Daniel H. Wilson's Blog, page 4

video interview for USA Today

Things are heating up for the June 7th release of Robopocalypse. I just got home to Portland from a three day trip to New York City where I visited Book Expo America and sat down to shoot a video interview for USA Today.

Click here to read the USA Today article.

The video is zoomed in on my face the whole time -- so to see whether or not I was wearing a shirt, follow my twitter feed @danielwilsonPDX and check out a behind-the-scenes photograph. Fascinating!

headed to book expo america

ROBOPOCALYPSE comes out June 7th -- only a couple weeks from now! The madness is already starting. I'm excited to be headed to NYC tomorrow to attend my first BEA. The best part is that lots of other authors are going to be there, including some heroes like Margaret Atwood and Chuck Palahniuk. Can't wait...

Meet your favorite Doubleday authors at BEA!

ROBO Video Contest

Submissions are officially closed for the contest. We received an awesomely wide variety of submissions. I'm listing a few here that are also publicly available on YouTube. Keep in mind, these selections in no way reflect who the winners are because that hasn't been decided yet!

There were live-action clips of people straight up dealing with the Robopocalypse...



... and more formal book trailer type submissions...



... and tons of creative stuff that defies explanation.



All in all, I'm incredibly impressed with the creativity and finesse that went into these submissions. Winners will be announced soon!

Make Your Own Robopocalypse Trailer -- Win Cold Hard Cash.

In anticipation of all-out ROBOPOCALYPSE, Doubleday is planning to welcome our shiny new metal overlords with an appeasing short video -- and they're willing to pay you to create it.


That's right, it's a Video Contest!

Grand Prize: $750
First Prize: $500
Second Prize: $250

The best part is that Doubleday has made some previously in-house materials available to the public, including:

1) High resolution images of the robot that is on the cover of the book.
2) A top-secret audio interview between me and my editor Jason Kaufman (who also edits Dan Brown, no less).
3) A full two chapter excerpt from the book.
4) The font used on the cover of the book.

Full details (and "Contest Assets") are on the video contest page at Facebook.

Show me what you got, humans!

Retro Robots on the Battlefield

"Maybe the rainbow pattern will make them think it's friendly?"I've got a piece up at Lightspeed Magazine about how robots have been fighting our wars for more than half a century -- in the form of drones, smart torpedoes, and, basically, sentient guns. Yet we always flatter ourselves with the idea that we are living through a sea change of technology. Wrong again, humans. :)

robo buzz

Is there such a thing as too brainy?
USA Today put a bit about ROBOPOCALYPSE into the Book Buzz section. Just three more months before the robot apocalypse hits planet earth like a tidal wave of buzz saws. If you want to stay up to date with this madness, you should probably facebook-ify the architect of humankind's demise --> Archos R-14.

Growing Up With Go-bots.

Go-bots, aka "Transformers for poor kids."Collectors Weekly, a website devoted to collectibles of all varieties (including awesome toy robots) is running a featured interview with Yours Truly. The interview is really long and I ramble quite a bit about growing up with Go-bots and why I loved writing A BOY AND HIS BOT. Reading it over now, I'm realizing this interview offers quite a peek into my psyche. So that's how I ended up being a nerdy robot-loving guy!

Click here to read the interview.

A Boy and His Bot Review Roundup!

It's been about a month since A BOY AND HIS BOT hit bookshelves, and it seems like a good time to take a look around and see what the reviewers are saying. Thankfully, it's a lot of nice things. Without further ado:

"With a goofy sense of humor and plenty of action, Wilson presents a coming-of-age journey with shades of Alice in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"...the climax brings on plenty of large-scale destruction, and fans of underworld odysseys will relish the wink-wink satire."
Kirkus Reviews

"A BOY AND HIS BOT is a winning combination of suspense and fun about a boy who lands in a mechanical Wonderland of robots that would awe even Alice. The perfect mix of reality and fantasy."
Curled Up With a Good Kid's Book Blog

"This book is a great adventure for boys and if you have a reluctant reader this would be a good book for him."As the Page Turns Blog
"...absolutely one of the better sci-fi books for this age group that does really need them. Worth your time."
The Artolater Blog

Finally, the book has a 4.67 out of 5 stars on Goodreads

My Favorite Five Books About Robots EVAR!

An interview just went up on The Browser today, in which I discuss my five favorite books about robots and robotics. It was a great interview and I got to talk about a lot of my favorite things, from science fiction to science fact.

Because after you read a book like this, you look at any problem that is out there, and you think to yourself, 'Oh I can build a machine that can figure this out better than a human, with better accuracy, and more quickly.' They say that once you have a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. That's absolutely true, and Machine Learning is one hell of a hammer.

Click here to give it a read!

I'm Confused and Excited About This!

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, a book that I co-authored with Dr. Anna C. Long -- THE MAD SCIENTIST HALL OF FAME -- was recently translated into French and released with a brand-new (very cool) cover by the Calmann-Levy publishing house.

Now, it seems that the book has been put on a short list of potential nominees for a French prize for fantasy/sci-fi, called the "Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire." Doesn't that sound impressive? Everything sounds better in French.

Unfortunately, I can't speak or read the language very well (and Google Translate is worse at it than I am). But from what I can gather, there will be another round of cuts and then a final prize announced in March.

Compliments of Google Translate...

GPI, or Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, is the oldest French prices still in business - since 1974 - and the most prestigious devoted to "Literature of the Imagination." The term "imaginary" covers all of these "wrong kinds" that are science fiction, fantasy, as well as various fusions of these genres and still "transfictions" where, for example, some elements insidiously slip in a literature known as "general."

We're honored just to be pre-nominated. :)