John Joseph Adams's Blog, page 14
September 8, 2015
August 27, 2015
NEWS: THE END IS NIGH Part of the Latest StoryBundle “Disasters” Bundle!
THE END IS NIGH is part of the new StoryBundle ebook bundle. It’s a pay-what-you-want bundle, and it’s available through Sept. 17. See the pitch about it below, from bundle curator Kevin J. Anderson:
THIS COULD BE A DISASTER!
Every time you turn on the news, you see a different possibility for how the world might end—and imminently! Climate change, Ebola, asteroid impact, nuclear war … zombie apocalypse. How will you prepare? How will you save your family? How will you help save the world for your children and future generations?
Obviously, the best preparation is to read up on every possible disaster scenario. And a great way to start is with the Disasters Storybundle, which just launched at storybundle.com.
I have just curated a new bundle of 11 epic disaster novels that cover the gamut of What Can Go Wrong. Think of it as 50 Shades of Doom. But these aren’t just tales of disaster…but tales of heroism, persistence, ingenuity, and survival. These are truly the best things to read while you’re huddled underground in your bomb shelter (or just in your living room, in the meantime).
The New York Times bestseller FIRE by Alan Rodgers has it all, the brink of nuclear war, religious fanatics taking over the country, a mysterious virus that raises the dead… ATLANTIS by Bob Mayer takes you to the Bermuda Triangle and the fate that destroyed Atlantis may be moving on the rest of the world.
In STORM WORLD by New York Times bestseller Brian Herbert and Bruce Tayler, a group of survivors after a global climate catastrophe fight to defend the last seed bank, which holds hope for the future. David Sakmyster’s FINAL SOLSTICE has a different explanation for disastrous climate change—Druids! Bill Ransom’s VIRAVAX and Laura Anne Gilman’s DRAGON VIRUS both tell of species-altering genetic plagues…but in dramatically different fashion.
Brian Herbert and Jan Herbert turn to the seas, where the lifeforms of the ocean finally rebel and turn against the land dwellers after centuries of destruction and pollution. My novel ILL WIND with Doug Beason is about a gigantic oil spill in the San Francisco Bay…and efforts to mitigate it release an oil-eating virus that brings about the fall of civilization. Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams have covered it ALL in their anthology THE END IS NIGH, with stories about every kind of end-of-the-world imaginable. THE HIGH EDGE by Dean Wesley Smith, a novel in his popular Seeders universe, describes a huge population die-off, and the survivors who must reach for the stars. And SEEDS by Chris Mandeville takes place half a century after a catastrophic solar event destroys life and technology on Earth’s surface, and it is now time for the underground survivors to emerge.
Trust me, this batch of books will stiffen your backbone and give you hope (or at the very least prove to you that your Bad Day could have been a lot worse!)
At storybundle.com, you pay whatever you feel the books are worth and you’ll get the six basic books. If you pay above $15 you get the original six books, plus five more. That’s only a little more than a dollar per book! The bulk of the earnings goes *directly* to the authors, with a portion also going to charity—the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education, in this case.
Available in all eBook formats. But this bundle is available for only a limited time—don’t miss the disaster!
If that sounds good, head over to StoryBundle.com and pay-what-you-want for the bundle and get lots of great disaster fiction for an affordable price.
August 20, 2015
NEWS: PRESS START TO PLAY Interview Featured on GameCrate
GameCrate talked to us about PRESS START TO PLAY. My favorite exchange:
GC: So when it came time to decide if it’s “video game” or “videogame,” who threw the first punch?
D: Copyeditors always throw the first, and last, punch.
J: When copyeditors start throwing punches, I always counter the first couple, then I dodge right and press start to throw an uppercut.
That’s right, a Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out! reference! Little Mac FTW.
August 18, 2015
NEWS: IGN Interviews Daniel About PRESS START TO PLAY
IGN interviewed Daniel about PRESS START TO PLAY (and related subjects):
IGN Comics: You’re the co-editor of Press Start to Play. What are the origins of this project?
Daniel H. Wilson: My co-editor John Joseph Adams and I had collaborated on an anthology before called Robot Uprising. This time around we wanted to do an experiment. What happens when video games and science fiction collide? So we reached out to our favorite science fiction authors, like Hugh Howey, Andy Weir, Charlie Jane Anders. We also reached out to the people who write the video game narrative that millions of us play, Chris Avellone, Mickey Neilson, Rhianna Pratchett, and Marc Laidlaw. These are the people who wrote Half Life, Tomb Raider, World of Warcraft, the Fallout series. They have written narratives that have reached millions of people, and we wanted to know, what would it look like if they wrote science fiction inspired by video games?
NEWS: PRESS START TO PLAY is Now Available Wherever Fine Books Are Sold!
Press Start to Play is now available!
COVER COPY
IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS.
You are standing in a room filled with books, faced with a difficult decision. Suddenly, one with a distinctive cover catches your eye. It is a groundbreaking anthology of short stories from award-winning writers and game-industry titans who have embarked on a quest to explore what happens when video games and science fiction collide.
From text-based adventures to first-person shooters, dungeon crawlers to horror games, these twenty-six stories play with our notion of what video games can be—and what they can become—in smart and singular ways. With a foreword from Ernest Cline, bestselling author of Ready Player One,Press Start to Play includes work from: Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S.R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley,T.C. Boyle, Marc Laidlaw, Robin Wasserman, Micky Neilson, Cory Doctorow, Jessica Barber, Chris Kluwe, Marguerite K. Bennett, Rhianna Pratchett, Austin Grossman, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Catherynne M. Valente, Andy Weir, and Hugh Howey.
Your inventory includes keys, a cell phone, and a wallet. What would you like to do?
>__
COVER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword—Ernest Cline
Introduction—John Joseph Adams
God Mode—Daniel H. Wilson
NPC—Charles Yu
Respawn—Hiroshi Sakurazaka (translated by Nathan Collins)
Desert Walk—S.R. Mastrantone
Rat Catcher’s Yellows—Charlie Jane Anders
1Up—Holly Black
Survival Horror—Seanan McGuire
REAL—Django Wexler
Outliers—Nicole Feldringer
—Chris Avellone
Save Me Plz—David Barr Kirtley (reprint)
The Relive Box—T.C. Boyle (reprint)
Roguelike—Marc Laidlaw
All of the People in Your Party Have Died—Robin Wasserman
RECOIL!—Micky Neilson
Anda’s Game—Cory Doctorow (reprint)
Coma Kings—Jessica Barber (reprint)
Stats—Marguerite K. Bennett
Please Continue—Chris Kluwe
Creation Screen—Rhianna Pratchett
The Fresh Prince of Gamma World—Austin Grossman
Gamer’s End—Yoon Ha Lee
The Clockwork Soldier—Ken Liu (reprint)
Killswitch—Catherynne M. Valente (reprint)
Twarrior—Andy Weir
Select Character—Hugh Howey
BUY THE BOOK
Trade Paperback
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books A Million
IndieBound
Powell’s
Target
Walmart
Ebook
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
iBooks
Audiobook
Audible.com (forthcoming)
If you’d like to learn more about the book, read stories from the anthology for free online, or read interviews with the authors, visit the website for Press Start to Play at johnjosephadams.com/press-start.
Press Start to Play
edited by John Joseph Adams & Daniel H. Wilson
IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS.
You are standing in a room filled with books, faced with a difficult decision. Suddenly, one with a distinctive cover catches your eye. It is a groundbreaking anthology of short stories from award-winning writers and game-industry titans who have embarked on a quest to explore what happens when video games and science fiction collide. From text-based adventures to first-person shooters, dungeon crawlers to horror games, these twenty-six stories play with our notion of what video games can be—and what they can become—in smart and singular ways. With a foreword from Ernest Cline, bestselling author of Ready Player One, Press Start to Play includes work from: Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S.R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley,T.C. Boyle, Marc Laidlaw, Robin Wasserman, Micky Neilson, Cory Doctorow, Jessica Barber, Chris Kluwe, Marguerite K. Bennett, Rhianna Pratchett, Austin Grossman, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Catherynne M. Valente, Andy Weir, and Hugh Howey.
Your inventory includes keys, a cell phone, and a wallet. What would you like to do?
>__
Publisher: Vintage Books
Tentative Publication Date: August 18, 2015
August 12, 2015
NEWS: My 2015 Worldcon Schedule
I’ll be at Worldcon/Sasquan this year. I won’t be there till Friday morning, but I’ll be there through Sunday afternoon. Here’s my schedule:
SpoCon Presents: Short Story Editors
Aug 21 01:00 PM to 01:45 PM (45 minutes)
John Joseph Adams , Ellen Datlow , Mir Plemmons (M)
Climate Change – Science and Fiction
Aug 21 02:00 PM to 02:45 PM (45 minutes)
Ctein (M), John Joseph Adams , Ramez Naam , Bobbie Benton Hull , Gregg Castro
Signing / Meet & Greet at the Audiobooks by Skyboat Media / Lightspeed Booth (N12)
Aug 31 11:00 AM to 12:45 PM (1 hour 45 minutes)
John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant (till 11:45 AM)
How to Edit Anthologies
Aug 22 01:00 PM to 01:45 PM (45 minutes)
John Joseph Adams , Ellen Datlow , Rich Horton , Mike Resnick (M)
The Future of Short Fiction: Online Magazines Today
Aug 22 02:00 PM to 02:45 PM (45 minutes)
Anaea Lay , Scott H. Andrews , Mike Resnick (M), John Joseph Adams , Neil Clarke
Hugo Awards Reception
Aug 22 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (2 hours)
Hugo Awards Ceremony
Aug 22 8:00 PM – 10:30 PM (2.5 hours)
Kaffee Klatche – John Joseph Adams
Aug 23 11:00 AM to 11:45 AM (45 minutes)
John Joseph Adams
Reading – John Joseph Adams
Aug 23 02:00 PM to 02:30 PM (30 minutes)
John Joseph Adams
Also, if you’re looking for Lightspeed special issues, there will be several available at the Audiobooks by Skyboat Media / Lightspeed Booth (N12), including the Limited Editions of Women Destroy Science Fiction! and the Queers Destroy Science Fiction! special issues of Lightspeed, plus copies of Women Destroy Fantasy! and Women Destroy Horror!, and copies of the Lightspeed anthology Lightspeed: Year One.
NEWS: PRESS START TO PLAY Panel at PAX Prime August 30!
If you’re going to PAX Prime this year, please check out our panel:
PRESS START TO READ: Stories Based on the World of Games
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM | Cerberus Theatre | WSCC Level 3
Video games have always been driven by stories. Granted, some of the earliest stories weren’t terribly sophisticated, but each new generation of games bring us deeper, more complex narratives within our games and stories that unfold just like great works of literature. Join the editors and authors of PRESS START TO PLAY, an anthology of stories inspired by and based on games, for a discussion on the relationship between games, literature, and what authors and developers can learn from each other.
Participants: John Joseph Adams (M), Daniel H. Wilson, Cat Rambo*, Chris Avellone, Django Wexler, Chris Kluwe
___________________
*Not actually a contributor to the anthology, but awesome nonetheless.
