I included this news in my October 22nd newsletter, but forgot, until now, to post it here. If you haven’t yet signed up for my newsletter, you really, really should. It’s fun, it’s once every four weeks (with an occasional special issue), and it’s the best way to stay in touch.
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My 2013 indie novel, The Red: First Light, marked my return to novel-length science fiction after a hiatus of many years. To the surprise of just about everyone, including me, it became a Nebula-award nominee, and was later re-published by Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press, as the first of a trilogy.

Again to my surprise, it’s just been included on a list of “15 recent sci-fi books that forever shaped the genre.” (Recent as in the last 15 years.) The list appears at the gaming and entertainment website, Polygon.

This list is, of course, just one man’s opinion. (Thank you, Andrew!) I can’t help but observe that the Red trilogy is rather obscure compared to nearly every other included title.

Of those other titles, I’ve read ten and tried two more without finishing them. How about you? How many of the books on this list have you read?

Many of you already own a copy of The Red: First Light. But if you’re new to my work or just haven’t picked it up yet – and you live in the United Kingdom or Australia – the ebook is on sale.

(I wish I could discount The Red for all of you, but I control pricing only in the United Kingdom and Australia.)

If you live in those places, The Red is just £1.99 (UK) or $1.99 (AU), but the sale will last only a few days, so get it now.

The Red: First Light is near-future military science fiction. It was a finalist for both the Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, and was a Publishers Weekly Best Book. Even if you don’t generally read military SF, I hope you’ll give it a look. You might like it!

For readers in the UK and Ireland…the ebook edition of THE RED: FIRST LIGHT is on sale at Kobo through the end of the month. If you’ve already read it, you can still tell your friends!

I don’t have a direct link since I can’t see the UK store from here, but you can search on this ID: 9781937197193.

Links
It’s easy to tell when I’m trying to catch up on my nonfiction reading — that’s when I start posting links here.

At USNI News, Megan Eckstein has an article titled “CMC Neller: Marines Now Training to Battle Drones, Fight Without Comms”, which is a pretty interesting look at exactly what the title says, and has some intersections with events in The Red trilogy — particularly the last action sequence in Going Dark.

And on a completely different subject, “The Cost of Holding On” is a short post at The New York Times by Carl Richards, offering some excellent advice on letting go of grudges:

“There is an actual cost to holding onto things we should let go of. It can come in the form of anger, frustration, resentment or something even worse. The question is, can you really afford to keep paying the bill?”

I’ve seen people hold on tight to the memory of slights, and to grudges that are twenty, thirty, forty years old, or more. It’s not worth it, folks. All that energy spent on resentment could be so much better spent in positive ways.

Recommended Audiobook
My latest audiobook rave is Bruce Schneier’s Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World. This is a nonfiction read, exploring the remarkable extent of government and corporate surveillance and data collection in the modern world. The book was originally published in 2014. In the realm of technology a two-year-old book might be suspected of being dated, but this one felt utterly relevant. I found it fascinating.

News
The Nanotech Succession Omnibus is an ebook that includes my first four novels, all taking place in a shared story world. The omnibus has been available at my webstore, but it can now be purchased from Kobo if that’s your preferred vendor. Find it here.

The Red now has its second translated edition. The first was Italian. This one is a Polish-language edition by the publisher Rebis. I like that red font on the cover!

Mondadori is the publisher of the new, Italian edition of The Red, just released yesterday.

I’m excited, because this is the first novel of mine to be translated into Italian, and while I haven’t seen the printed book yet, the cover is a lovely variation of Larry Rostant’s terrific artwork. Here’s a small version, sized to fit on my blog, but you can click through to see the cover, with the front and back flaps.

Here’s the back cover description:

Ci deve sempre essere una guerra in corso, da qualche parte…
Cinico, cerebrale, spiazzante: il thriller politico militare al tempo dei reality e dei droni. Un romanzo che unisce l’azione bellica adrenalinica di Zero Dark Thirty, la fantascienza apocalittica della Guerra Eterna e la visione profetica del Truman Show.

And here’s Google Translate’s version with a couple of edits by me:

There should always be a war going on , somewhere …
Cynical, brain cerebral(?) , unsettling :
military political thriller
at the time of reality shows and drones .
A novel that combines military action adrenaline of Zero Dark Thirty , the apocalyptic fiction of the Eternal War and the prophetic vision of the Truman Show.

If you’re an Italian reader, you can find Red here at Mondadori’s website.

Stefan Raets is hosting a giveaway at his blog Far Beyond Reality.

It’s US only, but if you’re in the US you can enter to win a hardcover copy of THE RED or an Audible audiobook code.

Details at Stefan’s blog — and if you’re on Twitter, please give him a follow!

Yesterday I spent an enjoyable hour chatting with Justin Landon, host of Tor.com’s Rocket Talk podcast, and Marko Kloos, author of the Frontlines series of military science fiction novels. Marko and I both originally self-published our mil-SF novels, and we both went on to sign deals for the books with traditional publishers.

During the podcast we talk about our nontraditional path to publishing, military SF in general, and our own novels in particular. I really enjoyed this discussion, and the insightful questions from our host. The podcast posted today. You can find it here at Tor.com.

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”

This is certainly a once-in-a-lifetime honor, so I’ll note it here: The Red is on Publishers Weekly list of “Best Summer Books 2015 (SF/ Fantasy/ Horror).”

Publishers Weekly is an industry magazine important to book buyers at stores and libraries, so fingers crossed that this will help sales when the Saga Press edition is released June 30.

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.