19 May 2009

Carver SF on Fictionwise—Buy Now and Save! (really)

posted in: blogging, ebooks, personal news, science fiction, writing | 0

I’ve been promising for a while now that a whole bunch of my books will be showing up soon in new or revised ebook format. Well, I got word yesterday that some of my new eReads titles are now up for sale on Fictionwise.com, as well as all the older ones that have been reproofed and reformatted. That’s right, you can get ’em now. As new titles on Fictionwise, they’re 40% off for a limited time. These are multiformat, DRM-free—and the formats were recently expanded to include epub.

The new titles are:
Dragon Rigger
The Rapture Effect

Reproofed and reformatted:

Panglor
Dragons in the Stars
Star Rigger’s Way
From a Changeling Star
Down the Stream of Stars

(Several of those gorgeous covers are courtesy of the artists—David Mattingly, Shusei, and Jael—who allowed me to reuse the artwork from the original print editions.)

Still to come, early next week I’m told:
The Infinity Link
Seas of Ernathe

All these titles will appear shortly, as well, in the Kindle and Sony stores (though they will not be DRM-free from those sources). In addition, if I understand this correctly, they will appear soon at Baen Webscriptions, where they will also be multiformat and DRM-free.

Time for a book party!

19 May 2009

Astronomical Highs

posted in: science, space, technology | 0

In space, exciting things are happening. Two expensive and high-profile space observatories from the European Space Agency (ESA)—Herschel (infrared) and Planck (cosmic microwave background, or Big Bang radiation), were launched together on a single Ariane 5 launcher. A lot of breaths were being held on that one, but they’re both in space now, bound for the L2 orbital point 1.5 million km from Earth, where they’ll be able to conduct their observations far from interference. Here’s the launch, from French Guiana:

In addition, Atlantis astronauts have been hard at work refurbishing the Hubble Space Telescope. I snipped this image from a much larger one on Astronomy Picture of the Day:

That’s Atlantis and the Hubble, caught in silhouette against the sun, by a camera on the ground. Hats off to the photographer, astronomer Thierry Legault, who took the image—and to those astronauts, who have been called upon to whack and grunt at their wrenches, trying to loosen frozen bolts and praying they don’t break anything, just like the rest of us working on our cars in the driveway.

I just have one gripe about the mission, which includes attaching a docking ring so that at the end of the Hubble’s service life in five years they can hook up a propulsion unit and deorbit Hubble into reentry over the Pacific Ocean. I’d rather they boosted Hubble into a higher, longer lasting orbit, where one day we could retrieve it to bring it back safely to Earth and put it in the Air and Space Museum. Or, alternatively, we could establish it as a National Historic Site right there in orbit—to be visited by space-traveling tourists. Perhaps it could become the nucleus of the future (literal) space wing of the Smithsonian. Surely it has earned that right.

19 May 2009

Bread Loaf Without Me

posted in: personal news, teaching, writing | 0

I’ve blogged before about how much I’ve enjoyed being a writer/instructor at the annual New England Young Writers Conference at Bread Loaf, Vermont. Well, this year, I had to miss the fun. They rotate the staff, so as to keep the program fresh, and this year I was rotated out. (Unfortunately, most of my writer-friends from Bread Loafs past were there, so now I’m afraid they’ll all be off when I’m next on.)

Having said that, I still got to spend most of Sunday making a round-trip drive to Vermont—to pick up my daughter, who was there as a student. At least, I’ve now learned the route. She reported positively on the conference, but not so much on the head cold she came down with in the middle of it. We carpooled with a couple of other families, so two other delightful young ladies rode back with us. Shortly after arriving home, I found myself in the midst of another writer’s workshop—this one in my own living room. The Advanced Workshop I’m conducting with Craig Gardner has just passed its midpoint, and we’re really seeing good stuff emerge. I look forward to reporting future successes. I have complete faith.

12 May 2009

Thoughts on the Conclusion of BSG

posted in: Battlestar Galactica, blogging, personal news, science fiction, writing | 0

A couple of months ago, SFSignal invited me to contribute my views on the finale of Battlestar Galactica to a special they were running in their Mind Meld section. I couldn’t at the time, because I hadn’t seen the ending. But a few weeks ago, I finally got a chance to watch the last three or four episodes, all in one go. And yesterday, I grabbed a little time to put together my thoughts. They’re online now at sfsignal.com. Let me know what you think!

“Fear not the future, weep not for the past.” —Percy Bysshe Shelley

11 May 2009

Interview at Odyssey Workshop

posted in: personal news, science fiction, teaching, writing | 0

As I’m scheduled to make a guest-instructor appearance at the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop in New Hampshire this July, they put some questions to me, which I answered in an interview that’s just been posted online on the Odyssey blog.

As I answered some of the questions that I’ve probably not gotten around to answering here, think of it as Writing Question #10. (I was going to call it #X because I was too lazy to look back through the blog to see what the last one was numbered. But then I relented and checked, and saw that I’d called the last one #X-Z because I was too lazy then. So I figured I’d better check further. I think this is right.)

I have thoughts on marketing strategy, research, and other matters dear to the hearts of all who are interested in writing. Check it out.

“You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality.” —Ray Bradbury

1 May 2009

Those Crazy Guys and Their Flying Machines

posted in: Flying, quirky, science fiction, technology | 0

While we’re waiting for the “roadable” airplane, the Transition, to come down to our price range—not to mention fly (but they did get it off the ground, in the first short flight test!)—check out this baby: a flying motorcycle called the Switchblade:


Switchblade flying motorcycle

That’s for me! You betcha! According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, “Samson Motorworks has been working on a flying motorcycle, the Switchblade, for two and a half years. The three-wheel motorcycle’s design features three lifting surfaces, like the Piaggio Avanti, and side-by-side seating for two people… The wings will fold beneath the motorcycle’s body… Cameras will provide visibility to the rear, and an optional ballistic parachute will be offered.”

Oh man, I can’t wait. (It hasn’t flown yet, either, but it will. It will.) Buy a lot of those books from me, people—okay? A lot of books!

While we’re waiting, here’s a picture of the Transition in its first leap into the air.


Transition flight test

“Up in the sky, rocketing past
Higher than high, faster than fast,
Out into space, into the sun
Look at her go when we give her the gun.”
—Space Academy Cadet Corps song,
from Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
1 May 2009

Mayday! Mayday! Eternity’s End Is Running Free!

posted in: ebooks, personal news, science fiction | 0

With any luck, I’ll never have to call a real Mayday—but it is May Day! I guess I’ve lost my marbles, because I’m giving away the store! That’s right, everything must go! Come and take it away! Come now, before I come to my senses! Yes, folks, I’m talking about Eternity’s End:

Eternity’s End (Tor Books)

That’s the novel that got me nominated for a Nebula, and took me so long to write, it knocked the Chaos Chronicles on their ass by so many years I had to give away free ebooks of them to remind people—no, wait wait wait wait wait—wrong script! [Dammit, who gave me that paper?]

Let’s try again. Eternity’s End is my Nebula-nominated novel about a star rigger named Legroeder who sets out in search of the lost ship Impris, Flying Dutchman of the stars. And along the way, encounters interstellar pirates and some deep-cyber romance. This book is free range, free running, cage free, up on the web for you to download for free! That’s in multi-format, DRM-free ebook format. Come catch one and take it home with you. And check out the other free ebooks while you’re at it.

Paypal donations are warmly welcomed, as always—but only if you want to, and only if you think it’s worth it.

Come check it out. Trust me, you’ll like it.

And—very important!—kudoes and thanks to Anne King, for undertaking the huge task of proofing the manuscript and wrestling the book into the many ebook formats! Thanks, Ann!

28 Apr 2009

Books, Books, Books

posted in: ebooks | 0

All the RTF files are ready at last, for a big new release of my backlist through E-reads! If all goes well, nine of my titles should be available for purchase by mid-May through Fictionwise, Amazon Kindle Store, Sony Ebook Store, and other places where fine ebooks are sold. Many of them will also be available in paper as print-on-demand titles, under the E-reads imprint. (Not all, because the rights to some are still held by Tor.)

Some are reissues, with covers and formatting corrected from versions presently on sale, and some are all new. Included in the new are The Infinity Link, The Rapture Effect, Dragon Rigger, and Seas of Ernathe. (That last holds the record as my longest-out-of-print title.)

Speaking of print on demand, my friend Victoria sent me a link to a story in the UK’s Daily Mail, concerning a standalone print-on-demand book maker, called the Espresso Book Machine, installed in a Blackwell bookstore on Charing Cross Road for market testing. Victoria wondered when we would see these in the U.S. Well, it’s already been demoed to the U.S. bookseller trade! Here’s the scoop on the E-reads blog. And here’s what the machine looks like:


Finally—good news or bad news?—Amazon has just bought Lexcycle, the creators of the Stanza book reading software for the iPhone and iTouch. Ooh. Makes me uneasy. With Fictionwise now part of Barnes & Noble, who knows what’s going to happen?

Oh, my head.

20 Apr 2009

J.G. Ballard (1930 – 2009)

posted in: farewells, science fiction, tributes | 0

Science fiction writer J.G. Ballard has died, at the age of 78. The news took me by surprise when I read the Boston Globe this morning. But what stunned me more was that someone could write an obituary of the man and not even mention that he wrote science fiction, much less that he was a highly influential writer in the New Wave movement of the 1960s.

I discovered Ballard as a teenager, with the short stories gathered into collections such as The Voices of Time and Vermilion Sands, and then the apocalyptic novels The Drowned World and The Crystal World. Ballard’s voice, darkly psychological, was a startling departure from any science fiction I had ever read before. I still have the paperbacks:


At the time, I knew nothing about the New Wave movement, I just knew I had discovered a writer who tapped into something in my own psyche—and I wanted more. Unfortunately, his work that followed, such as Crash, left me feeling cold and alienated, rather than engaged, and I regretfully moved on. But those earlier stories left a mark on me, one that I think probably influenced my own writing in subtle ways, and perhaps more than the work of any other single writer shifted my interests toward the psychological in SF.

J.G. Ballard: best known for Empire of the Sun, maybe—but one of the science fiction greats.

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