A little reflected glory here. On January 26, my brother Charles S. Carver received an award for distinguished contributions to the field of personality psychology. The Jack Block Award was given by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)—the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world—”in recognition of his research accomplishments over the past thirty years which have shaped modern personality psychology.” It was presented at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, in San Diego. The announcement didn’t say anything about his contributions to football spectatorship or beer appreciation, but I’m sure they were thinking it. (Photo by his lovely wife, Dr. Youngmee Kim.)
Well done!
Edit: You can read more about the award, and Chuck’s work, here.
If you like short stories and variety in your reading, give this book a try. It’s a collection of short fiction by nineteen authors representing various genres, including science fiction, fantasy, mystery, contemporary romance, regency romance, and probably a couple of others I’ve forgotten.
What these authors have in common is that they (we) are all members of Backlist eBooks, a collection of widely published authors in all genres who are bringing our previously published, out-of-print books back into circulation through self-published ebooks. The group includes bestselling authors and winners of many literary awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Rita awards. To help make ourselves better known, we’ve released Tales from the Backlist, filled with (appropriately enough) backlist short stories.
Tales is now on sale in the Kindle and Nook stores, and Smashwords, in DRM-free editions. Soon it will be in the Sony, Apple, Kobo, and Diesel stores. (No matter what kind of reader you have, or none at all, you can get a format that works for you from Smashwords.)
Here’s a fun way to while away some valuable work time: See how many classic SF robots you can identify in “Where’s WALL-E?” by artist Richard Sargent.
Speaking of Eternity’s End, I’m about three days late in noting here that I, or rather Eternity’s End, am part of Marsha Canham’s Sunday Sampler, with an excerpt from EE. Marsha wanted an excerpt not found elsewhere online, one that would convey a sense of the book in a fairly short sample. After much cogitation, I decided on the scene that leads into a hot romantic encounter between star rigger Legroeder and the sexy but dangerous lady pirate, Tracy-Ace/Alfa. Complete with cyber-implants. Read it here.
Yes, there are dragons in them stars. And now, for the first time ever, my two dragon novels—Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger—appear together in one volume, just out in ebook, Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus. Science fiction with a fantasy dimension! This new book appears under my own imprint, Starstream Publications, in cooperation with E-reads, which publishes the novels separately in ebook form.
Both books were published in paper by Tor, just before I got started with The Chaos Chronicles. The story—set chronologically in the Star Rigger universe sometime after Panglor but before Star Rigger’s Way and Eternity’s End—really started with a short story, “Though All the Mountains Lie Between,” that I wrote for an Orson Scott Card-edited anthology, Dragons of Darkness (though the story actually appeared first in newspaper format in the Science Fiction Times). You can read it here. Dragons in the Stars, which includes the events of that story, recounts the journey of star rigger Jael LeBrae, whose life is changed by an encounter with dragons in the “mountain region” of the hyperspatial Flux that riggers navigate between the stars. With that meeting, Jael becomes caught up in an age-old prophecy claiming that “One from outside” will come and speak her name to a dragon, and in so doing bring upheaval and a new beginning in the dragon realm. Jael has a life to live as a star pilot, but she finds she is bound inextricably to Highwing, the dragon who befriended her and whose life she later holds in her hands.
In the sequel Dragon Rigger, we experience through the dragons’ eyes the war that is tearing the realm apart. For there are more than just dragons here; there are false dragons, and ifflings and false ifflings, and the tormented spirit of a captured rigger. And seeking control of all, there is Tar-skel, the Nail of Strength—a being from beyond the realm who seeks to spin all of the magic of the dragons into a web of power and deceit—encompassing not just the dragon realm, but all of the Flux where the riggers fly, and all of the layers of normal-space that lie beyond. Into this war, Jael must return. If the prophecy is correct, only she can lead the realm out of the impending darkness. But if the prophecy is correct, the price of that victory is her own death.
In their original publication, Dragons in the Stars did very nicely. But Dragon Rigger—a personal favorite of mine!—suffered from a series of distribution and marketing snafus, and never really found its audience. Both have been out of print in paper for many years, but they returned as E-reads ebooks two years ago. This is their first publication in one, low-cost volume—complete with the map that graced the paper editions. I’ve been working on it for months, and I’m delighted to have a new cover design by Pat Ryan, based on the original work from artist Jael (no relation to the protagonist!).
Dragon Space is available right now in the Kindle store, in multiple formats at Smashwords, and is “processing” in the Nook store. Over the next few weeks, it should start showing up in the Apply, Sony, Kobo, and Diesel ebook stores.
Please give it a look, and tell all of your dragon-loving friends!
Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus:
At Kindle | Smashwords (all-format) | Nook and others (coming) Free excerpts here
What with one thing or another, I never got around to posting my Easter greetings to everyone. So, thinking in a time-travel fashion (ghoststream, as it is called in the still-nascent Reefs of Time), I will now wish all of you Happy Easter! And Happy Passover! And if you don’t celebrate Easter or Passover, and even if you’re allergic to chocolate bunnies, I hope you had a great weekend, anyway.
During the weekend, my Chaos omnibus got a nice featured mention on Spalding’s Racket, the indie-book-oriented blog of writer Nick Spalding. His blog is well worth perusing, if you’re interested in seeing work by some writers you might not know yet.
Family members have been coming and going here. Allysen was gone for two weeks and has returned. Alexandra was home for a week and has left again. Julia was gone for a week and has returned. Talula, our house guest, was here but just left on a trip. Me, I’ve just been settin’ here coughin’ on the pollen and wonderin’ why God or evolution invented allergies, anyway. (But grateful for the Roombas and Scooba.) And wondering, why does our attic smell like mildew? Please tell me we don’t need a new roof. (But I think we probably do.)
Here for your amusement are a few fun pages that appeared recently at Syfy.com:
Edit: That sale is now over. But everything below is still true.
Meanwhile, the prices are coming down on my other books sold through E-reads. It’s taking a while for the price drops to trickle down, but in the Kindle store, you can now get:
Maybe you can show them that lower prices are better! Those prices should appear in all the other stores eventually–I hope sooner rather than later.
Watch for an announcement soon about Dragon Space, my new omnibus of Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger. I recently put the cool map created by Ellisa Mitchell on my website, here. It’s being incorporated into the new ebook, as well. I’m just waiting for the cover art to be finished. I’m very excited about it.
Today I’m the interview subject (Don’t hurt me!) at a blog called Two Ends of the Pen, which is worth looking at if writing interests you at all. (I mean the blog is worth looking at, though I would hope you find my interview interesting, too.) My host at Two Ends is Debra L. Martin, who it turns out is just a stone’s throw down the road from me, at MIT. This one focuses on writing, and also some of the differences between publishing the traditional way, and the indie way. For a look, go to http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com/. (Here’s the permanent link.)
Speaking of MIT, my friend and SF colleague Joe Haldeman is scheduled to be interviewed this Thursday on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” with Neal Conan from 3PM to 3:40PM. According to his wife Gay, he’ll be talking about the effect his experience in the Army (and presumably in Vietnam) has had on the rest of his life. Definitely should be worth a listen.
It’s March again, and that means it’s time to celebrate Read an Ebook Week! Lots of authors and publishers are offering free books, discounted books, and other promotions. Click Partners to get a list of links. Some of them offer daily giveaways, so stop back regularly this week.
I’m offering Neptune Crossing for free again, just for this week, from my website—and also Battlestar Galactica: the miniseries novelization (in epub and PDF).
From my Smashwords page, you can get both free and discounted offerings this week only, if you use these coupon codes (RA…) in your cart:
Neptune Crossing — free — RE100 Eternity’s End — 25% off — RAE25 The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1-3 omnibus — 25% off — RAE25 Reality School (short fiction) — free — RE100 Strange Attractors — 25% off — RAE25 The Infinite Sea — 25% off — RAE25 What Gods Are These? — free — RE100
This weekend I’ll be at the annual SF convention Boskone, on Boston’s waterfront. This is one of my regulars, partly because I like it, and partly because I can commute to it. This evening I’ll be on two panels: one on domestic robots, and one on workshopping fiction. Tomorrow I autograph and sell books and have a “literary beer,” which is a chance to hang out with anyone who signs up to hang out with me. Sunday I’m on a panel about ebooks, and one about great, memorable deaths in science fiction and fantasy. You can see the whole Boskone schedule at http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/schedule.html.
If you’re there, please look me up! It’s at the Westin Hotel next to the convention center and Word Trade Center. (And one of these days, I’ll start remembering to post these things ahead of time.)
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