Friday, April 27, 2012

Edition du Club France Loisirs

I found something interesting in one of the boxes waiting for me here in MA. It's this:
Wait, how'd that cat get in there? I mean it's this:
It is, apparently, a bookclub edtion of Terres étrangères. I didn't even know there was such a thing. For that matter, I don't recall knowing that there was a bookclub version for La guerre du Mein, but apparently there was! Take a look.

Well... good for me. These sorts of things happen. At least it's good news! As is the fact that I'm off to France for Imaginales in about a month!

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Thursday, April 26, 2012

Move Completed

It wasn't easy. There were soooooo many things to organize as we moved our family of four (plus cat and dog) across the ocean. Much stress, so many opportunities for things to go wrong. Amazingly, it all went rather smoothly. There was only one mishap...

I won't go into too many details, but it involved a large, upset dog that made an explosive mess in his crate at the airport. For a scary moment, it looked like we wouldn't be able to fly. I volunteered to... ah, clean the crate, though. That's what I did. As the other passengers boarded the plane, I got on my hands and knees, rubber gloves and a roll of paper towels in hand, and went to work. Not fun. I got it done, and we flew. The pup did alright in the end.

All is well now. Well, almost...

We're not actually living in our house yet. We have renters in it that still have a few months on their lease. Instead, we're staying in an uninsulated one-room lakeside shack. No kidding. It's lovely, but it's just a step above camping. It's been pretty cold as well... We're grateful, though, for the loan of the place.

So, that's what I've been up to. Hopefully, I'll be posting here regularly again. And, hopefully, I'll have some actual news soon!

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Trade Paperback Reboot!

Minutes away from starting the drive toward the Glasgow airport, but I can't help posting news...

As of today, the entire Acacia Trilogy is available in trade paperback editions. Anchor saw fit to republish them in the slightly larger format. I think they make a handsome set, and it doesn't suck that there's a blurb from George RR Martin splattered across the top of each cover!

If you've ever had the hankering for buying them in a format between the hardcover and the massmarket versions, that's now possible. They'd make nice gifts, too...

I've made a few edits, by the way, to the first book. Nothing added, but lots of small trims made to the text. I think you'll find the story completely intact, but with quicker pacing at the beginning. I'm pleased with the changes.

Okay, gotta go...

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Unfettered

Proud to announce that I'll be contributing a story for the Unfettered anthology, a project intended to help out Shawn Speakman - webmaster extraordinaire - as he confronts a mountain of medical costs. (Yep, it's one of those American lack of a real healthcare system stories. I so wish we could get that sorted out. I mean really sorted out.)

Here's the press release:

 GRIM OAK PRESS TO PUBLISH UNFETTERED FANTASY ANTHOLOGY 

Genre’s Best Writers to Contribute Against Fellow Writer’s Cancer Debt SEATTLE, WA — Grim Oak Press, a new publishing company formed by webmaster and freelance writer Shawn Speakman, will be producing Unfettered, a fantasy short story anthology by some of the best writers in the genre, for a very good cause. 

In 2011, Speakman was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He completed the recommended chemotherapy, but lacking health insurance, the treatment left him with almost $200,000 of financial debt. At the suggestion of New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks, and with the help of nearly two dozen authors who call Speakman a friend, Grim Oak Press will publish the short story anthology Unfettered, with the proceeds helping to alleviate the medical bills. 

Authors contributing include: Terry Brooks, Patrick Rothfuss, Naomi Novik, Brandon Sanderson, RA Salvatore, Tad Williams, Jacqueline Carey, Daniel Abraham, Peter V.Brett, Robert VS Redick, Peter Orullian, Todd Lockwood, Carrie Vaughn, Blake Charlton, Kevin Hearne, Mark Lawrence, David Anthony Durham, Jennifer Bosworth, Lev Grossman, Steven Erikson, and Shawn Speakman. 

Some of the authors will be writing short stories set in the fantasy worlds that made them famous. Other writers will be creating entirely new tales. The contribution by so many noteworthy authors of bestselling titles speaks to the generosity found within the science fiction and fantasy communities. 

Unfettered will be published as a trade hardcover as well as a leather-bound, signed and numbered edition limited to 500 copies and autographed by all contributors. Speakman will also publish his full-length urban/high fantasy novel, The Dark Thorn, through Grim Oak Press to further offset treatment expenses. 

 Orders are currently being accepted for The Dark Thorn, which is tentatively scheduled to publish in August 2012. Unfettered will be released by early 2013. 

I hope you'll check out Grim Oak Press and Unfettered and The Dark Thorn!

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Monday, April 16, 2012

Turmoil

In complete turmoil as we approach our moving day! We've been in moving mode for two weeks already, but tomorrow we head toward the final stages. It's picking up the rental van and stuffing it full of our bags, and then we drive to Glasgow on Wed for our very early flight on Thurs. There's way too much organizing going on.

Craziness.

But I don't feel I should neglect the old blog/Facebook, so today I offer the happy news that the fabulous UK publisher Gollancz has agreed to reboot the Wild Cards series in Britain! Seems they couldn't turn down GRRM! They'll be publishing the first three books later this year, and then jumping forward to continue with the newer books next year. So before long my characters may be slithering through the UK. I'm pleased about that.

More soon.

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Sunday, April 15, 2012

Couple of Nice Reviews

Catching up on linking to a few newish reviews of Acacia-related stuff.

Dave Brendon finished up the series and talks about it HERE: DaveBrendon's Fantasy & SciFi Weblog.

Pornokitsch's Underground Reading series writes wonderfully about Acacia HERE.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A Missing First Line

I've been crazy-busy this last week. Between moving out of Upper Park, staying with friends in Aberfeldy, saying goodbye to the wife and kids (who headed toward the Isle of Rum from a family meet-up), to driving up to Aberdeenshire to drop off our stuff and our pets with my sister-in-law (who then also headed to Rum), to driving in to Aberdeen and flying to London for Eastercon, to returning to Aberdeenshire, meeting up with the wife and kids (and everyone else that was on Rum), to driving down to Edinburgh and playing host to our neighbors from Massachusetts... well, it's been a bit hectic.

All throughout it, a batted emails back and forth about some very interesting new developments (more on those if anything comes of them, of course), and I kept reading student work.

I even tried to do some writing! (Not very successfully.)

I want to post at length about Eastercon, as it was a terrific con and I'm very glad I went. So, that post will come.

Right now, though, I want to mention another writer - Mary Robinette Kowal. She has a new novel out today, Glamour in Glass, and guess what? Somehow, at the last minute, the first line of the novel was cut out. Yikes. The book that's hitting shelves as I speak begins exactly one line after she intended. As horrible as that is, Mary has done an absolutely brilliant job of bouncing back from it.

Go check out all the creative things she's done. She's made someone's massive mistake into a wonderfully memorable launch. And talk about instant collector's items....

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