Typeset pages

I got the typeset pages for my novel today and have sent them on to Char and another of Char's good friends in Utah. I have no idea where all of these wonderful people come from, who are willing to do such thankless tasks, like reading galleys for typos and other typesetting errors. That's what my job will be for the next couple of days, and Char and her friend, Emily, will send me whatever they find and I'll compile it all and send it to my editor.

So far, so good. The manuscript is pretty clean. Reading it sends me into a panic as I mull over all the skills I lack as a writer. By page 2 I'd reached the point that I thought I'd be lucky to sell ten copies of the thing, but then I reminded myself that I have more than ten family members who're charitably inclined.

The pub date is June 6.

Polaris wins the Science in Society Book Award

I got word from Julie Czerneda last week, Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science has won the Science in Society Book Award! Congrats to Julie and all the other writers included in this anthology.

Rare book up for auction

A signed, leather bound Easton Press first edition of Jack Williamson's, The Stonehenge Gate is up for auction. Follow that link to see it. This is an incredibly rare book, and all signed copies are now part of a limited run, as Jack passed away in 2006. The auction is for a good cause, Portales's local public broadcasting station (Portales is Jack's hometown). If you're a rare book collector, or a hard core fan of Jack's, this is not to be missed.

Forthcoming

Met with Critical Mass last night, and there are a lot of seriously good books coming out in the next year. I highly recommend Walter Jon Williams's, This Is Not a Game, and Ian Tregillis's, Bitter Seeds. Walter's is about a group of ARG (Alternate Reality Game) designers who find themselves in a much bigger game than the one they'd originally designed. Walter is a master plotsmith, and also has a very advanced understanding of everything from corporate structures to money markets to gamer culture, all of which feature prominently, and yet are so clearly explained that anyone can find their way in this thoroughly engaging novel.

Ian's Bitter Seeds takes place during World War II. Hitler is in power, the Nazis are on the move, and a German scientist has made a small cadre of super humans with abilities that range from walking through walls to telekineses and precognition. The Britons, in their desperate efforts to save their nation, turn to magic. Eidolons are raging in the Channel, exacting their blood prices. This isn't alternate history, it's something a thousand times more mind bending. You'll want to get the whole trilogy, but alas, you'll have to wait until 2009 for the first one. The second and third will be released the next year and year after.

Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams

Walter Jon Williams's post-singularity science fiction book, Implied Spaces, has been "out" since April 1st, but release dates are approximate dates. Backlogs at the printers, last minute typesetting issues, and a plethora of other problems that occur when you make anything by committee can delay the time in which books actually start appearing on shelves. According to Amazon, this book is "expected to be in stock in the next 5-8 weeks".

I myself have already read it, nyah. And it's Walter doing what Walter does best, which is write with such disgusting skill and versatility that I write more notes for my own benefit than critique points as I read his writing every month. This novel is set, as I said above, post-singularity. Humans are immortal and live in complicated habitats all throughout the universe thanks to mind twisting technologies. The line between reality and virtual reality has thinned to near non-existence. Great guardian computers, which are to our regular PCs what a PC is to, say, a rock, control worlds and safeguard humanity. Only, you guessed it, one of them goes rogue.

Rather than go into the hard sf technobabble of the plot points, Walter focuses on the human side of the story, taking the perspective of one individual, an aristocratic, refined man who has access to the frantic, private meetings of the human leadership. Through his eyes we see the personal cost when this world gets turned on its ear, and witness firsthand the events that change it forever.

Here's what other reviewers have to say:

From GreenManReview: "Implied Spaces is an action-packed story written in an elegant and wryly-humorous prose style. If Dumas was alive and writing science fiction, he might well have produced a novel like Implied Spaces."

" . . . If you're looking for a story that takes some of the best ideas in cutting edge science fiction and then weaves those ideas together into a fast-paced story with stylish prose and witty dialogue along with some introspection concerning what we as humans want from our technologies, Implied Spaces should suit to a T."

From Fantasy Book: "From Walter Jon Williams—the celebrated & influential author of “Hardwired”, “Voice of the Whirlwind” and “Angel Station”—comes “Implied Spaces”, a new novel of post-singularity action, pyrotechnics, and intrigue. Williams, whose name has long been synonymous with state-of-the-art SF, builds on the prophetic futurism of Vernor Vinge and Charles Stross, while adding his own brand of poetic prose, masterful plotting and engaging storytelling…

Whew!

So, I got my next LDS fiction novel emailed off to my editor today. It was due this week, and I fancy myself on the ball because I didn't send it at 5p.m. tomorrow, Friday. We'll see what Covenant thinks of it. It's technically a sequel to the one I already have coming out from them, but its main characters are very minor in the first book. Aside from the fact that they have walk-ons in Time and Eternity, this book pretty much stands alone.

Now I must get back to my science fiction. Critical Mass meets next week!

Not just a musician

Last fall I posted about how much I love Vanessa Carlton's latest album, Heroes & Thieves. I have since learned that she's not just a musician and dancer, but also a talented snow-sculptor. Check it out:

It's almost as impressive as one of my husband's fruit sculptures (and he is the most accomplished fruit sculptor I know).

Jack Williamson remembered on Mars

I just got back from the Jack Williamson Lectureship a few hours ago, where some wonderful news broke. Patricia Roberts, fan, friend, and all around angel to the science fiction community was the one to make the announcement. She herself learned the news this past Tuesday.

A land feature on Mars has been named after Jack Williamson, and near to it are ones named after Roger Zelazny and Arthur C. Clark. Pat is responsible for this thanks to her willingness to go up and talk to one of the scientists who contributed to the Martian naming protocols. She saw him give a presentation at the Natural History Museum in Albuquerque. It was she who suggested that they make a protocol using the names of science fiction authors, and they have. Right now it is only the names of deceased authors.

This naming comes in what would have been Jack's 100th year, were he still with us. He was born in 1908.

Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science nominated for awards

I just got an email from Julie Czerneda, the anthology editor, telling me that Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Sciencehas been nominated for some awards.

It is up for the Prix Aurora Award (the Canadian Hugo), which any Canadian my vote on. Click this link to see the ballot. The category is Best Work in English (Other).

It is also up for the Science in Society Book Award, from the Canadian Science Writer's Association. The category here is Young Adult.

High fives to all the other writers who appear in this anthology and a big "thank you" to Julie for doing such an excellent job. This is great news!

Char Draft complete!

Okay, so I finished the Char draft of my manuscript and it has passed Char's muster, for the most part. She gave me some edits to do, which I will work on this week. But I'm close to having this one out and moving on to the next novel.

To the Lectureship

Looks like I will be at the Jack Williamson Lectureship this year. I had wanted to go to show my support. I hope ENMU keeps having them. Getting down to Portales was looking like a problem, but I've now got a ride with Connie Willis and Walter Jon Williams, which I'm looking forward to as well. These two have a wealth of information on writing and science fiction, not to mention some hilarious anecdotes.

This year's lecturship theme is: Translocation/Transformation: Conjuring the Future and will feature another friend of mine, Steven Gould. The cost of admission is $8.00 - I usually spend several times that amount on books while there.

Final Draft, Version One

I promised my friend, Char, that I'd get her a novel this week, so that's what I've been doing, pushing through the novel to get it close to final draft form. Well, Char draft. Char reads when I've made it as good as I know how, and then shreds it and beats me with the pieces so that I can grow in an artistic, writerly way and do better.

The Jack Williamson Lectureship

I need to figure out if I'm going to this year's Jack Williamson Lectureship. It sort of crept up on me. It'll be April 11 (next Friday) at ENMU in Portales. It's a wonderful way to remember Jack Williamson, who left us a couple of years ago. I had the priviledge of meeting him a few times in my life. He came to New Mexico by covered wagon and sold science fiction stories to pro markets for nearly a century, beginning in the 1920's and ending just after the turn of the millennium. The couple of times I visited his home (all the attendees of the Lectureship did this when he was alive and in good health) I learned what virtually all of the major awards in science fiction, fantasy, and horror look like, because he had them everywhere.

The Lectureship itself is a low key event, but a good chance to spend time with other writers and trade magazine editors. Because Portales is a small town, and the Lectureship is only a few hours, I've spent a lot of time at Dairy Queen or the local coffee shop with people like Connie Willis, Charlie Brown, and Ed Bryant. I've sat in Jack's livingroom with Fred Pohl and Bob Silverberg (who along with Jack made a rare triplet of SFWA Grand Masters in one place). I've been at dinner squished between Kim Stanly Robinson and Walter Jon Williams. It really is a gem of a conference.