For the curious reader of science fiction (scifi) and fantasy
At last you can listen to a sample of the audiobook of Neptune Crossing, read by Stefan Rudnicki! I’m thrilled, and increasingly eager for the September 6 launch of the audiobook. Not that I want time to go by faster! Time is moving fast enough already, thank you! But I’m really psyched about this launch. Click the button to listen:
I’ve lost another friend, this time to cancer. Cindy McMahon Clancy was the much-loved wife of my friend Bob Clancy, a classmate from my college days at Brown University. Bob met Cindy early in his working career, and when they were married, I was both the best man and the driver—in my red Ford Fairlane (shown with them in the back seat in this picture). Bob and I were, among other things, scuba diving buddies. In my brief stint as a scuba instructor, Cindy signed up to learn to dive, so that she could join us in our forays in the chilly New England waters. That lasted until they became parents, and diving faded into memory.
Cindy and Bob were both avid skiers, and they tried on a couple of occasions to teach me to ski. I enjoyed the adventure, though I never took up the sport. I vividly remember driving with my family to see them at their ski house in Vermont (Cindy, having studied architecture, designed the house, and it’s a beauty). The driveway was steep and snowy, and I was hellbent for the top in our rear-wheel-drive Aerostar van. Out of the night, Cindy appeared in our headlight beams—come to tell us to park at the bottom. One look at us, and she turned and sprinted back up the hill ahead of us. Who are these lunatics we invited to visit? We fishtailed to the top, where Cindy welcomed us with gales of laughter and open arms.
Those two things about her—her laughter, and her welcoming warmth—were two of her most prominent qualities, which were remembered by a number of other friends and family at the post-funeral lunch we were part of the other day. And they are what we will miss most about her. You can read some of the details of her life in this obituary.
I haven’t seen Cindy and Bob much in recent years, but we did get to see them near the end, but while she was still able to enjoy the company. This last year was tough on both of them. I pray that the coming year will bring rest and healing to Bob, and to their lovely grown children, Steven and Christine.
The soon-to-be-released audiobook of Neptune Crossing, narrated by the marvelous Stefan Rudnicki, is now available for pre-order on Amazon (CD version) and Downpour.com (Blackstone Audio’s downloads store). Libraries can pre-order the library CD. This is an important release for me, because if it sells well, they’ll probably go on to do the rest of the Chaos books. But that’s an important “if.” I’d love it if you could share and otherwise help spread the word! Thanks!
According to an article in the Boston Globe, audiobooks are growing rapidly in popularity as more and more people—and I include myself—find them a wonderful way to read while walking, cooking, etc. I discovered the pleasure a few years ago, when I learned you could download audiobooks from the library and put them on your mobile device. I hope a lot of people do that with Neptune Crossing, and ask for more!
Pre-order links are on the front page of my website at starrigger.net. If it’s something you plan to buy, I hope you’ll consider a pre-order. It can make a big difference at the launch! And in some cases, it can get you a preferred price, as well. Thanks again. I appreciate your support!
Wait, wait, wait! We’re not getting jaded about these sales, are we? No, we are not. Not at the prices I’m paying to advertise these socko, out of the park sales! My ebook Seas of Ernathe just went on special for $.99, for one week only! Get ‘em while they’re… well, you know. Hot.
I wish I could think of a way to tie this to Hillary’s terrific speech last night—wasn’t she great?—but the truth is, when I booked the ad, I had no idea I was going to have that act to follow. Go Hillary! Balloons, people—think balloons, and buy some books!
Seas of Ernathe was my first novel, and the first novel in the Star Rigger Universe. Or, to put it another way, it’s the last novel in the Star Rigger Universe! It’s—let me try to explain.
This was the book that broke me into the book business. My first, and a book I still like a lot. Plus, it has this dynamite cover art by Chris Howard, who is a man of many talents, including both writing and painting! At the time I wrote Seas, I had published exactly one short story in the rigger world, “Alien Persuasion,” which was soon to become the starting point for my second novel, Star Rigger’s Way. For reasons I don’t remember, I set Seas in what you might call the post-rigger world, far in the future, when the secrets of starship rigging have been lost. The events of this story provide the clues that lead to the rediscovery of the art of rigging. So, it’s set at the end of the long story arc of rigging, but it’s the first written. And Ernathe has a silent e on the end.
Try it; I think you’ll like it! Did I mention it’s only $.99, for a limited time?
Earlier this evening, while bike riding with Captain Jack, I saw the most gorgeous full, pumpkin-colored moon rising above the city. I braked to take a look and marveled. Did we really walk on that Moon during my lifetime? And that reminded me that today is the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. And that reminded me that, seven years ago, I wrote a piece for Tor.com on my recollections of the first moon landing. Why not run it again? I thought. So here, as published on Tor.com, is “Apollo 11—Moonstruck”:
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I was just shy of 20 years old as the countdown proceeded. Home from college for the summer, I sat in my living room in Huron, Ohio, mesmerized by the moving phosphors as the Apollo/Saturn 5 rocket—to my eye the most beautiful creation in human history—steamed and fumed and all but stamped its feet with impatience. The phone rang. A friend had a proposal: if we jumped in the car right then and headed for Florida (a 30-hour drive), we might just make it to the Cape in time to watch the launch in person. This would require my commandeering a family car without my parents’ knowledge or permission, as neither was at home, and cell phones were still science fiction. That might not have been enough to stop me. What did stop me was this thought: if we were delayed or ran out of cash on the way (all too likely), we’d miss the launch altogether. That thought was too much to bear. I watched the launch on TV from home.
Glorious! Saturn 5 climbs a pillar of fire into the sky! My God. That was our destiny, humanity’s destiny, to ride fire to the stars! (To this day, I cannot watch the replay without chills in my spine. The same goes for: “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”) Once those brave, lucky astronauts were safely en route, I settled in for the long watch. Finally came the landing, and the footsteps on lunar soil, which I would not have missed if the house were on fire. But I had an unanticipated difficulty: Do I watch Walter Cronkite on CBS, with Arthur C. Clarke as guest, or John Chancellor on NBC, with Robert Heinlein? Aaahhh! With no remote, I kept leaping to the set to wrench the knob from one station to the other. What a satisfying crown to the occasion: two of my science fiction heroes, called upon to comment! I already knew then that science fiction would impart a crucial direction to my life. But what a triumph, what vindication!
Forty years ago? Seems like yesterday.*
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*Me again, in the present. It still feels like yesterday.
By the way, Tor.com still has the whole series of authors’ reminiscences about the moon landing up online. You can browse the estimable list of entries here:
http://www.tor.com/features/series/moon-landing-day/
I’ve promised to give occasional updates on my progress with The Reefs of Time. If the average picture is worth a thousand words, this one’s worth 125,000 words. That’s how far I am into the major rewrite of the manuscript, which as you can see from this picture is a little more than halfway through the 240,000-word monster total. For comparison, Sunborn was about 140,000 words total.
In pages, I’m at around 620 of 1200. So, I’ve come a long way, and still have a ways to go. But I’ve gotten through some really thorny rewrite problems, and what’s behind me feels solid. I think it’s a good story! I’m making excellent progress now, better than I have in a long time. Pray for it to continue!
Disconnected and reconnected various things. Let’s see if Jetpack gets this up onto Facebook.
(Hey, it worked! Thanks, Jetpack Support!)
Testing the Facebook feed again! I truly wish this thing would just work.
(And the answer is, no, it is not working.)
Testing the Facebook feed yet again. I wish this thing would just work.
A day or two ago, our house started to be attacked by moths. Not swarming out of closets, or out of the food pantry, but beating against the windows from outside, trying to get in. What is this, Hitchcock’s “The Moths”? Those that did get in were beating against the windows, trying to get back out. I guess the view wasn’t all they’d hoped for. We dispatched dozens of them, using our handheld Dyson vacuum with wand attachment.
Our first theory was that they (these are big moths) had turned up to see what we were doing to their smaller cousins, the grain moths. (Answer: trying to kill them.) My next theory was that they were baby Mothras. Worse! NO KILL I!
Further investigation led us to the news that there’s a big outbreak of gypsy moths in the Northeast this year. And worse, that they are an invasive species first introduced by a scientist in Medford, Mass., just one town over from us. Aughh! Go away!
