I contributed a piece to Suvudu yesterday on dystopias and “positive” science fiction and why the latter is one of the most dangerous things ever invented. Other than Pez Dispensers. Anyway, check it out.
And why not buy BURNING SKIES while you’re at it.
Well, it’s all over. Book Three, which bears the title I came up with back in 2002—the oldest of my three titles—is now into Bantam. Of course, there’s plenty more revision work to do, but the hard part’s over. Now I need to get on with the business of saying goodbye to the characters that have haunted my dreams for nearly a decade now . . . and since I know some of you are wondering:
—yes, this wraps up the #$# series.
—no, it’s not a fake-set-up for a book four.
—and no, it’s not an anticlimax—it’s easily the best thing I’ve ever written. Perhaps I’m not exactly the most Reliable Narrator/Witness in that regard. . . but right now my head’s spinning with the surrealism of it all—and I can’t think of a better place to process it than in southern California, where the sun always shines and traffic is a figment of everybody’s deranged imaginations. See you by the pool.
And what better book to bring to that pool than BURNING SKIES?
Well, it’s all coming down to the wire here. MACHINERY OF LIGHT is due to Bantam on Monday, which will wrap up this trilogy I’ve spent nearly a decade working on; meanwhile, Monday is also the day I transfer the base of operations out to Los Angeles for much of the rest of June. You do not want to know what my apartment looks like right now. Spartacus certainly doesn’t.
But in the meantime I did an interview with the awesome Jeff Vandermeer for Omnivoracious/Amazon where I explore (among other things) my approach to writing about the U.S. president, not to mention my take on the reaction to MIRRORED HEAVENS. Check it out . . .
Meanwhile BURNING SKIES is available at Amazon and at other fine bookstores!
So even as BURNING SKIES continues to crank away in the States, MIRRORED HEAVENS has hit the ground running in Spain as CIELOS REFLAJADOS . . . and I now have a new website which looks a lot like this one only it’s in Spanish. It’s kinda trippy to read my stuff in a language that I can’t speak: I wish I’d taken Spanish in high school instead of French, but I suspect that I would have ended up retaining very little anyway, because I was the class dunce when it came to foreign languages.
But somehow that didn’t stop me from giving two interviews in Spanish on some SF sites over there, one at BEMOnline, and the other at Axxon. If you’re interested in seeing the English versions, let me know and I’ll include ‘em in a future post.
BURNING SKIES is available at Amazon and other fine booksellers!
So after her runner-up finish in Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle has been admitted to a hospital for “exhaustion”—the British tabloids are reporting some heartbreaking details, and even if the specifics aren’t true (you never know with the tabloids), the nervous breakdown probably is. As a senior doctor at Boyle’s clinic notes, sudden fame is not without its dangers, and it’s an open question whether the reality-TV shows are prepared to address this and deal with its implications by providing adequate support networks/guardrails.
Actually, I’d say it’s more of a settled question: they’re not. None of us are, really. Same reason this story is way less popular than the First Susan Boyle Saga. As of this writing, it’s not in the Twitter heavy-rotation. . . and why should it be? We’ve turned the Internet into the equivalent of one big junior high school, where popularity is everything, and all that matters is how many “friends” you have and how many cameras are pointed your way. It’s part of our fairy-tale view of life. . we believe in princesses, but if those princesses get chased by paparazzi into concrete walls, then we just go ahead and damn the photographers instead of wondering who the hell was looking at those photos. More than fifteen centuries ago, the former Roman emperor Diocletian refused to come out of retirement, saying to his erstwhile imperial colleague, “if only you could see the cabbages I grow with my own hands in my garden, you wouldn’t ask this of me.” Rare it is that a public figure finds such peace.
Okay, so we got some cool links/news:
—Top SF Twitter feeds worth checking out. UPDATE: btw, my own Twitter feed is here.
—Fellow SFNovelist Kelly McCullough’s new book MythOS is out; as the title implies, you’re looking at a world where the line between programming and magick is getting (very) blurred. Very cool stuff, and worth checking out.
—At the invitation of military science-fiction colleague and general bad-ass Andy Remic, I’m now a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics, which has the “aim of celebrating all that is positive in genre fiction.” How this translates into day-to-day implementation is by definition a work in progress, but Andy assures me it doesn’t mean I have to stop my tales of mayhem and mass-slaughter. Hopefully he won’t either. This is a really cool initiative, and I’ll be posting more on it shortly.
—In the wake of Terminator Salvation, it’s worth revisiting this James Cameron interview on why Sam Worthington is going to kick Avatar’s ass
—And if you’re living in D.C., then keep in mind that Artomatic is the only game in town for the next month. Be there or miss out . . .and I’ll be doing a reading there on July 2nd!
Meanwhile, BURNING SKIES can be found on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere!
Mike Collins over at the awesomely-named Rescued by Nerds has reviewed BURNING SKIES. Mike starts off by saying that MIRRORED HEAVENS was “easily my favorite book of last year” (!), but he has this to say about the sequel:
So my verdict on BURNING SKIES? I can say without any hesitation that it wipes the floor with MIRRORED HEAVENS. This is Dave on steroids. The action is bigger, the conspiracies are deeper and the stakes are through the roof. . . .
Most of the book takes place on the fantastically conceived Europa Platform where we go from one wild action scene to the next. The pace is absolutely relentless and thrilling all the while. We learn bits of relevant information in the course of all the action. It reads fast, but it’s not lacking in depth. It builds to a conclusion that I certainly didn’t expect. One character makes a reveal that changes everything you’ve thought to that point and Dave ends with the boldest cliffhanger I’ve read in a long, long time. This is like Darth Vader revealing he’s Luke Skywalker’s father big. It’s a stunning conclusion. . . .
After Mirrored Heavens I thought Dave was very much a writer in the vein of Richard Morgan. Bombastic action scenes and a tough edge. After Burning Skies I think Dave is standing toe to toe with Morgan at his best. I can’t pay him a higher compliment than that.
BURNING SKIES is available from Amazon and other fine bookstores!
So BURNING SKIES is now in stores across America, and it’s only fitting that the Legions out there have a chance to get in on the action. That’s why I’m running Yet Another Contest; this one is simple.
1. Find a copy of BURNING SKIES in your local bookstore.
2.Photograph it on the shelf.
3. Send the photo to me at djw@spamsuxautumnrain2110.com (but don’t forget to remove the “Spamsux.”)
4. The first three people to send the photo in will receive what is certain to be a collector’s item in the years to come: an advance reader copy of BURNING SKIES (distributed by Bantam for publicity purposes earlier this year), featuring more typos than you can shake a stick at, as well as a “director’s cut”. Yes, something happens in the ARC that DOES NOT HAPPEN in the book I signed off on, and it’s a pretty big difference. It involves a certain character and his long-lost love-interest, and that’s all I’m gonna say.
So go for it! Just for yucks, the winners will also get a copy of the mass-market of MIRRORED HEAVENS, with all those cool appendices.
BURNING SKIES is available now from Amazon and other fine booksellers (and maybe even some crappy ones as well).
And just like that . . .we’re onto round two!! BURNING SKIES is now in bookstores, taking the saga of Autumn Rain to the next level, and I’m in Albany, NY to read tonight at Flights of Fantasy, at 381 Sand Creek Road, 7 p.m. So if you’re in the area. . . come out and witness the first stop on the tour! The end was merely the beginning . . .
UPDATE: here’s my overall schedule for the summer as of right now .. further updates will be here.
What a week! I’ve crossed 92K on book three, and meanwhile io9 has featured a kickass trailer for BURNING SKIES–check it out! The book comes out this Tuesday, but there’s still time to pre-order. . .
And now for the moment everybody’s been waiting for. . . the contest . . . .I printed out everybody’s emails, and then Spartacus the Cat picked out the winners before heading off to enjoy some gourmet fish. So here they are, along with their favorite characters:
Roland Dobbins . . . who digs Jason Marlowe!!
Billy Cripe . . . who can’t resist Claire Haskell!!
Eric Brumbaugh . . .who feels the same way!!
Roland’s email was the first to attract Spartacus’ attention, so he also gets a copy of the ARC (advance reading copy). Anyway, that’s two votes for Claire, and one vote for Jason. Amidst all of the entries, though, Jason and Claire pretty much ran neck and neck, with the Operative having to settle for third place. Meanwhile, my editor’s favorite character, Seb Linehan, only received two votes! Apparently no one has much of a soft spot for a wise-cracking mass-murderer. Sigh.
