Joshua Palmatier's Blog, page 20

New Releases from DAW Books!

I've posted the new releases from DAW Books ( dawbooks ) over at the unofficial blog! Swing on by and check them out. New Mercedes Lackey, plus an omnibus of P.R. Frost's first two Tess Noncoire books.

TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER Anthology Kickstarter!

There are only 2 days left to get in on the TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER anthology kickstarter! It's already reached goal, so this is your chance to get the kickstarter-only edition of the book and to help us reach our stretch goals, which include the addition of more authors and stories to the project, as well as increase the pay for the authors! So swing on by the kickstarter and make your pledge today! There are some great reward levels left, including a few tuckerizations, and a chance to catch up on the kickstarter editions if you missed our first anthology CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE: STEAMPUNK vs ALIENS! Just check out the "ZNB Kickstarter Anthologies" reward level.

And if you happen to write SF&F stories, we have an open call for submission to the anthology with a deadline of November 30th. Check out the submission guidelines here, with details on the theme, payment, formatting, and the rights we're seeking. It's your chance to be part of this project!

New Book Discussion!

We're talking about Codex Born, the second book in Jim C. Hines' Magic Ex Libris series over at the unofficial DAW Books blog ( dawbooks )! Swing on by and check it out! Leave a comment if you've already read the book and tell everyone what you thought.

New Book Discussion!

I've posted the latest book discussion over at the unofficial DAW Books blog ( dawbooks )! We're looking at Irene Radford's third Children of the Dragon Nimbus novel, The Wandering Dragon. Swing on by and check it out! Leave a comment if you've already read it and let everyone know what you thought.

TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER Submission Guidelines!

The TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER anthology kickstarter has made its goal! This means that we can now open up submissions for the seven remaining slots in the anthology. If you have a story idea that fits the anthology's theme, write it up, revise it, polish it, and send it in for consideration. I've posted the guidelines below. Please note that the pay rate INCREASES as we reach higher stretch goals in the kickstarter, so please spread the word about the kickstarter so that we can not only add in additional authors to the anthology, but pay those authors as much as possible. Also, a special thanks to everyone who has already backed the project and gotten us funded! Without you, we wouldn't be funded with over a week left in the kickstarter to reach those stretch goals! And now, the submission guidelines:





TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER Submission Guidelines

Zombies Need Brains LLC is accepting submissions to its science fiction and fantasy anthology TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER. Stories must be submitted in electronic form as an attachment with the title of the story as the file name in .doc or .docx format. Manuscripts should be in manuscript format, meaning double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom and sides, and pages numbered. Please use New Times Roman font. The first page should include the Title of the story, Author’s name, address, and email, and Pseudonym if different from the author’s name. Italics and bold should be in italics and bold.

Stories for this anthology must be original (no reprints or previously published material), no more than 7,500 words in length, and must satisfy the theme of the anthology. TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER is to feature stories where some type of gadget or object has somehow gone temporally out of order. I want to stress this: the story must feature an object (not a person) that is temporally out of order. Preferably, the way in which the object is temporally out of order should be related to the object’s actual function. In other words, a phone may call the past or future. It should not simply transport people to the past or future (phones don’t transport objects normally, but they do make calls). Stories featuring more interesting objects or gadgets, and twists on how they are acting temporally out of order (while still being related to their normal function), will receive more attention than more common objects. In other words, we don’t want to see 100 stories dealing with phones acting out of order. If we do, it’s likely only one at most would be selected for the anthology. So be creative and choose something different and use it in an unusual and unexpected way. Stories do NOT need to be set in the present day. They may be set in the past or future, with the time element referencing either direction or the present. So Gutenburg’s printing press could start printing out 20th century headlines, for example.

The deadline for submissions is November 30th, 2014. Decisions on stories should be completed by the end of December 2014. Please send submissions to Joshua@zombiesneedbrains.com. You will receive a receipt email within a few days of receiving the submission. Notices about decisions on the stories will be sent out no later than the end of January 2015.

If your story is selected for use in the anthology, you should expect a revision letter by the end of January 2015. Revisions and the final draft of the story will be expected no later than the end of February 2015. These dates may change due to the editor’s work schedules. Zombies Need Brains LLC is seeking non-exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages for the duration of one year after publication/release of the anthology. Your story cannot appear elsewhere during that year. Pay rate will be an advance of a minimum of 5 cents per word for the short stories. For each additional $2500 raised above the Kickstarter minimum of $10,000, we will increase this advance pay rate by 1 cent per word. The anthology will be published as an ebook and an exclusive mass market paperback edition, distributed to the Kickstarter backers. The book would be available after that to the general public in ebook and trade paperback formats. Advances would be immediately earned out by the success of the Kickstarter. Royalties on additional sales beyond the Kickstarter will be 25% of ebook cover price and 10% of trade paperback cover price, both split evenly (not by word count) between the authors in the anthology and the editors of the anthology.

Questions regarding these submission guidelines should be sent to Joshua@zombiesneedbrains.com. Thank you.

TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER Anthology Kickstarter!

Hey, everyone! I've gone and done it again: started up another kickstarter. If you remember, last summer I ran one for the anthology CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE: STEAMPUNK vs ALIENS, with Ian Tregillis, Leah Cutter, Bradley P. Beaulieu, J.R. Hargenrader, Gini Koch, Jason Palmatier, C.B. Pratt, Jean Marie Ward, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin, David J. Fortier, Brad Hafford, S.C. Butler, and Seanan McGuire. That anthology is now available in trade paperback, as well as ebook on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.

That wasn't enough though. So I'm running a new kickstarter right now for an anthology called TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER. We've had a great start, reaching the halfway point of our goal in just 3 days! And we have another great batch of anchor authors, including Faith Hunter, David B. Coe, Laura Resnick, Stephen Leigh, Laura Anne Gilman, and both Seanan McGuire and Gini Koch returning. There are a few stretch goal authors as well: Jack Campbell (aka John Hemry), Jean Marie Ward, and Juliet E. McKenna. The theme of the anthology is objects or gadgets that have somehow gone "temporally out of order" as opposed to temporarily out of order. Check out the kickstarter here! And check out some of the reward levels. We have some tuckerizations left, along with a few of the limited item rewards left as well (although a few have sold out). And as an added bonus, the first 400 backers who pledge $15 or more will get a free ebook from Stephen Leigh called A RAIN OF PEBBLES, which contains a slew of short stories! All of the details at the kickstarter. And here's the art I commissioned by Justin Adams of Varia Studio for the cover. I think it rocks:

The Latest (and Late) Book Discussion!

I'm behind on the book discussion, so hopefully we'll manage to catch up this week. I've just posted the discussion for E.C. Blake's Shadows, the second in his The Masks of Aygrima series. Swing on by the unofficial DAW books blog ( dawbooks ) and check it out!

DAW's New Releases for September! (Finally)

I've finally managed to snag some time and get the September new releases for DAW Books ( dawbooks ) up on the unofficial blog. There's new Tad Williams and Seanan McGuire, along with two omnibuses (omnibi?), one from Julie E. Czerneda and her Species Imperative series, and the other from Barbara Ashford for her Crossroads theater series. Check them out!

Author Interview: Sylvia Izzo Hunter

Today, we have an author interview with Sylvia Izzo Hunter, author of the recently released novel The Midnight Queen from Ace! I asked her to introduce herself and the book, and here's what she had to say. Welcome her to the blog! And leave any questions you have in the comments section.





1. Introduce yourself.



Hi! I'm Sylvia, and I like to make stuff up. (But I will not be making stuff up during this interview.) (Much.) I live in Toronto -- please don't talk to me about Rob Ford -- and by day I work as a managing editor slash code monkey in non-profit scholarly journal publishing. I've been married for ::does subtraction in head:: 17 years this coming December; I have a 12-year-old daughter. I play the piano and the clarinet quite badly, and sing quite well. My husband and I used to have two pet hedgehogs. (Fun fact: hedgehogs have hair, not fur. My husband's allergic to animals with fur.) I really like cheese and olives, and really don't like eggplant.



2. Give us the "Hollywood Pitch" of your new book, two sentences max. (Such as: "This book is Harry Potter crossed with Silence of the Lambs, with a touch of Dumbo thrown in!")



If Jane Austen wrote about magic and conspiracy theories in a Europe where Christianity never really took off.



3. Now give us a more in depth description of the book. What makes this book cool? What will make it stand out on the shelves?



Well, the thing that really makes it stand out on the shelves is nothing to do with me -- it's got the most gorgeous cover I've seen in ages. Honestly, I first saw the cover concept way back in about February, and I am still not over how beautiful it is. I am incredibly fortunate! (The cover designer's name is Diana Kolsky. I have never met her but she's obviously awesome.)



One thing I think is a bit different about the world of TMQ is that magic isn't occult, it's part of everyday life; but that doesn't mean it isn't sometimes mysterious and baffling. Another thing that several reviewers have remarked on -- and it makes me happy, because this was definitely intentional -- is that while this is a coming-of-age tale and a hero's quest in some ways, it's not at all an invincible-hero/es-saving-the-day-in-splendid-isolation story. It's a story about people working together to tackle a really daunting problem, and growing together in the process; it's a story about families, both the ones that shape you as you're growing up and the ones you choose for yourself.



It's also got music in it, because for me music is a lot like magic.



4. What was the hardest part of writing the book, the part you struggled with most (without spoilers)? What part of the writing was the most fun (without spoilers)?



Hands down, the hardest part was figuring out the plot. Whereas characters and settings present themselves to me with, a lot of the time, very little effort on my part, I have to sit down and brainstorm plots and work them out and try to think them through to make sure they make sense from the antagonists' perspective and aren't boring and aren't, you know, second-order idiot plots. It's a lot of work, you guys.



The most fun was probably making up satisfyingly realist expletives for the characters to use when startled, frightened, angry, frustrated, etc. ("Horns of Herne!" "Apollo, Pan and Hecate!") Also, I just really enjoyed spending time with some of these characters. They feel quite real to me after all this time.



5. Explain your writing ritual: Must have you have coffee or tea or something else? Music or silence? Any special desktop items or totems helping you write?



Insofar as I have a writing ritual, it involves getting up before everyone else is awake and/or staying up after everyone else has gone to bed. I prefer quiet, but if I waited for the flat to be quiet I'd never get anything written at all!



These days I do most of my writing at the kitchen table, on my little hand-me-down laptop (little is a feature for me, not a bug, because I have tiny little T-Rex arms and comically small hands); I quite like to have a cup of tea at hand. When the weather's chilly, I like to write while wearing my favourite fuzzy pyjamas and my fuzzy socks with the owls on them.



I do have a desktop familiar, although as I say he lives on the desk and I mostly write in the kitchen. His name is Yorick, and he is, as you might expect, an adorable squishy plush skull. I happen to own Yorick because my husband is awesome and backed a Kickstarter project called To Be or Not to Be -- a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure version of Hamlet. He's very huggable (Yorick, I mean -- although my husband's very huggable too ;)).





LINKS:



Twitter: @sylwritesthings;



Website: sylviaizzohunter.ca;



LiveJournal: sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com;

Book Review: "The Lost Fleet: Victorious" by Jack Campbell

This is the sixth and last book in the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell. As I've said on previous reviews of this series, I don't generally like military sci-fi, but this series grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. I was intrigued from the very first book and none of the books in the series let me down even a little.





The general premise of the series is that John "Black Jack" Geary, woken from a 100 year hibernation after barely making it to an escape pod as his ship was destroyed, takes control of the remnants of the Alliance's ambushed fleet and must now lead it home. They've made it back to Alliance space, with significant losses, but now he has to put an end of the war that's been raging between the Alliance and the Syndics for the past 100 years. All he has to do is take the refurbished fleet that just made it home back to the Syndic home system, where they were originally ambushed, and force the Syndics--who have almost no forces left--to agree to the terms of peace. He's got politicians on board to help with the negotiations . . . but what he hasn't counted on is the desperation of the Syndic leadership . . . and the ruthlessness of the unknown alien race that's ready to take advantage of the Syndic weakness at humanity's border.

This book was the perfect ending to this series. After the initial elation of having the fleet arrive home in the last book, this one picks up where that elation ends with the consequences of Geary's arrival home--both politically and militaristically--and what must happen next if the war is to be stopped. That alone would have been a stellar ending to the series, but this time we get an added layer of more direct alien intervention and conflict which has been lacking in previous books. The aliens were always there, but their tactics were, until recently, subtle and manipulative. Here, we finally get direct contact with the aliens, which is both satisfying and interesting. PLUS, we get a final, much needed release of relationship tension between Geary and Desjani.

All of that combines into a well-balanced, fun, and completely satisfying end to this series. The characters, who have been the real driving force behind the series anyway, all receive their just and deserving attention. The main plot threads dealing with the war with the Syndics is wrapped up nicely, with realistic consequences for Geary's flight across their worlds and the confrontations with the Syndic fleets. And we get to meet, albeit briefly, the aliens who have caused them so many problems. Of course, the books have set up a continuation of the series, because the aliens were only halted, not dealt with, and so I will definitely be reading on with the Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier series after this. Jack Campbell is going to have to write faster; I'm catching up fast.

A stellar series that I will recommend and suggest to everyone for years to come.