It was just past 6pm here in Hawaii, but on the East Coast of the United States, it was midnight…and I received this tweet from @radix42.

Hey @LindaNagata its midnight on the East Coast, so guess what just dropped onto my Kindle Reader? pic.twitter.com/cYgxR8GEeV

— David Mercer (@radix42) June 30, 2015

@LindaNagata I guess that counts as the first "picture of it in a bookstore"…the giant Amazon one!

— David Mercer (@radix42) June 30, 2015

Yes, it does!

The Red is finally back!

There are only two more weeks until the Saga Press edition of The Red is released. These last days before a book drops are a nerve-wracking time, at least for me, facing that big question: how will sales go? Really hoping that all this effort will prove worthwhile!

The Red will release simultaneously in hardcover, mass-market paperback, ebook, and audio book editions. Just a few days ago I received a copy of both the finished paperback and the hardcover, and they are gorgeous books. The team at Saga Press has done a terrific job.

In the meantime, more reviews are posting. Here are two from the past week:

Over at SFF World, Rob H. Bedford says:

Nagata manages to bring many familiar elements together (and few SF frameworks are as familiar or popular as Military SF) into something that manages to echo great stories that preceded it while still engaging in a powerfully refreshing fashion. In The Red, Nagata manages one of the most seamless, enjoyable, and enthralling meldings in SF of that familiar and “new spin.” […] Highly Recommended.

Read Rob’s full review here.

At the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Rich Rosell says:

Nagata’s modern-day-or-not-far-from-it creations seem both plausible and fantastic. That air of plausibility is essential for a genre-straddler like this; there is a believably organic texture to the various hardware, software, and weapons. The meshing of humans with technology–leading, inevitably, to dangerous co-dependence–is seamlessly presented. And man oh man, it is exciting.

Read the full review here.

If you’d like to read the opening pages of The Red, you’ll find them online here.

I hope you’ll consider preordering a copy in your favorite format.

Also consider signing up for my “Occasional Newsletter”, for a reminder when each book in The Red Trilogy releases. Book 2, The Trials, will publish in August, and Book 3, Going Dark, is scheduled for November.

Thank you!

Word came today from narrator Kevin T. Collins that he’s just finished recording the audio version of The Red.

The Red will be released in simultaneous hardcover, mass-market paperback, and ebook editions by Simon & Schuster/ Saga Press. And it will be released in audio by Audible.

Four formats! That’s a first for me.

And this will be my first-ever audiobook. I’ve had a few short stories issued in audio format thanks to Lightspeed Magazine, but never a novel. I’m looking forward to it.

For you audiophiles out there, here are my available short stories:

“Nightside on Callisto”

“A Moment Before It Struck”

“Codename Delphi”

“The Way Home”

My agent sent a brief email this morning to let me know that a review of The Red came out in Publishers Weekly, a trade magazine of the publishing field — and it’s a “starred review” which counts for… well, I was going to say an extra-bonus-thumbs-up, but seriously, it counts for a lot. You can see the review here.

And here’s an interesting write up from Slate on the subject of books reviews: How four magazines you’ve probably never read help determine what books you buy.

The ARCs are here!

ARCs, or Advance Reader/Reviewer Copies, are early versions of an upcoming book that get sent out a few months ahead of publication to reviewers, and to other writers or well-known people who might offer a quote that will help publicize the book.

The ARCs for The Red went out a couple weeks ago, but my copies arrived late yesterday.

There will be a simultaneous hardcover edition, but the copy I have is an “oversized” paperback — the sort commonly seen for political thrillers. So with luck, this Red Thriller should fit right in.

The Saga Press edition of The Red releases in June. You can read more about it here.

Okay, I called it at approximately 6:30pm: it’s rough, it’s ugly, but it’s a first draft of book 3 of The Red trilogy.

So… yay!

It will get a lot better as time goes by. 🙂

Saga Press — the new publisher of The Red: First Light — is a new imprint of Simon and Schuster. Their first books won’t be out until next spring, but today they made this announcement:

New York, New York, October 8—Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced today that all e-books from the forthcoming science fiction and fantasy line will be sold without DRM.

“The science fiction and fantasy community were early adopters of electronic formats, and have enthusiastically embraced DRM-free content while showing great respect for authors’ works under copyright. In launching our imprint, we are pleased to offer this convenience to our readers and test the waters of DRM-free publishing,” said Joe Monti, executive editor of Saga.

This is terrific news. My ebooks have always been DRM-free for the convenience of readers who might change devices, or need to make back-up copies. So I’m very pleased to know that my novels to be published by Saga Press will be DRM-free as well.

Here’s more on the topic, from Joe Monti, my editor at Saga Press.

And here’s another post in which Joe talks about the start-up process behind Saga Press.

War Stories is an anthology of military science fiction. It began as a Kickstarter project, with the ebook released to project supporters earlier this summer. That ebook is now available for purchase from Apex Publications at a cost of $4.99USD.

My story, “Light and Shadow,” is part of War Stories. If you’d like to read the last of my short fiction that will see general publication this year, please go grab a copy. “Light and Shadow” is set in the story world of The Red: First Light although it’s a completely different story, with different characters.

There will be a print version of War Stories (trade paperback). Preorders are being taken now. If you preorder the paper edition, you’ll get the ebook as well, available for immediate download.