An Unconvincing Narrative

At that book place. On my way to my agent’s.

Currently in Manhattan. About to go to breakfast with Ellen Datlow. Later to Tor Books and tonight to a book launch for Alethea Kontis‘s Enchanted. Ah, the exciting life of a SF author.

Now where the heck did I put my limo?  You take your eye off the entourage for one minute and everything goes to heck.

Laura J. Mixon’s 3 book series Avatars Dance has just been released in Audio (20 years after the first book appeared in 1992.)

Disclaimer: I am married to the woman, but these books have not diminished in power or skill. Well worth a listen.  Go try the samples at audible.com.

Here’s the adjusted cover for the mass market paperback edition of 7th Sigma which will be available from discerning stores June 26th, 2012.  I hope to arrange some signings in July and August.

So far, I am definitely signing in Denver on August 12th (3 pm) at the Broadway Book Mall (200 S. Broadway) with:

Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Steals the Show, her latest Kitty Norville urban fantasy novel

Rebecca Hale, Adrift on St. John, the start of a new mystery series; author of the popular series which includes How to Wash a Catand Nine Lives Last Forever.

Oddly enough, I had just finished SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY by Mary Robinette Kowal in time for its sequel GLAMOUR IN GLASS (which comes out TOMORROW,) when I heard that she’d lost her first sentence!

More than that, actually. After the final corrected edit left the editor’s hands and before it hit the printer, it lost the first sentence and several pages of corrections.

Fortunately you can read the first sentence at her web site. Also you can take a quiz trying to identify great works by their second sentences.

I haven’t read GLAMOUR, yet, but the first book in the series is Loverly.

I’ve been correcting some minor errors in the ebook editions of Jumper, Reflex, Wildside, and Helm.

Many, many thanks to the readers who used the email address in the front of the books (errata@digitalnoir.com) to report errors!

A little bit more about it over at digitalNoir publishing.

I have mentioned before that I have a story in Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling’s original anthology, After, which comes out in October of 2012 from Hyperion.  They’ve published part of their afterword for the book at The Night Bazaar website.

But other people point out that this is nothing new; every generation has its disasters and apocalyptic fears. The two of us grew up, for example, with “duck-and-cover” drills in elementary school to “prepare” us for nuclear attack…while our parents lived through childhoods shaped by the ravages and aftershocks of World War II. For as long as dystopian books have existed, generations of readers have been devouring them.

Read the entire post.

Last Fall I got to read RA MacAvoy’s latest book four months ahead of publication and then interview her. (I’d last met and talked with her in the early eighties.)  It was published in this months Lightspeed Magazine.

R.A. MacAvoy’s first novel won the Locus Poll’s First Novel Award and hooked her the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Tea With the Black Dragon (1983, Bantam) is a contemporary fantasy, a hard-boiled detective mystery, and a love story. Its protagonists are a middle-aged musician and a centuries-old dragon now in human form. Tea was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, World Fantasy, and Philip K. Dick Awards and received a special citation from the Philip K. Dick jury. It was selected for David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987.

In this genre, that is what’s known as a “good start.”

Interview: R.A. MacAvoy by Steven Gould | Lightspeed Magazine.

One of the best things about being good friends with great writers is the ability to read books before the general book-buying public gets access to them.

I read this several months ago (and have reread it since) and I strongly urge you to do likewise.

The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells.

I’m serving on the 2011 Jury for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. We don’t get to choose who wins but we can add a book or two to the ballot. If you’ve read some YA published in 2011 that you thought was award-worthy, especially if it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention because it was published by a small press, or in odd formats (including Graphic Novels), or if it was YA but not published as YA, (Middle Grade, for instance!) let me know.

If you are a YA author published in 2011 and you want to bring your work to the attention of the Jury, contact any of us or the Jury as a whole at: nortonjury@sfwa.org

Chickens appreciate modern sculpture.

The daughter went to the Halloween Dance as Caroline. Noone got it.

I did, though.

I have been on the New York Times best seller list (once), I’ve been an answer on Jeopardy (once), but I’ve never been had someone hand knit a hotpad before based on a book I’ve written.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 7th Sigma hotpad.

Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine: 7th Sigma — Steven Gould.

Very nice review.  One more vote for YA:

It’s clearly a YA novel even if it’s not being marketed that way, but it’s something anybody can enjoy.

And one more vote for Western.

Too bad the title Cowboys and Aliens was already taken, since it would have been a pretty good one for this book, except that there aren’t many cowboys in evidence and maybe no aliens.

You should definitely check out Bill’s books, especially the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries.

Steven dos Santos – Ixnay on the Gay: The Gay YA Controversy: A View from the Trenches!.

While I am extremely grateful that this topic has been brought up and started a dialogue, I’m a little dismayed that the focus has now become mired in she-said/she-said, finger-pointing, and questioning the veracity of either party. In a nutshell, all of the bickering is irrelevant. This problem is very real and I should know. I’ve faced it myself.

More about the Gay Ya controversy.  The issue is real and is wide spread.

I am very happy to have a story in the upcoming YA anthology, After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling (Hyperion 2012.  After: Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Tales.) It’s been officially turned in and the table of contents is finalized so here!

Introduction
“The Segment” by Genevieve Valentine
“After the Cure” by Carrie Ryan
“Valedictorian” by N.K. Jemisin
“Visiting Nelson” by Katherine Langrish
“All I Know of Freedom” by Carol Emshwiller
“The Other Elder” by Beth Revis
“The Great Game at the End of the World” by Matthew Kressel
“Reunion” by Susan Beth Pfeffer
“Faint Heart” by Sarah Rees Brennan
“Blood Drive” by Jeffrey Ford
“Reality Girl” by Richard Bowes
“Hw th’Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv” by Gregory Maguire
“Rust With Wings” by Steven Gould
“The Easthound” by Nalo Hopkinson
“Gray” by Jane Yolen
“Before” by Carolyn Dunn
“Fake Plastic Trees” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
“You Won’t Feel a Thing” by Garth Nix
“The Marker” by Cecil Castellucci

I can’t really adequately express my delight at being in a book with Jane Yolen, Garth Nix, Nalo Hopkinson, Carol Emshwiller, and Nora Jemisin (Viable Paradise Represent!)

“Rust With Wings” is set in the early days of the bug infestation of  7th Sigma. It takes place twenty or so years before and, for those who’ve read the novel,  includes a familiar character

Books 2 Film: Jumper By Steven Gould

Saturday, Oct 1 2:00p

at Headquarters Library, Fayetteville, NC

Teens, ever wish you could travel around the world in a millisecond? Davy can do this and more. Join us as we watch the acclaimed movie based on the novel Jumper by Steven Gould. A short book discussion follows as part of Banned Books Week. For more information call Marsha Mims at 483-7727 ext. 317.

Venue: Headquarters Library at Pate Room

via Books 2 Film: Jumper By Steven Gould at Headquarters Library, Fayetteville – Fayetteville Observer.

Los Alamos County
Mesa Public Library

Thursday, September 22, 7pm
in the Upstairs Rotunda

AUTHORS SPEAK SERIES PRESENTS
AN AUTHORS SYMPOSIUM

INSPIRATION AND PERSPIRATION: A CONVERSATION
MODERATED BY
CHARLIE KALOGEROS-CHATTAN

Panelists:

Robert Benjamin, playwright
Jane Lin, poet
Shirley Raye Redmond, children’s author
Steven Gould, Science Fiction author

Library Events – Inspiration and Perspiration: an authors….