Christopher Brown's Blog, page 5
July 27, 2017
TROPIC OF KANSAS—#1 bestseller in Austin
I was pleased to learn today that my novel Tropic of Kansas topped BookPeople’s list of local bestsellers published in the Austin American-Statesman, in some humbling company. Thanks to all of you for helping get this thing off to a strong start.
July 20, 2017
Upcoming appearances and “Book Trailer of the Day”
Pic: Hometown crowd at BookPeople July 14 for the double header book launch of Tropic of Kansas and Nicky Drayden’s The Prey of Gods
Thanks to everyone who came out to our book launch at BookPeople in Austin last Friday, and to my readings and panels at Readercon last weekend. We had a standing room only crowd at the launch, and sold out of books at both events.
I will be in San Francisco this Sunday, July 23, 3pm at Borderlands Books in the Mission, reading from Tropic of Kansas and in conversation with my friend and colleague the brilliant writer and physician Michael Blumlein. Please come by if you are in the area and interested, and pass this information along to any friends you think might like to know about the event. More details here.
Tuesday, August 1, I will at Third Place Books in Seattle (Lake Forest Park), reading and in conversation my my friend and colleague Nisi Shawl, Tiptree Award-winning author of Everfair and Writing the Other.
After that I will be back in Texas for Armadillocon August 4-6 and Murder by the Book in Houston on August 24, with fellow Harper Voyager authors Marina J. Lostetter and Patrick Hemstreet. Full event calendar here.
In other news, The DIY minimalist trailer I made for Tropic of Kansas was yesterday’s Book Trailer of the Day at Shelf Awareness. Check it out:
July 9, 2017
NPR on TROPIC OF KANSAS
A frighteningly believable portrait of an American future that is closer than you want it to be.”
Nice new review of Tropic of Kansas up at NPR this morning, for those who like “modern dystopian buffet” with their Sunday brunch (and some nominal spoilers).
NPR: ‘Tropic Of Kansas’ Rips Dystopia From The Headlines
June 28, 2017
Kirkus on TROPIC OF KANSAS
Delighted to see Tropic of Kansas in the latest roundup of summer reading recommendations at Kirkus, written by SF Signal editor John DeNardo:
In Brown’s all-too-plausible near future, the United States as we know it is no more. Instead of being a group of states ruled by the government, Middle America is a collection of warring territories where civil unrest and revolution are the new normal. The so-called Tropic of Kansas – described as ‘the parts of the Midwest that had somehow turned third world’ – is a demilitarized zone where civilian militias impose their own brand of cowboy justice. Into this arid wasteland comes Sig, the abandoned son of political dissidents, and Tania, his foster sister, a government investigator blackmailed into helping a tyrannical government hunt down her foster brother. Brown’s story moves quickly and he packs quite a lot of ideas and world building into every sentence. My advice: hang on and enjoy the dark but satisfying ride.“
Kirkus Reviews: “Your Best Bets for Fascinating SF/F/H Reads in July”
June 22, 2017
TROPIC OF KANSAS on Texas Monthly’s summer reading list
Delighted to find Tropic of Kansas in such good company on Texas Monthly‘s latest summer reading list, compiled by the amazing and omnivorous Jeff Salamon.
Texas Monthly: “What to Read This Month—Summer reading, Texas style“
June 20, 2017
Goodreads Giveaway
Goodreads is giving away ten advance reader copies of Tropic of Kansas. The last couple of giveaways have gotten a great response—details and registration here.
June 19, 2017
TROPIC OF KANSAS — final copies unboxed
A post shared by Harper Voyager (@harpervoyagerus) on Jun 19, 2017 at 6:16am PDT
Via the Instagram feed of my publisher Harper Voyager, awesome video of my amazing editor David Pomerico unboxing the first box of final copies of my novel Tropic of Kansas, which will be hitting the shelves three weeks from tomorrow.
June 14, 2017
New excerpt from TROPIC OF KANSAS at Tor.com (plus a review at Boing Boing)
There’s a new excerpt from the opening of my forthcoming novel TROPIC OF KANSAS up at Tor.com, in which a young fugitive is deported back to a U.S.A. that has been walled off—from the other side. Over at Boing Boing, sharing the excerpt, Cory Doctorow provided a preview of his amazing and generous review, saying “Brown’s novel is just what you’d hope for from a long-awaited debut like this: a book that excites, provokes and terrifies.”
Boing Boing: “An excerpt from Tropic of Kansas, a novel about a Trumpian, dystopian America”
June 12, 2017
Kelly Link on Tropic of Kansas
“The great American novel about the end of America.” Pretty stoked by this wonderful quote from the amazing (and generous) Kelly Link—2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist and award-winning author of GET IN TROUBLE, PRETTY MONSTERS, and MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS—about TROPIC OF KANSAS, coming your way in just a few more weeks.
Preorder details here.
May 24, 2017
Tropic of Kansas Audiobook and other news
The flat proofs of the full cover of Tropic of Kansas arrived here at the hobbit hole yesterday, and they look fantastic.
I’m pleased to share the news that the novel will also be available as an audiobook from Blackstone Audio, narrated by Josh Bloomberg and Bahni Turpin. I got to hear early samples, and they sound amazing, adding tremendous depth and feeling to what’s on the page. You can preorder it for download or compact disk from Blackstone or Amazon. (Still working on the mixtape.)
Bahni Turpin (L) and Josh Bloomberg (R)
And the first major trade review is in, a generous and mostly spoiler-free one from Publishers Weekly, with a great synopsis, and this:
Debut novelist Brown brings a mordant sensibility to his depiction of a ‘flyover country’ that is no longer willing to have its patriotism exploited and its land degraded for other people’s profits. His characters do not easily triumph, because he respects them too much to cheapen the costs that they must bear to succeed.”
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