MIND OVER SHIP released today

I am pleased to announce that my second novel, Mind Over Ship, has been released today. Hope you like it.

Broken Barrier

My daughter reports via Blackberry that Getting to Know You is in the Terminal 4 bookstore at JFK. I've broken the airport bookstore barrier!

Mark your calendar

Here are some dates of note:

January 20, 2009**********Mind Over Ship is released
Sat. January 31************Book launch at Gullivers
Sat. February 7************Marusek reading at Barnes & Noble

Jan. 20--Mind Over Ship goes on sale on Inauguration Day--a doubly auspicious day, a veritable two-fer.

Jan. 31--For those of you who plan to be in Fairbanks during the dead of winter, the last Saturday of January and the first of February are of special note to you. On January 31, from 2:00–4:00 pm, I'll be having a book launch at Gulliver's Books. Come on out. I'd love to see who you are.

Feb. 7--the following Saturday I'll be at the Fairbanks Barnes & Noble for a short reading at 6 pm. I'm not sure what I'll read. Maybe something from the new novel, or maybe something still in progress. I have some short stories in the mill and one of those might be fun.

Cold Snap of '08

Day 6 of the Cold Snap of the winter of '08. I am counting from last Saturday, Dec. 27, when it hit 30 below and I did my weekly grocery shopping a day early. I am cabin-bound until the temperature rises above minus 20. I have enough supplies to dig in for a week, except for water. With 3 jugs (X 6 gal) I only have enough water to go 5 or 6 days, even rationed. I hope it warms up enough in the next couple of days so I can fire up the old pickup (17 years old) and set a course through the doughy ice fog to the water station. The next time I make it to Fred Meyers to shop, I'm going to buy a new water jug (giving a water run a 24-gallon payload) in order to lengthen my maximum mission duration here in cabin central.

I used to drive in any temperature, but I destroyed the engines/electronics of two vehicles in 40-below weather, and now I won't drive anywhere when it's colder than minus 20, except in emergency. This is a practical threshold, any colder and my pickup door doesn't latch, and I'd have to drive with the door open.

This cold snap is being compared to the one in 1989 when we had like two solid weeks at 40 below. I well remember that bit of weather. It got down to 55 below where we lived near the slough, and it was driving at 50 below that killed my old Saab. The thing I remember the most about the Cold Snap of '89 (I know how much this makes me sound like an old-timer) was running out of heating oil halfway through the spell and being told by my heating oil supplier that they had a 2-week waiting list for deliveries. I couldn't believe it, a company I'd purchased all my heating oil from for about 6 years told me I'd have to wait, or pay them an exorbitant "rush" charge.

I have already put in my order for an oil delivery here. It's a different company, of course, but I still have to wait a week. At least I planned for it this time. I can go through 200 gallons from Jan 1 through Feb 28, the so-called dead of winter up here. This cabin is a leaky tent, and I used to happily burn oil back when it cost $1 per gallon. But my first 100 gallons this winter cost $425, and it's long burned up. The price of the coming delivery will be $222. Much better, but low prices won't last.

I never thought I'd live in this cabin for this long, and it is so small (16' x 24') that I have never seriously considered putting in a woodstove. A woodstove would claim major floorspace. But this fall I helped a friend cut and haul a couple of cords of firewood off my property. I have 4 acres here, and there is a LOT of deadfalls. In fact, I figure it would take me 3 or 4 years to use up all the dead wood on my lot. With heating oil at $4.25 a gallon, here I am sitting on a renewable resource large enough to heat my home (with a little healthy elbow grease) for free. So, come March that'll be my home improvement project--an EPA-approved woodstove I can bask next to.

Now Twittering

I'm trying out the Twittering even though I don't have a smart phone. Look at the Twitter sidebar to the right.

Paperback release

The del Rey paperback edition of my story collection, Getting to Know You, is officially released today! It's a handsome little book. Great for reading on trains and planes. It even comes in a Kindle version. This is my first outing with del Rey, an imprint of Random House, and I'm curious what kind of job they do selling it. Let me know in the comments if you see this book on shelves and where (indy or chain book store, airport, grocery/convenience store, and so on). I like the cover art even though it's not especially sci-fi-ish. Perhaps they are angling for a broader readership? Lots of cool jacket blurbing.

Open auction--Pet Cameo

It has belatedly occurred to me to inform y'all that I have a Pet Cameo auction still going on for one more day. It's over at the Help Vera site on LiveJournal.

Welcome to the HelpVera fundraiser and charity auction. We are trying to help Vera Nazarian, a speculative writer, publisher, and all-around wonderful person to save her house from foreclosure.

Vera's a friend and colleague of mine who has fallen on some rough times and apparently some good friends of hers took it upon themselves to do an online auction fundraiser. Hundreds of people have participated, and the target goal of $11,000 has been met and exceeded.

That's very cool and I'm very pleased for Vera. But let's not forget that many of the auctions are still going on! including mine! SF treasures are being sold right now for a good cause. If you're interested in some eclectic SF-themed goods and services, you've got only a day or two to place bids.

The things being offered and bid upon are mind-blowing. I was expecting a lot of books in this auction, but custom poems, cookies, custom jewelery, tarot readings, handbooks, pet cameos, copyediting... it goes on and on.

My own lot is the pet cameo, and it has only a day or so to go. It closes on Sat. Dec. 13 at 11:47 am, one week from its timestamp. I am selling one pet cameo in an upcoming story or novel. Here's how I described it for the auction:

You can immortalize your pet in a literary work!

For awhile now I've been offering pet cameos at auction for local non-profits. My novel, Mind Over Ship (Tor, Jan. 20 2009) includes two dogs who each fetched over $100 for the Fairbanks Symphony Association auction. The auction winner sends me a photo and a little bio sketch of their pet, and I'll fit the pet by name and description into an upcoming story or novel. In the past some of these animals have taken part at critical plot points!

For Vera's auction I'll donate one pet cameo. Can be pretty much any kind of animal. If it lives with you I should be able to fit it in. (Alternatively, I can do a cameo of your favorite boat, car, country estate, etc. No living people please).

A story I'm currently working on has a pivotal role played by a dog, and it's available for bidding. Other animals may have to wait a story or book or two to fit in. If a story or novel goes unpublished, I'll include your pet in the next until it is published. Minimum bid is $35.00.

As of today, Thurs, the high bid is $70, which frankly is a steal. If you're interested in casting your pet into literary history, you can make a bid until Saturday, Dec. 13 at 11:47 am, 2008. Sorry I didn't alert you sooner. I need an assistant around here.

Here's how you make a bid. Just go here.

I don't know if they make you join LJ or not in order to bid, but if you have any difficulty contact the auction manager Josh Guppiecat.

All pets are immortal, but sometimes it's nice to make it official.

Getting to Know You--Again!

In the windup to the release of Mind Over Ship, and the subsidiary afterlife of Counting Heads, I have been all too forgetful of my other child, the collection of stories Getting To Know You, which comes out from del Rey on December 30. Others have not, including the preeminent SF writer, reviewer, and encyclopedia editor, John Clute. He published a review of GTKY in yesterday's Sci-Fi Weekly that blows me away. He actually makes me sound like someone who knows what he's doing (when the fact is I have to read reviews to discover that). Anyway, it's humbling. Check it out.

Counting Heads in Romania

I am excited to see this come out, the Romanian edition of my first novel. I can't speak a word of Romanian, but I'm confident that this is a good translation because the translators, Cristina and Stefan Guidoveanu, sent me lists of questions to clarify terms and ideas. I usually inform foreign publishers that I'm available for such inquiries, but the Guidoveanus are the first to take me up on it.

Second Starred Review for MOS

The current issue of Publisher's Weekly has a starred review for Mind Over Ship. (If you go there to read it, scroll halfway down the page to the SF/Fantasy/Horror section.) Since my first published stories, I have tried to take the moderating attitude of not getting too excited over good reviews or too bummed over bad ones. This review is very good, but what pleases me most in it is the mention of my--ahem--moments of "perfect prose." Hell yes! I labor long polishing those sentences and paragraphs. It's probably the most fun part of the process for me.

The review also makes this observation: "While newcomers might wish for a short prologue or a glossary, those omissions don't significantly detract." It's a relief to hear this from a reviewer, but I'm still anxious to provide some kind of synopsis of Counting Heads here and elsewhere (see the previous posting to this blog). So, if you've read CH and would like to take a stab at writing a summary, please do so. Email it to me. Don't make me write one myself, please, because my head is so full of early drafts, revisions, deleted scenes, alternate scenes, and abandoned threads and characters, that I have a hard time remembering how the final book came out. No joke.