Earlier this week I was very surprised to receive in the mail a box with CDs of the audio edition of The Red trilogy, as narrated by Kevin T. Collins. Audiobooks of the trilogy have been available as downloads at Audible, but there was no CD edition and I wasn’t really expecting one. I’d been told it might happen, but don’t hold out hope. So it happened! Cool! And now that I’ve received my author copies, I want to do a giveaway of two sets.

If you’re a current subscriber to my newsletter, then check your email (and your spam folder) because you’ve just received an announcement about the giveaway. If you’re interested in participating, reply to that email telling me you want to be entered in the giveaway, and I’ll add your name to the list. One current subscriber will be randomly chosen from those who respond, to win a set of audiobook CDs.

If you’re not a current subscriber, sign up! The second set of CDs will go to a randomly chosen new subscriber. To sign up for my newsletter, fill out that little form in the right-hand column of this blog. You’ll get a verification email from Mail Chimp, which you will need to respond to before you’re actually signed up.

I’ll leave the contest open for entries until the end of June.

If you’re worried that I’ll fill up your inbox with weekly spam, DON’T WORRY. The contest announcement is the first newsletter I’ve sent since Going Dark came out last November. The newsletter is my way of letting you know when I have new stories or novels out, when I’m doing special promotions like this one, or when I have some kind of big news. Five or six newsletters a year would be a lot of newsletters for me. And if you decide you don’t want to read anymore of my work, you can always unsubscribe. 🙂 😀

So sign up!

As if you don’t already have enough distractions…

I failed to post here at my blog for almost the entire month of February, so I’m making up for it with a flurry of posts in early March. (If posting regularly is the key to building a blog readership, well, that explains a lot.)

Recommended Audiobooks

Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion
by Dan Simmons:
These are science fiction classics that I loved back when they were originally published, and they are just as amazing today. Instead of re-reading, I listened to the audiobooks and was extremely impressed by the production. I’ve been listening to audiobooks for only about nine months, and early on I got into the habit of listening at a slightly faster than normal speed, usually 1.25x, unless I really wasn’t enjoying a book and then I would shift to 1.5x. But with these books I downshifted to 1.0x because every word is worth hearing. Truly amazing writing, characters, and world building. I’ll be moving on to the next book in the set, Endymion, before too long.

The Southern Reach Trilogy
by Jeff Vandermeer:
Audible had all three volumes of the Southern Reach trilogy — Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance — in an omnibus edition, available for a ridiculously low one credit, so I decided it was high time I familiarized myself with these much-acclaimed novels. I’m not entirely sure what I expected of the Southern Reach, but I was surprised at what I found. These are “literary” novels. They engage with fine language and description and, especially in the first two books, there is much time spent exploring the odd and troubled pasts of the main characters. At times I found it slow going, and early on I tweeted this:

Random observation: I think I'm more patient w/audiobooks, more likely to stick w/a story that I might abandon if I were reading it myself.

— Linda Nagata (@LindaNagata) February 14, 2016

What kept me going was the truly amazing writing, and a wonderful cast of narrators. As above, I slowed this one down to 1.0x speed, to catch every word, and as the story proceeded, I began to feel I was drawn into a spell of words and insight. I also felt that the quality of my own writing was improving as I continued to listen — a very nice side effect!

Of the three volumes, the third was my favorite. I found it the most engrossing, as some of the mysteries are being worked out. Some reader reviews complained that the ending was too abrupt, but I didn’t find it so. Highly recommended.

Links

• In midFebruary SF Signal published a piece by James Wallace Harris called Staying on the Cutting Edge of Science Fiction. I found it to be an interesting look at how the idea of what constitutes “cutting edge” technology shifts over time and how technologically based science fiction responds to that, especially since this is a subject I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. James suggests that writers wanting to “extrapolate about the impact of real scientific knowledge … can’t let older science fiction cloud their vision.” I think this is a very important point. The post was surrounded by controversy though, because none of the books cited as examples were written by women. I wish it had been different and that the post had included a more varied list of examples. Nevertheless, I thought it was an interesting perspective.

• Yesterday Charles Stross published a very entertaining and thought-provoking piece called Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera, in which are listed several hundred “already seen it” tropes from science fiction. To my mind, this list is asking a similar question to that above: what’s new? and what’s left to explore in a literary sense?

• And finally, just for fun… this was making the rounds a few weeks ago, but if you haven’t seen it yet, check it out, and know that we are doomed:

Just a few odds and ends…

* For those who write, Baen Books is holding a short story contest. They’re looking for near-future, humans-in-space themes. Find the details here. Deadline is February 1!

* The New Yorker takes a look at STX Entertainment in their article “The Mogul of the Middle.” It’s a long read, but a fascinating look at how thumbs-up/down decisions get made in the movie business.

* A photo essay on “The Internet” by Peter Garritano, with some background explanation over at The Atlantic.

* It was a nice end-of-the-year for The Red Trilogy. io9.com included it on their list The Very Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Of 2015. Bookworm Blues included The Red on her “The Epic Best Books of 2015 List.” Rob Bedford, who reviews for SFF World, put The Red at the top of his “Favorite 2015 Science Fiction Novels.” And Annalee Newitz included the trilogy in her Ars Technica list “All the science fiction books you’ll want to binge read over the holidays.” 🙂

* It’s been many years since I’ve read Dan Simmons Hyperion. I’m revisiting it now in audiobook format, and so far this edition is EXCELLENT. I’ll probably have more to say on it when I’m done, but at this point I’m hugely impressed both by Dan’s story and the production.

Follow up:
November 12, 2015
This was a fun giveaway that brought a lot of visitors to the blog, though most of you decided not to comment! ::sigh:: But that’s all right. Since there were just six active participants, it was easy for me to give a code to all of them. The emails have already gone out to the address you used when you posted your comment. If you haven’t heard from me, check your spam folder. If you still can’t find the email, contact me at linda at mythicisland dot com (converted to regular email format of course) and I’ll re-send.

A big mahalo (thank you) to all participants, and to everyone who helped boost the signal!

Thank you to those who’ve served and who continue to serve our country this Veterans Day!

Because it’s Veterans Day, and because the audio-book edition of Going Dark has just been released TODAY, I thought I’d do an audio-book flash giveaway. Audible has provided me with download codes. So I’ll be giving away one code for each book in The Red Trilogy — and I want to have three different winners. So enter to win with a comment on this post, letting me know which book you’d like to win — either The Red, The Trials, or Going Dark — and if you’re willing to settle for your second or third choice.

My son-in-law, US Army veteran Edward White, will be selecting the winners. If you’ve got a veteran anecdote to share, he invites you to do so, but it’s not required to enter.

The Audible editions of books in The Red Trilogy are narrated by Kevin T. Collins, and they’re available worldwide where Audible books are sold. I haven’t been told there are any regional restrictions on the code, so do enter even if you’re outside of the United States. You do need to be registered at Audible/Amazon to redeem a code, but you do not need a paid membership plan.

Enter today! Winners will be announced tomorrow, November 12 (Hawaii time). Thanks for participating!

The Saga Press edition is finally here!

If you’ve visited my blog before, you probably know that The Red: First Light was originally published in 2013 through my own company, Mythic Island Press LLC. It was my first science fiction novel in ten years, and became the first self-published novel to be nominated for a Nebula award. Last year I received a nice offer from Joe Monti of Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press for rights to The Red: First Light, along with two sequels. Once that contract was signed, I withdrew my own edition from the market, and the novel has been unavailable since then.

But not anymore!

As of today, The Red is on the market again. This time it’s available in hardcover, mass market paperback, and ebook editions, all from Saga Press, and in audiobook format from Audible. The audiobook will be available both in the United States and the United Kingdom. A special note for the UK: the ebook edition will be out shortly, published by Mythic Island Press LLC.

So go get it! The Red is available online, and if things have gone well you should be able to find it in bookstores too. If you do see copies out in the world, I’d love it if you let me know — or post pictures! I’m curious to see what kind of distribution it gets.

Publishers Weekly has included The Red on their list “Best Summer Books 2015.” But if you’re still not sure — maybe you don’t think you’d like military fiction — go visit Amazon. They’ve got the first seventy pages available to read online. That’s enough to let you know if this book is for you. I hope it is. I hope you enjoy it.

And thank you! … for your support and your patience. Readers are awesome.

Find The Red online at these vendors:

Amazon USA

Barnes & Noble

Powell’s Books

Mysterious Galaxy

Tattered Cover

Books-A-Million

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”

And also nine other science fiction stories!

This is the fifth year that Infinivox has released an unabridged audio book anthology of The Year’s Top-Ten Tales of Science Fiction (link is to Amazon US).

Stories included in the audio anthology are:

“Invisible Men” by Christopher Barzak
“Close Encounters” by Andy Duncan
“Bricks, Sticks, Straw” by Gwyneth Jones
“Arbeitskraft” by Nick Mamatas
“The Man” by Paul McAuley
“Nahiku West” by Linda Nagata
“Tyche and the Ants” by Hannu Rajaniemi
“Katabasis” by Robert Reed
“The Contrary Gardener” by Christopher Rowe
“Scout” by Bud Sparhawk

I haven’t yet heard the audio rendition of “Nahiku West” but I’m looking forward to it.