of Amazing Stories to review The Venusian Gambit. His take:

I really enjoyed reading this series and The Venusian Gambit was a good way to end it. The world-building in the novel was excellent. …Martinez’ characters remain complex and I am happy he kept averting many over-used tropes. …The Daedalus series was a fun mash-up of different genres and The Venusian Gambit managed to have a satisfying conclusion while leaving us with just enough uncertainty to keep it realistic. Will Martinez write more books set in his multiverse? I don’t know, perhaps I will ask him when I get the chance, but whatever he writes I am sure to pick up a copy.

Read the whole review here. To Matt’s question: At this point, I’m looking at new projects, both within alt-history/historical fantasy and without, so I’m probably not heading back to the Known Worlds any time soon. That said…I love this setting and these characters, and if I’m lucky enough to keep doing this a while, who knows? It’ll depend on whether I have a great story to tell.

Many thanks to Matt and Amazing Stories for the kind words and all the support shown for the Daedalus series. Gambit is out May 5 — click here to find out where you can pre-order it!

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April 21, 2015
Con or Bust auctions start today! Bid on a signed Daedalus trilogy!
As promised, this is your reminder that bidding is now open in Con or Bust‘s charity auction. And that one of the auction items is the complete Daedalus trilogy, including the forthcoming The Venusian Gambit, all signed. Heck, let’s even say signed and dedicated if you so choose.

You have until midnight on Sunday, May 3, to get your bids in. We’re starting off at $25, which is a pretty solid discount off the cover price for all three books. So get in there and get your bids placed! And while you’re at it, check out the other items up for auction, too. You may yet see a bid or two from me on some of these. They’re that awesome.

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April 20, 2015
The Venusian Gambit makes Library Journal‘s monthly SF/F roundup
I’m very happy to see that The Venusian Gambit made it into Library Journal‘s recent roundup of forthcoming SF/F titles. There’s only a handful of books mentioned out of the several dozen coming out in May, so I was pretty excited to see Gambit in there. My thanks to Megan McCardle and the whole Library Journal crew for once again showing the Daedalus series some love.

Also worth noting within the LJ roundup: A quote from The Clockwork Crown by Beth Cato (she who blurbed Gambit so nicely), and a mention of The Rebirths of Tao by all-around great guy Wes Chu.

And congratulation to Molly Tanzer for her debut novel, Vermilion, named the LJ debut of the month in that same roundup. Fun fact: The Daedalus Incident was the SF/F debut of the month in LJ two years ago. The editor of my debut? Ross Lockhart. The editor of Molly’s debut? Ross Lockhart.

The editor of the Cthulhu Fhtagn! anthology coming out in August with my short story in it? Ross Lockhart.

Ross is now the proprietor of Word Horde and has continued kicking ass and taking names, as you can plainly see. He’s a fantastic editor and all his kudos are well deserved indeed. And I can’t wait to read Vermillion as well — it sounds amazing. Way to go, Molly!

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April 19, 2015
Nook and Kobo readers! The Venusian Gambit now available for pre-order
First there was Kindle, and now The Venusian Gambit is available on Barnes & Noble’s Nook as well as via Kobo Books. Still waiting for Apple iBooks and Google Play, but those tend to take a bit longer; I’ll post when I see them go live.

Of course, you can still pre-order Gambit in print from all the usual suspects: Mysterious Galaxy, Books-A-Million,Barnes & Noble, IndieBound and Amazon. Of course, pre-ordering from your local bookseller makes you even more awesome than you already are. And for audiobook fans, it’s due out on Audible very soon.

The Venusian Gambit officially launches May 5, and with it the Daedalus trilogy comes to an end. I’m excited to see it out there — hope everyone enjoys it!

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April 16, 2015
Signed copies of the entire Daedalus trilogy up for auction to benefit Con or Bust
I freakin’ love the fact that this whole author thing allows me to meaningfully contribute to great charities. I’ve helped to raise over a grand for various charities over the past two years, which fills me with warm fuzzy karma. And it’s fantastic to see so many great people donate to awesome causes.

So let’s do it again, shall we?

Con or Bust is a great charity that helps people of color attend SF/F conventions. I think promoting diversity in fandom is very much a worthwhile endeavor, as speculative fiction has historically been about embracing differences and exploring a wide variety of perspectives. We need more of it.

This is my third time participating in the annual Con or Bust auctions, and now that the Daedalus trilogy is finished, I’m proud to offer up signed copies of all three books — The Daedalus Incident, The Enceladus Crisis and The Venusian Gambit — for auction this year.

The auction page is here. Bidding will start at $25, and I hope it goes through the roof. You can start bidding on Monday, April 20; bidding ends Sunday, May 3. Yes, I’ll remind you again when we’re up and running, but it’s never too early to begin saving up your pennies.

And yes, this includes The Venusian Gambit, which is due out May 5. With shipping, you probably won’t get it before the release date, but you’ll probably have the very first signed copy. (Well, one that isn’t an ARC.) That’s gotta be worth a few bucks, right?

Be sure to check out the other Con or Bust auctions as well. There’s a lot of great stuff there, and it’s all for a good cause. Let’s keep making SF/F the kind of welcoming, inclusive community we want it to be.

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April 14, 2015
Kindle pre-orders for The Venusian Gambit up and running
All right, ebook fans! Pre-orders for the Kindle version of The Venusian Gambit are up and running over at Amazon. If Kindle’s your jam, go forth and pre-order, and then it will magically appear on your device of choice May 5. What a time to be alive!

I’m still keeping an eye out for Nook, Kobo, iTunes and Google Play, and will let you folks know as soon as they’re available for pre-order. Also, I’m told that they’ve begun recording the Gambit audiobook for Audible, which is very exciting indeed — they really knocked it out of the park on the first two books. Soon as I see an Audible page, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Of course, you can still pre-order the print version from Mysterious Galaxy, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound and Amazon. The good people at Borderlands Books in San Francisco will also hook you up, and I urge you to buy local whenever you can, because local bookstores are awesome.

We’re less than a month away from the conclusion of the Daedalus trilogy and I couldn’t be happier with the reception thus far. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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April 10, 2015
The Venusian Gambit gets a starred review from Publishers Weekly
I’ve known about this one for a little over a week now, but it’s still just absolutely amazing and leaves me dazed every time I read it. Publishers Weekly saw fit to give The Venusian Gambit a starred review! And they said such incredibly nice things, such as:

Overflowing with complexity and eloquence, the conclusion to Martinez’s Daedalus Trilogy (following The Enceladus Crisis) seamlessly blends popular elements from science fiction and fantasy, producing a work that raises the bar for both.

It then goes on to give a summary of Gambit, which proves to me that, yes, they are indeed talking about my book. I mean, it’s always good to check, right? And they sum it up by saying:

[Martinez] skillfully handles the intricacies of characterization and the many moving parts, building to the trilogy’s utterly satisfying and quite epic finale.

There’s more at the link, of course, including that very shiny star next to the title. I know we’re supposed to act like we’ve been there, done that — and indeed, The Daedalus Incident received a starred review and year-end honors from Library Journal when it came out, which was amazing — but this was exceedingly special and I am mighty grateful for it.

My thanks to the folks at Publishers Weekly for giving The Venusian Gambit a shot — they get a LOT of books to review and can’t always get to all of them. And FYI, I’ll be returning to the PW Radio podcast in May to talk about the Daedalus trilogy and whatever else I got going on, so stay tuned for that.

The Venusian Gambit comes out May 5. Click here for pre-order info and more. Can’t wait to see this one out there!

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March 30, 2015