Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 33

Stephanie Saulter, Karen Lord, and me interviewed at The Skiffy and Fanty Show

Karen, me and Stephanie were interviewed this morning for the Skiffy and Fanty show for an episode about Caribbean SF.

We did this show earlier this morning, so I’m not at my most, err, energetic, but it was a great deal of fun to chat with everyone and you can hear it as well!

Hurricane Fever Goodreads Giveaway

Interested in reading Hurricane Fever? Goodreads is having a giveaway of 10 copies.

I was recently invoked by The Abyss and Apex, and would like to talk to you about me, dialect, and Caribbean stories

I realize I’ve never talked that often about including dialect in my own fiction right here on this blog. Certainly in panels, and in interviews, and in passing. But I’ve never sat down and done a big post about it.

It was one of the hardest things about writing my first novel, Crystal Rain.

Me and my dialect

In 2004, when working on the first draft, ten years ago now, I was nine years away from living daily on the islands. The words were all still with me. A mix of dialect picked up from Grenad...

Dead Man’s Hand: Anthology with my story ‘Sundown’ (and some info about Willie Kennard)

John Joseph Adam’s latest anthology is Dead Man’s Hand, and it includes a story by me called ‘Sundown.’ It’s a Weird Western based on what we know of the true story of Willie Kennard, Yankee Hill’s Black Marshal. Some snipped details of the start of his career:

After pausing momentarily to size up his quarry, Kennard moved toward Casewit’s table. Casewit and his cronies really thought it hilarious when Kennard told him he was under arrest. I’m just supposed to come with you? Casewit asked inno...

8th Year Freelanciversary

Today I celebrate walking out of a 9-5 and never looking back 8 years ago. It’s my 8th Year Freelanciversary!

I’ve spent more years as a freelancer (8) than I did at a regular day job (6). Ever since I matched the same number of years freelancing as I did having a 9-5 (and got a tattoo to match at the same point), I’ve started to internalize it. For a long time it used to feel like I was getting away with something, or that it was too good to be true and continue.

Freelancing still involves hav...

Check it: Arctic Rising eBook on sale for $2.99 at Amazon & iTunes

Arctic Rising’s price has been dropped to $2.99. Boost the signal/spread the word if you’re willing. I, personally, think it’s a great deal!

If you buy via iTunes, readers just told me it’s available via iTunes for $2.99 as well, however it doesn’t seem to be down to that price on B&N (update: yep, now it is, here we go).

Want to see Hurricane Fever’s new cover?

Hurricane Fever has a new cover. I mentioned it on twitter, but I snagged a higher resolution example for this blog post:

There were a handful of cover variants that Tor was considering for the book. Bloggers started passing around one that was used as a placeholder in the catalogue, and that was being strongly considered. In the end, though, we decided to go with the red and bio-hazard symbol look. The previous cover, though it looked awesome, was easily lost when put in a line up of other bo...

Xenowealth universe is now a Storium stretch goal

What is Storium? From the Kickstarter:

“Storium is a web-based online game that you play with friends. It works by turning writing into a multiplayer game. With just your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can choose from a library of imaginary worlds to play in, or build your own. You create your story’s characters and decide what happens to them. You can tell any kind of story with Storium. The only limit is your imagination.

Storium uses familiar game concepts inspired by card games, role-...

First review of Hurricane Fever

Marissa Lingen must have read Hurricane Fever really quickly, as I only just got the advanced reader copies that are sent out to reviewers on my doorstep. Marissa has this to say:

[He]… has married the thriller style to actual knowledge of the Caribbean as something other than a vacation destination and fun extrapolative bits of SF–shark-based bio-paint, awesome!–so that it is a superior grade of thriller. If you’re an SF reader who dips into thrillers from time to time, or if you have a dedic...

Tor’s new covers for the Xenowealth are now up online at Amazon, available for preorder all around

Looks like the new covers for the Xenowealth books are popping up online for eBook purchases, at least at Amazon:

As a reminder, the series is being relaunched this December as trade paperbacks. It’s a very exciting thing to see happening.

The trade paperback can be preordered via your favorite local indy store or via Amazon or B&N. The summary and cover are not yet updated, they’re just pulling from the original mass market, but the December 9th launch date is for real. The ISBN is 97807653384...