The audiobook for Six Wakes has shown up on Audible.com. If you’re a fan of audiobooks (like me) or of my narration (like the Shambling Guides or my podcasts), then I hope you check it out!
And speaking of audio, I was on the Cooking the Books podcast with Fran Wilde and Laura Anne Gilman!
Today is the launch day for The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley and Idle Ingredients by Matt Wallace. You should run and get both now.
I’m not endorsing them because they’re talented, which they are, or because they’re my friends, which they also are. But I’m bringing them up because I thought you might want some books to read after Six Wakes and Bookburners.
Kameron and I both wrote very female-heavy space opera books, and they’re coming out close to each other. So if you like Six Wakes you will probably like The Stars Are Legion.
And Matt’s Sin Du Jour novella series (of which Idle Ingredients is #4) is like The Shambling Guides with catering, so if you like my stuff, you will like Matt’s. Start with Envy of Angels if you’re new to the series.
So really, reader, I’m doing this for you.
You’re welcome!
New press about Six Wakes I just had to share! This is from the Barnes and Noble blog:
Lafferty fearlessly follows the moral, ethical, and practical implications of this questionably idyllic future. How does quasi-immortality change what it means to be human? If our bodies are disposable, are we then our minds? And what if that mind is just a copy? It’s all very much grounded in the juicy mystery elements, but there are larger ideas behind it all.
And a part I particularly appreciate about the character of Dr. Joanna Glass:
[Joanna] raises questions about notions of perfection, and makes a powerfully rare, if understated, anti-ableist statement.
This was important to me, because even though the hacking that would “fix” Joanna’s genetically abnormal legs is illegal, it would be pretty easy for someone with her wealth and privilege to have it done. She chooses not to.
I was inspired, in part, by the character of Venom in Felicia Day’s gaming series “The Guild.” A horrible nihilist in the rival guild, she has a rare moment of frank, non-antagonistic vulnerability when she wonders aloud why she can’t have a wheelchair in the game like she has in real life, because she wants her avatar to fully represent her. (Pedantic Vork tries to explain how the ADA hasn’t really reached dungeons so it would be hard for her to move around, and then her character kills his.)
Also the the main character in John Scalzi’s Lock In, Chris, makes the same statement as people take sides in a debate about whether their “locked in” status should be cured. The locked in community has created a unique and rich alternate online lifestyle, and they would have to give that up if they were cured.
Those two stories had me thinking about pop culture’s usual view of disability, especially concerning science fiction and its desire to “fix” everything with futuristic technology. So I tried to address it in this book.
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Two days ago saw the launch of Six Wakes and Bookburners, the projects I spent most of last year on. It was weird coincidence that they launched the same day. But the reviews for both are both really good, and I’m thrilled at the response. And thanks to everyone who posted a review online, anywhere! Spreading the word is HUGE help.
I got to do the John Scalzi Big Idea on Tuesday! And here are some quotes from reviews for Six Wakes!
“A taut, nerve-tingling murder mystery with a deeply human heart.”— NPR Books“An interstellar page-turner with an innovative twist on cloning tropes.”— B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog“A great book with so much going for it: clever structure, wonderful characters,and a fiendishly clever puzzle that you’ll roll over in your mindfor months after you close the covers.”— Boing Boing“[The] coolest murder mystery you’ll read.”— bestselling author Chuck Wendig
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Unfortunately I won’t be doing my bookstore event in Greenville, SC tonight. We had to reschedule. We’re still hammering out when we will be doing it but it looks tentatively like February 21 will be the new date. And I’m working on a local event in March at Flyleaf books, will post when that gets confirmed.
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I’m completely knackered, as the Brits say, from book launches and turning in the first draft of I Should Be Writing, the book. (Yeah, that was yesterday, whoo hoo book done! Now body must zzzzz…) But now that the books are out and the other book is turned in, I can focus more on my podcasts and my dear Patreon supporters.
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OH, and thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway! All slots are filled!
TL;DR: Send me receipts in email and get signed books. Details at bottom.
This January 31, I am in the wonderfully strange situation of having TWO books coming out at once.
First, from Orbit books, I have Six Wakes, my clone murder mystery in space, the book that made James Patrick Kelly say, “Lafferty does for clones what Asimov did for robots.”
Six Wakes also got starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal and has appeared on several “January books to look for” lists.
Then from Saga and Serial Box comes my collaboration (with Max Gladstone, Brian Francis Slattery, and Margaret Dunlap) Bookburners. It’s a horror/urban fantasy story about a Vatican team who chase down magical books and contain them before terrible things happen. (Usually right when terrible things are happening, otherwise the story wouldn’t be interesting.) Naomi Novik says “Bookburners is sheer enormous fun!” It’s also appeared on several “January books to look for” lists!
While this is SUPER exciting, I was wondering how I could promote two books at once. I don’t want my readers/listeners to get Lafferty fatigue at me saying, “Buy my book! Now buy my other book! Did you buy the first one yet? Well, go do that!” And so on.
So I figured out a plan: the first five people to send me their receipts for Six Wakes will receive signed (by me) copies of the Bookburners ARC, and the first five to send me copies of their Bookburners receipts will receive signed copies of Six Wakes.
UPDATE: All books spoken for! Thanks!
Now, my die hard fans who’ve already bought both should get some kind of reward too. If you show such dedication, then I will reward you with a secret letter and a present. (You may want to indicate which of my books you do not own, that will help me decide presents.)
To sum up! Starting today:
PLEASE put “GIVEAWAY” in your subject line so I will spot the entries. I will edit this blog post and mention on twitter when all of the books are spoken for.
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I discuss how I try to get work done using Habitica and 4thewords.com. Then talk to Jason Chabot and Kylie Chan!
New books! Coming out January 31! Preorder now!
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I am getting through the last of my interviews that have been here, and I’m sorry to everyone who has had to wait. Today we go through feedback and talk to David D. Levine and Stephen Aryan.
New books! Coming out January 31! Preorder now!
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We are joined by ugly Christmas sweaters, booze, and Kameron Hurley. Happy New Year! Fuck you, 2016!
Until Matt gets the show notes done, I think the only thing we have to say about the end of the year was said best by Lalo Alcaraz:
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Where I’ve been for the last two months, and two more interviews with Leanna Renee Hieber and Brooke Johnson!
(And I hadn’t recorded in a while, so the wrong mic is grabbing the audio and I didn’t realize till afterwards.)
And I’ve been podcasting 12 years! WOW!
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Note- I recorded BOTH a Ditch Diggers with Matt today and an I Should Be Writing on my own. Those will go up soon.
I have been using Habitica (previously Habit RPG) to try to keep track of (or change) my habits and to-do list for a few years now, to varying success. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes when it doesn’t work, I kill my friends in my party. (Sorry, Jim, John, and Laura.)
We have an I Should Be Writing guild there, but it’s not very active. I’m not too good at doing challenges. I will work on that TONIGHT.
I’m a level 77 mage, with a candy cane cactus as my familiar and a white unicorn as my mount. I also have candy cane armor. My 8th grade self just felt a goose walk over her grave. A GOOSE OF AWESOME.
Is that enough gamification? I discovered no, Virginia, it is not.
Through Habitica I found 4thewords, a site in beta. This is like a visual RPG version of the magic spreadsheet. You “fight monsters” by writing a certain number of words within a certain time limit. If you do this, you “win” and get loot, level up, etc. And of course you get bonuses if you write a certain number of words every day to make a chain (444 for this site.)
I’ve only played it for one day, and gained one whole level, so I don’t have much to report. The site is a little too cute for my tastes, and the avatars have one skin shade, so that likely leaves a number of writers feeling a little left out. I’m still eager to check out what the gamification does to my productivity. It has leaderboards for longest chain, most words, and number of battles.
I think the biggest problem (which I wouldn’t know how to fix) is the same problem I had with Write or Die: you have to write within a web browser. So if you’re used to Scrivener or Word or Pages, you write in the browser and when you’re done, you take your words and paste it into the program, which is slightly inconvenient. But like I said, I wouldn’t know how to fix this, since the site is designed to see how fast you’re getting writing done and doesn’t work on the honor system like NaNoWriMo does.
The site does have one more feature that I probably won’t be using unless I write fanfic or something, and that’s the opportunity to read what people are writing. I’ve discovered some use this site for fiction, but others use it for blogging. Kind of myopic for me to think it was only for fiction, or at the craziest, nonfic.
Anyway I’ll be trying this out too. I think the biggest problem I have with these sites is there doesn’t seem to be any way to friend people. On Habitica, you can have up to eight people in a party to fight bosses (and when you don’t do your daily habits, everyone in the party suffers health hits) but I can’t friend people specifically. And I haven’t found a way to do it in 4thwords, although I don’t know anyone else there anyway.
I must run back to 4thewords so I can get another day and take my streak to two days.