The Early Days of a Better Nation

Thursday, June 09, 2011



Onward into the virch


After 'The Vorkuta Event', another dark tale: my short story 'Earth Hour' is (for US readers at least) now available as a Tor.com Original, and from Amazon Kindle with a notably snazzy cover and a bargain price of all of $0.99 for 5,477 words. [Updated And free to read at Tor.com from 22 June!]

It's a dark tale because of its two or three gruesome moments, and because of that old inter-imperialist tension trope, but I like to think it's cheerful in its own fashion. It was inspired by stumbling and groping through darkened streets searching for a bar one hot Earth Hour in Sydney, an adventure that gave me bad Ayn Rand flashbacks and had me bending Carol's ear about how I hadn't seen the like since looking for a beer after 7 p.m. in Prague in 1977.

In other news, I've got a commission to write a short story for a special SF issue of Technology Review, about which I am well chuffed.

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10 Comments:

US only. Wassat all about?

Just checked... It'll be published for all to read on Tor.com on the 22nd of June, so we just have to wait a couple of weeks.

Still, bloody territorial copyright eh? Complete nonsense.

Thanks, Peter - post updated.

Weirdly, Amazon says it's not available until the 22nd, and the Tor.com site doesn't have a buy button for it.

Too bad it is being sold in a propietary, DRM format on a reader where Amazon can delete it without notice at any time they wish. I would gladly pay to read it in a format that I actually owned outright (like all the hardcover MacLeods I have bought over the years). Guess I will be reading this one for free on Tor.com.

Sorry Mr. MacLeod, no dollar from me.

No problem, Anon - thanks for buying all those hardcovers!

I love my kindle and would happily buy it for 99c, or indeed 99p, but as I'm not American nobody will sell it to me - so I'll wait another few days until it's free.

(I read enough of Charlie's blog to know that this is neither your fault nor something you can affect, btw!)

This illustrates neatly all the stupidity of ebooks 'publishing'. I can see no Add to cart option, which Help informs me is the way to purchase. I assume, because I am in Scotland, I am out of shopping cart range. There are no precise details of the ebook format and any DRM.

Another lost sale...

Alan

Yes, Ken, sadly, I too have been unable to purchase Earth Hour on my Kindle. It does seem utterly ridiculous, in this day and age, that we can't have access to anything that is available digitally elsewhere. Grrr!

Wee Sis: that's kind of you, but you can now read it on Tor.com for free!

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