Ken MacLeod's comments.
The title comes from two quotes:
“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders
Contact: kenneth dot m dot macleod at gmail dot com Blog-related emails may be quoted unless you ask otherwise.
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Lights! Camera! Action!
My new novel Intrusion is published today, and is available from Amazon and all good booksellers (one of which will have signed (and, if you like, personalised) copies any day now).
(Update: Cory Doctorow's enthusiastic review is now up on BoingBoing. Yay!)
The story's premise is:
A single-dose pill has been developed that corrects, without risk, many common genetic errors in a developing foetus. When a pregnant woman refuses to take The Fix, as the pill is known, she divides friends, family and even the law with a moral dilemma. Is her decision a private matter of individual choice, or is it tantamount to wilful neglect of her unborn child?
To celebrate the book and the source of some of its inspiration, the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum is sponsoring a launch event at Pulp Fiction (43 Bread Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9AH) on 21 March, 6.30 - 8.30 pm. The event will include me reading from the book and discussing it in conversation with Stuart Kelly, literary editor for the Scotsman newspaper group. Also: free drinks!
The event is free but spaces are limited: book online here.
There's a quite different launch event today, for enLIGHTen, an ambitious celebration of the Scottish Enlightenment, and I'm delighted and very much honoured to be taking part in it by reading (with Gavin Inglis and Sam Oliver doing the voices) my flash fiction in honour of Adam Smith.
Invitation only for that one, but a full account - including a link to all the stories and readings - tomorrow, if we're spared.
Labels: amazing things, coming attractions, local, self-promotion, skiffy, writing
11 Comments:
Think Amazon jumped the gun a bit - they sent me mine at the end of last week, and I'm half way through. Really am loving it, very thought provoking and I'm enjoying the... dialogue... between this, 1984, Brave New World and - is it my imagination? The Handmaid's Tale.
The Fall Revolution books are easy enough to get
Speak for yourself; I've never seen them in a bookstore here.
Though I fear we're violating the advice I once read in an essay (by a prominent writer, but I forget which) that said something like: "Never tell an author you have a hard time finding his books. He knows that all too well already. If you want to make him happy, tell him you saw an enormous stack of his books at the entrance to an airport bookstore."
The Fall Revolution books are easy enough to get
Speak for yourself; I've never seen them in a bookstore here.
Well, I do live in Canada, and normally we have greater than normal access to UK editions, British and European authors, or at least better access than the USA.
And that is exactly why I find it strange that post-Night Sessions MacLeod books are hard to find. Not to mention The Night Sessions itself. I have never, ever, seen a copy on any bookstore shelf. In-store order terminals always have it listed as unavailable.
I am not saying it is a conspiracy to keep one of his best novels out of the hands of North Americans, but it sure seems like one.
But Fall Revolution ones? Yeah, they are everywhere up here, and the recent omnibus editions are sharp looking. I like them almost as much as my original hardcovers.
Jambe - nothing to report as yet.
Mouldy Squid - there's no conspiracy. After the Tor edition of The Execution Channel didn't do well in the States, Tor was reluctant to take on my later books. Nothing ideological - it was a commercial decision.
The good news is that I now have a very strong US publisher, Pyr, which has already published The Restoration Game and has an April release date for The Night Sessions. That edition has already had good reviews in Publishers Weekly and in RT Book Reviews (that one's subscription only, but my editor at Pyr, Lou Anders, has sent me a pull quote from it and it's enthusiastic).
So - hopefully you will be seeing bookstore copies soon.
I am glad to hear you are with Pyr now. They publish some great stuff and I am certain that you will get much more exposure in NA with them.
Luckily, Canadian bookstores have much better access to UK publishing houses. For example, I frequently see the Gollancz editions either exclusively or side by side with the US editions (which invariably have either garish covers or take the cover art of the UK edition and cover it up with GIANT SIZE LETTERING).
In the case of Mr. MacLeod, we pretty much see only the UK editions and those are few and far between (Reynolds seems to be the dominant UK author for shelf space right now). The news about Pyr is very welcome. You Brits are once again leading the charge in intelligent well written science fiction and you deserve better recognition and exposure.
I was only half serious about some ideological conspiracy concerning The Night Sessions. I was, though, concerned about why your newer books were not readily available and mystified why they could only be found overseas. Thank you for the answer.
I can't wait to dive into Intrusion which arrived just after I posted yesterday.
I hesitate to make this suggestion, but you can probably find the Fall Revolution books in used bookstores. That's how I found them. Apparently the first didn't have a US mass market release (?), but I found a hardcover. Are the omnibus editions, "Fractions" & "Divisions" still available?
Last month Charlie Stross was in town (Colorado Springs) for COSine, and gave a strong recommendation for "Intrusion" though he couldn't remember the title since the manuscript he'd read had a different title. I whipped out the iPad and brought up this bog and asked is this it? He said "Yes, and that's a very good description of it."
Started "The Restoration Game" the other day, too soon to say anything other than it's lots of fun so far.
Here in Sweden we have both the American and the Brittish editions of your books. I have just read Intrusion, and I liked it very much. In fact I'm making it our book-stores book choice of the month.
Amazing and excellent post! Do My Assignment For Me
Yay! I already have it on pre-order from the UK, since it is difficult to find your new fiction in North America
(Personally, I think that someone got their undies in a twist over The Night Sessions which is almost impossible to find in brick and mortar stores. The Fall Revolution books are easy enough to get, but not anything post-Night Sessions. Yeah, it's a conspiracy theory, but…)
You are one of the few authors I still buy in hardcover so I am always excited when one of your books hits the shelves.
By
Mouldy Squid, at
Thursday, March 01, 2012 4:17:00 pm