29 Oct 2008

Sunborn Is Born!

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

Sunborn is a book, available in fine stores everywhere! Yay! I even have copies myself! By a wonderful fluke, the case I ordered for the upcoming book signing at the Menotomy Beer and Wine store (see earlier post) arrived on my doorstep today. So I get to see it, too! (This may sound odd, but usually the writer is the last to get copies. Well, sometimes the editor is last, and the writer is second to last. Indeed, there’s no telling when my regular “author’s comp copies” will arrive.)

Order now from:

If you’d like to read before you buy, here’s the deal on downloads. I’ve put up a regular PDF version for free download. This will look nice on your computer (but probably not so great on your small device). In addition, I’m offering anyone who buys the hardcover a free ebook in other ebook formats, straight from me! Buy the book from me or from any store—and just send me proof of purchase of any kind. Details are on my downloads page.

I don’t quite have the ebook ready at this moment. I’ve been untangling the formatting on Tor’s typesetting file, which required a somewhat messy Quark to Word conversion. That’s just about done, and very soon I’ll be able to start converting it into the formats that ebook readers prefer.

The long wait is over!

23 Oct 2008

Coming Personal Appearances

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

For those of you in eastern Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire, or…okay, for those of you in the continental U.S., or neighboring countries…

The evening of October 30 will find me moderating a panel at the University of Massachusetts Lowell campus, called “We May Be On to Something Here (Science Fiction in the 21st Century).” Part of the Concord Festival of Authors, the panel will also include Craig Shaw Gardner, new writer Chris Howard, Alexander Jablokov, and Matt Jarpe. We’ll kick off at 7:30 p.m., jawbone interestingly with each other and the audience for a while, then segue into a book signing hosted by the university bookstore. This will be my first opportunity to sign Sunborn—and in all likelihood the first time I will have set eyes on the actual book myself.

If you can’t make that—or even if you can—you’ll have another chance to say hello and pick up a signature on a shiny new hardcover (if that appeals to you, and why wouldn’t it?) on Saturday, November 8, from 4-7 p.m. The venue will be a little different this time; I’ll be signing at Arlington’s Menotomy Beer and Wine store, while a free wine-tasting swirls around me. The wine tastings are a popular event at the store, and it’s a great bunch of people, with some interesting wines. Stop by and say hi!

Another signing is tentatively planned for later in November, but more about that when details firm up.

And don’t forget: you can download the first three novels of the Chaos Chronicles for free in ebook form, so even if you haven’t read them yet, you can grab them now and be all up to speed for Sunborn. Go for it!

13 Oct 2008

Old Time Radio Shows

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

For the last couple of days, I’ve been laid up with a nasty cold, and haven’t been in shape to do much of anything. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t read, couldn’t work. But one thing I could do was close my eyes and listen to my iPod. And luckily, I had something new to listen to: some old radio drama from the Old Time Radio Show Catalog. I’d only just learned of this site, and had just downloaded some sample tracks. I was glad I had.

They’ve got all the great old science fiction shows: Dimension X, Beyond Tomorrow, Buck Rogers, Tom Corbett, Superman, Space Patrol, and more. They’ve also got mystery shows (Mercury Theater, CBS Radio Workshop, and tons more), westerns, war, comedy, British…the list is long. They sell CD collections (in mp3 format, so you get a lot on a disc) for only $5 per CD. I listened to dramatizations of Heinlein’s “Requiem,” and Bradbury’s “Marionettes, Inc.,” and if you have any taste at all for the classic old work, it’s great stuff. Take a listen. You can grab a free download, it would seem, from every CD—so sample before you buy.

Highly recommended!

2 Oct 2008

Dog Star

posted in: animal friends, personal news, science, science fiction, space, writing | 0

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this earlier. I recently sold a short story—the first short piece I’ve written in years—to Diamonds in the Sky, an online anthology edited by Michael Brotherton and funded by NASA to promote astronomy education. It’s going to be available online realsoonnow, I understand. The anthology is intended as a free online resource for astronomy teachers and students, bringing together a group of science fiction stories each of which illustrates a particular astronomical concept. The hope is that the stories will be a fun way to learn science, and might even make some difficult concepts clearer than a straight expository approach. It’s to be kept “in print” indefinitely, so that teachers—and their students!—can always go back to it.

In a way, it’s a throwback to the Golden Days of Science Fiction, when men were Real Men, and the science in science fiction was Real Science. (Sometimes, anyway.) It should be interesting.

Oh—the title of my story is “Dog Star.” It’s about a boy and his dog and asteroids and dark energy.

2 Oct 2008

Ultimate SF Workshop Full

posted in: science fiction, writing | 0

Registration has closed for the Ultimate SF Writing Workshop. We got a full house for this year’s class. You never know how these things are going to work out. Last year we worked extra hard on publicity and registrations trickled in, barely meeting the minimum (though it was a terrific group!). This year, we scrambled to get word out in time, and we got students in abundance. Craig Gardner (my co-leader) and I are looking forward to getting started with it next week!

As I’ve said before, Mars needs writers!

22 Sep 2008

Free Ebooks Round Three! The Infinite Sea!

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

They’re all up, now—all three volumes to date of The Chaos Chronicles. They’re all free all the time, on my downloads page. (The Infinite Sea still has a few formats unfinished, but the most popular formats are up now.) Thanks, as always, to my friends on the Mobilread forum for their help with conversions.

And do come try the audio podcast of Sunborn. Word on that doesn’t seem to be getting out as fast, or maybe the audiobook people are a different demographic. But if you know people who listen to books while they drive, or on their mp3 players while they jog, send ’em my way. Right now I have a starter file of the prologue and chapter one. It’s an exacting and sometimes frustrating business getting a good reading down, and chapter two has been giving me fits. But we’ll get there. If you record it, they will come—right? Let’s hope so.

“Half of my life is an act of revision.” —John Irving

19 Sep 2008

Free Sunborn Audiobook Sample

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

I’ve been submerged in the recording studio (my office) for the last few days, and have emerged with the first taste of what my audiobook of Sunborn will be like, if the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise. I’ve put the prologue and first chapter up for free download, pretty much in finished form.

Sunborn cover art by Stephen Martiniere
Check it out and let me know what you think!

http://www.starrigger.net/Audiobooks.htm

“Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do.”
—Anne Lamott

5 Sep 2008

Publishers Weekly Thumbs Up on Sunborn

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

Actually, I haven’t seen the full review myself. Didn’t even know there was a Publishers Weekly review until I stumbled across a post about it on Mobileread.com. Here’s the excerpt someone put there:

“The long-anticipated fourth entry in Carver’s Chaos Chronicles (after 1996’s The Infinite Sea) is space opera at its most agreeably and classically science fictional. . . .With such a large cast and a parallel plot involving a threat to Earth itself, character development is necessarily sketched broadly. Some may find the narrative overly stage-managed, but Carver skillfully rotates viewpoints and weaves the choreography directly into the plot. This installment is a cut above the earlier books and will be entirely accessible to any reader who appreciates high-powered stellar and n-dimensional physics blended with old-school space-faring.”

Or maybe that is the full review. I don’t get PW, so I guess I’ll find out when someone tells me. I tried to scope it out online, but couldn’t get to it.

But I can live with what we’ve got right here!

P.S. Over a thousand downloads of Strange Attractors in one day! I think I only posted here and on the above forum, but word virused out with amazing speed. Rob Sawyer posted a very nice notice on his blog. Don’t know where he first saw it, but thanks, Rob!

3 Sep 2008

Ebooks Round Two! Ding! Strange Attractors!

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

I’ve just released Book Two of The Chaos Chronicles for free download. That’ll be Strange Attractors, now on your cyber newsstand in html, Mobi, PDF, RTF, yadda, yadda, and yadda. With yadda formats soon to come. Seriously, with the help of the good ebook lovers of Mobileread.com, it’ll be in about eight different formats within a few days, more than likely. Most of them are up now.

This, if you’re just joining us, is part of the great windup to Sunborn coming out as a Tor hardcover at the end of October. I can also report here that all signs are Go for Sunborn to also appear as a Tor ebook at around the same time, or soon thereafter. (This represents a change in my arrangement with Tor, a change I agreed to with the understanding that it would appear in a timely fashion, and in a DRM-free form.)

So, I’m psyched.

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” —Carl Sagan

29 Aug 2008

Barack, Tor, and Me

posted in: ebooks, personal news, public affairs, science fiction, Sunborn, writing | 0

I mention Barack because I’m watching his acceptance speech as I write this. I can’t tell you how much I hope this guy will be our next president. I really do. I haven’t caught that much of the Democratic convention, but I did hear Bill Clinton and John Kerry, and all I could say was, right on, dudes! Time for a change, indeed. Obama is giving a great speech, as I write.

But this isn’t primarily a political entry, because I’ve actually been thinking about and working on other things. I just came from reading a touching post on Tor.com—my editor Jim Frenkel reminiscing in an entry called Still Waters Run Deep about the many years we’ve worked together, from Dell to Bluejay Books to Tor. It was a treat to see those years through his eyes.

I continue to be amazed by the support and generosity of the ereading community on Mobileread.com. By the time I was done with Neptune Crossing, four different people (none of whom I knew a week ago) were working on format conversions for me, or helpfully tweaking my own files. At the same time, people have been saying thanks with Paypal donations, and/or letting me know they’ve gone to buy my other ebooks. The dollar amount maybe won’t buy us a new washing machine (the damn Calypso died again today) but the feeling of support, encouragement, and community doesn’t have a dollar sign on it. It’s just been great.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that Strange Attractors draws ever closer to being an ebook available for download. Expect word soon.

“People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.” —William Jefferson Clinton

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