Back in January, I posted a list of writing goals for 2016. One of those goals was to publish a second short story collection — and here it is: Light And Shadow: eight short stories.

The collection includes all my short fiction published since 2012, with the exception of the two “Zeke Choy” stories from the Nanotech Succession story world.

Here’s the list of included stories:

Through Your Eyes (Asimov’s 2013)
Halfway Home (Nightmare Magazine 2013)
Codename: Delphi (Lightspeed Magazine 2014)
Attitude (Reach For Infinity 2014)
A Moment Before It Struck (Lightspeed Magazine 2012)
Light and Shadow (War Stories 2014)
Nightside On Callisto (Lightspeed Magazine 2012)
The Way Home (Operation Arcana 2015)

It’s likely that those of you who regularly visit this blog have already read most of these stories, and if you haven’t, I want to let you know that most of them are available to read online. If you’d rather approach them that way, visit my website for links.

On the other hand, an ebook is vastly more convenient, this one contains short introductory notes with each story, and sales of this ebook could give a small but meaningful boost to my rather paltry career.

Further persuasion: I’ll add that half of these stories have appeared in various best-of-the-year anthologies.

So…buy an ebook! And tell your friends! I don’t expect this collection to be a big seller, but I’m hoping it can serve as an introduction to my work, for those vast numbers of readers who have never encountered my stories or novels before.

Here are some vendor links. The first link is to my webstore, which uses PayPal to checkout:

Mythic Island Press LLC
Amazon.com USA
Amazon.com UK
Kobo Books (International)
Barnes & Noble

Okay, back to writing.

It’s been exactly one year since the publication of Going Dark, which completed the Red Trilogy.

Saga Press engaged in some creative experimentation in the release of the trilogy. First, all three books came out within a very short span of time, with just six months between book 1 and book 3. More revolutionary, the books were released simultaneously in hardcover, mass-market paperback, and ebook editions. I’m sure this wasn’t the first time this happened in traditional publishing, but I’d never heard of it being done before.

The usual tactic is to first release the hardcover along with an expensive ebook edition, and then to follow with lower ebook prices and a less expensive paperback a year later. I was thrilled when I learned that Saga planned to do hardcover and mass market at the same time, with the added benefit of putting a reasonable price on the ebook. This allowed libraries and collectors to acquire the expensive hardcover edition, while regular readers who’d heard of the book through reviews and recommendations could grab a copy at a good price.

Of course there is a downside to this strategy: A year later I don’t get a second shot at publicity when the paperback comes out. Ah, well! I can reminisce on my blog instead.

This was an important series for me on many levels. It marked my return to writing science fiction after a hiatus of many years. It persuaded me that the near future was fertile ground in which to grow stories that felt relevant to me, in our rapidly evolving world. And it allowed me to write the sort of story I love to read: one that includes high-energy adventure with extrapolations of real-world science and technology, and (I hope!) engaging characters who give a damn about one another and the world.

So one year out it seems appropriate to say THANK YOU! to the readers and reviewers who’ve supported the books. It’s easy for a work to get lost in the vast sea of novels that reach publication each year. It’s your interest and support and word-of-mouth recommendations that have kept the Red trilogy visible — and that is truly appreciated. I hope you’ll continue to recommend the trilogy to friends who might enjoy it. The last big publicity push was over long ago, so it’s up to you now!

If you read this blog regularly than you know I’ve got a new novel on the way. I look forward to telling you more about that in the coming months. If you haven’t done so already, do use the form in the righthand column to sign up for my newsletter. It’s another way to get in touch, and to let you know when the new novel is available.

Thank you!

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!

Back in June, I collected your opinions on potential new book cover designs for Limit of Vision, using part of the existing cover art, created by Sarah Adams.

After deciding on a direction, I then sent the project to graphic designer Emily Irwin to “professionalize” the concept. I’m very pleased with the result, which you can see here:

A new version of the ebook, featuring the new cover, should be available shortly at most ebook vendors. Find links and more information here.

I’m hoping to do a print-on-demand version this fall.

The list of finalists for this year’s John W. Campbell Memorial Award was just released, and I’m very pleased to report that Going Dark was included.

Back in 2014, The Red: First Light also made the list.

The Campbell Memorial award honors the best English-language science fiction novel published in the prior year.

For the full list of finalists, and information about the award, visit the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.

…original post is here

Update: added a third version, as suggested by Sharon in the comments.

Madness has struck and I am messing around with cover layouts. Generally, this is a profoundly time-wasting practice, but since I’ve come this far, let me know what you think of these concepts…

Layout 1:
The first one is a mockup. It’s an attempt to position elements to suggest the final cover layout, which would have to be completely re-done by someone with actual art/graphics skills. The small scene at the bottom would need to be repainted. It could be either a very similar painterly scene which fades into flat color, or else an entirely graphics sort of scene. The tumbling debris is meant to link the spider to the dissolving castle structure — and of course the color scheme would need to be adjusted to make a better match between the two elements.

If this was to be principally a print book viewed on a shelf, I would go for even smaller title fonts to suggest that “limit of the visible” idea, but it will be viewed almost exclusively online, so… maybe the font is too small?

Layout 2:
The second one is even simpler, and I don’t think requires further comment from me except to say that it would be handed off to a graphics artist for final font selection, placement, and rendering. Please let me know what you think!

Layout 3:
Suggested by Sharon in the comments…

Back in 2011 I set out to develop a new cover for my stand-alone novel, Limit of Vision. I put together a rather laughable mockup of a cover concept. Artist Sarah Adams went on to turn it into a beautiful digital painting. I then added some clumsy title graphics, and the result is the cover you see at right.

There is so much that I really love about this cover art: the rendition of the landscape, the color scheme, the plummeting space debris, the foreground artifacts, and the spidery entity which is rendered so much better here than in the original Tor Books cover. And yet — though this layout is exactly what I asked for — I’ve never been really comfortable with it. Now I’m starting to think of doing a print or audio edition of this book, so I’m reconsidering the cover.

If you’re not familiar with Limit of Vision, this is a near-future, high-tech story set mostly in Vietnam. The two primary characters are an American scientist who instigates an incident of runaway biotechnology, and a Southeast Asian journalist who finds her life overtaken by that. It’s an adult novel, meaning that it’s not young adult.

We all like to think that the right cover will sell a book, and sometimes it’s true. So a general question for those willing to offer an opinion: is this the right cover? My own concerns go to the foreground figure. The portrait is meticulously painted, but is it too large? too dominating? Is it too suggestive of a young-adult novel?

Here’s a look at the cover painting without my amateur graphics:

And here’s what it looks like without the foreground figure:

Here are some options I’m looking at:

(1) Have a graphics designer fix up the fonts and it’ll be fine

(2) Eliminate the foreground figure, but keep the background — and get a graphics designer to fix the fonts.

(3) Start over.

I’d appreciate opinions — and opinions need not be limited to these options. Thank you!

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.

For those readers in the United Kingdom, the ebook edition of Going Dark is now available from Amazon UK. Find it here.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I sold The Red Trilogy to Saga Press, I was able to retain the right to publish the books separately in the United Kingdom, and I’m doing so under my own publishing imprint, Mythic Island Press LLC, though I’m only publishing the ebook edition, at least for now.

You’ll find the United Kingdom editions of The Red and The Trials at Kobo Books as well at Amazon. Right now Going Dark is only at Amazon UK, but it will eventually be available at Kobo too.

Amazon links:
The Red: First Light
The Trials

Kobo links:
The Red: First Light
(9781937197193)
The Trials
(9781937197186)

ALL THREE BOOKS IN THE RED TRILOGY ARE NOW OUT

GOING DARK:

“No Real Allies, No Fixed Enemies, No Certain Battlefields”

Presumed dead by those closest to him and with no intention of setting the record straight, former army Lt. James Shelley is recruited by a black ops outfit devoted to two things: guarding the Earth from existential threats, and the Red.

Operating for almost two years among soldiers who are enhanced, and controlled, just as he is, Shelley believes he’s learned a proper caution in working with the mysterious artificial intelligence—until the Red’s increasingly erratic behavior ignites an accidental war, and launches Shelley on a collision course with his old life.

In the final book of The Red Trilogy, Shelley must choose who—or what—to trust, while struggling to contain an escalating conflict that threatens to plunge the world into chaos, and destroy those he loves.

Some online booksellers (USA):
☆ Amazon
☆ Barnes & Noble
☆ Powell’s Books
☆ Mysterious Galaxy
☆ Tattered Cover

Or get the audio book, narrated by Kevin T. Collins, and available worldwide from Audible:
☆ Audible

Information on the United Kingdom ebook edition is here.