Oh. Hey. TWO WEEKS UNTIL GOING DARK IS RELEASED. Be sure to sign up for my New Books/Newsletter in the right column, and I’ll send you an email when it’s available.

Edit: And a couple of hours after I posted this, UPS dropped off advance copies, one each of the mass-market paperback and the hardcover. Just like the first two books of the trilogy, Going Dark will be published simultaneously by Saga Press in mass-market paperback, hardcover, and ebook, with an audio book by Audible. All are due out on November 3.

Yesterday I did my first solo Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). I’m a Reddit neophyte — I’ve only been active there once, when I participated in a group AMA for the War Stories anthology — so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The event turned out to be fairly quiet. I was hoping for more participation. That said, I did get some interesting questions, and then overnight a few more came in, so I went back this morning and answered those as well.

Click here if you want to check out the results.

Would I do it again? Sure! I’m looking forward to another round. Next time I’ll try not to schedule myself opposite Monday Night Football, a Star Wars trailer, and a Canadian election. 🙂

“All realities are constructed in one way or the other, are they not? Either through the work of some will, or arising as an emergent property from a system’s own underlying laws.”

Ted Kosmatka’s The Flicker Men first came to my attention last summer when the publisher offered to send me a complimentary copy. I failed to follow up on that, but I kept hearing good things about the book, so last week when I was looking for a new audio book, I decided to give it a try.

It took me a little while to get hooked. The opening chapters introduce us to the first-person protagonist, Eric Argus, a young and brilliant quantum physicist struggling with alcoholism and depression, along with a past that’s only gradually revealed. But once Eric latches onto a new project, the book takes off.

The Flicker Men is a philosophical thriller. There is a lot of discussion of quantum theory and its implications, and especially the double-slit experiment. That may sound dry, but in the book, it’s utterly fascinating. It turns out that a lot of readers, myself included, are inspired to do a little outside research on some of these subjects.

Ted is a terrific writer. The story moves at a good pace, and by the standards of modern novels it’s relatively short — a big plus for me as I’ve reached a point where I greatly prefer shorter, more tightly focused books.

The audio book was very well done, but I’m sure The Flicker Men would be just as compelling if I’d been reading instead of listening.

A few reviews have posted in September — two for The Trials and one for The Red.

At Tor.com, Stefan Raets had a few criticisms of The Trials, but he also says:

I really love these books most of all for what they are: some of the most action-packed and intelligent military science fiction to be released in years[…] I can confidently say that, if you loved The Red, chances are that you’ll love The Trials too.

Read the full review here.

* * *

Back in August, Sharon Browning at LitStack Review took a look at The Red. She’s now reviewed The Trials as well, saying:

The Trials aptly continues the terse and involving story begun in The Red: First Light. The action of The Trials is more closely contained than in the previous book; the focus is set more directly on Lt. Shelley and the affects of the Red in his life rather than on sweeping missions run by a larger military. But the stakes are just as high.

Like the best middle installments of trilogies, The Trials moves us deeper into the psyches and lives of the characters we have met, while still broadening the threat to the world and setting up a huge payoff.

Read the full review here.

* * *

And Sarah at Bookworm Blues, reviews The Red, saying:

First Light by Linda Nagata is… wow. Really, that’s all you need to know.

🙂 But there’s a lot more to the review!

Read it in full here.

A few recommended links of general interest:

A terrific episode of The Coode Street Podcast has just posted, this one featuring Kristine Kathryn Rusch talking about her own writing, her move away from traditional publishing, and her upcoming anthology Women of Futures Past, to be published by Baen Books in 2016.

Foreign Policy has just posted an article by Tim Requarth, “This is Your Brain. This is Your Brain as a Weapon.” It’s a survey of the rapidly accelerating field of neural technologies that includes some of the ideas behind The Red.

Extreme Tech has an article on helicopters with spider legs. Yep. Not kidding. “These robotic spider legs could let helicopters land anywhere” Be sure to watch the video!

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Help!

Have you ever written a customer review of a book you’ve read at Amazon or at the Barnes & Noble website? Or at Powells.com?** Would you ever consider doing so?

Those reviews really do matter because they help to determine the perceived popularity of a book in Amazon’s algorithms, and the more popular a book, the more likely it is to be recommended to readers browsing the website — which means it’s more likely to be bought by other readers, who might in turn enjoy the book and recommend it. Ideally this turns into a cascade of recommendations that lets a writer stay in business.

I assume a similar system is at work on the B&N website.

So I’m asking for your help. If you enjoyed The Red or The Trials or both, consider posting a short review. You don’t have to actually review the books. Some people do, but many just post short reader comments — for example: “Great read. Looking forward to the next book.” — and that’s fine. That’s all it takes.

Oh, and this is not just about my books. Do consider leaving a customer review for any book you enjoy! Trust me on this: The author will appreciate it.

And THANK YOU to everyone who has already posted a review. 🙂

Okay, back to writing.

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. I’m doing so under my own publishing imprint, Mythic Island Press LLC.

What does this mean for readers in the UK? It means you’ll get an ebook with the text formatted by me, and cover art that’s different from the American edition. Be assured though, that the stories are the same.

For now, I’m only doing ebook editions of the trilogy.

The ebook of The Red: First Light has already been available in the UK for around a month. It has the same cover as the original Mythic Island Press edition, but the text is revised from the original, making it the same as the Saga Press edition.

I’m very pleased to announce that The Trials is now available as well!

You can find both ebooks at Amazon UK.

The Red: First Light is also available through Kobo to residents of Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand. The Trials will also soon be available at Kobo, hopefully within a week.

Amazon links:
The Red: First Light
The Trials

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

In my Sasquan/Worldcon post I mentioned a podcast that I’d participated in. That is now online and features Fonda Lee, Kate Elliott, Aliette de Bodard, and me during the first half, with an interview of Tor.com editor Lee Harris in the second half. Find it here.

Roughly a quarter century ago I planted a native ‘ohi’a lehua tree in my garden. That tree is now fifteen feet tall, and blooms abundantly every few months. Honeybees always come to feed on the nectar — but I never expected to see a native ‘apapane feeding there. ‘Apapane are native forest birds, bright red and black in their adult coloration.

Hawaii has suffered extreme environmental changes since humans first arrived here, with the pace of change only accelerating after westerners arrived. Today, nearly all the bird and plant life at lower elevations are introduced species. Native forests generally exist only at higher elevations, and often only in highly protected areas such as Haleakala National Park here on Maui. The native forest bird population has suffered even more, with many species already extinct. One reason for their decline is that they have no natural immunity to avian malaria, which is spread by mosquitoes.

Aside: humans are not susceptible to avian malaria, so no worries there. Also, mosquitoes are yet another non-native species. They were accidentally introduced around 150 years ago.
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Sasquan, the World Science Fiction convention of 2015, was held a couple of weeks ago — August 19 to 23 — in Spokane, Washington. Other than the Nebula awards weekend last year, this was the first SF convention I attended since the 1990s, and it was a lot of fun!

The convention ran Thursday through Sunday, though all of my scheduled events were on Thursday and Friday. I sat on two self-publishing panels, and had much to say on both. I was also on the military science fiction panel where I had less to say, as the focus was firmly on the past, with lots of discussion on early works in the field.

Then there was the Ditch Diggers Live Podcast! I was invited to participate in this only a couple of days before the convention, and I’m very happy I agreed to it, because it was a lot of fun. Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace officiated, with Kate Elliott, Aliette de Bodard, Fonda Lee, and myself on the panel. We discussed ways to deal with some difficult and demoralizing situations that writers can face, involving publishers, payments, and such…but we did it in a role-playing-game format. I have no idea who, if anyone, heard the podcast, but people in the audience seemed to be having a good time.
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