Stomping on Yeti

In Which I Threaten To Lose All Respect For The Hugo Award

2012-01-30T20:50:00.001-06:00

Earlier today, I got the heads up via Twitter that GRRM himself referenced my blog in a LiveJournal entry about Hugo Award Nominees. (I think I might post that to Facebook and add it as a reference on LinkedIn just to round out the social media cycle.) He was writing about the controversy surrounding the Best Fanzine category. Last year the Hugo community voted to limit eligibility to traditional e-zines, ostracizing "new media" fan contributions like blogs and podcasts. The post has sparked some interesting discussion and I'd recommend you check it out. Particularly the point at which he says

"I think there are some great fannish blogs and e-zines and podcasts out there, I think they are the future, and I'm going to nominate a bunch of them. Some of my own favorites include PAT'S FANTASY HOTLIST, THE WERTZONE, MAKING LIGHT, THE BLOG OF THE FALLEN (okay, he doesn't like my stuff, but it's still a good read), STOMPING ON YETI, CHEESE MAGNETS, HATHOR LEGACY, and PUNKADIDDLE."

Blatant redaction aside, I am pretty excited to know that Mr. Martin is not only aware of this travesty I call a book blog, but that he felt it was worth nominating for a Hugo Award. Granted, it's not, but it's nice that he thought so. To put it in "gif" form, I would be Stephen Colbert to GRRM's no-nonsense Barney Frank.

It's pretty much the coolest thing that's happened to Stomping on Yeti since Neil Gaiman directly linked my blog from his. The traffic, my cthulu, the traffic...

I suspect it has something to do with my press release for A FLOOD OF FLAMES, the sixth and final book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Or maybe he just has a penchant for things which are released once every couple of years. (Sorry, couldn't resist). Either way, very cool.

That being said - please don't vote for me. I've been a really crappy blogger recently and I in no way deserve any attention for my work here. If I even found my way onto the ballot (I assure you I won't), I would lose 99% of my respect for the Hugo award.
If you're a regular reader, I hope to get back into the swing of things now that I've got a little bit more free time. I still owe you (and a lot of worthy authors) spotlight posts for November, December, and January. I've got them in various states of completion - I just need to get them posted.

Alternatively, if you've found this blog for the first time as a result of someone's GRRMblings, welcome! I hope you enjoy what you find here and if you want to find the good stuff, ignore the last month or so.

And for all, if you do like my writing and want me to keep doing this, I would encourage you to stop by often and contribute to the conversation through comments. And not just on Stomping on Yeti - this extends to the blogs of all my wonderful compatriots who send their words into the internet ether for the sheer satisfaction of doing so. The vast majority of us don't get paid for this (I sure as hell don't) and it really means a lot to know people are reading it and that they appreciate the effort - even if we don't get to have an official category at the Hugos.

Covering Covers: The Straits of Galahesh - Bradley P. Beaulieu

2012-01-23T22:51:00.000-06:00

Cover Artist: Todd Lockwood
Cover Design: Claudia Noble

I suppose its okay. But it's no The Winds of Khalakovo.

If I saw both books on the shelf I would be drawn to Winds 10 times out of 10. It's unique, atmospheric, and clean. And the airship is awesome. The sequel is text heavy, blocky, and depicts a man about to lose his ability to have children after he slams his Galahesh into the title text box. Seriously though, he's both in front of and behind that thing. It's going to hurt.

But then again I'm not a marketing expert. If the new cover gets more people to buy into Brad Beaulieu's Cyrillic flavored fantasy series, great. A bad cover isn't going to stop me from reading it.

Here's the full layout.

Here's the back cover text blown up:

West of the Grand Duchy of Anuskaya lies the Empire of Yrstanla, the Motherland. The Empire has lived at peace with Anuskaya for generations, but with political turmoil brewing and the wasting disease still rampant, opportunists from the mainland have begun to set their sights on the Grand Duchy, seeking to expand their empire.

Five years have passed since Prince Nikandr, heir to the scepter of Khalakovo, was tasked with finding Nasim, the child prodigy behind a deadly summoning that led to a grand clash between the armies of man and elder elemental spirits. Today, that boy has grown into a young man driven to understand his past - and the darkness from which Nikandr awakened him. Nikandr's lover, Atiana, has become a Matra, casting her spirit forth to explore, influence, and protect the Grand Duchy. But when the Al-Aqim, long thought lost to the past, return to the islands and threaten to bring about indaraqiram - a change that means certain destruction for both the Landed and the Landless - bitter enemies must become allies and stand against their horrific plans.

Can the Grand Duchy be saved? The answer lies hidden within The Straits of Galahesh

From Bradley P. Beaulieu, author of the critically acclaimed debut novel The Winds of Khalakovo, comes Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya, The Straits of Galahesh.

The 2nd book of Beaulieu's Lays of Anuskaya series will be out April 17th, 2012 from Night Shade Books.

Epically ConFused...

2012-01-22T23:59:00.000-06:00

Much to the surprise of my Wednesday self, on Friday night I found myself braving the treacherous winter conditions en route to Detroit, MI to attend Epic ConFusion - my first ever con.
I really didn't know what to expect except that I would probably see a great line up of authors. Big names like Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, and John Scalzi as well as a few newer authors that I've chatted with including Saladin Ahmed, Kameron Hurley, Bradley Beaulieu, Myke Cole, Douglas Hulick. Throw in a few more-established favorites like Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Peter V. Brett, and Brent Weeks and I couldn't not go. Plus this guy was going to be there.

As it turns out, the line-up and the winter storms combined to make for an incredible weekend. For every author that was there, there were ten fans that weren't, resulting in what had to be a 2:1 author to fan ratio. I couldn't stumble across the bar without falling into one of my favorite authors and every one of them was more than willing to sit down and have a drink or a bite to eat. I could go on and on but I don't think I could it justice. Here's a brief rundown of the things I learned this weekend:

Joe Abercrombie apparently refers to playing Skyrim as "writing RED COUNTRY." He's about 80% done.

As far as epic duels go, none would be as epically epic as a cute-off between Rothfuss's rugrat and the Buckell twins. If such an event were to occur, civilization as we know it would cease to exist.
One Cthulu is terrifying. Two Cthulu is barely comprehensible. An overweight woman wearing two stuffed Cthulu's as a bra and little else? THE HORROR. THE HORROR.
100% of the women polled agreed that Joe Abercrombie was sexier than China Mieville. On a related note, while I listened to him give a Gaiman-caliber reading from THE HEROES, my wife watched him say something in a Britishy accent - she's not quite sure what.

A prophecy was spoken - 2013 will bring the reign of the Mormish One, who promises blood and guns and magic. More on this when things are officially announced.
Peter V. Brett believes its okay to comment on reviews. Except in the case of those posted on Staffer's Musings - Justin is huge and will kick your ass.

If Douglas Hulick is the Peter Mayhew of the SFF world, Myke Cole is the Kenny Baker.
John Scalzi is an ARC troll. He paraded his newly printed copy of REDSHIRTS around like a 2001 third grader with a Charizard foil card. I was sorely tempted to steal it from him when he let me hold it but my ethical side prevailed. (Okay, his wife might have tackled me when I was running from the room.) The prologue he read at his panel was incredible. When can I haz?
Saladin Ahmed inexplicably has an inferiority complex. THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON might only be 300 pages of words but it contains 600 pages worth of awesome.

The only thing cooler than having a book signed by an author is having a book signed by an author twice. Apparently, I grabbed the wrong copy of GOD'S WAR off the book shelf...luckily Kameron Hurley is awesome.
Joe Abercrombie is an Arkansawyer, a shameless self-promoter, and a huge fan of Two Truths and a Lie. This is not always popular.

There appears to be a correlation between authors who are very successful and authors who focus on story before world building.
Patrick Rothfuss's beard is to quiet contemplative brillance what Samson's locks were to strength. Hopefully his legend will end with all involved structures fully intact.

All in all - I laughed, I cried, I saw things I can never unsee, and I met some people I look forward to seeing again. Epic ConFusion lived up to its name and then some.

WWLD: What Would Lucas Do?

2011-12-14T00:38:00.000-06:00

Ensign: But sir, I don't know if the market can stand another sequel.

Captain: Acknowledged. Reverse thrusters. Full power.

Ensign: Sir, are you sure, that would mean...

Captain: Yes, ensign - it's time for

PREQUELS

The sad thing is that if the upcoming movie does well, this is only going to get worse.

Have we learned nothing from Dune or Pern?

Covering Covers (and Contents): The YBSF: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection - Gardner Dozois

2011-12-12T20:49:00.000-06:00

Via Pat Cadigan's livejournal via Tobias Buckell's twitter, here is the line-up for Dozois's 29th annual SF collection:

"The Choice" by Paul Mcauley
"Silently And Very Fast" by Catherynne M. Valente
"The Man Who Bridged The Mist" by Kij Johnson
"The Ants Of Flanders" by Robert Reed
"A Soldier Of The City" by David Moles
"The Invasion Of Venus" by Stephen Baxter
"Laika's Ghost" by Karl Schroeder
"The Beancounter's Cat" by Damien Broderick
"The Vicar Of Mars" by Gwyneth Jones
"Dolly" by Elizabeth Bear
"Martian Heart" by John Barnes
"Ascension Day" by Alastair Reynolds
"The Smell Of Orange Groves" by Lavie Tidhar
"After The Apocalypse" by Maureen McHugh
"A Long Way Home" by Jay Lake
"What We Found" by Geoff Ryman
"The Incredible Exploding Man" by Dave Hutchinson
"The Copenhagen Interpretation" by Paul Cornell
"The Way It Works Out And All" by Peter S. Beagle
"The Dala Horse" by Michael Swanwick
"Earth Hour" by Ken MacLeod
"The Ice Owl" by Carolyn Ives Gilman
"Digital Rites" by Jim Hawkins
"Cody" by Pat Cadigan
"Ghostweight" by Yoon Ha Lee
"A Response From Est17" by Tom Purdom
"Digging" by Ian McDonald
"A Militant Peace" by David Klecha & Tobias S. Buckell
"For I Have Lain Me Down On The Stone Of Loneliness And I'll Not Be Back Again" by Michael Swanwick
"The Iron Shirts" by Michael Flynn
"The Boneless One" by Alec Nevala-Lee
"Canterbury Hollow" by Chris Lawson
"The Cold Step Beyond" by Ian R. MacLeod
"The Vorkuta Event" by Ken MacLeod
"Dying Young" by Peter M. Ball

Lots of familiar names on that list - and a few new (to me) ones. Got some more reading to do...

As for the cover, I'm afraid Dozois continues to lose ground to Strahan, whose competing 6th volume features this gorgeous piece of art:

Or maybe it's just me. Either way, congrats to all the authors who were selected!

Suicide Watch

2011-12-10T13:55:00.000-06:00

Some advice for all the noobs out there - mainlining the first 60 issues of The Walking Dead is not good for your soul.

Need a visual representation?

And that guy was a Ned Flanders-class optimist before he started reading.

I fear the only cure is to eat copious amounts of fresh, warm-out-of-the-oven Christmas cookies.

Wish me luck.

Books Received and Other Things

2011-12-06T23:59:00.001-06:00

Still here. Still around. Trying to figure out some real world type stuff while not letting the day job implode. We can't all start our own publishing imprint... Although I wouldn't be opposed. In the mean time, here's what I've received recently...

That's right - yours truly has obtained a copy of The Drowned Cities and I didn't even have to defraud a teaching convention to do it. Although that's not to say I wouldn't if I had the chance.

In other news, I hope to have a review of Michael Sullivan's Theft of Swords up in the near future. I finished the book/books yesterday and I was impressed if not blown away. The first book feels a little "self-published" (if that's a thing) at first but Sullivan eventually finds a rhythm and puts together two solid fantasy outings. There are a few pacing problems which lead me to question the omnibus format but I was pleasantly reminded of my childhood experience of reading The Belgariad.

In any event, Rise of Empire has jumped up the reading list. But should I read that or Seed? Or Throne of the Crescent Moon? Or The Drowned Cities? Decisions, decisions...

Kindle Fire Impressions : Day One

2011-11-17T10:12:00.000-06:00

Unboxed my Kindle Fire yesterday and spent the afternoon playing around with my new toy. Here's some early impressions.

Between an Amazon Prime subscription (which I already have) for Video and Books and Pandora for music, I could go probably go months without paying for any actual content. Throw in a Netflix or Hulu+ account and a few cheap eBook deals and I certainly could keep myself entertained for less than $200 bucks a year. I'm one of the million or so that dropped at least part of their Netflix account in the last few months and with the Kindle Fire as a content portal, I might go back.

I don't like the way the Fire organizes user-uploaded videos. Currently, it puts them in the photo gallery . If you're trying to watch a TV season in order, it's tricky to tell which episode is which. Unlike iTunes, there doesn't seem to be anyway to supply this metadata yourself. I also haven't found a way to increase the size of the thumbnails or display the file names or some other method to clean things up.

Speaking of user supplied content, the file system / mini-USB connection leaves a lot to be desired. We've got three computers in the YetiHousehold (2 Win / 1 Mac) and the connection only worked the first time on the Mac. The other two computers couldn't seem to connect with any regularity. The mini USB pin also seems to be slightly defective as it would sometime lose the connection with nothing more than a small movement of the wire.

The built-in store interface is clean but browsing is difficult. One thing that bugs me is the separation of SF and F books. That's like moving Bert and Ernie into a duplex. There might be better ways to sort and browse but if they aren't obvious to the user, that's a failure on the interface design team.

The app store is very sparse right now. I'm going to assume that will fill up with time but right now, there isn't a whole lot to get excited about. Would love to see some old RPG ports from PS1 or SNES but I don't know if that's realistic. I can only launch so many ornithic missles at porcine targets before I need something new.

Browsing the web on this is fine. I wouldn't do a lot of typing but for basic browsing it works fairly well. I haven't really noticed if and when the Silk functionality come into play, but everything has loaded just fine. Not sure if it takes a little while to get to know my habits or not.

Touch screen responsiveness is the closest I've seen to the iPad / iPod Touch. No complaints on that front, which is one of the places where competing devices fall short most often.

I haven't read anything for any extended period of time but I do like the ability to have a back lit, low brightness screen. Good for reading in bed without disturbing the YetiWife, although I always end up falling asleep while reading before she does.

There is an odd sense of disappointment that comes along with the purchase of any technology centered around content consumption. While you have new ways to interact with your content, at the end of the day, you've got the same content you had before. It's like buying a really nice filing cabinet.

Bottom line: The Amazon Kindle is a near perfect device for content consumption (music, books, video, web browsing). It's lacking as a productivity device but it's not really being sold as such, especially not for $200.

More later, but aside from the USB connectivity I like everything I've seen so far.

YetiStomper Picks for October

2011-11-13T23:00:00.001-06:00

So I'm going to run through my October picks a little quicker than usual. And a little later than usual. Not just because I'm somewhat time deficient at the moment. More so that there are TWENTY ONE books to discuss.

For an industry that's dying, that's a pretty steady heartbeat.

Swell - Corwin Ericson

Stand Alone Novel - Swell is a curious little book that straddles the fine line between literature and genre, depicting an absurd adventure that never takes itself too seriously. Ericson's prose might be a little overwrought at times but he hits far more often than he misses, resulting in a impressive debut that never fails to entertain. (October 25 from Dark Coast Press)

The Children of the Sky - Vernor Vinge

Zones of Thought, Book 2 - It's been 18 years since Vinge's modern SF classic of galactic proportions took the SF world by storm. The universe established in A Fire Upon The Deep begged for a sequel and we've finally got it. The early buzz is that The Children of the Sky doesn't quite live up to the standard set by it's progenitor but if it's even half as good, it will still be one of the best SF books of the year. (October 11 from Tor)

Osama: A Novel - Lavie Tidhar

Stand Alone Novella - The early contender for timely release of the year before Steve Jobs's autobiography became the book of 2011, Osama is a title everyone should recognize. But the character which Tidhar depicts is not the Bin Laden we all know and despise. Has Tidhar constructed a modern version of Philip K. Dick's seminal The Man in the High Castle? I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks so. (September 21 from PS Publishing)

The Cold Commands - Richard Morgan

A Land Fit For Heroes, Book 2 - Noted SF author Morgan's first foray into fantasy was met with mixed feelings. Now he's back for another go at hard edged fantasy in the vein of Martin and Abercrombie with The Cold Commands. (October 11 from Del Rey)

The Third Section - Jasper Kent

The Danilov Quintet, Book 3 - Kent's vampire saga reaches the halfway point as Dmitry Alekseevich Danilov picks up the fight his father started over 40 years ago. Part sprawling historical epic, part dark fantasy, The Danilov Quintet is one of Pyr's best offerings. (October 25 from Pyr)

Infidel - Kameron Hurley

God's War Trilogy, Book 2 - Only a few months ago, Kameron Hurley was turning heads with a debut novel that blended religion, race, and gender in a far future world unlike anything else in the industry today. Now she returns to that world with Infidel, as ex-assassin Nyx is forced to kill once more to protect a fragile peace. (October 18 from Night Shade Books)

Kingdom of Gods - N. K. Jemisin

Inheritance Trilogy, Book 3 - A pure storyteller in the same vein as Gaiman and Le Guin, Jemisin has ability to tell a story that transcends the simple words on the page. At first glance, her world of gods and mortals, life and death, freedom and slavery, love and hate might appear overly dichotomous but be assured that in the end, nothing is quite so simple. Whatever "it" is, Nora K. Jemisin has it is droves. (October 27 from Orbit)

The End Specialist - Drew Magary

Stand Alone Novel - No one wants to get old. What if you didn't have to? Awesome, right? Keep in mind that that bus will still kill you, no questions asked. Drew Magary explores the implications of living in a world in which natural death has been removed from the rulebook through the blog of "end specialist" John Farrell. Magary himself is a blogger, and his experience lends itself well to the dark, satirical perspective of the book. (UK: September 29 from Harper Voyager / US: Aug 30 from Penguin)

Snuff - Terry Pratchett

Discworld Novels, Book 39 - It's Pratchett. It's Discworld. I think this is a City Watch novel but that doesn't really matter, does it? (October 11 from Harper)

Riptide - Paul S. Kemp

Star Wars, Jaden Korr, Book 2 - Paul Kemp's Crosscurrent (review) was the best Star Wars book of 2010. Normally, that's not saying much but Kemp brings it - regardless of whether "it" is Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, or his work of his own creation. It's been a long wait to find our what happened to the escaped band of insane cloned Jedi (I know, right?) but I'm excited to watch (mostly) sane Jedi Knight Jaden Korr track them down. (October 25 from Lucasbooks)

The Night Eternal - Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Strain Trilogy, Book 3 - Twilight this is not. Del Toro and Hogan understand that vampires aren't sparkly cuddle puppies. They are bloodthirsty monsters who want to eat you or breed you like cattle for their eventual consumption. As such, if you encounter a vampire, please exterminate it with extreme prejudice. Still don't understand? This hybrid horror/thriller will demonstrate until even the zombies get it. (October 25 from William Morrow)

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami

Stand Alone Novel - Hmmm.... I don't even how to begin describe this 944 page monstrosity in a couple of sentences. It may or may not be 1984. There may or may not be two moons. A math teacher and a novelist are rewriting a story. Probably. I'm reasonable sure it's not a Tolkien knock-off, if that helps... I've not yet read 1Q84 but the word on the street is that Murakami is one of the best novelists writing in any language today. And everyone seems to agree that IQ84 is (another) masterpiece. (October 25 from Knopf)

King's War - Maurice Broaddus

The Knights of Breton Court Trilogy, Book 3 - Whoever said you shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight obviously wasn't referring to Excalibur. Broaddus wraps up his inspired retelling of the Arthurian Saga set in modern day Indianapolis amidst the gang plagued Breton Court projects. If West Side Story is Romeo & Juliet + racial tensions in 1950s New York set to music, The Knights of Breton Court is Arthurian Legend + gang violence told as Urban Fantasy. But when your version of Camelot is the projects, what is your Avalon? (October 25 from Angry Robot)

The Sacred Band - David Anthony Durham

Acacia Trilogy, Book 3 - In a genre where everyone can start a fantasy series but no one can finish one, David Anthony Durham stands out for his ability to not only close out a trilogy but to do so with a level of quality on par with, if not exceeding, that of the introductory volume. Simultaneously fantastic and realistic, the world Acacia is one of the genre's best kept secrets. (October 4 from Doubleday)

Aloha from Hell - Richard Kadrey

Sandman Slim, Book 3 - Unapologetic urban fantasy at its best, Aloha from Hell wraps up the first
Sandman Slim trilogy as James Stark returns to Hell to save the girl, stop a killer, and maintain the balance of good and evil. These books would be so wrong, if they just weren't so much fun. (October 18 from Harper Voyager)

Master of the House of Darts - Aliette de Bodard

Obsidian and Blood Trilogy, Book 3 - If you haven't guessed by now, October is "Finish Your Trilogy Month." De Bodard wraps up her South American infused series with the Master of the House of Darts. If Game of Thrones and its ripoffs have got you tired of Medieval European fantasy analogues give de Bodard's Mesoamerican saga a try. Or don't. It's not like she demonstrates a disturbingly complete understanding of human sacrifice or anything. (October 25 from Angry Robot)

Zone One - Colson Whitehead

Stand Alone Novel - Insert "BRAAIINNZZZZ..." joke here. Zone One is the intellectual's zombie novel, focusing more on the emotional stress of hunting down zombie remnants in a devastated Manhattan reclaimed from the zombie hordes rather than the emotional stress of hunting down zombie remnants in a devastated Manhattan reclaimed from the zombie hordes. But Whitehead's got it all wrong. I've played Left4Dead. Zombie hunting is like getting warm blankets straight out of the dryer. (October 18 from Doubleday)

Iron Jackal - Chris Wooding

Tales of the Ketty Jay, Book 3 - The rapscallious crew of the Ketty Jay returns for a third adventure across the skies of Vardia. Wooding's mashup of steampunk and Firefly probably won't win the Booker Prize but I wouldn't put it past Captain Frey and company to just steal it from whoever does. Train heists, airship races, master thievery; what's not to like? (October 20 from Gollancz)

Context - Cory Doctorow

Essay Collection - As good as his speculation is, there's something to be said for the quality of Doctorow's pontifications. Post-scarcity economics, the efficacy of digital rights management, and 21st century copyright concerns are only a few of the bleeding edge topics touched upon by Doctorow in the follow-up to last year's Content. Thought-provoking, well-written, and alarming, Doctorow's work is a must read for anyone concerned about the well being of digital artists. (October 1 from Tachyon Publications)

Fox & Phoenix - Beth Bernobich

Long City, Book 1 - A young adult fantasy novel set in the same Chinese influenced fantasy world as Bernobich's novelette "Pig, Crane, Fox", Fox & Phoenix is a quirky blend of humor, character, and adventure. You can download "Pig, Crane, Fox" for free here. Why not give it a try? (October 13 from Viking Children's)

The White People and Other Weird Stories - Arthur Machen

Short Story Collection - What's Halloween without a good scary story? This month Penguin Classics publishes collections of not one but two masters of horror in Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft. I chose to focus on Machen over Lovecraft due to my unfamiliarity with Machen's work but make no mistake, the genre wouldn't be what it is today without these two terrors. (September 27 from Penguin Classics)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: So many options. Too many options. I give up. I'll just flip a coin. At least, when I find a twenty-one sided one. Do they even make dice that multifaceted?

Back on track. It's tempting to go with something of the horror variety, being October and all, but seeing as I'm actually posting this in November, I'm going to go in a different direction. Damn, no turkey themed books either.

So this isn't helping. What happened to the months with two books? I miss those. Let's start by identifying a short(er) list.

1Q84
The Master of the House of Darts
The Sacred Band
Kingdom of Gods
The Children of the Sky

Ugh, and that's ignoring Kameron Hurley and Richard Kadrey. AND Terry Pratchett. Are you still reading this? I wouldn't be.

So now I need to choose between a master of the modern novel (1Q84), an alternate history work that rejects the framework of 99% of modern fantasy (The Master of the House of Darts), the conclusion to one of the most complete fantasy trilogies in ages (The Sacred Band), the closing volume of a series that launched a new voice with the potential to enter the ranks of master storytellers (Kingdom of Gods), and the sequel to one of the best SF novels of the past 20 years (The Children of the Sky).

It's a five way tie!

Let's go to the YetiRulebook: "In the case of a tie, the YetiPick goes to the author who would benefit most from selling an additional 2 books."

Well I don't think I'm going to help Murakami be more of a bestseller, so 1Q84 is out. Likewise for N.K. Jemisin, who is surprising no one after the surfeit of critical acclaim The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms garnered last year. Let's also cut The Children of the Sky on the grounds it's been anticipated for 16 more years than this blog has been around.

So that takes it down to The Sacred Band and The Master of the House of Darts. Now I can flip a coin.

I don't believe it. It landed on its side.

The Master of the House of Darts and The Sacred Band are both my October YetiPicks of the Month.

Don't look at me like that, what did you think was going to happen when I posted two covers up there?

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: Fortunately, while everyone else was playing "Shut Up and Finish Your Trilogy," only Drew Magary and Corwin Ericson were in catch-up mode, trying to claim a readership of their own. That means there are only two debuts to choose between, a much more manageable number.

While neither is perfect, in both books the positives outweigh the negatives by a wide margin. I'd feel comfortable recommending either to any of you freaks whose to-read lists haven't yet hit triple digits. Both books contain a certain level of satirical absurdity, although more so in Swell. For the most part, The End Specialist tries to draw logical conclusions from illogical premises; Swell feels no such obligation.

In the end, I'm giving the nod to Swell, mostly for its playful prose and unique brand of absurdity. While The End Specialist does offer a fresh perspective on the "end-of-death" scenario, the concept of "post-mortality" itself is one I've seen before through a number of different lenses. These days I find myself more and more drawn away from traditional genre topics and toward the unpredictable and entertaining. Swell, my YetiStomper Debut of the Month, is exactly that.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: Maybe I should just stop pretending I'll post these. It's not like I'm already a month behind in my YetiPicks...

As always, if you are interested in more detail regarding any of the above books, just click on through the Amazon links. And don't worry, thanks to new state legislation, I don't get a single penny, nickel, or dime from it. It's been hard restructuring my budget without that extra $10 a year but I think I'll survive. Be sure to let me know if there is anything I may have missed in the comments.

You can view previous installments of YetiStomper Picks here.

Rape or Be Raped? House-slaves?

2011-11-08T22:40:00.000-06:00

Those are some pretty loaded groups of words. So loaded in fact, that one might assume any logical individual would be aware that by using them to describe something as unremarkable as different methods of publishing, they were going to cause a stir.

And who wants a stir?

Surely not a self published author who is responsible for marketing his or her own work without the help of a large publicity department. Why would they use inflammatory language if they knew it would lead to a bunch of people talking about them and posting links back to their website? The same website that they use to sell books. I just don't get it.

And futhermore, in the off chance that a self published author wanted people to find their way back to his or her blog, it would require that author, someone whose entire means of living is dependent on his or her ability to string words together in a manner that evokes something in the person who reads them, to be capable of picking words to generate a specific reaction. Impossible, right?

I really hope you see where I'm going with this by now.

Much like the Westboro Baptist Church, the best way to stop these people from saying "irrational" things is to stop paying attention to them when they do.

And if you're having trouble doing just that, may I suggest Unpossible by Daryl Gregory or The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin as a better use of your time.

How do I know they're worth reading? They came from REAL publishers.

;-)

Covering Covers: Red Shirts - John Scalzi (with blurb)

2011-10-28T10:09:00.000-05:00

Cover Designer: Peter Lutjen

Earlier this morning, Tor debuted the cover to John Scalzi's next project, REDSHIRTS. I received a call from a Tor employee shortly thereafter.

Tor: So what do you think about the cover?

Me: My opinion? I can't wait to read this book.

Tor: The cover makes you want to read the book?!?.

Me: Oh you wanted my opinion on the cover?It's alright I guess. It's kind of boring. But it doesn't really matter, I just want to read this book.

Tor: Yes, we understand that it's Scalzi. Everyone loves Scalzi. That's why we bought it. But we're asking you about the cover art. We don't just conduct probably fictional interviews with amateur bloggers to predict that a NYT Bestseller's book will do well. We employ an expensive sales team to do that.

Me: An expensive sales team? To predict if the next John Scalzi novel will be a bestseller? That seems a little overkill.

Tor: Well it's not that expensive. Besides we are publishing the next John Scalzi novel, that's going to sell like a gazillion copies. We can afford it.

Me: I'm not sure that's the best way to think about it. Wait, did you say "a gazillion copies"?

Tor: Yeah. I've got the sales report right here. [Sound of papers being moved around]

Me: I'll take your word for it. Listen, can I just talk to Irene Gallo?

Tor: Who's Irene Gallo?

Me: [silence]

Tor: Still there?

Me: Yes. But I'm starting to doubt this is a real call.

Tor: No, I'm really part of the Art Department. I can prove it!

Me: How?

Tor: I'll send you the alternate versions of the REDSHIRTS cover.

Me: You mean these?

Tor: Oh have you already seen those?

Me: Yeah, I love the 1st alternates. The 3rd isn't bad either. I think they're actually better than the final cover which, frankly, doesn't do a lot for me.

Tor: But I thought you said you liked the cover.

Me: No, I said I wanted to read the book. There's a difference.

Tor: Does that mean you're not going to buy it? I'll go get the sales team to rerun the numbers. We should have them by Thursday next week. We'll have to get Sanderson to write another book to pay for it, but I think he can have that to us by Wednesday if I catch him before he leaves.

Me: [facepalm] Let's move on. Is there anyway I could see the blurb?

Tor: [Clears throat]

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better...until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed. Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is...and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.
Did you get all that?

Me: Is there anyway you could just send it to me?

Tor: How? Like in the mail? I'm not allowed to buy stamps anymore.

Me: Wait what? Could you just e-mail it to me.

Tor: E-what?

[click]

Tor: Hello? Hello? ........... Hey Irene, I told you I could get a fanboy to willingly give up on an interview with me. I prefer 2-liters and thick cut, maple glazed, thanks.

Books Received

2011-10-25T22:14:00.001-05:00

Here are the last ten books I've received over the past few weeks. Very excited to read them, especially Unpossible and The Killing Moon. Errr... I don't think I was supposed to talk about that one.

;)

Covering Covers: The Coldest War - Ian Tregillis (with blurb)

2011-10-18T23:10:00.005-05:00

Cover Artist: Chris McGrath

So I've got a new policy around here. Keep everything in draft status until someone scoops me, and then get frustrated and post nothing. It's working like a charm so far.

Either way, in the off chance that you haven't seen it yet, here's the new cover art and catalog copy for the sequel to 2010's excellent Bitter Seeds which was so good that I don't really want to be friends with you if you haven't read it.

Now, I wasn't in love with the original cover art (below left) of Bitter Seeds but I admired the distinctive style. And who doesn't like swastikas? Update: Apparently everyone. Now we've got Chris McGrath stepping in once again to "fix" something that really wasn't broken. But don't get me wrong, the new cover (below right) isn't terrible, I just didn't think a change was warranted. I think had they stuck to the original style, they could have done something really subtle yet cool.

My meaningless opinions aside, here's the aforementioned copy:

Someone is killing Britain's warlocks.

Twenty-two years after the Second World War, a precarious balance of power maintains the peace between Great Britain and the USSR. For decades, Britain's warlocks have been all that stands between the British Empire and the Soviet Union—a vast domain stretchin from the Pacific Ocean to the shores of the English Channel. But each death is another blot blow [oops... corrected 16 Oct 11] to Britain's national security.

Meanwhile, a brother and sister escape from a top-secret research facility deep behind the Iron Curtain. Once subjects of a twisted Nazi experiment to imbue ordinary people with superhuman abilities, then prisoners of war in the immense Soviet research effort to reverse-engineer the Nazi technology, they head for England.

Because that's where retired spy Raybould Marsh lives. And Gretel, the mad seer, has plans for him.

As Marsh is once again drawn into the world of Milkweed, he discovers that Britain's darkest acts didn't end with the war. And while he strives to protect queen and country, he is forced to confront his own willingness to accept victory at any cost.

Seriously, if you haven't read Ian Tregillis's first book in the Milkweed Triptych, you're really missing out on the start of something incredible. You might think the WWII "British Demons vs. Nazi Supermen" genre doesn't have any stories left to tell, but if so, you're dumb. Fortunately, thanks to a-series-of-unfortunate-but-not-at-all-comical-but-equally-delay-inducing-events you'll have plenty of time to catch up while the rest of us eagerly await the next collision of sorcerers, spies, and seers amidst one form of global chaos or another.

The Coldest War will be published by Tor in July of 2012.

Hopefully.

Call for Comments: What 2012 DEBUTS are you anticipating?

2011-10-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

We are rapidly approaching the end of the year. Which means two things: looking back and looking forward. I like to maintain more of a future-focused blog, so I'd like to hear what NEW authors you are looking forward to reading in 2012 so I can better direct my research and pieces in the coming months.

Well, minions, what say you? What new authors are you most anticipating next year?

Twitter Followers: A Graph

2011-10-03T16:20:00.000-05:00

To those of you who fall into the "green" category - Thank You. You're the people I wanted to talk to when I started this bastion of mediocrity I call a blog and you're the main reason I'm still trying to keep with it.

To everyone else...well, you won't be reading this anyway...

YetiStomper Picks for September

2011-09-29T00:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry Yetifans. I know this is late. Really late. Legendarily late. Or as I like to call it, "exactly on yeti standard time." To be truthful, I was doing a little experiment. I've suspected for months that io9 takes my YetiStomper Picks, subtracts one book, adds another and then claims that it as their own "original" picks for the month. I originally became suspicious when they copied my selection of A Dance With Dragons as a "highly anticipated" book. Bastards...

But it turns out, when I didn't post my selections this month, neither did they. That and my tinfoil hat prevented them from looking directly into my brain. Reynold's Wrap, humanity would be lost without you.

Or I was just a lazy ball of blogger this month. Your pick. Either way, better late than never, right?

Reamde - Neal Stephenson

Stand Alone, Book - As prolific as some writers are, Stephenson might put them all to shame. Less than a year after the hernia inducing Anathem, we've got another kilopage tome to get us through the winter months. Both as reading material and combustible fuel. And if a thousand pages a year doesn't impress you enough, bear in mind that Stephenson writes his novels longhand. Reamde is the latest entry in a new wave of MMORPG-centric cyberpunk thrillers which blend all aspects of twenty first century culture into a reality spanning epic. You know - billionaires, hackers, organized crime, terrorists, computer viruses, twitter - the usual. Early reviews are calling it Stephenson's most accessible book yet - but is that a good thing? (September 20 from William Morrow)

Ganymede - Cherie Priest

The Clockwork Century, Book 4 - The first of two Cherie Priest books due out this month, Ganymede continues chronicling The Clockwork Century, a steampunk alternate American timeline in which the Civil War was never won and the West was never tamed. The titular Ganymede is a mysterious submarine that could finally end the decades long war in the North's favor, if only they could figure out how to use it. Andan Cly is the man whose been tasked to do just that, provided it doesn't kill him first. Personally, I'm getting a little bit tired of steampunk but The Clockwork Century is a series that has me hooked through til the end. (September 27 from Tor)

Goliath - Scott Westerfeld

The Leviathan Trilogy, Book 3 - Okay, maybe I spoke too soon. Like Ganymede, Scott Westerfeld's steampunk series showcases a historic war with a steampunk slant. In the Leviathan Trilogy, it's World War I all over again but nothing like you the one you learned about it school. Now the Allied Powers pit genetically engineered "Darwinist" creations against walking mechanized monstrosities fielded by the Central Powers. Goliath follows young protagonists Deryn and Alek as they continue their mysterious mission around the world, stopping in Japan before heading to New York for the climatic conclusion of Westerfeld's YA trilogy. I'm about 10 years out of the YA target demographic but that doesn't make this series any less fun. If you're looking for something you can read along with your kids, Westerfeld is your guy. (September 20 from Simon Pulse)

The Girl of Fire and Thorns - Rae Carson

The Fire and Thorns Trilogy, Book 1 - I don't always read debut YA fantasy novels about princesses but when I do they better be worth reading. Fortunately, Rae Carson can deliver the goods. With a strong female lead, clever supporting cast, and mature yet effortless prose, Carson's take on world spanning fantasy represents the future of YA fiction. Carson has already been compared to the likes of Turner and Cashore; don't be surprised if new authors are labeled as "the next Rae Carson" in a few years. (September 20 from Greenwillow)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

Stand Alone - Are creepy circuses (circii?) the new ~~vampires~~ ~~zombies~~ steampunk? Just when I thought Genevieve Valentine was a lock for "best debut circus and/or vaudeville themed novel of 2011," Erin Morgenstern comes out of nowhere with another atmospheric tale more than worth the price of admission. Morgenstern's dark and moody debut has earned starred reviews from every legit source I've ever heard of (and several I haven't). Le Cirque des Reves features two rival magicians - and if they're not careful - for a limited time only. (September 13 from Doubleday)

Debris - Jo Anderton

The Veiled Worlds, Book 1 - Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, correct? Such is the station of futuristic pionner Tanyana, a woman with the ability to manipulates the building blocks of matter itself. At least until she is framed for an accident she didn't commit. Can a technoalchemist ever catch a break? Angry Robot brings us another fantastic debut as Anderton produces a breakneck novel on the driving strength of her first person perspective. (September 27 from Angry Robot)

Spellbound - Blake Charlton

The Spellwright Trilogy , Book 2 - Upstart novelist / medical student / professional shame shaman Blake Charlton returns to make you feel like an abject failure [but I'm at least the 121,594th best book blogger out there!] with the second volume of his Spellwright Trilogy. While he's not saving lives, Dr. Charlton relaxes by penning his own take on traditional fantasy. The Spellwright series focuses on Nicodemus Weal, complete failure and/or the only one who can stop the demonic Typhon from devouring human language itself. Well that's okay, we can just play charades right? Wrong. Language serves as the foundation of Charlton's complex and highly original magic system, so its annihilation might cause a few problems. Problems that Weal himself is intimately familiar with - a demonic curse (guess who) has prevented him from stringing a simple magical sentence together without chaotic consequences since an early age. But don't let the thinly veiled dyslexia metaphor stop you, Spellbound is fantasy at his finest. I would, however, recommend starting with Spellwright (Book 1) to get the full effect. (September 13 from Tor)

Hellbent - Cherie Priest

The Cheshire Red Reports, Book 2 - How funny is it that there are two books this month by different authors both named Cherie Priest? You would think that they would pick different pen names. I mean, one is writing about airships, smugglers, and steampunk submarines; the other is writing about vampire thieves, cross dressing ex-Navy SEALs, and ancient penis parts. That Venn diagram looks like a solar system map of Mercury and Pluto. [Is to a planet!]. And by that I mean there's no overlap. Except for me. Oh, and whoever likes good stories. Like the one that Cherie Priest #2 started with her highly entertaining "Chesire Red Reports" back in January's Bloodshot. With unforgettable characters, potentially gratuitous levels of violence, and "wit" that's one smart-ass comment away from being full blown snark, Hellbent demonstrates that you don't need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to urban fantasy; you just need to make it well rounded, get it moving and run some stuff over. Between Hellbent and Ganymede, good luck picking which Priest to worship. Unless they are by freak occurrence the same person. But that would just be weird.

Update: I'm an idiot. (September 6 from Spectra)

One Salt Sea - Seanan McGuire

October Daye, Book 5 - Multi-pseudonymous author Seanan McGuire continues her series of faerie tales with One Salt Sea in which protagonist October "Toby" Daye is forced to investigate the disappearance of some random but important merkids in order to prevent a war between air and water. Or as faerie folk like to call it, your typical Tuesday. McGuire continues to expand the world governed by Oberon's Laws, both in scope with the introduction of the realm of Saltmist and in depth with an increased focus on Daye's supporting cast of characters. In the paranormal realm, Jim Butcher owns wizards, Charlaine Harris commands vampires, and Carrie Vaughn controls werewolves. As these books continue to improve, it's clear that Seanan McGuire has claimed the fae as her own with ironclad certainty. My only question is why is Daye still doing grunt work? She's a freaking Countess now. What good are titles if they don't come with minions? (September 6 from DAW)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: Some authors are everywhere. They're blogging their fingers off. They're doing interviews for anyone and everyone with a question worth asking. They're writing guest posts for John Scalzi, Tor.com and whichever bloggers need to take time out of their posting schedules to feed their families. They're engaging readers through twitter, facebook, and geocities. They're mailing out review copies on their own dime. They're traveling around their region of the country doing two signings a day out of the back of their 1996 Pontiac Grand Prix. All while writing the next book and keeping the day job. These are the authors who make the genre what it is, an writhing tangle of nervous energy devoted to the goal of capturing a reader's imagination and doing all kinds of unspeakable things to it.

But there are also authors who are willing to let their work speak for itself and who don't give a frak if you understand it, much less like it. Authors who are willing to write a trillion bazillion words about the origins of calculus, the common problems of 17th century European adventurers, and how the modern banking system came to be because they found numismatic history to be interesting while doing research for their equally tome-tacular cryptogasmic opus. And then to follow that up with Anathem, as if they were doing their publisher a favor with a book that takes a tree and a half to print. It takes a special kind of author to do that. It takes Neal Stephenson to do all that and still hit #1 on the NYT Bestseller List. Reamde might be Stephenson's most accessible book yet but anyone familiar with his work knows that's not necessarily saying much. At the same time, saying the name Stephenson is enough for me - which is why Reamde is my YetiStomper Pick of the Month. Not that he would care.

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: The Woman Who Hates Everything Gazette. Americans Against Fictional Clowns Quarterly. The One Guy Who Liked Twilight Suicide Note. That's it.

That's the full list of publications who didn't give The Night Circus a starred review. It's a hell of lot shorter that the list of people who did. I originally tried typing that out which is what is responsible for my Books of September Post going up on the 29th rather than the 1st of the month. Apparently Google has a character limit, who knew?

Anyway, Morgenstern completely and utterly delivers on the hype and then some, resulting in a novel on par with such memorable debuts as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and The Time Traveler's Wife. It's stylistic, brilliant, moody, evocative and a hell of a lot better than any first novel has any right being. Read The Night Circus, September's YetiStomper Debut of the Month. I dare you to disagree.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: Hmmmm.... Where did this go? Stay tuned to find out...eventually

In Which I Disguise Self Interest As Compassion

2011-09-27T17:25:00.002-05:00

Hey.

I want you to give Tobias Buckell money. Not because he deserves it (he does). Not because he needs it (I'm sure he wouldn't say no). Not even because he got a raw deal when his publisher decided not to continue publishing his Xenowealth books (those bastards!)

You should give Tobias Buckell money because I want to read his next Xenowealth book and I won't be able to do it unless other people contribute to his Kickstarter. This may appear to be a nice post about contributing to a worthy author, but make no mistake, it's not. It's a shameless plug for me to get what I want: a sequel to Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose. And to do that, I need you to contribute to the Kickstarter account for the 4th Xenowealth book, The Apocalypse Ocean. And don't try to pull any of that "the rest of the loyal YetiStomper minions will pick up the slack" nonsense. I've got like 14 readers, total, and only one is ugly enough to be considered minion-esque. So when I say you, I mean you, not them, do you understand me?

There are various tiers of patronage each of which will buy you a continually more impressive book package. Tier 1 is an eBook, Tier 2 is a Hardcover + eBook, and so and so forth, up to Tier 26 after which he will name his next child whatever you want for a mere $2,426,982. He's looking to get $10,000 in seed contributions and currently sitting at around 45% of that total.

So I'm asking you, as an unapologetically self-interested fan of Buckell's work, to help make The Apocalypse Ocean a reality. You can do it because Buckell is a good author and he writes stuff worth reading. Or maybe you're the human personification of a Care Bear Stare, and want to make sure his family "gets enough food to eat", whatever that means. Or make up your own reason: whatever gets you to give Tobias Buckell money.

This is me asking you nicely. There are still 21 days left to give Tobias Buckell money. If it gets down to a week and one of your pets and/or smaller children happens to "mysteriously disappear," you can probably figure out how to get them back.

I'm joking, of course. Besides it won't even come to that. Will it....

Oh, and in case you missed the link which I so subtly dropped throughout the flowing genius word assemblage above. Here it is again. There's even a cool video and junk. And if Kickstarter works the way it's suppossed to, you should see a status bar right down here.

Note: if you read this sentence before you see a Kickstarter widget - damnit.

Covering Covers: Angelmaker - Nick Harkaway

2011-09-02T23:51:00.002-05:00

io9 has the scoop on Nick Harkaway's next novel, which according to the stellar black and yellow piece of design work above, is titled Angelmaker. Harkaway is best known for his debut novel, The Gone-Away World, which featured frequently on various "Best of" Lists back in 2010.

io9 supplemented their cover reveal with a pair of book blurbs, one long and one short.

The Teaser Trailer:
is expected from Knopf sometime in early 2012, most likely March 20th.

From the author of the international best seller The Gone-Away World—a new riveting action spy thriller, blistering gangster noir, and howling absurdist comedy: a propulsively entertaining tale about a mobster's son and a retired secret agent who team up to save the world.

Joe Spork repairs clocks, a far cry from his late father, a flashy London gangster. But when Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. Joe's client, Edie Banister, is more than just a kindly old lady—she's a former superspy. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis. With Joe's once-quiet world now populated with mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses, girls in pink leather, and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she gave up years ago, and pick up his father's old gun...

And the full 90 second spot:

All Joe Spork wants to do is live quietly. He repairs clockwork and lives above his shop in a wet, unknown bit of London. The bills don't always get paid and he's single and in his mid thirties and he has no prospects of improving his lot, but at least he's not trying to compete with the reputation of Mathew "Tommy Gun" Spork, his infamous criminal dad.

Edie Banister lives quietly and wishes she didn't. She's nearly ninety and remembers when she wasn't. She used to be a spy, and now she's… well… old. Worse yet, the things she fought to save don't seem to exist anymore, and she's beginning to wonder if they ever did.

When Joe repairs one particularly unusual clockwork mechanism, his quiet life is blown apart. Suddenly he's getting visits from sinister cultists and even more sinister lawyers. One of his friends is murdered and it looks as if he may be in the frame. Oh, and in case that wasn't enough, he seems to have switched on a 1950s doomsday machine - or is it something even more alarming?

Edie's story and Joe's have collided. From here on in, nothing will be the same - Joe's world is now full of mad monks, psychopaths, villainous potentates, scientific geniuses, giant submarines, girls in pink leather engine driver's couture, and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe - and if Joe's going to fix it or even survive, he must show that he can be everything Mathew was, and much, much more.

Looks like another winner from Harkaway. What do you think?
Angelmaker

John Scalzi's Next Novel Gets A Title

2011-09-02T11:29:00.001-05:00

From Whatever -

Redshirts: A Novel With 3 Codas. I know what you're thinking. However, Scalzi has already confirmed that it's not a Star Trek novel. Based on the title, I suspect it's intended to be quasi-humorous, if not to the same extent as Scalzi's excellent The Android's Dream.

Unfortunately, the title is all we've got to work with at the moment. Scalzi has read from the book at several conventions but Scalzi swore everyone to secrecy and surprisingly, no details have leaked out. Which is an incredible feat in and of itself.

Pick the Hugos!

2011-08-20T12:31:00.001-05:00

I thought I'd throw out my predictions for tonight's Hugo Festivities which you can actually watch live at 8pm local Reno time here. [Note if that doesn't work, check the Hugo Award Site here for help]. I don't know enough about the editors, artists, semiprozines, to even hazard a less-than-informed guess so I'm limiting my picks to the major fiction categories. I'm also running out the door at the moment so I don't have the time to fully explain the rationale behind my picks. Feel free to make up some reasons for me.

Best Novel

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

What Should Win: The Dervish House

What Will Win: Blackout/All Clear

Best Novella

“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2010) - Read Online
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean) - Read Online
“The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” by Elizabeth Hand (Stories: All New Tales, William Morrow) - Read Online
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s, September 2010) - Read Online (PDF)
“Troika” by Alastair Reynolds (Godlike Machines, Science Fiction Book Club)

What Should Win: "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window"
What Will Win: "The Liefcycle of Software Objects"

Best Novelette

“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen (Analog, September 2010) - Read Online
“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010) - Read Online
“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s, July 2010) - Read Online
“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s, December 2010) - Read Online
“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog, September 2010) - Read Online

What Should Win: "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made"
What Will Win: "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made"

Best Short Story

“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010) - Read Online
“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) - Read Online
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010) - Read Online
“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010) - Read Online

What Should Win: "The Things"
What Will Win: "For Want of a Nail"

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan Wells

Who Should Win: Lauren Beukes
Who Will Win: Lauren Beukes

Who you got? Tune in tonight at 11pm EST to find out.

Covering Covers: The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemisin

2011-08-16T10:23:00.004-05:00

Cover Artist: Lauren Panepinto & Friends

Tuesday brings us another knock out from Lauren Panepinto & the fine folks in the Orbit Art Department, closing out N.K. Jemisin's The Inheritance Trilogy with a bang.

If I ever wrote a trilogy, I would love to get a set of covers as good as these. Also, if I ever wrote a trilogy, I would love to have it be as good as these books. If you haven't checked these books out, do yourself a favor and catch up before the final book comes out in October.

The incredible conclusion to the Inheritance Trilogy, from one of fantasy's most acclaimed stars.

For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri's ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and world-spanning, unending war.

Shahar, last scion of the family, must choose her loyalties. She yearns to trust Sieh, the godling she loves. Yet her duty as Arameri heir is to uphold the family's interests, even if that means using and destroying everyone she cares for.

As long-suppressed rage and terrible new magics consume the world, the Maelstrom -- which even gods fear -- is summoned forth. Shahar and Sieh: mortal and god, lovers and enemies. Can they stand together against the chaos that threatens?

Includes a never before seen story set in the world of the Inheritance Trilogy.

Woot.

YetiStomper Picks for August

2011-08-11T23:48:00.001-05:00

I think I'm actually getting worse at this whole writing thing as I go along. Fortunately, these eight authors seems to know what they're doing.

Southern Gods - John Hornor Jacobs

Stand Alone - Remind me to never visit Arkansas. Any interest I may have had in visiting that fine state is now completely and utterly gone, thanks to genre newcomer John Hornor Jacobs. His debut horror novel, Southern Gods follows war veteran and hired hand Bull Ingram as he tracks down Ramblin' John Hastur, a blues player rumored to have made a deal with the devil himself. Jacobs mixes Lovecratian Horror, Americana, and sweet tea in a unique tale of obsession and redemption on par with the best horror has to offer. (July 26 from Night Shade Books)

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Stand Alone - If SDCC is known for one thing, it's the generation of hype. But geek love is often a fickle bitch, and she rarely leaves with the one who brought her. At this year's comic-con, one of the most talked about properties was Ready Player One, the debut novel from Fanboys director Ernest Cline. Cline offers hope to every geek by creating a world in which encyclopedic knowledge of twentieth century pop-culture isn't just acceptable - it's the key to unlocking untold power and riches within OASIS, the virtual utopia that has come to dominate life in 2044. This is a must read for any child of the 80s. (August 16 from Crown)

Low Town - Daniel Polansky

Low Town, Book 1 - Is historical urban fantasy a thing? It might be soon, if copycats latch on to Daniel Polansky's excellent noir fantasy debut. Magic and murder combine in a gritty adventure that should surprise fantasy fans, even those familiar with the darker tones the genre has adopted over the past few years. Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops . . . and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town. (August 16 from Doubleday)

The Urban Fantasy Anthology - Peter S. Beagle & Joe R. Lansdale, eds.

Urban Fantasy Anthology, duh. - With what appears to be the least boldly titled anthology since Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio edited Stories, Beagle and Lansdale prove that looks can be deceiving. Split into three parts, the surprisingly eclectic anthology examines each of the literary definitions that have been linked to the term "Urban Fantasy" over the years. Neil Gaiman, Jeffrey Ford, and Beagle himself contribute to the group of "Mythic Fiction" stories while Lansdale joins Holly Black and Tim Powers in composing tales of "Noir Fantasy." "Paranormal Romance" rounds out the trio of interpretations with contributions from heavy hitters Carrie Vaughn, Kelly Armstrong, and Patricia Briggs as well as YetiStomper favorite, Norman Partridge. Whatever you assumed this book would be, you're probably wrong. (August 15 from Tachyon Publications)

Kitty's Greatest Hits - Carrie Vaughn

Kitty Norville, Short Fiction Collection - Jim Butcher's Side Jobs and Charlaine Harris's A Touch of Dead have proved that the notion that "short fiction anthologies don't sell" doesn't exactly apply to NYT Bestselling Urban Fantasy Series. Now it's Carrie Vaughn's turn as Tor collects 14 of her Kitty Norville shorts in a single hardcover volume. (August 16 from Tor)

The Magician King - Lev Grossman

The Magician Series, Book 2 - Lev Grossman continues his meta-tacular dissection of fantasy tropes with The Magician King, a book that does for the quest fantasy what its predecessor, The Magicians, did for the coming-of-age tale. Grossman's self-aware series is perfect for those who wonder how a real person might react if they discovered an entire world hidden in the armoire. (August 9 from Viking Adult)

Bluegrass Symphony - Lisa Hannett

Short Fiction Collection - You might call Lisa Hannett's first collection "hard to find." I'd call it "a future collector's item." Published by Ticonderoga one hemisphere over and another down, Bluegrass Symphony highlights one of Australia's up-and-comers with 12 strange stories that will delight and disturb. (August 1 from Ticonderoga Publications)

The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding

Tales of the Ketty Jay, Book 2 - In the second of Wooding's adventurous tales, we return to the airship Ketty Jay and it's inscrutable captain, Darian Frey. Many people have drawn comparisons between Wooding's motley crew and that of the tragically canceled Firefly. I'd be hard pressed to disagree. (July 26 from Spectra)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: I've heard a lot of people harping on Lev Grossman. "He's a literary wolf in genre clothing." "The Magicians is a Harry Potter rip-off. And a bad one." "Isn't it funny how the book critic for Time magazine writes the same filth that they would never review." "He pushed my grandmother down the stairs. On her birthday." Okay, I might have made that last one up but for whatever reason, there's a vocal contingent of people out there hell bent on giving Grossman a bad name. Maybe they don't get his books. Maybe they're jealous. Maybe they see him as the enemy, the type of person who sits in a high castle and claims the Chabons, the Gaimans, and the Niffeneggers as his own. Grossman might work with the "establishment" day in and day out but he's more than willing to take off the tweed jacket to come play in the mud. But just because your idea of playing pretend involves more magic and less angsty introspection doesn't mean you enjoy a dirt sandwich. Grossman champions a combination of plot and purpose - the profound notion that books can say something worth saying and be worth reading, all at the same time. With The Magician King, my selection for YetiStomper Pick of the Month, Grossman continues his grim exploration of fantasy from within. After all, just because your life feels like a fairy tale doesn't mean you get to live happily ever after.

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: For a relatively calm month [Aside: when did 8 books become a "calm" amount?], there's still no shortage of debuts to choose between. Polansky [Low Town], Cline [Ready Player One], Jacobs [Southern Gods], and Hannett [Bluegrass Symphony] are all first timers and they've got plenty to be proud of. I'm really intrigued by Cline's premise - it sounds like a Cory Doctorow novel written by Scott Pilgrim or a Goonies reboot scripted by Charlie Stross - but at the same time, I've been burned by hype before. I'm definitely excited for the book but I can't in good faith give it top billing without having read a single word. Then there's the Wunderkind, Daniel Polansky, who at 26 has published one more book that I probably ever will. There's part of me that wants to eliminate Low Town on spite alone. Fortunately, I don't have to - as impressive a debut as Low Town is, it's outshined by the polished prose and seductive story contained in John Hornor Jacobs' premiere. The YetiStomper Debut of the Month, Southern Gods, is Chicken Fried Lovecraft - sheer terror breaded in mystery and malice and deep fried in the muggy backwoods of 1960s Arkansas. I dare you to take a bite and walk away without wanting more.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: Hmmmm.... Where did this go? Stay tuned to find out...eventually

Covering Covers: The Fractal Prince - Hannu Rajaniemi

2011-08-03T23:20:00.001-05:00

Cover Artist: Kekai Kotaki

"Jean le Flambeur, posthuman thief, is out of prison, but still not free. To pay his debts to Oortian warrior Mieli and her mysterious patron the pellegrini, he has to break into the mind of a living god. Planning the ultimate heist takes Jean and Mieli from the haunted city of Sirr on broken Earth to the many-layered virtual realms of the mighty Sobornost. But when the stakes of the pellegrini’s game are revealed, Jean has to decide how far he is willing to go to get the job done."

Kekai Kotaki is quickly becoming one of my favorite cover artists. Between The Quantum Thief, The Unremembered, and this gem his work is colorful without being cartoony, evoking a sense of action and adventure without resorting to spaceships or dragons. And anyone who has read the The Quantum Thief knows that's exactly how Rajaniemi operates. He's doesn't slow down, he doesn't explain, and he's not going to apologize.

Rajaniemi's style is difficult to explain. You read it and you like it, but you're not exactly sure what you read or why you like it. At least, not after the first time through. It's complex, peculiar, captivating, and just plain good.

Don't believe me? Have a sample from The Fractal Prince.

Drathdor the zoku elder liked to talk, and it wasn't that hard to get
him to explain what a Box was (without letting on that I had stolen
one from their zoku twenty years ago, of course).

Imagine a box, he said. Now put a cat in it. Along with a death
machine: a bottle of poison, cyanide, say, connected to a mechanism
with a hammer and a single atom of a radioactive element. In the
next hour, the atom either decays or not, either triggering or not
triggering the hammer. So, in the next hour, the cat is either alive
or dead.

Quantum mechanics claims that there is no definite cat in the box,
only a ghost, a superposition of a live cat and a dead cat. That is,
until we open it and look. A measurement will collapse the system into
one state or the other. So goes Schrödinger's thought experiment.

It is completely wrong, of course. A cat is a macroscopic system,
and there is no mysterious intervention by a magical observer
needed to make it live or die: just its interaction with the rest
of the Universe, a phenomenon called decoherence, provides the
collapse into one macrostate. But in the microscopic world --- for
qubits, quantum-mechanical equivalents of ones and zeroes --- the
Schrödinger's cat is real.

The Box contains trillions of ghost cats. The live cat states
encode information. A mind, even, a living, thinking mind. The Box
qubits have been rotated into a limbo state between nothingness and
existence. The mind inside would not notice anything--- a set of
quantum gates can let it continue thinking, feeling, dreaming. If it
stays inside, all is well. But if it tries to get out, any interaction
with the environment will bring the Universe down on it like a ton of
bricks and collapse it into nothingness. Bad kitty, dead kitty.

"So what do you put in a Box like that?'' I asked Drathdor.

"Something very, very dangerous,'' he said.

Elegantly perplexing, no?

The Fractal Prince, the 2nd entry in The Quantum Thief trilogy, will be published on September 4, 2012 by Tor.

The Least Definitive "Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels" List Ever!

2011-08-02T17:46:00.000-05:00

NPR released their list of Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels today. Or at least, sort of.

While they definitely released a list, I don't know if it represents what it claims to.

The list itself is referenced as "Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Titles" but it has some peculiar eligibility criteria. For "works that tell a more or less continuous story", the series title is used rather than an individual book. However, "in cases where connections among series members are looser" they "tended to list some of the more prominent titles in the run." All entries considered, you've probably got a list of 200 or more individual books, many of which are included under a "lifetime of work" type policy than any individual achievement. Explain to me why Ender's Game comes in as a novel and Dune comes in as a series? I've read the core of both and there is not a pair of Dune novels that can rival the triumph that is Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. You could make the argument that the Enderverse Sage is comprised of more self-contained novels, but I'd argue they share a similar composition, at least when comparing Dune to Ender's Game.

And that's not even the strangest aspect of the list. That honor goes to the arbitrary standards by which the judges eliminated "Young Adult" novels from the list, even ones read and loved by millions of adults. I wouldn't recommend ignoring undeniable classics popular with all ages - Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials, Redwall - but if you insist upon such a ridiculous rule, at least enforce it consistently. Watership Down, Stardust, The Princess Bride, all make the list despite being widely regarded as Young Adult fiction.

You know it's literature when the talking bunnies get divorced because her affair with a squirrel leads the former carrot detective into a vicious cycle of strawberry juice, mushrooms, and easter eggs.

The YA ban seems to be the only thing keeping Coraline and The Graveyard Book off the Gaiman heavy list. Every other one of his works made the list including the Sandman graphic novels, which while seminal, seem like a strange inclusion given such stringent guidelines. Though it's not the only graphic novel - Alan Moore's classic Watchmen also made the list.

There's also sizable contingent of extremely modern novels, including some series which haven't even hit the 3 book mark. At a quick glance, I see at least 6 series whose stories have yet to conclude.

The Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
The Inheritance Trilogy - N.K. Jemisin
The Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch
The Magicians - Lev Grossman

They're good books all but I don't know if I'd go so far to include them without seeing a little bit more of the story. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to nominate an entire unfinished series.

A cover so epic, I didn't even need to read it. 5 stars! - Robert Stanek & Harriet Klausner

And then there's an arbitrary line between Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance and regular Fantasy, that I won't even begin to delve into. Suffice it to say, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files should be on any best of list before any of his Codex Alera books.

And the inclusion of Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth? As a series?! For shame, NPR. For shame.

So check out NPR's list of the "Top 187 or so Science Fiction and Fantasy [but not Urban Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, or Horror because vampires are scary] Novels For Self-Respecting Adults Who Won't Venture Into The Children's Section For Anything More Than A Stand Alone Novel But Who Also Aren't Too Self-Respecting to Be Seen Reading Comic Books And A Inexplicable Nod To Terry Goodkind" [#fixeditforyou] and let me them know what you think.

Covering Covers: Shadows in Flight - Orson Scott Card

2011-07-24T23:37:00.000-05:00

Cover Artist: John Harris

You can say what you want about the quality of OSC's most recent Enderverse work but there's no denying that John Harris's covers are still as good as it gets for Science Fiction. Whether it's Orson Scott Card, Ben Bova, John Scalzi, Jack McDevitt, or some random no-name - seeing Harris's iconic style on a cover will guarantee a second look from this reader. I've actually looked at purchasing some original Harris art. It may or may not be prohibitively expensive at the moment but I'm always accepting gifts and/or bribes. Hint, hint.

Now, I won't suggest that Shadows in Flight is a must read book. That honor is reserved for the brilliant first two Enderverse titles, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, both of which won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. But don't let that fool you, they're not just great SF novels, they're great novels. Period

But this many books into any series, it's up for each individual to decide if they want to keep reading. I personally enjoy both the Ender saga and its sister "Shadows" series but I'm also cognizant that the books aren't as good as they once were. We haven't reached Defcon Dune yet but it would be impossible to maintain the level of quality established in Card's first two books.

Here's what Bean is up to in the latest "Shadow" novel.

At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children—the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both, hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth’s scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten—a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth’s history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come.

For there in space lies a derelict Formic colony ship. Aboard it, they will find both death and wonders— the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and labs in which to explore their own genetic anomaly and the mysterious disease that killed the ship’s colony.

Orson Scott Card's return to the Enderverse will hit shelves on January 17th, 2012. Will you be reading it?

Quick Pics: Storms A Brewin'

2011-07-22T11:11:00.000-05:00


Photograph Courtesy of Me. Minor* Editing Courtesy of Me. Watch Out.

*It came straight out of the camera like this, I swear...

Chicago decided it wanted to explode this morning [Much to the delight, I'm sure, of anyone trying to fly out of O'Hare]. We went from happy smiles sunshine to "did we remember to renew our building insurance?" in the span of about 5 minutes, which is all the time it took for heavy cloud cover to roll in over St. Michael's Church, pictured above.

Given the foreboding nature of the image, I'd like to think it would make a decent cover for an urban fantasy with apocalyptic/religious undertones. Maybe something that explores a secret society of exorcists and demon hunters within the Catholic Church; 12 men and women who can trace their bloodlines back to the apostles themselves. A plague of darkness has descended upon Chicago, inspiring an unnatural rise in violence and lust. It's up to these holy warriors [Is Saynts too cheesy? I think it is] to bring back the light.

I call it In the Shadows of Faith.

Now I just need someone to write it... DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT.

Longstoryshort - Cool pic, no?

A Mission to Mars: Are You In?

2011-07-21T00:37:00.001-05:00

To Infinity And Beyond!

Who knew that infinity stopped at 135? Two weeks ago this Friday, NASA launched the last mission of the undeniably iconic Space Shuttle program. While I'm sure plenty of older folks associate NASA with Apollo, the program that put man on the moon but for us children of the 80s and 90s, the Space Shuttle was our ticket to the stars.

But now it's gone, and with it, the promise of government-sponsored manned spaceflight, at least for the near future. Sure NASA still has interesting programs - the Juno Project, the Cassini-Huygens Mission, the Mars Science Laboratory, even the ARES Rocket - but all of those efforts are about bringing there to us, not taking us to there. As of a fortnight ago, tomorrow's scientists and science fiction authors were relegated to thinking about sitting at home while robotic instruments boldly go where no man has gone before (and probably won't for the foreseeable future).

Between the end of the shuttle program and the budget cuts threatening to hamstring NASA for years, there's no real way to know when humanity will once again set its sights on the final frontier. But while no one's really sure when we'll get there, everyone seems to agree on a destination: Mars.

Sure, we could go to the moon, AGAIN. But what are we really proving by reaccomplishing what we were succeeded at over 40 years ago (and with much less sophiscated equipment). Or we could try for Venus, if you like 872°F balls of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. It's slight but there is a difference between sending a man to his death and sending a man on a very dangerous mission. Astronauts are crazy, not stupid.

Mars it is, then. But who will be first in line when NASA finally decides to get going?

To answer that question, I went to seven of the genre's best scientific speculators - writers who either specialize in science fiction (both near and far) or who spend their careers inching toward further technological innovation. The type of men and women who spend most of their waking hours thinking about where humanity goes next. And I asked them:

1a. If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

1b. If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]

1c. Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"?

Find out who answered, and exactly what they said, after the jump.

Charles Stross is a Hugo award winning SF&F author whose work can only be summed up as anything but ordinary. While Stross dabbles in Fantasy and Lovecraftian Horror from time to time, he's most well known for his near-future and post-singularity speculations including the excellent Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. Stross's latest book is the highly ungoogleable Rule 34, a near future techno-thriller written entirely in 2nd Person perspective. You can find out more about Stross at his blog, where he writes about anything he damn well pleases, including an excellent (and very applicable) piece about the future of space colonization.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with the caveat that it was a one way trip with 1 year's worth of supplies (and no guarantee that the mission would be successful, would you take it?

CS: Absolutely not!

I am a risk-averse middle-aged male with health issues. I'm also fairly gregarious; I like company. Finally, I'm in no way qualified to get any use out of that one-way trip -- I'm not a geologist or a planetary scientist of any kind.

Basically you just offered to dump me in the middle of a desert more inhospitable than the Dead Zone on Everest with only enough supplies and air to last one year and no way to come home. No thanks!

You can't breathe (or eat) fame.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (i.e. a million dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers) except the chance to return to Earth again.

CS: There is no reasonable incentive that would get me aboard that spaceship willingly.

Unreasonable incentives -- a convincing threat to kill me if I refuse to go -- might work.

Implausible incentives (Iain Banks' Culture have set up an embassy on Mars and are taking in immigrants) would help.

But in general, I'm happy where I am. Go pick your pioneer somewhere else.

[Note: Charles Stross declined to answer the third part of the question]

Ian Tregillis writes books, conserves helium, and plays with science. At least most of the time anyway. When he's not writing books that we never get to read, he spends his days as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While that might sound legit at first, he also blogs about attempts to write his name on the moon with lasers. You be the judge. In the speculative fiction space, Bitter Seeds, Ian's debut novel pitting Nazi Supermen against British Warlocks, was met with rave reviews last year. The next volume of The Milkweek Triptych was unfortunately delayed due to a massive #editorfail at Tor but it remains one of my most anticipated titles, regardless of when it finally surfaces. You can keep an eye on his peculiar website for further updates.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

IT: Nope.

Sometimes even Earth can be a terribly lonely place. But at least here there are a few billion people with whom I can attempt to form some human connection. I don't imagine the conversations with fossil bacteria (if they exist) and dead robots would be much of a salve. The vistas would be magnificent, and the thrill of being the first person to see them first-hand would be amazing... but I wouldn't have anybody with whom to share the delight. Just some staticky voices on the radio. And I'd miss the color green. (Assuming we're not talking about a completely terraformed Mars.)

I like to explore the world in my own little ways. But no thrill of discovery would trump, for me, the terror of being irrevocably alone forever. Which is a completely weird thing for me to say, given that I'm such an incurable hermit anyway. I guess I need to know that safety net exists.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]*

IT: I think that entire list would be a good start... I'd want to know that the people I left behind would be forever comfortable and cared for. I'd want to know that I wouldn't starve to death. More than anything I'd want to be part of a community when I arrived. But even then, I just don't know that I'd do it.

But if Earth faced imminent destruction and my choices were either Mars or death, I suppose I'd pick Mars. Unless I was particularly grumpy on the day I had to choose.

SoY: Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "/one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind?

IT: Knowing me, it would probably be, "Ouch," as I tripped down the ladder.

And then maybe some cursing. Or perhaps followed by panic about the damage to my space suit. That would be dignified, wouldn't it?

Ted Kosmatka was the first author ever interviewed here at Stomping on Yeti and he remains one of my favorite short fiction authors in the game. It seems like every time I check to see what he's up to, he's got another story up for another award or reprinted in another "Best Of" book. Assuming his website is up to date, by his count his work has been reprinted in eight Year's Best anthologies, translated into seven languages, and been performed on stage in Indiana and New York. He's also been nominated for both the Nebula Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and is co-winner of the 2010 Asimov's Readers' Choice Award. His debut novel, The Helix Game, is due out from Del Rey early next year and I can't wait to read it.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

TK: Like any sci-fi writer worth his salt, I’ve been contemplating this exact scenario for years and have long had a go-bag packed and sitting by the door while I wait for the phone to ring. I actually think I’m temperamentally inclined toward just such a mission (NASA, if you’re listening?), but I do realize that accepting such a job would be the equivalent of taking a plea deal for life in solitary confinement. From what I’ve read, humans tend to go insane in prolonged solitary. I don’t think I’d prefer to go insane (nor would it benefit the mission), so now that I’m a bit older, certain caveats would be required before I’d actually climb aboard a one-way rocket.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]

TK: If it was truly a one-way trip, I’d need my family to come along. And if I’m thinking ahead, I’d need a certain critical mass of other unrelated families (the more genetically diverse, the better) to come along as well. While the trip may be one-way, I’m not sure that a whole lot is gained by sending and handful of folks to some distant, barren landscape to die off like a space-age reenactment of the Vikings in Greenland. It would be better, I think, to be a part of a colony large enough to have a chance to expand and leave something of itself behind. I’d sign up for that. Though I tremble to think what strange founder effects my presence might create in the future gene pool of Martians.

SoY: Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"?

TK: --Sheesh, that’s pressure. I’d probably say something like, “Please don’t let me screw this up,” or “With this step, Mankind finds a new home,” or “Just try to collect those parking tickets now!”

Jason Stoddard knows nothing about going to Mars. That is, aside from the fact he wrote an entire novel figuring out how to do it (or at least how to pay for it). In his day job, Stoddard is "an evil marketer, slaving away for corporate overlords who want to take over the world, destroy the environment, and eradicate the middle class." With NASA's budget under fire, we're going to need those evil corporations to get where we want to go. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure where Winning Mars is in the publishing pipeline. But if you add his blog to your favorite sites, I'm sure he'll let you know.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

JS: Absolutely. Somebody has to do something, rather than just sitting around whining about the state of the planet. Oh wait, did I say that? Yes, I did. So it might as well be me.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]

JS: All I need is the chance. But if I could specify a very nice option, it would be to have a very high chance of safe arrival. (As in, not 20% or 30%, but 90% or higher.)

SoY: Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"?

JS: Um, serious lack of inspiration here. "What took us so long?" is what comes to mind.

Lauren Beukes most recently won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel Zoo City. But don't let that fool you, she's been awesome for years. Beukes is a South African author, journalist, documentarian, scriptwriter, and a card carrying, dinosaur-riding, ninja warlock assassin. Unfortunately, her next novel isn't on the publishing calendars just yet. I just hope we get to read it before it all comes true again.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

LB: When I was 25, yes. Now, no. I couldn’t leave my daughter and my husband. Too big a risk and no chance of return? Couldn’t do it.

Parenthood, man, it’s like mind-control alien parasite infestation. It changes you.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]

LB: It would have to be to save all life on Earth, including my daughter’s. Self-sacrifice for the win!

SoY: Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"?

LB: We’re here because we imagined we could be. Because we were curious enough and foolish enough to try.

Daniel Abraham wrote one half of the excellent Leviathan Wakes, a science fiction novel about how humanity finally gets off its ass and out of the solar system. All it takes is a little elbow grease, an imaginary propulsion drive or two, and a hoard of extraterrestrial hybrid space zombies. At this rate, we should be ready to go by 2018 or thereabouts. While his first foray into SF is a thrilling success, Abraham is actually more well known for his fantasy work, particularly the critically acclaimed Long Price Quartet and the recently debuted The Dagger and The Coin. Look for the second book in The Expanse early next year, entitled Caliban's War.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

DA: Hell no. That's like asking if I'd sign up for a life of solitary confinement.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]

DA: Enough infrastructure for a community, safe travel, and a pleasant day-to-day life when I got there.

SoY: Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"?

DA: "There is no limit to what can be achieved with properly motivated housemonkeys."

Jack Skillingstead is quite possibly the most likely candidate to mention the fact that if something goes wrong en route to Mars you'll be stuck sucking vacuum while your bodily fluids boil away. That is, if you remember to exhale before your lungs explode and you die. Skillingstead's short fiction might be a little darker than the average author's but it's also stranger, funnier, and simply better than the vast majority of what's out there. Skillingstead's first novel, Harbringer, was published in 2009 by Fairwood Press followed shortly thereafter by his first collection, Are You There and Other Stories.

SoY: If you were offered a chance to be the first person on Mars with supplies to set up a one-person self sustaining Marsbase (with the caveat that it was a one way trip and no guarantee that the mission would be successful), would you take it?

JS: It's a romantic idea and might have appealed to me at one time, before I understood the reality of being alone. As a kid, I watched "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" and considered the idea cool -- but even that fantasy was tempered by the knowledge that a rescue mission from Earth would eventually show up, and all the Paul Mantee character had to do was survive during the interim.

SoY: If not, what would need to happen to get you on that spaceship? [It can be anything (a billion dollars for your family, a guarantee of safe arrival, a lifetime's worth of supplies, a colony of a thousand fellow travelers, a comet headed toward Earth) except the chance to return to Earth again.]

JS: Anything? Then, sure, a large self-sustaining colony of interesting people, female companionship, useful work, etc. Also, communication with Earth, if not actual visits home. I might go for that -- but not until I'd done and seen a few more things on the home planet.

SoY: Assuming we get you one planet down the line, what would be your version of "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"?

JS: "Mars is beautiful, but I forgot my toothbrush."

So how about you? Would you be the first one to sign up for a mission to Mars?

YetiStomper Picks for July

2011-07-10T12:57:00.000-05:00

Stop. Please. Or at least slow down, for the love of all things ~(;,,;)~ . I can't keep up, much less catch up on everything else.

Here are the 18 books I've tracked for July, the largest single month of recommendations in Stomping on Yeti history. The funny thing? Out of the three biggest books of the month (A Dance With Dragons / Ghost Story / Rule 34), none were originally scheduled to be published this month.

Flashback - Dan Simmons

Stand Alone - If you would have asked me a month ago, the newest novel from Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning author Dan Simmons would have been on the top of my most wanted list (well after A Dance With Dragons, who am I kidding). Flashback warns of a world where a drug that enables you to experience the most euphoric moments of your life has all but crippled the United States. Can flashback-addict Nick Bottom "change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past?" There's no denying it's an intriguing premise - but is that enough to ignore the slate of early reviews accusing Simmons of overt racism and OSC-class politiking? I'll file this one under "Approach With Caution." (July 1 from Reagan Arthur)

A Dance With Dragons - George R. R. Martin

A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5 - Either you knew this was coming or you didn't. But let's pretend you were in a coma for the last 8 years. The Chinese Democracy of fantasy novels, A Dance With Dragons tells the the rest of the story only partially depicted in A Feast for Crows, much to the chagrin of GRRMbling fans. It's bee nearly a decade but we'll finally find out what Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and Tyrion Lannister have been up to since we last left them in A Storm of Swords. (July 12 from Bantam)

The Clockwork Rocket - Greg Egan

Orthogonal, Book 1 - Greg Egan's latest combines the themes of Theordore Sturgeon's classic "Microcosmic God" with Einstein's exploration of relativistic time dilation in a hard SF novel sure to challenge readers (in a good way). Yalda's world is in danger of being obliterated by an extraterrestrial threat, yet the technology that might save them might not be invented for generations. But if a science vessel is launched at a high enough speed, they'd be able to complete decades of research while only a few years pass "at home." Confused yet? Now imagine that all of this takes place in a universe where the laws of physics as we know them don't apply. (July 4 from Night Shade Books)

Ghost Story - Jim Butcher

Dresden Files, Book 13 - I won't spoil it for those who are still catching up but rarely does a book live up to its title than Butcher's 12th entry in the Dresden Files, Changes. Fans of the series have been dying to know what happened to I CAN'T BELIEVED YOU LOOKED! WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED? and after being pushed from it's original March pub date, it's finally time to find out. The Dresden Files is the single best Paranormal Detective / Urban Fantasy series on shelves right now and it's not even close. (July 26 from Roc)

Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia

Stand Alone - Ugh. Not another tale of historical intrigue set in 19th century Russia riffing on a potential war between the great powers of Britain, Russia, and China. That subgenre is so played out. Why can't Ekaterina Sedia just do something interesting for a change..? Falser words were never spoken. With Heart of Iron, Sedia cements her place as a font of original speculation in a genre that innovates far less than it would admit. (July 26 from Prime)

Dead Iron - Devon Monk

The Age of Steam, Book 1 - On the subject of paranormal detectives, Urban Fantasy stalwart Devon Monk shifts her attentions from sulty spellcasters to steampunk werewolves with Dead Iron, the first entry in a new series which combines elements from the two hottest publishing trends into a foggy, fast paced free-for-all. (July 5 from Roc)

Star Wars: Choices of One - Timothy Zahn

Star Wars, Rebellion Era - It's been 20 years since Timothy Zahn reintroduced the Star Wars universe to readers everywhere with his spectacular Thrawn trilogy. Two decades later, Zahn returns to the galaxy far far away with another adventure set during the dark days of the Rebellion when Vader still lurked among the stars, the Battle of Yavin was a recent memory, and Luke still thought he had a chance with Leia. All the familiar faces return, including Zahn's own creations - Mara Jade and the Hand of Judgement. (July 19 from Del Rey / Lucas Books)

Hell Ship - Philip Palmer

Stand Alone - Is there anything more fun than self-aware pulp fiction? Philip Palmer and Orbit deliver more genre goodness with Hell Ship, a SF novel in the same vein as their previous collaborations Red Claw and Version 43. The titular vessel is a intergalactic slave ship, devastating worlds and taking the remnants captive. For obvious reasons, forces inside and out plot the Hell Ship's destruction - but will they succeed? (July 1 from Orbit)

Heaven's Shadow - David S. Goyer and Michael Cassutt

Heaven's Trilogy, Book 1 - "The science fiction epic of our time has arrived." While I wouldn't go quite that far, there's no denying that The Dark Knight scribe Goyer and his co-conspirator Cassutt are swinging for the fences. Heaven's Shadow, the first in a trilogy of first contact, has already been optioned for film. Here's the text trailer "Three years ago, an object one hundred miles across was spotted on a trajectory for Earth's sun. Now, its journey is almost over. As it approaches, two competing manned vehicles race through almost half a million kilometers of space to reach it first. But when they both arrive on the entity, they learn that it has been sent toward Earth for a reason. An intelligent race is desperately attempting to communicate with our primitive species. And the message is: Help us." Grab your popcorn! (July 5 from Ace)

Rule 34 - Charles Stross

Halting State, Book 2 - In quite possibly the least googleable book in recent history, Charles Stross returns to the world of 2007's Halting State for another police procedural. That is, if your hour long crime drama is set ten years in the future, chronicles internet crimes so bleeding edge their not quite illegal yet, and is uniquely presented in second person perspective. And the best part? The book kept getting delayed after the stuff Stross dreamt up, actually came true. Multiple times. (July 5 from Ace)

The Goblin Corps - Ari Marmell

Stand Alone - Ever tire of all that Elfing Hero Propaganda? You know what I'm talking about - child of prophecy journeys accross vast distances, overcomes impossible odds, blah blah blah. Ari Marmell finally tells the other side of the story in The Goblin Corps, an "alternative" fantasy which sets out to sarcastically prove that just because life is nasty, brutish, and short in the dark lands of Kirol Syrreth doesn't mean it isn't also a lot of fun. "Welcome to the Goblin Corps. May the best man lose." (July 26 from Pyr)

Heartless - Gail Carriger

The Parasol Protectorate, Book 4 - Steampunk alternate history meets urban fantasy once more in Heartless, the penultimate book in The Parasol Protectorate. Carriger's latest outing follows Lady Alexia Maccon once more as she attempts to save the queen from a maniacal ghost among other paranormal problems. (June 28 from Orbit)

7th Sigma - Steven Gould

Stand Alone - Gould, the author of the popular Jumper books, switches microscopic gears from teleporation to self-replicating nanotechnology in his latest book, 7th Sigma. The territory is a dangerous land, plagued by self-replicating, solar-powered, metal-masticating machines. Yet life prevails, rebuilt on a platform of plastic, ceramic and wood. Kimble Monroe is one of the hardy few that chose to remain in the American Southwest among the swarms of synthetic bugs. He's also one in a billion. Intrigued? I am. (July 5 from Tor)

Vortex - Robert Charles Wilson

Spin Books, Book 3 - After the delightful diversion that was Julian Comstock, Robert Charles Wilson returns to the universe of 2006's Hugo-award winning Spin which continues to spin further and further out of control. In Spin, a mysterious group of powers known as "the Hypotheticals" quarantined Earth and catapulted it into the far future of the universe. Two books later and it's time to find out why as their motives are ultimately revealed. Like fellow Canadian SF author Robert J. Sawyer, Wilson specializes in approachable character based science fiction and his talents are on display once again. (July 5 from Tor)

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-eighth Annual Collection - Gardner Dozois, ed.

The Year's Best Science Fiction, Book 28 - After 27 entries, Dozois's yearly collection of science fiction shorts is an undeniable genre staple. Whether you're looking to wrap your brain around some new ideas or just discover a few new authors to satisfy novel needs, you won't find a better place to start than Dozois's latest weighty tome. (July 5 from St. Martin's Griffin)

Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day - Ben Loory

Short Story Collection - Ben Loory's a new name on my radar but a interesting one. His relatively short collection is just over two hundred pages in length but boasts forty of the most peculiar (and often hilarious) stories I've ever read. Loory's short shorts feel like modern day fairy tales, albeit ones told by a Mother Goose with a penchant for hallucinogenics and whose eggs are more than a little scrambled. His style bundles complex themes in purposefully simplistic prose packages, providing plenty of dialogue tags bur far fewer conclusions. Frustration has never been this much fun. (July 26 from Penguin)

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities - Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds.

Thackery T. Lambshead Anthologies, Book 2 - If we're talking about things that belong in a curious cabinet, look no further than the VanderMeers' latest anthology. Fans of their editorial projects may recognize Thackery T. Lambshead as the fictional doctor responsible for compiling a collection of bizarre but entertaining diseases. Apparently he also had an affinity for collecting oddities as was apparently discovered in his imaginary home after his fictional death. In truth, a number of noted genre authors and artists have come together to stock his strange shelves, combining visual and written elements to create an anthology unlike any I've ever seen. Ted Chiang, China Mieville, Mike Mignola and Alan Moore are only a few of the names that helped compile this abstract anthology of "exhibits, oddities, images, and stories" (July 12 from Harper Voyager)

Paradise Tales - Geoff Ryman

Short Story Collection - Small Beer Press's niche collections have always been a great place to find "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" in the speculative fiction space. Which isn't to say Ryman isn't ready for the big leagues. Quite the opposite in fact - Ryman already has 7 novels under his belt, including the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke winning modern masterpiece Air: Or, Have Not Have. Which is probably why Ryman's first collection of SF tales - mundane and not - earned a Starred Review from Publisher's Weekly. (July 12 from Small Beer Press)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: It's a good time to be George R. R. Martin (or if not him, one his fans). The almost flawless adaptation of Game of Thrones is HBO's newest smash hit. The graphic novel is due out in September from Dynamite Entertainment, to be penned by Yeti-favorite Daniel Abraham and illustrated by Tommy Patterson. And of course, Kong itself - the release of the book 5 years in the making. This month's YetiStomper Picks features more books than any other month in this blog's short history but out of all those books, only Jim Butcher's Ghost Story had even a shot of upsetting A Dance With Dragons for YetiStomper Pick of the Month. Now, I'm not fully caught up with A Song of Ice and Fire just yet but what I've read thus far has more than lived up to the hype. The only question is can A Dance With Dragons possibly live up to the colossal expectations placed upon it by the prolonged wait? The early word? - Yes!

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: There is a man. The man wrote a story. It was made up of smaller stories. The stories say everything and nothing. There is another man. He read the first man's story of stories. He was impressed. "I will pick this book," he says. Which is how Stories for Nighttime (and Some for the Day) came be July's YetiStomper Debut of the Month. Loory uses refreshingly simple prose while exploring frustratingly elusive themes, resulting in a book that goes down smooth but leaves a pleasant aftertaste for you to mull over in your mind. I'm still not sure if Loory's debut is crazy good or just plain crazy but I'll admit I enjoyed it immensely. Undoubtedly the best collection I've read since Livia Llewellyn's Engines of Desire.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: Hmmmm.... Where did this go? Stay tuned to find out...eventually

Anyway, as always, if you are interested in more details regarding any of the above books, just click on through the Amazon links. And don't worry, thanks to new state legislation, I don't get a single penny, nickel, or dime from it. It's been hard restructuring my budget without that extra $10 a year but I think I'll survive. Be sure to let me know if there is anything I may have missed in the comments.

You can view previous installments of YetiStomper Picks here.

eBook eConomics: Free-Ninety-Nine

2011-07-07T19:17:00.000-05:00

Not good, skiffy fans.

Well, not really. More like good for us, bad for our collective fiscal solvency. Apparently, publishers have finally figured out that if you give people like me (and probably you) the option to click a button and receive an eBook for the price of a Katy Perry song or two, the results tend to be somewhat predictable. Unlike two consecutive blog posts invoking She Who Kisses Girls and Likes It. Who saw that coming?

Let's take a look at three different publishers who have been pummeling my ~~purse~~ money satchel recently (and the slightly different striking methods they use to do so). Also, it's worth noting that I'm a Kindler, not a Nookie, so apologies in advance if the mentioned deals don't translate to your preferred device. Blame divergent formats and DRM. I always blame DRM ever since they canceled Firefly. Don't tell them I told you.

Orbit

First in my eBook eXplorations (tIred oF tHis yEt?), is Orbit, a publisher whose 2011 slate is so good it violates that statutes of four nations, seven states, a single Canadian province, and a handful of ancient city-states (apparently along with the laws of physics). And the best part? They seem to be willing to spread the love around by offering a different deal every month through their "Orbital Drop" Program, mostly in the form of discounted and bundled backlist books. It's one newsletter you won't regret signing up for.

But Orbit isn't just focusing on their back catalog. In addition to this month's deal [3 of Gail Carriger's eclectic Parasol Protectorate novels for 9.99], Orbit is willing to part with two of this year's biggest books for less than a penny a page. Ten bucks will get you over 1 kilopage of Daniel Abraham goodness with the double eBook edition of The Dragon's Path and Leviathan Wakes. Even better, people who bought the eBook edition back in March received Leviathan Wakes three months before the rest of us. An advance edition premium for eBooks could be interesting, although I don't see it working in the long run.

All things considered, Orbit's strategy seems to be centered around limited time offers on bundles with the intention on introducing you to a few new series with the hopes you'll stick around for later volumes. I don't know what the audience overlap is between The Dragon's Path (fantasy) and Leviathan Wakes (SF space opera) but you can be sure FREE will help blur the lines a little more. And while Orbit does have some below double dollar deals [Kevin J. Anderson's The Edge of the World for $1.99 (Kindle Only)], they don't seem too eager to get into a price war with their bundle deals still pricing out between $3.33 and $5.00 a book.

The Dragon's Path & Leviathan Wakes - Daniel Abraham / James S. A. Corey -2 for $9.99
The Parasol Protectorate: Books 1-3 - Gail Carriger - 3 for $9.99
The Edge of the World - Kevin J. Anderson - $1.99

Night Shade Books

Night Shade Books is also in on the fun, albeit in a slightly different way. A large portion of Night Shade's output is anthology based - either with themed anthologies from John Joseph Adams, "Best of" anthologies from Jonathan Strahan and Ellen Datlow, or their eclectic Eclipse series, also from Strahan. They've got a problem though; anthologies don't have the same backlist appeal their novelular (it's a word, trust me) counterparts command. While I don't have the numbers to back it up, I think it's safe to assume most anthologies don't demand multiple printings. Particularly "Best of" books which are going to cannibalize their own sales year after year.

Enter the eBook.

Unlikely their corporeal counterparts, their is little to no cost in producing an eBook "print run" of an infinite number of copies. Each book might not sell a lot of copies during its twilight years but what it does sell is sure to be almost pure profit. When you combine the two (infinite supply and high profit margins) you've got a fantastic formula for lowering prices to generate demand. Which is exactly what NSB is doing.

The latest volume of Eclipse might cost you $7.99 but the first volume is a down right affordable $2.99. And like the cosmic crack dealer they are, you better believe they are hoping to hook you on that first taste. I'm not sure what the driver is for dropping the price point (end of the print run? 3 years old?) but we can all be glad it's there.

In addition to their anthology business, Night Shade also makes a point of using eBook promotions to expose some of their newer authors to the hungry masses [at least for some eBook readers]. Recently, Brad P. Beaulieu's The Winds of Khalakovo and Will McIntosh's Soft Apocalypse were given away for free for Nook users as part of Barnes and Nobles' Free Friday Program. While one can argue that those downloads mean fewer sales, there's no denying that 77,229 extra copies of The Winds of Khalakovo in the wild will generate a lot of interest in a format that can't be easily lent to other readers. Not to mention the boost it should give to the second volume.

Here is a sample of a few of Night Shade Books' more attractive deals. Sadly the free Nook giveaways have since ended.

The Living Dead 2 - John Joseph Adams, ed. - $2.99
Eclipse One: New Science Fiction And Fantasy (v. 1) - Jonathan Strahan, ed. - $2.99
The Living Dead - John Joseph Adams, ed. - $2.99
The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Volume 1 - Jonathan Strahan, ed. - $2.99
The Best Horror of the Year Volume 1 - Ellen Datlow, ed - $2.99

Pyr

As Tim O'Reilly so aptly put it "the problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity", a motto which Pyr Books really took to heart. Like NSB, they know all about the power of selling something for free-ninety-nine. In fact they make a point of it, hoping to make up the difference when you return to finish one of their many multi-volume series (at full price). It's a great strategy and one more publishers should pursue, particularly those that typically traffic in long epics. Extended series have enough barriers to entry as it is, they don't need you counting your pennies before you jump into a ten book tale. Speaking of jumping in, you can try Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky or Joel Shepherd's Sasha right now for no risk.

If I published eBooks, once a series went to three books, I would give the first volume away for free (or close enough to not matter). No exceptions. And then watch my backlist sales climb as the new readership returns to the characters they've become invested in. Assume you've got 5 books in a series for $5 a pop - would you rather sell 0 books for $0 or 5 for $20?

Here's some of the goodness Pyr's got going for it at the moment.

Bright of the Sky: The Entire and the Rose, Book 1 - Kay Kenyon - FREE
Sasha: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 1 - Joel Shepherd - FREE
Empire in Black and Gold: Shadows of the Apt, Book 1 - Adrian Tchaikovsky - $1.99

[Side Note: Empire in Black and Gold costs $9.59 on the Nook! And Bright of the Sky isn't available. Are you kidding me?]

Now at this point, I'm sure you're thinking that I've finally lost it - that I'm nothing more than a glorified publicity machine for "Big Book." Don't worry, I haven't sold out, I'm just completely selfish. Every book that I can help sell is another step toward convincing publishers that $1.99 is a price point that works. Which is good for me all of us. And by "all of us," I mean readers.

Authors, publishers, and distributors? Not so much.

So get to it, my ~~expendable minions~~ much appreciated readers. Are there any other publishers up to sales shenanigans? And what's this I hear about 99p eBooks across the pond?

Cause Baby I'm A Firework! [Not YetiPicks for July Post Just Yet]

2011-07-02T09:39:00.002-05:00

Little known fact. I'm also Katy Perry

Didn't get through all 16 books for this month's YetiPicks Post just yet. Probably something to do with the fact that there were 16 books to select, sample, and spotlight. And that's with stricter selection criteria than usual. Blegh.

Let's face it, there are just too many good writers writing today. Something must be done. Any objection to sinking England?

Well, no, of course not EVERYONE. I've contacted Gollancz to build a boat. Two authors of every subgenre, you know the drill. And not necessarily one male, one female, mind you. We want authors writing, not fraternizing. Besides for every Joe Hill we get, there seem to be two Brian Herberts. Does the world really need Dune: My Dad's Shopping List?

I feel another cover spoof coming...

Anyway.

Instead have a nice, automatically produced widget of the most recent books I've received. There are some books I'm really excited to read, particularly The Alloy of Law, The Mall, The Clockwork Rocket, and Robopocalypse. See what the problem is....

Anyway, have a great [American holiday] weekend. Don't blow anything up. Nothing too important, anyway.

Covering Covers: Percepliquis - Michael J. Sullivan

2011-06-30T08:03:00.001-05:00

Cover Artist: Michael J. Sullivan

The Riyria Revelations is one of the most popular self-published/small-published fantasy series of recent years. As much as we're led to believe that a book should not be judged by it's cover, the undeniable success of Sullivan's work has been, at least in part, a result of the simple yet professional looking covers with which he has encased his stories. The cover of the latest (and last book), Percepliquis debuted today on Sullivan's blog. I've posted it above and for reference the first five books are shown below.

I really admire these covers. They aren't flashy but they aren't cheesy either, which is more than you can say about most self-produced cover. Sullivan appears to be cognizant of his own limitations, playing to his strengths rather than being overly ambitious. I like the clean imagery and the consistent style, even the repeated color scheme which I hadn't noticed before writing this piece. Pecepliquis isn't my favorite cover of the series - that honor goes to Avempartha or Nyphron Rising - but I'm happy the design and level of quality remained more or less consistent. Given that each book in the series sold a lot more copies than it's predecessor, Sullivan could have easily outsourced the cover art if he desired.

As for the book itself, Percepliquis is a strange story, one that really appeals to the book collector in me. As I discussed with him earlier this summer, Sullivan's series has been promoted to the majors with Orbit planning to republish the six books as a trilogy later this year. Even cooler, Orbit was gracious enough to allow Sullivan to publish Percepliquis under the Ridan Publishing imprint with the release of the Orbit omnibus, much to the delight of series completists everywhere.

I saw a great journey. Ten upon the road, she who wears the light will lead the way. The road goes deep into the earth, and into despair. The voices of the dead guide your steps. You walk back in time. The three-thousand-year battle begins again. Cold grips the world, death comes to all, and a choice is before you.

Percepliquis is the final installment of the epic fantasy, The Riyria Revelations. In this saga that began with The Crown Conspiracy, two thieves caught in the right place at the wrong time were launched on a series of ever escalating adventures that have all lead to this moment. Three thousand years have passed and the time for Novron’s heir to act has arrived.

The Ridan edition of Percepliquis should be available in the neighborhood of January 2012. You can send an e-mail to riyria6@gmail.com to make sure you are notified when it is.

On Notice!

2011-06-28T23:29:00.000-05:00

This series of mini-rants is brought to you by Mind Asplode, the only product made out of 99.9% uncut surprise.

[Author's Note: Please read these "notices" in the light-hearted tone with which they were written. Mostly.]

ON NOTICE - People That Think Book Trailers Are A Good Idea

Watch this and tell me you're excited to read The Host. [Ignore the fact it was written by the same woman who unleashed Twilight on the world.]

I mean really? I hope they didn't spend triple digits on that. And make no mistake, this is par for the course. Personally, I would love to see a publishing house put together a real book trailer - one where random bits of dialogue and prose are spliced together. Here's one for James S. A. Corey's excellent new space opera:

Foaming-at-the-Mouth Denunciations.

"Anyone Drop A Rock?"

Smudge.

Martian Navy.

Holden.

Irregular Orbital Graves.

"You Slept At All?"

Yawning.

LEVIATHAN WAKES

Good no?

ON NOTICE - Mira Grant - Zombie novels don't work. Even someone with half a brain [left] knows that. zombies aren't scary on the page. You can't see them in all their grotesque glory. There's no dialogue. They can't (or at least shouldn't) outsmart the protagonists. And every proofreader fears the day when the have to spell "BRAAAAAAIIINNNNSSSSSS!!!!" right. Zombie novel don't work. Why then is Mira Grant's Newsflesh Trilogy so good?

The one and only.

ON NOTICE - Seanan McGuire - You can spell it anyway you want - faerie is still fairy. I'm not buying it. You can take your Tinkerbell, your Oberon, and your pumpkin transmogrifying grandma and live happily ever after. Uh no, those aren't the October Daye books on my shelf. You are mistaken. Why would I want to read grim and gritty urban fantasy that blurs the line between mystery and fantasy? Damn you McGuire! Quit making 97% of Urban Fantasy feel bad about itself.

Wait a second... Zoom in and Enhance...

ON NOTICE - Authors who manage to be awesome while writing as multiple psuedonyms - See above. That and the fact that McGuire is starting up another series, this one about "a family of crypto-zoologists who protect endangered mythological species, the organization of monster hunters sworn to destroy them, and the forbidden romances on both sides." [Check out io9 for the full story]. They say everyone has a story to tell. Chances are McGuire took yours.

ON NOTICE - Days When Neil Gaiman Doesn't Link My Blog - Lonely blog is lonely.

I'll give you 30 guesses.

ON NOTICE - The New York [Behind the] Times - C'mon. Everyone knows Lauren Beukes is awesome. I'm glad you figured out that Zoo City was worth reading. Everyone else has known that ever since Moxyland put Angry Robot on the map. But if you insist on identifying up-and-coming writers, I've got another name you might want to check out: George R. R. Martin. He's poised to explode.

I've heard good things about this one too....

And the updates...

REMAINING ON NOTICE - Naomi Novik - Someone needs to tell her that while dragons aren't real, unanswered questions are. Interview, Novik. Interview.

REMAINING ON NOTICE - One of the Not So Fine Editors At Tor - You're up for parole when I finally see The Coldest War. Not a second sooner.

OFF NOTICE - Patrick Rothfuss - You know I can't stay mad at you.

OFF NOTICE- : & ; - Still don't know the difference but my therapist has helped me accept that I never will.

OFF NOTICE - A Certain Unnamed Publisher Who Lies - Now known as "A Certain Unnamed Publisher Who Lied, But Eventually Came Through"

REMAINING ON NOTICE - China Mieville - Placed on Double Secret On Notice for getting such awesome UK covers. Speaking of which, I now have a special Mieville bookshelf.

REMAINING ON NOTICE - Myself - What's it called if permanent and immutable have a child? And then that child is frozen in carbonite. That's what chance I have of moving off this list.

OFF NOTICE - The Art Department at Bantam - If I re-purchase all of the books, the covers will match again. #itssosimple #waitasecond #thatwastheideawasntit

Covering Covers: Killing Rites - M.L.N. Hanover

2011-06-23T02:25:00.000-05:00

It's time for everybody's favorite topic - good urban fantasy books and bad urban fantasy covers.

Cover Artist: Unknown

If you've enjoyed Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path or James S. A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes (and why wouldn't you when you can get a bundled eBook of both for less than a movie ticket) and aren't entirely opposed to the idea of Urban Fantasy, I'd recommend completing the pseudonymic triumvirate with M.L.N. Hanover's The Black Sun's Daughter series. All three series are penned by the same 5-hour-energy guzzling author and each targets a different demographic of specultative fiction readers. Fantasy, Science Fiction, Paranoir Urban Fantasy - whatever you're looking to buy, Abraham has a story to sell you.

As is the case with his new book featured above, Killing Rites, due out later this year. The fourth and latest chronicle of Jayne Heller's nomadic exorcisms promises to explore the game changing revelations which rocked the foundations of Jayne's world as the end of Vicious Grace.

Read on for a spoiler filled summary:
Jayne Heller has discovered the source of her uncanny powers: something else is living inside her body. She's possessed. Of all her companions, she can only bring herself to confide in Ex, the former priest. They seek help from his old teacher and the circle of friends he left behind, hoping to cleanse Jayne before the parasite in her becomes too powerful.

Ex's history and a new enemy combine to leave Jayne alone and on the run. Her friends, thinking that the rider with her has taken the reins, try to hunt her down, unaware of the danger they're putting her in. Jayne must defeat the weight of the past and the murderous intent of another rider, and her only allies are a rogue vampire she once helped free and the nameless thing hiding inside her skin.
Killing Rites will be published by Pocket Books on Nov 29th. And don't forget, it also marks the return of Midian, the scene stealing vampire who made Unclean Spirits such a joy to read.

The Flower of Sauron

2011-06-14T16:00:00.002-05:00

Click to embiggen.

Photograph by: Photographie 51 [Jennifer Wolohan]

The Dark Lord is everywhere. Watch out hobbits.

You can see more, less evil, flowers here.

Covering Covers: Reamde - Neal Stephenson [w/ Detailed Blurb]

2011-06-13T11:04:00.001-05:00

US Cover UK Cover

Artist: Unknown Artist: Unknown

REAMDE.
README.

REAMED.

REMADE.

ERAMDE?

What does it mean? Here's the latest blurb:

Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune. With plenty of time and money to burn, he became addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing viral gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers— young professional players in Asia who accumulated virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European buyers.

For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.

In this edgy, 21st century tale, Neal Stephenson, one of the most ambitious and prophetic writers of our time, returns to the terrain of his cyberpunk masterpieces Snow Crash and Crpytonomicon, leading readers through the looking glass and into the dark heart of imagination.

This September, Neal Stephenson is back with what looks to be his most marketable book since Cryptonomicon. Consider me intrigued...

Covering Covers & Contents: Lightspeed: Year One - John Joseph Adams (ed.)

2011-06-10T14:49:00.001-05:00

Like good fiction but hate eReading? ~~What the hell is wrong with you?~~ You're in luck!

Prime Books is collecting the first twelve issues of Lightspeed in a handsomely covered and bug-splatteringly physical edition. Lightspeed, if you're not aware, is an online-only monthly magazine that publishes a mix of original and classic reprint science fiction shorts. In its first year of publication, Lightspeed produced 4 genre award nominees in 2010, all of which are included in the Year One collection.

Here's the full list of contents:

Introduction – John Joseph Adams
June 2010, Issue One

I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno – Vylar Kaftan (Nebula Award Nominee)
The Cassandra Project – Jack McDevitt
Cats in Victory – David Barr Kirtley
Amaryllis – Carrie Vaughn (Hugo Award Nominee)

July 2010, Issue Two

No Time Like the Present – Carol Emshwiller
Manumission – Tobias S. Buckell
The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball – Genevieve Valentine
...For a Single Yesterday – George R. R. Martin

August 2010, Issue Three

How to Become a Mars Overlord – Catherynne M. Valente
Patient Zero – Tananarive Due
Arvies – Adam-Troy Castro (Nebula Award Nominee)
More Than the Sum of His Parts – Joe Haldeman

September 2010, Issue Four

Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain – Yoon Ha Lee (Sturgeon Award Nominee)
The Long Chase – Geoffrey A. Landis
Amid the Words of War – Cat Rambo
Travelers – Robert Silverberg

October 2010, Issue Five (SF-Horror Hybrids Issue)

Hindsight – Sarah Langan
Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back – Joe R. Lansdale
The Taste of Starlight – John R. Fultz
Beachworld – Stephen King

November 2010, Issue Six

Standard Loneliness Package – Charles Yu
Faces in Revolving Souls – Caitlin R. Kiernan
Hwang's Billion Brilliant Daughters – Alice Sola Kim
Ej-Es – Nancy Kress

December 2010, Issue Seven

In-Fall – Ted Kosmatka
The Observer – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Jenny's Sick – David Tallerman
The Silence of the Asonu – Ursula K. Le Guin

January 2011, Issue Eight

Postings from an Amorous Tomorrow – Corey Mariani
Cucumber Gravy – Susan Palwick
Black Fire – Tanith Lee
The Elephants of Poznan – Orson Scott Card

February 2011, Issue Nine

Long Enough And Just So Long – Cat Rambo
The Passenger – Julie E. Czerneda
Simulacrum – Ken Liu
Breakaway, Backdown – James Patrick Kelly

March 2011, Issue Ten

Saying the Names – Maggie Clark
Gossamer – Stephen Baxter
Spider the Artist – Nnedi Okorafor
Woman Leaves Room – Robert Reed

April 2011, Issue Eleven

All That Touches the Air – An Owomoyela
Maneki Neko – Bruce Sterling
Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son – Tom Crosshill
Velvet Fields – Anne McCaffrey

May 2011, Issue Twelve

The Harrowers – Eric Gregory
Bibi From Jupiter – Tessa Mellas
Eliot Wrote – Nancy Kress
Scales – Alastair Reynolds

That's 48 stories for less than 15 bucks. A quarter per short works for me. While there's no denying the quality of the reprinted material from King, Le Guin, Card, and GRRM, I'm equally excited by the newer authors. John Joseph Adams is one of the premiere genre anthology editors working today, and he does a great job recognizing upcoming and underread talent of the likes of Ted Kosmatka, Nnedi Okorafor, Charles Yu, Alice Sola Kim, and Genevieve Valentine.

I'm not sure when this one is out, but I'll be sure to pick it up when it arrives. In the mean time, consider buying an issue or two of Lightspeed to keep the good stuff coming.

Community

2011-06-09T18:36:00.003-05:00

Over on io9, (which is a pretty good site as long as you ignore their shameless plagiarism) they've got a quote from Community executive producer Dan Harmon discussing how "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" one of Season 2's best episodes almost never happened. Here's a snippet:

"They [the studio and the network] were so upset about the crime of this episode having been written. The note session as a whole was preceded by a 45-minute period of them walking around the lot whispering to each other. They told me they would come up to my office and meet me privately. When they came up, I had the director and all of the writers in the office with me, because I was terrified. They sat down, and they said, ‘Look, where do we start?'

The full quote is even more disturbing, as Harmon gets so frustrated with the network execs that he contemplates quitting one of the funniest shows on TV. If you haven't seen it, you're really missing out on a wealth of brilliant material. It gets fairly low ratings but I'd attribute that to the frequent meta-fictional dissections of common TV and film tropes (particularly in the genre space) going over the average viewer's head. I would assume that the people who enjoy Two and a Half Men and the ones who like Community fall are for the most part mutually exclusive. I mean they had a freaking clip show made up of clips from episodes that never existed! People who watch the same episode of CSI week after week won't catch on to that one.

So if you've got a few minutes, watch the first part of "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons," the episode that was received as anathema to the NBC execs. As the title suggests, it's basically 23 minutes of a bunch of people sitting around a table making up a story together. Who could possibly enjoy that?

If you enjoyed the first half of the episode, find a way to track it down [preferably in a way that actually gives the show some support such as iTunes or on DVD]. If not, at least tune in next season. Community is a brilliant show and I would hate to see it go the way of Arrested Development or Better Off Ted [may they Rest In Piece] just because it didn't have the fanbase of some lowest common denominator sitcom.

Please.

YetiStomper Picks for June

2011-06-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

June's slate is a curious one, full of questions and impracticalities.

Zombie books shouldn't work. The antagonists are brain-dead, dialogue is minimal, and the visual gore factor simply doesn't translate from the screen to the page. They shouldn't happen. Why then, does June bring us not one, but two, zombie novels? And even more curious, why are both of them fantastic?

Science Fiction is dead. Everyone knows it. We are stuck on this planet until we bleed it dry so why even bother speculating scientifically? And will someone please let James S. A. Corey know, whoever that is? I'd hate for him to try to save SF by himself. It's doomed.

Anthologies don't sell. If speculative fiction is a literary ghetto, then anthologies are the genre equivalent of the projects, housing all the poor disenfranchised short stories on the publisher dime. But if that's the case, how do you explain the Wild Cards and Bordertown books which have an impressive 29 installments and counting between them? Where do they keep coming from? And why?

What's going on? Doesn't anyone know anything?

As usual, I blame the authors. Let's get started.

Raising Stony Mayhall - Daryl Gregory

Standalone - You might not know where GenRenaissance Author Daryl Gregory's fiction will take you next, but there's no denying that when you reach the destination, you'll have enjoyed the trip. Whether he's writing pulp demons, mutant noir, or zombie orphans, Gregory always strikes a delicate balance between humor, heart, and horror in his abstract exploration of what the word "family" really means. Raising Stony Mayhall is the third novel in Daryl Gregory's young career and he amazes once again in his narration of the the curious life of one Stony Mayhall. Mayhall was made an orphan during the the first zombie outbreak. Unfortunately for him, he was born to parents on the losing side. But can his adoptive human family keep him secret from the government that would destroy him? And what to do when you find your relatives aren't as (un)dead as you once thought? (June 28th from Del Rey)

Deadline - Mira Grant

Newsflesh, Book 2 - Somehow, someway, Campbell Award winning author Seanan McGuire manages to maintain an absurd level of quantity and quality in her work, publishing seven novels as two authors in under three years. McGuire's latest (written by alter ego Mira Grant) continues the zombie tale started in 2010's Hugo nominated Feed in which bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason set out to unravel the conspiracy behind a global pandemic in a world where viral information is the only defense against a viral hunger. (May 31 from Orbit)

Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey

The Expanse, Book 1 - And here I thought 2011 was supposed to be a good year for Fantasy. But with the last three months bringing readers Up Against It, Fuzzy Nation, The Quantum Thief, and now Leviathan Wakes, a veritable Sci-Fi revival appears to be in the works. James S. A. Corey is a pseudonym for a talented pair of writers: Yeti-favorite Daniel Abraham and relative newcomer Ty Francks. Together as Corey, they set out to remind the SF landscape that story and science aren't mutually exclusive. Hard without being immutable, Leviathan Wakes follows Captain Jim Holden and Detective Miller across the solar system as they pull on different threads of the same conspiracy. (June 28 from Orbit)

Chasing the Moon - A. Lee Martinez

Standalone - A. Lee Martinez is just one of those writers who experiences life on a different wavelength. Frequently starting with a concept past the point where other authors would draw the line, Martinez's fiction is absurd, hilarious, and, above all else, unpredictable. His latest, Chasing the Moon, sees a woman move into her dream apartment. Unfortunately for her, there are a couple of unadvertised tenants who are hellbent on making it less of a dream and more of nightmare. But even Vom the Hungering is a potential ally when the fate of the world is on the line. (May 25 from Orbit)

City of Ruin / Book of Transformations - Mark Charan Newton

Legends of the Red Sun, Books 2 and 3 - No matter what side of the pond you're on, June is a good month for fans of Mark Charan Newton. UK fans get The Book of Transformations, the third in Newton's popular Legends of the Red Sun series, while his US followers continue to play catch up with City of Ruin, the sequel to last year's Nights of Villjamur. Either audience will delight in Newton's capital-w Weird approach to fantasy as he expertly crafts another tale in one of his frequently troubled cities. (June 28 from Spectra)

The Final Evolution - Jeff Somers

Avery Cates, Book 5 - After failing to satisfy his personal vendetta in the four previous volumes, Cates' ongoing war with Canny Orel is finally coming to a head in the fifth (and final?) installment. But what price is Cates willing to pay to enact his revenge? Somers' cinematic cyberpunk stylings aren't for everyone but if you like gritty anti-heroes and fun, fast-paced science fiction, The Final Evolution is worth a look.

The Boy at the End of the World - Greg van Eekhout

Middle Grade SF Novel - Van Eekhout's 2nd middle grade novel (after the excellent Kid vs. Squid) is just as strong as the first, delivering an intelligent yet humorous story in a post-apocalyptic package. Fisher is, as far as he knows, the last living human on earth and he's determined to do what he can to change that, even if it means crossing the country with a robot guardian that makes C-3PO seem serene and a cloned woolly mammoth that answers to Protein. If you are looking for a book that will challenge your kids without exposing them to Twilight-esque perversions, The Boy at the End of the World is a great place to start. But don't take my word for it, go read what 10 year old Junior YetiStomper Keegan had to say on the subject in his review. And don't be surprised if you end up reading it as well. I did. (June 21 from Bloomsbury)

Mistification - Kaaron Warren

Standalone - If Angry Robot is determined to bring about a robotic revolution, they are going about it the wrong way. Rather than stockpiling ammunition or energy sources, they seem determined to snap up all the fleshy faced writing talent they can find. One of their deadliest weapons, Kaaron Warren, still owes me several hours worth of sleep after her profoundly good but equally disturbing debut novel, Slights. Later this month, our future robot overlords are unleashing the Astonishing Australian on an unsuspecting populace once again. Mistification, her third novel, tells the story of a stage magician who can't do a single trick, mostly because his magic is completely real. Besides entertaining audiences, Marvo is responsible for shielding the rest of humanity from the unfathomable experience of undiluted reality. Dark, moody, and magnificent, Warren is poised to put on a show. (June 28 from Angry Robot)

Welcome to Bordertown - Holly Black & Ellen Kushner, eds.

Bordertown Anthologies, Book 5 - After a multi-year hiatus, Bordertown is once again open to tourists. Come visit B-town, a mysterious metropolis juxtaposed between "The World" and "The Elflands" where technology and magic coexist, but not without consequence. Old enough to legally drink, the shared narrative world of Bordertown was originally conceived back in 1986 by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold but the editing duties have been passed down to long time contributor Ellen Kushner and newcomer Holly Black. In Welcome to Bordertown, a new generation of writers is on display, many of which grew up on Bordertown books decades ago. This latest volume includes original work from Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Catherynne M. Valente, and well as series regulars Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, Charles de Lint and Windling herself. If you like Urban Fantasy, you owe it to yourself to see where it all started. (May 24 from Random House)

Wild Cards: Fort Freak - George R. R. Martin, ed.

Wild Cards Mosaic, Book 21 - It's a good summer to be GRRM. Hit TV show. Long awaited novel hitting shelves. Plus a handful of passion projects coming to fruition, including Fort Freak, the latest entry in the Wild Cards Mosaic. In case you weren't aware, the long running Wild Card Mosaic is a series of shared world novels and anthologies written by a cornucopia of talented writers and [mostly] edited by George R. R. Martin himself. The books themselves are set in an alternate 20th century America in which 1% of the world's population was given superpowers, 9% horrible disfigurements and the remaining 90% an early grave. This particular volume concerns Fort Freak, Manhattan's Fifth Police Precinct, in which half the men are more than human and features David Anthony Durham, Ty Franck, Cherie Priest, and Melissa M. Snodgrass among others. (June 21 from Tor)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: I have a love/hate relationship with books. There are so many good books worth reading. But there are SO MANY good books worth reading. But even among June's decathlon of worthy selections, a few titles stand out. Mark Charan Newton [The Book of Transformations] is writing some of the best (and weirdest) fantasy in the game. Mira Grant [Deadline] is looking to take over the entire industry, even if she has to write it herself. And then there are Daryl Gregory and Daniel Abraham, two palindromic authors who are both FTW and WTF. As in "That book was FTW, WTF haven't you read it yet?" In the end, it comes down to these two: Gregory for his cold skinned but warm hearted Raising Stony Mayhall and Abraham (along with Ty Francks) for their "hard without being hard to read" space opera, Leviathan Wakes. As always, it's a tough call. Book books are outstanding and all three authors are promising talents who could use whatever small support my mention provides. Ultimately, I'm going with Gregory's Raising Stony Mayhall as my YetiStomper Pick of the Month for reasons that should be clear in about one paragraph.

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: Ok, I'm cheating a little. I couldn't really decide between Raising Stony Mayhall and Leviathan Wakes. Read them both if you can. Fortunately, James S. A. Corey is at least partially a debut author (even if the Daniel Abraham half of him isn't) which means I can still give Leviathan Wakes top billing as the YetiStomper Debut of the Month. It was also the only [kinda] debut novel this month. So it both deserved recognition enough to make an exception and won by default. If that makes any sense. Please post in the comments if you know of any other worthy debut contenders even if it means putting them up against the Leviathan itself. Otherwise, go read Leviathan Wakes and Raising Stony Mayhall. The order doesn't matter, just that you read them. And/or any of the great books on this list.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: Hmmmm.... Where did this go? Stay tuned to find out!

Covering Covers: Southern Gods - John Hornor Jacobs

2011-06-01T23:40:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I didn't get YetiStomper Picks for June done today. Blame beach volleyball, dinner with friends, and Portal 2.

Instead, here are two versions of John Hornor Jacobs' upcoming horror novel, Southern Gods. One was made by Jacobs himself, the other by Night Shade Books' marketing department.

But which one is which? And which do you prefer?

I personally like the one on the left. What do you think?

Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell... In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

Expect Southern Gods from Night Shade Books in August 2011.

Covering Covers: Goliath - Scott Westerfeld

2011-05-25T16:18:00.001-05:00

In the continuing adventures of cover art gone wrong, I present to you the third and final book in Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan Trilogy, Goliath.

Has there ever been a larger disparity between internal and external art?

Interior Illustrations by Keith Thompson

At least the writing quality is consistent. Goliath will be out from Simon Pulse on September 20th, 2011.

For The Win: A Guide To 2011's Best of the Best

2011-05-23T23:04:00.003-05:00

The world today is a terrible place. Poverty is rampant. The economy is falling apart. ~~The rapture is coming~~ The Situation is poised to make $5,000,000 next year. Everything causes cancer. Bees are dying. Transformers 3 is a real movie...

And of course, the most lamentable of them all - the lack of a single, definitive award for speculative fiction.

As it stands, there's a heaping handful of awards, each award with it's own handful of categories, and each category with it's own handful of nominations. That's a borderline Cthulu number of hands. Good luck comprehending that, spellcheck certainly can't. And to make matters worse, each award maintains its own eligibility, nomination, and voting criteria. Some prizes are only for works by US authors, others for those books unlucky enough to be published in paperback only. A few selections are made by informed but potential biased juries. A few more honors are awarded by the masses. The same slavering masses that decided that Twilight was okay for a ten-year-old girl. But don't worry, they can only vote if they buy a voting membership to last year's conference's cousin's friend's book signing. Or click a button online. And everything depends on how many words are in the story to begin with. In fact, the length of the story is inversely propotional to how many people will read it and the how long the word used to describe it is. And god help us if Neil Gaiman, Ted Chiang, China Mieville, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Connie Willis ever end publishing a novelette in the same year. That's a true end-world scenario.

Never re-examine your childhood.

Needless to say, it's a mess.

Trying to figure out what is clearly the best book is like trying to collect all the Pokemon - just when you think you've got a handle on it, there's a brand new batch of ~~innocent creatures to enslave for forced gladiatorial combat~~ books to read. Which is where the calculus comes in.

By deriving the mathematical mean of the page counts of each book's negative inverse matrix within three standard deviations and then integrated the eigenvectors with an acceleration vector aligned to a rotating coordinate frame, I was able to prove what the best books were as well as recalculate the timing of the much discussed rapture event. It's a Thursday. Oh, that bullshit you say? Did you forget to carry the one?

Suck it, Newton.

What I really mean to leverage from calculus is the Leibniz-Newton model, the core premise of which is if multiple people come to the same conclusion independently, it's more likely to be true.

To support this hypothesis, I compiled a list of every nominated work for every major science fiction, fantasy, and horror award I could find and combined them into one glorious glut of celebrated fiction, conveniently sorted below for your perusal. Every novel, novella, novelette, and short story on this list (told you the words get longer) received at least two major award nominations which, in my mind at least, is a sign that they are worth taking another look at.

Note: This list is currently is based on the 2011 nominations for Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Philip K. Dick, Andre Norton, BSFA, Arthur C. Clarke, Gemmell, Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson awards. World Fantasy nominations are not currently available. Feel free to suggest other awards in the comments.

Novels

The Dervish House - Ian McDonald [4 Nominations: Hugo, Locus, BSFA, Arthur C. Clarke]

It begins with an explosion. Another day, another bus bomb. Everyone it seems is after a piece of Turkey. But the shockwaves from this random act of 21st century pandemic terrorism will ripple further and resonate louder than just Enginsoy Square.

Welcome to the world of The Dervish House; the great, ancient, paradoxical city of Istanbul, divided like a human brain, in the great, ancient, equally paradoxical nation of Turkey. The year is 2027 and Turkey is about to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its accession to the European Union; a Europe that now runs from the Arran Islands to Ararat. Population pushing one hundred million, Istanbul swollen to fifteen million; Turkey is the largest, most populous and most diverse nation in the EU, but also one of the poorest and most socially divided. It's a boom economy, the sweatshop of Europe, the bazaar of central Asia, the key to the immense gas wealth of Russia and Central Asia.

Gas is power. But it's power at a price, and that price is emissions permits. This is the age of carbon consciousness: every individual in the EU has a card stipulating individual carbon allowance that must be produced at every CO2 generating transaction. For those who can master the game, who can make the trades between gas price and carbon trading permits, who can play the power factions against each other, there are fortunes to be made. The old Byzantine politics are back. They never went away.

The ancient power struggled between Sunni and Shia threatens like a storm: Ankara has watched the Middle East emerge from twenty-five years of sectarian conflict. So far it has stayed aloof. A populist Prime Minister has called a referendum on EU membership. Tensions run high. The army watches, hand on holster. And a Galatasary Champions' League football game against Arsenal stokes passions even higher.

The Dervish House is seven days, six characters, three interconnected story strands, one central common core--the eponymous dervish house, a character in itself--that pins all these players together in a weave of intrigue, conflict, drama and a ticking clock of a thriller. (Pyr)

Blackout / All Clear - Connie Willis [3 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula, Locus]

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place, with scores of time-traveling historians being sent into the past. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser into letting her go to VE-Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, and dive-bombing Stukas—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past. (Spectra)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin [3 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula, Locus]

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the debut novel from a major new voice in fantasy fiction. (Orbit)

Ship Breaker - Paolo Bacigalupi [2 Nominations: Andre Norton, Locus]

In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota--and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life. . . .

In this powerful novel, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future. (Little, Brown)

The Reapers Are the Angels - Alden Bell [2 Nominations: Philip K. Dick, Shirley Jackson]

Zombies have infested a fallen America. A young girl named Temple is on the run. Haunted by her past and pursued by a killer, Temple is surrounded by death and danger, hoping to be set free.

For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can't remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks. (Henry Holt & Co.)

Zoo City - Lauren Beukes [2 Nominations: BSFA, Arthur C. Clarke]

Where no one else date venture...

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty online 419 scam habit – and a talent for finding lost things. But when her latest client, a little old lady, turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job: missing persons

An astonishing second novel from the author of the highly-acclaimed Moxyland. (Angry Robot)

Cryoburn - Lois McMaster Bujold [2 Nominations: Hugo, Locus]

Miles Vorkosigan is back!

Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove—he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp—an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future—attempts to expand its franchise into the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter Miles to check it out.

On Kibou-daini, Miles discovers generational conflict over money and resources is heating up, even as refugees displaced in time skew the meaning of generation past repair. Here he finds a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to re-write her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning Don’t mess with the secretary. Bribery, corruption, conspiracy, kidnapping—something is rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t due to power outages in the Cryocombs. And Miles is in the middle—of trouble! (Baen)

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins [2 Nominations: Andre Norton, Locus]

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year. (Scholastic)

Feed - Mira Grant [2 Nominations: Hugo, Shirley Jackson]

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them. (Orbit)

Shades of Milk and Honey - Mary Robinette Kowal [2 Nominations: Nebula, Locus]

Shades of Milk and Honey is an intimate portrait of Jane Ellsworth, a woman ahead of her time in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality. But despite the prevalence of magic in everyday life, other aspects of Dorchester’s society are not that different: Jane and her sister Melody’s lives still revolve around vying for the attentions of eligible men.

Jane resists this fate, and rightly so: while her skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face, and therefore wins the lion’s share of the attention. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Jane has resigned herself to being invisible forever. But when her family’s honor is threatened, she finds that she must push her skills to the limit in order to set things right--and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

This debut novel from an award-winning talent scratches a literary itch you never knew you had. Like wandering onto a secret picnic attended by Pride and Prejudice and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Shades of Milk and Honey is precisely the sort of tale we would expect from Jane Austen…if only she had been a fantasy writer. (Tor)

Who Fears Death? - Nnedi Okorafor [2 Nominations: Nebula, Locus]

The critically-acclaimed novel-now in paperback.

In a far-future, post-apocalyptic Saharan Africa, genocide plagues one region. When the only surviving member of a slain village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand, and instinctively knows her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue.

Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers she possesses a remarkable and unique magic. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to confront nature, tradition, history, the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and eventually to learn why she was given the unusual name she bears: Who Fears Death? (DAW)

I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett [2 Nominations: Locus, Andre Norton]

It starts with whispers.

Then someone picks up a stone.

Finally, the fires begin.

When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .

Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.

But someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.

Chilling drama combines with laugh-out-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil. (Haper Collins)

A Dark Matter - Peter Straub [2 Nominations: Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson]

On a Midwestern campus in the 1960s, a charismatic guru and his young acolytes perform a secret ritual in a local meadow. What happens is a mystery—all that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body and the shattered souls of all who were present. Forty years later, one man seeks to learn about that horrifying night, and to do so he’ll have to force those involved to examine the unspeakable events that have haunted them ever since. Unfolding through their individual stories, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that proves Peter Straub to be the master of modern horror. (DoubleDay)

Lightborn - Tricia Sullivan [2 Nominations: BSFA, Arthur C. Clarke]

Lightborn, better known as 'shine', is a mind-altering technology that has revolutionised the modern world. It is the ultimate in education, self-improvement and entertainment - beamed directly into the brain of anyone who can meet the asking price. But in the city of Los Sombres, renegade shine has attacked the adult population, resulting in social chaos and widespread insanity in everyone past the age of puberty. The only solution has been to turn off the Field and isolate the city. Trapped within the quarantine perimeter, fourteen-year-old Xavier just wants to find the drug that can keep his own physical maturity at bay until the army shuts down the shine. That's how he meets Roksana, mysteriously impervious to shine and devoted to helping the stricken. As the military invades street by street, Xavier and Roksana discover that there could be hope for Los Sombres - but only if Xavier will allow a lightborn cure to enter his mind. What he doesn't know is that the shine in question has a mind of its own ... (Orbit)

Behemoth - Scott Westerfeld [2 Nominations: Andre Norton, Locus]

The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.

Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead. (Simon & Schuster)

Anthologies

Haunted Legends - Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas, eds. [2 Nominations: Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson]

Darkly thrilling, these twenty new ghost stories have all the chills and power of traditional ghost stories, but each tale is a unique retelling of an urban legend from the world over.

Multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow and award-nominated author and editor Nick Mamatas recruited Jeffrey Ford, Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin Kiernan, Catherynne M. Valente, Kit Reed, Ekaterina Sedia, and thirteen other fine writers to create stories unlike any they've written before. Tales to make readers shiver with fear, jump at noises in the night, keep the lights on.

These twenty nightmares, brought together by two renowned editors of the dark fantastic, are delightful visions sure to send shivers down the spines of horror readers. (Tor)

Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery - Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders, eds. [2 Nominations: Locus, Shirley Jackson]

Seventeen original tales of sword and sorcery penned by masters old and new

Elric . . . the Black Company . . . Majipoor. For years, these have been some of the names that have captured the hearts of generations of readers and embodied the sword and sorcery genre. And now some of the most beloved and bestselling fantasy writers working today deliver stunning all-new sword and sorcery stories in an anthology of small stakes but high action, grim humor mixed with gritty violence, fierce monsters and fabulous treasures, and, of course, swordplay. Don't miss the adventure of the decade! (Harper Voyager)

Collections

Occultation - Laird Barron [2 Nominations: Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson]

Laird Barron has emerged as one of the strongest voices in modern horror and dark fantasy fiction, building on the eldritch tradition pioneered by writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti. His stories have garnered critical acclaim and been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. His debut collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, was the inaugural winner of the Shirley Jackson Award.

He returns with his second collection, Occultation. Pitting ordinary men and women against a carnivorous, chaotic cosmos, Occultation's eight tales of terror (two never before published) include the Theodore Sturgeon and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated story "The Forest" and Shirley Jackson Award nominee "The Lagerstatte." Featuring an introduction by Michael Shea, Occultation brings more of the spine-chillingly sublime cosmic horror Laird Barron's fans have come to expect. (Night Shade Books)

What I Didn't See: Stories - Karen Joy Fowler [2 Nominations: Locus, Shirley Jackson]

In her moving and elegant new collection, New York Times bestseller Karen Joy Fowler writes about John Wilkes Booth's younger brother, a one-winged man, a California cult, and a pair of twins, and she digs into our past, present, and future in the quiet, witty, and incisive way only she can.

The sinister and the magical are always lurking just below the surface: for a mother who invents a fairy-tale world for her son in "Halfway People"; for Edwin Booth in "Edwin's Ghost," haunted by his fame as "America's Hamlet" and his brother's terrible actions; for Norah, a rebellious teenager facing torture in "The Pelican Bar" as she confronts Mama Strong, the sadistic boss of a rehabilitation facility; for the narrator recounting her descent in "What I Didn't See."

With clear and insightful prose, Fowler's stories measure the human capacities for hope and despair, brutality and kindness. This collection, which includes two Nebula Award winners, is sure to delight readers, even as it pulls the rug out from underneath them. (Small Beer Press)

The Ones That Got Away - Stephen Graham Jones [2 Nominations: Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson]

These thirteen stories are our own lives, inside out. A boy's summer romance doesn't end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who's exactly what she needs, except then that friend follows her back to the city. A father hears a voice through his baby monitor that shouldn't be possible, but now he can't stop listening. A woman finds out that the shipwreck wasn't the disaster, but who she's shipwrecked with. A big brother learns just what he will, and won't, trade for one night of sleep. From prison guards making unholy alliances to snake-oil men in the Old West doling out justice, these stories carve down into the body of the mind, into our most base fears and certainties, and there's no anesthetic. Turn the light on if you want, but that just makes for more shadows. (Prime Books)

Novellas

"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" - Ted Chiang - Subterranean - Read Online [3 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula, Locus]

"The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window" - Rachel Swirsky - Subterranean Press - Read Online [3 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula, Locus]

"The Sultan of the Clouds" - Geoffrey A. Landis - Asimov’s September 2010 - Read PDF [2 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula]

"Troika" - Alastair Reynolds - Godlike Machines [2 Nominations: Hugo, Locus]

Novelettes

"Plus or Minus" - James Patrick Kelly - Asimov’s December 2010 - Read Online [3 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula, Locus]

"The Jaguar House, in Shadow" - Aliette de Bodard - Asimov’s July 2010 - Read Online [2 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula]

"The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" - Neil Gaiman - Stories: All-New Tales - Read Online [2 Nominations: Locus, Shirley Jackson]

"That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made" - Eric James Stone - Analog September 2010 - Read Online [2 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula]

Short Stories

"The Things" - Peter Watts - Clarkesworld January 2010 - Read Online [4 Nominations: Hugo, Locus, BSFA, Shirley Jackson]

"Booth’s Ghost" - Karen Joy Fowler - What I Didn't See: Stories [2 Nominations: Locus, Shirley Jackson]

"Ponies" - Kij Johnson - Tor.com - January 17th, 2010 - Read Online [2 Nominations: Hugo, Nebula]

All in all, a pretty good list, no? I'll try to keep this up to date as further nominations and winners are announced.

Covering Covers: Unpossible - Daryl Gregory

2011-05-19T10:05:00.001-05:00

Last week, Daryl Gregory debuted the cover of his upcoming Fairwood Press collection, Unpossible and Other Stories, as designed by Italian artist and illustrator, Antonello Silverini.

Cover Artist: Antonello Silverini

If you don't recognize the name, Daryl Gregory is a relatively new novelist whose first two novels, Pandemonium and The Devil's Alphabet, have earned him a sterling reputation here at Stomping on Yeti. While his work is undeniably genre-ic, it's never escapist. Gregory might dress his fiction in pulp demons and mutated monsters but at its core its some heavy stuff, reflecting on what it really means to "grow up", the double-edged sword of family, and the sheer terror of realizing your own place in this world. To put it more plainly, it's like my genretacular childhood and my angst-ridden twenty-something present met up, fell in love, and had a baby. With tentacles.

Returning to Silverini's brilliant cover, I can't help but admire the simplistic beauty of the composition. As is the case in many of his pieces, Silverini takes several disparate images and combines them in wondrous fashion. In doing so, he pulls the observer in to contemplate what each element represents. Why is there a cable car in a grassy field? Why does one figure have a different face? What does the faded American flag represent? What's with the dog? Why is the word sightseeing included?

To try suss a little bit more meaning out of this enigmatic image, I queried Gregory himself. Here's what he had to say:

As for the cover, Antonello's usual method is to read the text and start using the images that speak to him. The only parameters we gave him were (a) it's an eclectic collection, covering SF, fantasy, and weird stuff, so it shouldn't suggest that it's in one genre (for example, no spaceships, which he wouldn't do anyway) and (b) make it something he'd be proud to put in his portfolio.

He ended up using images from the title story, which is about a middle aged man who used to be one of those adventuresome kids, like the boys from Where the Wild Things Are and The Phantom Tollbooth. But now he's grown up, life has not gone as planned, and he's trying desperately to get back into "the lands beyond." And that's pretty much a metaphor for what I'm trying to do in these stories -- get back into the story.

To me the lack of clear thematic direction is also emblematic of Gregory's work as a whole. Like celebrated genre author, China Mieville, the only real commonality in Gregory's diverse portfolio is a uniform high level of quality. The only type of tale you can safely expect is a good one. While the Table of Contents of Unpossible is still in flux, I'd assume it would include the titular short, "Unpossible", as well as some of Gregory's more popular pieces in "Second Person, Present Tense" and "The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm." I follow Gregory's output pretty closely, so I'll be sure to provide an update when it's available.

Unpossible and Other Stories should be available from Fairwood Press in October 2011. In the meantime, go read Pandemonium and/or The Devil's Alphabet. You can thank me later.

Three Things to Think About: Douglas Adams

2011-05-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

1. Douglas Adams died ten years ago today at the age of 49. Considering how productive many writers are late into their lives, it clear that the genre was robbed of one it's best much, much too soon. If you haven't read any of Adams' brilliant work, please do so. It's indescribably good.

2. He was 27 when he wrote A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. That's about my age. I feel profoundly unproductive.

3. Is there a more perfect passage than the improbable appearance of a whale and a bowl of petunias in all of science fiction?

"Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.

This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah ... ! What's happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I?

Hello?

Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?

What do I mean by who am I?

Calm down, get a grip now ... oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It's a sort of ... yawning, tingling sensation in my ... my ... well I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what's about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that ... wind! Is that a good name? It'll do ... perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What's this thing? This ... let's call it a tail - yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can't I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn't seem to achieve very much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now - have I built up any coherent picture of things yet?

No.

Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with anticipation ...

Or is it the wind?

There really is a lot of that now isn't it?

And wow! Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ... ow ... ound ... round ... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground!

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now."

Excerpted from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 18.

42. Sigh...

Douglas Adams continues to be sorely missed. Thanks again for all the fish!

YetiStomper Picks for May

2011-05-09T15:35:00.001-05:00

As winter enters its eight month, I'm buried in yet another a blizzard of books. Come back summer!

Embassytown - China Mieville

Standalone SF Novel - Mieville continues his trend of literary eclecticism with Embassytown, a high concept SF thriller set in a wondrous far future where humanity has encountered beings so strange the word "alien" can't do them justice. As Avice Benner Cho (alphabet pun anyone?) returns to Embassytown she finds she has become a figure of speech in the universally unique language of the Ariekei - a language she can't even comprehend. From their... Ok, I give up... Like any Mieville novel, it's hard to summarize the book in just a few non-nonsensical lines. Just know that Embassytown is a thought-provoking meditation on language, conflict, and incomprehensible otherness executed in mind-melting fashion like only Mieville can. (May 17 from Del Rey)

The Quantum Thief - Hannu Rajaniemi

The Quantum Thief Trilogy, Book 1 - Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi bursts onto the genre scene with the biggest SF debut of the year. Genre giant Charles Stross not only called The Quantum Thief "the best first SF novel I've read in many years," he went so far as to say "I think Hannu's going to revolutionize hard SF when he hits his stride. Hard to admit, but I think he's better at this stuff than I am." And it's hard not to agree; The Quantum Thief is pure idea concentrate. Rajaniemi packs so many intriguing thoughts into his work that he's forced to throw away concepts that lesser SF authors would frame entire books around. (May 10 from Tor)

Fuzzy Nation - John Scalzi

Standalone SF Novel - A compulsively readable collision of tightly plotted legal thriller and idea-centric science fiction, Fuzzy Nation evokes fond memories of a simpler era of storytelling. Fuzzy Nation is a reimagining of H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy updated for 21st century audiences by fan-favorite SF author John Scalzi. Followers of his popular blog will undoubtedly be drawn to snarktacular protagonist Jack Holloway as he battles corporate douchebaggery in all its forms. Read my full review for more on Scalzi's unputdownable summer blockbuster. (May 10 from Tor)

Eclipse Four - Jonathan Strahan, ed.

Original Short Fiction Anthology, Volume 4 - It's about time. Eclipse Four was pushed from last year's publishing slate for unknown reasons and I feared we might have seen the last of Strahan's excellent anthology series. But things got back on track, the ToC looks great, and Strahan is already hinting at a fifth volume. With strong stories from top to bottom, the only recurring theme is the lack thereof. If you are looking for quality genre authors outside your typical reading patterns, the Eclipse anthology series is one of the best ways to discover some spectacular authors you might not have encountered before. (May 3 from Night Shade Books)

Camera Obscura - Lavie Tidhar

World of The Bookman, Book 2 - While not a sequel per se, Tidhar returns to the world of 2009's much lauded The Bookman for yet another Steampunk story. Camera Obscura moves the action from London to Paris, where Quiet Council agent Lady De Winter is tasked with solving a gruesome murder in the Rue Morgue. May looks to be a Steampunk heavy month and Camera Obscura may be the best of the bunch. (April 26 from Angry Robot)

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti - Genevieve Valentine

Tales of the Circus Tresaulti, Book 1 - Or maybe it's not. I'll let Genevieve Valentine take this one herself: "The Mechanical Circus Tresaulti travels the landscape of a ruined country under the spectre of war, but when two of its performers become locked in a battle of wills, the circus's own past may be the biggest threat of all." Is there anything more bizarre than a fantastical circus? Yes, a steampunk one. After three years of promising shorts, Valentine delivers a debut novel as strange as it is fascinating. Grab your seats now, the show is about to begin. (May 10 from Prime Books)

Degrees of Freedom - Simon Morden

Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy, Book 3 - If things weren't complicated when we left Samuil Petrovitch after April's Theories of Flight, they certainly are now. Artificial intelligence is running amok, Neo-Armageddeonists are determined to blow up the world (again), and Petrovitch has not one but two love interests, both of which may or may not want him dead. It's pretty much par for the course as Orbit wraps up Simon Morden's action packed trilogy with the third paperback volume in three months. (May 31 from Orbit)

Hounded - Kevin Hearne

The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book 1 - Somehow, someway, authors keep breathing life into the all but played out Urban Fantasy scene. The most recent resuscitator is Kevin Hearne whose first novel, Hounded, combines Celtic mythology with the more typical tropes of werewolves and vampires. Twenty-one-hundred-year-old Atticus O' Sullivan has been on the run for centuries, fleeing a Celtic god who for whatever reason suspects that O' Sullivan might have a magic sword that doesn't belong to him. Spoiler Alert: He does. When that vengeful deity finally tracks down Atticus in modern-day Arizona, it will take every thing he's learned in his 766,500 days on this planet just to be sure he lives to see one more. Diverse and dynamic, Hounded is our introduction to the Iron Druid Chronicles, the first three of which will be published back-to-back-to-back in May/June/July. (May 3 from Del Rey)

America Pacifica - Anna North

Standalone - Alternatively, if you've grown tired of vampires, werewolves, and clockwork creatures, Anna North's America Pacifica may be the May book for you. Skewing more toward the literary end of the genre spectrum, her dystopic coming of age tale combines pop culture and politics in a futuristic story with its roots firmly in the present. North draws from Lord of the Flies, 1984, TV's Lost, and half a dozen other stories in a dark but expertly crafted debut that should appeal to readers between 15 and 25.

Infernal Devices - K.W. Jeter

Standalone - Angry Robot is republishing Jeter's classic tale of clockwork chaos with a beautiful new cover. If you're a fan of the copper and brass books that have been rolling off production lines recently, you owe it to yourself to read one of the Steampunk stories that started it all. (April 26 from Angry Robot)

Morlock Night - K.W. Jeter

Standalone - Ever wonder what happened to the temporal travelers of The Time Machine after they escaped the clutches of the manical Morlocks? K.W. Jeter did too which was what led him to author Morlock Nights, a continuation of the story started in H.G. Wells' timeless (no pun intended) classic. In what might be the first ever home and home SF series, the far future Morlocks invade 19th century Victorian England and it's up to an intrepid band of English adventurers to save the day. Like Infernal Devices, Morlock Night is being republished and recovered by Angry Robot. (April 26 from Angry Robot)

The Falling Machine - Andrew P. Mayer

The Society of Steam, Book 1 - The steampunk deluge contiues with The Falling Machine, a debut novel from long time video game consultant, Andrew P. Mayer. Mayer reimagines a version of late 19th century New York in which superheroes exist, their extraordinary abilities sustained by a mysterious substance coveted by all. Before long, 20-year-old protagonist Sarah Stanton finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy that runs deeper than anyone expects. When are people going to learn not to ask questions in abstract societies that appear to good to be true? (May 24 from Pyr)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: Like most months, the YetiStomper Pick for May comes down to a pair of worthy contenders. A few other authors might be challengers someday but for now the title card is set - Embassytown vs. Fuzzy Nation.

These are two extremely different novels linked only by their exquisite execution. Scalzi's reboot is the quicker book, a leaner, faster, meaner adaptation of Piper's original. Hit the bathroom now, grab a fresh beer and let the anthropomorphic dog out - once that bell rings, you won't be able to tear yourself away. So don't be surprised if Scalzi turns out to be the fan favorite in this one. He knows what you bought that ticket to see and makes sure Fuzzy Nation is more than worth the price of admission.

But in the other corner lurks the genre giant, China Mieville, a man who reinvents his fighting style with every bout. Balancing a heavyweight's power with a featherweight's touch, Mieville's prose will come at you in ways you'd never expect and inevitably leave you reeling on the floor. It's only a matter of time before he lands a haymaker of unrivaled imaginative ferocity, one that will resonate deep inside and leave a mark that might never heal.

Scalzi will come out quick, drawing on the cheers of his loyal fanbase to win an early round or two. But as impressive as it may be, Scalzi's technique is one we've seen before whereas Mieville's unpredictable approach is yet another enigma. Surprising but never faltering, Embassytown only adds to the impressive record that Mieville has earned while redefining how to play the game. The YetiStomper Pick for May goes to Embassytown via split decision, rewarding Mieville's tireless reinvention over Scalzi's effortless appeal.

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: While not the same slugfest as the title fight, the May undercard is not a match to be missed. In true Battle Royale fashion, it's The Falling Machine vs. America Pacifica vs. Hounded vs. Mechanique vs. The Quantum Thief. In the end, I think Mechanique and The Quantum Thief manage to eliminate the other contenders before facing off for Rookie of the Month. From there all bets are off. While something might be rotten in the state of Denmark, Finland is fresh as can be as The Quantum Thief injects life into the not-exactly-flourishing SF scene. On the other hand, Mechanique is less interested in saving a genre than defining it's own. Valentine's story is more of a circus act than the carnival it describes, managing to amaze with skillful prose and to delight with curious yet playful presentation. As much as I'm tempted to go with the tie, I'm giving this one to Mechanique. You can't go wrong with either book but Mechanique doesn't possess the same support structure The Quantum Thief does with it's small but passionate SF readership. But either book (or any of these debuts) is definitely worth giving another look.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: Hmmmm.... Where did this go? Stay tuned to find out!

You can view previous installments of YetiStomper Picks here.

Suck It Scalzi!

2011-05-07T12:08:00.000-05:00

[Author's Note: Not really. Go read Fuzzy Nation, it's really good.]

We can take sunset pictures too!

If there is one thing urban air pollution is good for, it's making pretty colors when the sun goes down.

Two of these gorgeous shots were taken by the YetiWife, one by yours truly. Can you guess which is which?

Covering Covers: The Final Volume of A Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin

2011-05-05T23:47:00.006-05:00

With all the GRRMbling that has been going around the past few days (not to mention the hugely popular HBO series Game of Thrones), I thought it would be a good time to unveil the cover art for the Sixth and Final Volume of George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Originally intended to be published as two volumes, A Flood of Flames reflects Martin's new direction for the series after carefully considering fan input he's received over the years.

Cover Artist: Jennifer Wolohan

And, as promised, the official synopsis from GRRM himself:

A Volcano Explodes. Everyone Dies. The End.

A Flood of Flames will be out from Bantam on December 21st, 2012. I hope you're happy.

Riyria Revelations Redux: An Interview with Michael J. Sullivan

2011-04-28T22:51:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month, I got a glance at the Orbit Fall 2011/Winter 2012 catalog and I was quite surprised to see Michael J. Sullivan amongst the featured authors. Not because he's incapable of writing new books (I assume he isn't), more so that Orbit plans on republishing his current series, The Riyria Revelations - a series which has yet to be completed.

Sullivan began publishing The Riyria Revelations with Ridan Publishing back in 2008 with The Crown Conspiracy. It wasn't an overnight success but thanks to an aggressive release schedule, a grass roots marketing campaign, and a bevy of strong reviews, the series eventually did the improbable and joined the exclusive ranks of the small press success stories.

Like the series itself, that success story hasn't wrapped up just yet. With the new Orbit deal, Sullivan has the opportunity to get his novels in front of the thousands of casual readers who don't scour the internet looking for new recommendations on review blogs and message boards. Michael (and his wife/co-conspirator Robin) have done a great job getting the book out there. At the same time, there's no denying the benefits of a major publicity department.

After I heard the good news, I was curious about how everything fell into place and what the new deal meant for the sixth and final book, Percepliquis, which was originally slated for release later this year. So I did what any mediocre blogger would do, I asked him.

Here's what Michael had to say.

SoY: I understand that Orbit is publishing the series as a trilogy. Is it going to be two Ridan books to each Orbit book or will they be broken down in a more complicated fashion?

MJS: Yes, Orbit’s books break down as follows: Theft of Swords (Volume 1) will contain The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha; Rise of Empire (Volume 2) contains Nyphron Rising and The Emerald Storm; Heir of Novron (Volume 3) will contain Wintertide and Percepliquis. For those reading in print, they can get the entire series for half the price. If given the choice, I would prefer more readers than money so making the series affordable is very attractive to me.

Orbit is also doing something really great as the three books come out in consecutive months: November 2011, December 2011, and January 2012. They already have pre-order pages up on sites such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Usually books in a series come out once a year, or sometimes longer, and the fact that they were fast-tracking the series was one of the things that really drew me to their offer. I was originally concerned about the inevitable delay in the final installment (originally due in April 2011). With this release cycle, people only have to wait an extra nine months, which is short in comparison to many delayed fantasy books and much quicker than if the books were being put out as six staggered books.

Cover Art Not Final

SoY: Will there be any updates to the text of The Riyria Revelations which has already been published?

MJS: All the books have already gone through editing, which was a frightening time for me. I had worked so hard to develop the arc of the series that I waited on pins and needles afraid of what Orbit might want different. Orbit assigned their senior editor to the project, Devi Pellai, and I had heard from others in the industry that she is one of the best in the business so I was willing to keep an open mind on any changes she might require.

To my great surprise and relief, there weren’t any major changes. Most of the comments concerned adding additional detail about places, the political system, and clarifying minor characters. That being said, having a whole new series allowed me to make some minor changes. For instance, there will be a new starting chapter for the first book, which will immediately introduce the main characters, Royce and Hadrian. This wasn’t something Orbit required, but Devi wanted to get to them faster. I’ve also had some readers who thought Archibald Ballentyne (a very minor character) was the focus of the book as he was the first person who was originally introduced. The fact that Archie is a disagreeable fellow turned a few people off of the book as they thought it might be about him. One other little tweak I made was to rewrite history with regards to one of my characters. Originally, he was forced to kill someone in self-defense and that never sat well with me regarding his character, so he’s been saved from such a hardship, for which he has expressed his gratitude.

One thing I would like to point out about editing. There have been people who have complained that there are a number of errors in the original books, typos, misplaced commas, and the like. This has led some to think the books were not edited, which was not true. In fact, they each have had multiple editors and proof readers. That being said, the copy editing of Orbit has been superlative. Their attention to detail has been astonishing and I’ve been totally impressed.

SoY: Reviewers have been saying great things about the self published Riyria Revelations for years now and I believe they've been fairly successful as far as independent/small press books go. How does it feel to have your writing (and other people's reviews) validated by a major publisher?

MJS: I’ve always thought the series was good, but then again I wrote it primarily for myself and my family. Because they were tailor made, it is no surprise that I like them. For me, the real validation came when sales started to take off on their own. This told me that people were referring the books to others and that made me think I had written something that had a wider appeal.

With the release of the fifth book, Wintertide, my sales went from 1,000 books a month to more than 10,000. I was impressed, but really didn’t have anything to compare that to until I was at a recent fantasy/scifi convention and talked to some other traditionally published authors. I discovered that I sold more in one month, then many did over their books lives.

Of course almost every author wants validation from a major publisher. There is always a twinge of pain when some naysayer says, “Well if the books were any good, why did he have to self-publish.” It never occurs to these people that I hadn’t submitted them—that I chose self-publishing. They just assume the books were turned down and self-published as a last resort. When we finally did submit, I was floored that we had multiple publishers immediately interested. That was a real kick in the head. Especially since this was before I started selling so well. At the time, my sales record was a respectable 1,000 books a month but nothing like the explosion that occurred later in 2010 and early 2011.

Cover Art Not Final

SoY: Five books in, what made you decide to finish your series with Orbit? How did the entire process happen?

MJS: Well, it wasn’t intentional. I thought any contract would come long after the last book was released. My wife, Robin, spends a lot of time studying various aspects of Amazon, like the fantasy bestsellers lists and the people also bought listings. I appeared on many fantasy lists but so did a lot of other self-published indie authors. But at some point, Amazon added a new feature where they showed buying habits on an author by author basis instead of book by book. If you look on the author’s page, or at the bottom of a books page, you’ll see sixteen authors whose books sell well with the audience of the author you were looking at. Robin noticed that on pages such as Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, V.S. Reddick, Brent Weeks, and about thirty others, mine was the only self-published author listed. There were even a number of places where I was number one or two. This was a real eye opener, which demonstrated that I was selling very well against major authors in the genre. Seeing this made Robin think she could leverage this success.

I had a foreign rights agent, and we asked her if it would make sense to make a try in the US market. She agreed and put together a proposal and sent it to seventeen houses. Usually publishing moves very slowly, and I figured it would take years before we saw any results. I figured that when the last book was out, and hopefully selling well, that we could get generate some interest. I had no idea it would snowball so quickly and seven houses immediately expressed an interest. I really like the choices Orbit has made and how they are growing their brand so we agreed on a six-figure deal with them just a few weeks after the original submission.

SoY: If you don't mind me asking, do you prefer the Ridan covers or the Orbit ones? Did you have any input as to the content?

MJS: The Orbit covers are very professional and much more in line with other books in the genre. They each depict the major characters, Royce and Hadrian. In general, I don’t like seeing the faces of characters on book covers. I prefer the reader to come up with their own idea of what they look like. That being said, I fully understand that Orbit is developing covers from a marketing perspective and they feel showing the characters is a good idea. I will say that if I saw both theirs and mine on a shelf I would be drawn to Orbit’s over my own.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the covers I did are pretty good and I get a lot of compliments on them. But in a lot of respects, the covers reflect what I’m capable of producing. I didn’t choose the scenes and landscapes motif because I thought they would sell best, or to try to put out something different. To be honest, I selected something that I was capable of producing well. I could never have created anything like what Orbit did. So, for the most part, I made the best covers I could with my limited resources.

As for input on the content, in general authors usually don’t get much say in the cover designs and many have a problem with this. I have a background in marketing, so I understand that the cover design is one that is selected to maximize sales. We talked about various ideas, but until I saw them I really didn’t know which way they had decided to go. If the covers had turned out badly, I suspect I would have had a lot to say. Luckily for me that wasn’t necessary.

Most authors don’t have the advantage of producing their books with their covers. Because I already had released them with my vision I really didn’t have a desire to interfere with Orbit’s ideas. In general I have like the covers they’ve done for other books, and I trusted them to do whatever they felt was best. The result was a very positive one and I’m very pleased with what they came up with.

Cover Art Not Final

SoY: Will book collectors ever be able to get the Ridan Press edition of Percepliquis or will their book shelves remain forever incomplete?

MJS: They will be able to complete their sets. We made a deal with Orbit that when their last book is released (the one that has Percepliquis in it) Ridan can also publish a limited edition of Percepliquis for a limited time with my covers and formatting. I think this is an exceedingly generous offer for Orbit to allow them to complete their sets and is just one of the reasons that I’m confident that I picked the right publisher to work with. Oh, and for those who prefer digital, Orbit will be putting out a Percepliquis only ebook version (using my cover), which will be half the price of the two-book set so that people who already paid for Wintertide won’t have to purchase it again.

For those people who are interested in the Percepliquis only version you should send an email to riyria6@gmail.com and we’ll email them a buy link as soon as it is available.

SoY: What's next after The Riyria Revelations?

MJS: I’m about forty-percent done with my next book entitled Antithesis. It is a complete rewrite of a book I originally wrote in 1984. Unlike The Riyria Revelations which is set in a medieval time period, Antithesis takes place in modern day Washington D.C. and explores the duality of good and evil. This is as a stand alone novel and not part of a series.

I also have a completed literary fiction piece entitled A Burden to the Earth that just needs some copy editing. It is nothing like my other works and I’m not sure how I should market it which is one of the reasons that it keeps just sitting there. The Riyria Revelations is a very fast-paced, plot-driven story with lots of twists told in a fairly straight forward writing style. Burden is almost the exact opposite. For this piece I focused on the craft of writing, taking great care to craft each sentence. This work is a character study of a man slipping into madness so the pace is much slower. Everyone who has read it loves it but they also note how different it is from my other writing, so I’m not sure if my current fans will be interested in this book.

As for The Riyria Revelations, this was very carefully designed to end at six-books. To tack on additional adventures to the end has zero interest for me, as I think it ends on the perfect high note and I don’t want to have anything that messes with that. But I did leave myself some threads and plenty of opportunities for spin offs. Some of them I can’t discuss because it could spoil the last book. In addition, there are several prequel s that intrigue me. I’m fleshing out a story that explores the truth behind the mythology about Novron, the original savior of mankind. The idea that he was exactly different than what they have been taught is an interesting notion to me. I’m actually really excited to write this and it feels like a trilogy to tell that full arc, but I’m not sure it makes sense to start until we see how the first series does. There are also possibilities to explore more of Royce and Hadrian’s pasts. Some of this comes out in the last book, but there is a lot more that can be further detailed. My wife is always bugging me to do “Royce and Hadrian, the Earlier Years” so I might give her a present and tell the full story someday.

Orbit's first collection of Sullivan's stories, Theft of Swords, is due out November 23rd with Rise of Empire (12/14/11) and Heir of Novron (1/31/12) to follow shortly thereafter.

Thanks again to Michael for talking the time out of his increasingly busy schedule to answer my questions.

YetiStomper Picks for April

2011-04-25T23:41:00.001-05:00

So I sat down to start selecting my YetiStomper Picks for May and realized that the April selections were still in draft status. Better late than never right?

Soft Apocalypse - Will McIntosh

Sci-Fi Stand Alone - McIntosh looks to follow up on last year's Hugo win with Soft Apocalypse, his debut novel, which paints a picture of a post-apocalyptic America teeming with rebel scientists, designer diseases, and anarchist gangs. We've got a lot of work to do to destroy the world by 2023 as McIntosh speculates but I'd say humanity is clearly on the right track. (April 1 from Night Shade Books)

Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding

Tales of the Ketty Jay, Book 1 - Firefly. That's the word that I hear time and time again in reference to Chris Wooding's SF series. Chonicling the misadventures of the motley crew of the Ketty Jay, Wooding's work has been out in the UK for a couple of years and based on the strong word of mouth it received, it was only a matter of time before it made the leap accross the pond.. Sky-pirates ahoy! (April 26 from Del Rey Spectra)

The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu

The Lays of Anuskaya, Book 1 - While The Winds of Khalakovo isn't the most hyped fantasy debut on this list (That honor belongs to The Unremembered), it might be the best reviewed. Don't ignore this promising new talent whose detailed approach to worldbuilding has already garnered comparisons to GRRM. Word of mouth always beats hype in my book, so I plan to visit Beaulieu's Russian-inspired archipelago sooner rather than later. (April 1 from Night Shade Books)

The Alchemist in the Shadows - Pierre Pevel

The Cardinal's Blades, Book 2 - Pyr provides US audiences with an English edition of Pierre Pevel's second Cardinal's Blades adventure. Pevel, an award winning French writer, re-imagines a 17th century France where Cardinal Richelieu defends the realm against foreign powers, secret societies, and more than a handful of dragons with his specialized team of swashbucklers. If you thought The Three Musketeers was decent but needed a few more fire-breathers, this book might be for you. (April 26 from Pyr)

The Unremembered - Peter Orullian

The Vault of Heaven, Book 1 - Arguably the most hyped debut this year, The Unremembered is getting an absolutely massive push from Tor. Someone over there is convinced Orullian is the next master fantasist and considering the glut of interviews, excerpts, and short stories on Tor.com, they're trying to convert you too. And The Vault of Heaven appears up to the task, promising a complex world with a sprawling history to rival even the most epic of epic fantasies. But the past few "Next Big Things" have failed to live up to the high expectations bestowed upon them - will Orullian be able to break the streak with his Tolkien inspired tales? Read some of the free companion stories (Sacrifice of the First Sheason / The Great Defense of Layosah / The Battle of the Round) and decide for yourself. (April 12 from Tor)

Deathless - Catherynne M. Valente

Fantasy / Folklore Stand Alone - When you think about immortal Russians, you typically think Rasputin or possibly even Ivan Drago. But the original Slavic survivor is Korschei the Deathless, an antagonist whose legend dates back to traditional Russian folklore. Valente modernizes his story somewhat, setting it against the tumultuous history of the Soviet Union and telling it through the eyes of one of his abducted victims. Based on Valente's prior work, I'd expecting nothing less than an utterly enchanting tale teeming with lyrical prose and magical moments. (April 1 from Tor)

The Dragon's Path - Daniel Abraham

The Dagger and the Coin, Book 1 - With his critically acclaimed but criminally underread Long Price Quartet, Damiel Abraham proved that fantasy can be so much more than Tolkien 2.0. Now Abraham brings his appreciable talent to Orbit where he begins a brand new, more traditional saga in The Dagger and The Coin. The combination of powerful banks, post-medieval economics, ancient dragons, designer races, warrior priests, and dread elder gods might seem like a strange blend but it goes down smooth when sipped through Abraham's deceptively simple prose. AND if you order the eBook edition from certain retailers, you also receive a free advance copy of Leviathan Wakes, a highly anticipated space opera due out this summer from Abraham and co-conspirator Ty Franks. (April 7 from Orbit)

Theories of Flight - Simon Morden

Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy, Book 2 - It seems like it was just last month that Orbit published Equations of Life, the first entry in Morden's Samuil Petrovitch trilogy. Oh wait, it was. Theories of Flight delivers a blend of intelligent science fiction and relentless action adventure that Hollywood wishes they capable of. (March 29 from Orbit)

WWW: Wonder - Robert J. Sawyer

WWW Trilogy, Book 3 - OMG!!! The Internetz is alive! If Webmind, your AI BFF, was in danger of being shut down by the US government, wouldn't you want to save it? Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Robert J. Sawyer continues his exploration of conscious thought, morality, and artificial intelligence in the final entry in his WWW Trilogy. (April 5 from Ace)

The Company Man - Robert Jackson Bennett

Alternate History Steampunk Noir Stand Alone - It's 1919 in an alternate America where a single company controls enough power to stop the Great War before it even begins. But deep underneath Evesden, something strange is killing the employees of the McNaughton Corporation. It's up to Cyril Hayes to figure out what in Robert Jackson Bennett's sophomore effort. His debut, Mr. Shivers was one of the best books of 2010, and Bennett's is a name to watch. (April 11 from Orbit)

Among Thieves - Douglas Hulick

A Tale of the Kin, Book 1 - This book wasn't even on my radar until the Mad Hatter blurbed that Douglas Hulick was "undoubtedly the best debuting author [Ace/Roc] has premiered since Jim Butcher." That's some high praise from a blogger who doesn't proffer it lightly. Among Thieves appears to be your typical artifact caper (think Maltese Falcon meets Lord of the Rings) but a brilliantly executed one. (April 5 from Roc)

After the Golden Age - Carrie Vaughn

Super Hero Stand Alone - For whatever reason, superhero prose novels always seem to be in short supply. Which is hard to fathom considering how much fun they usually are. Carrie Vaughn continues the tradition of reverent parody with After the Golden Age in which Celia West, daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, struggles to take down the evil Destructor. But she's a forensic accountant, not a superhero and Destructor is battling tax evasion, not some over-powered boy scout. As events get super-er, tensions rise and West soon finds herself in the middle of a mystery that threatens to change everything she thought she knew about her family. So basically, par for the course. This is a book that should be fun for everyone but especially enjoyable for those familiar with the superhero subgenre. (April 12 from Tor)

YetiStomper Pick Of The Month: As much as I'm looking forward to each of these books, particularly After the Golden Age and The Winds of Khalakovo, I'd be lying if I selected anything but The Dragon's Path for my Pick of the Month. Abraham is a soul-crusher type talent, the kind whose work convinces you that no matter how long or hard you try, you'll never be that good. For whatever reason, as brilliant and inventive as The Long Price Quartet was, it never found it's audience. The Dagger and The Coin will and not just because Abraham has created something familiar yet challenging - more so because if you ignore it now, you're going to be hearing about it for years to come.

YetiStomper Debut Of The Month: April is another strong month for debut authors with Among Thieves, The Unremembered, The Winds of Khalakovo, and Soft Apocalypse all hitting shelves within a few weeks of each other. If you had asked me three months ago, The Unremembered would have been my clear pick. But since then, I've seen nothing but strong reviews for Beaulieu's intricate work and while I haven't finished it, the chapters I have read have been impressive. The Grand Duchy of Anuskaya is a harsh environment full of bitter cold and wasting disease and Beaulieu populates it with hardy individuals who may have emigrated from Westeros. I've got a ton on my plate at the moment but I'm really looking forward to getting back into The Winds of Khalakovo when I get a chance. Therefore, I knight it the YetiStomper Debut of the Month.

YetiStomper Cover Of The Month: While I've managed to reduce the number of recommended books by 25% since March's record-setting slate of 16, it's still a struggle to determine which cover is king. Some quick thoughts -

Rarely will you see a better executed pair of fantasy covers than The Unremembered and The Winds of Khalakovo.
Theories of Flight is eye-catching if abstract. Morden's ecclectic plot doesn't lend itself to a single image, so Orbit is banking that a lot of people will pick it up and read the cover summary.
Who made the cover for After the Golden Age? They'd be my first pick if we were playing cover art at recess.
The implied texture really works for The Company Man, lending it a gritty noir feel which is echoed by the Sam Spade silhouette.
I wonder if there's a link between serif fonts and fantasy novels. All 4 traditional fantasy novels showcase the same style of lettering.
I can't help but think of mass produced serials when I look at the cover of Deathless. The lithographic style has an old-fashioned quality that seems to pair nicely with the novel.
Arrrrrrgggghhhhh. That's a bad Johnny Depp lookalike on Among Thieves.
What's with the kerning on Soft Apocalypse? Too many I's and L's, too similar, too far apart.
WWW: Wonder would be a great cover without the girl. With her? Meh.
As much as I love Daniel Abraham's work, that cover doesn't do much for me. It's not bad but Orbit isn't exactly doing Abraham any favors. Luckily, his work will speak for itself.

So we've got a variety of covers almost as diverse as they stories they promote. Per usual, I'm having a tough time deciding. Fortunately, I've got a graphic designer for a wife and she is willing to help me break the tie by looking at these covers from a technical perspective and as a genre outsider, someone who isn't going to be seduced by a streamlined spaceship or distracted by a dragon's cold stare. Her votes goes to After the Golden Age for it's well-balanced color palette and the way that the uniquely diagonal presentation of the text conveys a feeling of motion. I can't help but agree, Vaughn really lucked out on this one. It's not too often that a book cover manages to be both modern and playful.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Among Others (with the assistance of Admiral Jak Sperrow) earns my vote for Worst Cover of the Month, an honor typically given out to a book that I'd like to read just not in public.

Anyway, as always, if you are interested in more details regarding any of the above books, just click on through the Amazon links. Yeah, I get a little bit of money out of it. In a few more years I'm hoping to earn enough to purchase a single book. It's also the best way to learn more about these books and others. Be sure to let me know if there is anything I may have missed in the comments.

You can view previous installments of YetiStomper Picks here.

YetiContest Reminder: Signed Copy of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

2011-04-21T00:46:00.001-05:00

As a reminder, I've got a signed copy of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere up for grabs. The contest is still open for another 8 days or so but blog posts tend to disappear after a few days so I thought I would provide a halftime reminder.

All you need to do is send an email to YetiContest [at] gmail [dot] com and follow the rules below.

Rules
-Subject of e-mail must read "Neverwhere Contest"
-You should probably use @ instead of [at] and . instead of [dot]
-Limit 1 entry per e-mail address
-Open to everyone (I might regret this)
-Contest will be open until 11:59pm CST, Friday April 29th
-Winner will be selected by random number generation
-E-mail must include

Name
Snail Mail Address
Book you are looking forward to most for the remainder of 2011 and why

As of writing this, there were less than 20 entries so you've still got a great chance to take home one of Gaiman's classics.

Good luck!

Covering Covers: The Islanders - Christopher Priest

2011-04-19T22:14:00.000-05:00

Cover Artist: Unkown

A tale of murder, artistic rivalry and literary trickery; a chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you. The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters. The Islanders serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands, an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator. It shows Christopher Priest at the height of his powers and illustrates why he has remained one of the country's most prized novelists.

What else can I say? Gollancz gave Priest's latest a cover as impressive as he is. Will definitely be importing this one once Gollancz releases it in September.