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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Strong starts for Intrusion (UK) and The Night Sessions (US)
'Intrusion by @amendlocke is being reprinted, having only been officially released today! #result'
#result, indeed. Later that evening the book's sales ranking was in the top thousand on Amazon UK and top fifty for SF/F.
And today SFX put online a very good (and perceptive) review:
As a portrait of benign tyranny, Intrusion is chillingly effective (and morbidly entertaining), not least because so many of this future state’s dystopian elements are rooted in inarguable Good Things. It takes a seriously determined – and seriously cold-blooded – libertarian ideologue to argue in favour of, say, parents’ right to condemn their children to suffer and die of preventable diseases. Where to draw the line between private life and public good is not a debate unique to our time, or to dystopian fiction, but the technology of MacLeod’s world enables him to present the issues more starkly. Here, women are not just subject to stern government health warnings – and social disapproval – about how they use their bodies during pregnancy; they are now “encouraged” to wear sensor rings that allow their local health centre to monitor every molecule they encounter. This is a society being slowly smothered by the systems and safeguards it demanded at the ballot box, and the hobby-horses of its favourite newspapers.The Night Sessions is to be published in the US in April by Pyr, and it's already had two good reviews: in Publishers Weekly and 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).
Labels: reviews, self-promotion, skiffy, writing
8 Comments:
Many thanks, Rob.
As far as I know UK publication is legally the same as publication in Canada, seeing as Canada is part of the Commonwealth, unlike another North American country I could mention.
Speaking of empires, I've always been amused by the very existence of St Pierre et Miquelon.
Would that it were so.. Most large publishers seem to lump Canada in with the US for publication rights. So Intrusion is not available except by mail order. I had a similar experience with the Night Sessions - I bought my copy in the UK while on a visit.
Speaking of which - do my suspicions that the latter book was not published in North America for so long have any connection with the subject matter - religion being a touchy subject with said North American country?
At the risk of seeming boring, St. Pierre and Miquelon are an amusing vestige of the French Empire in the Americas (although there are a few others - such as their rocket launching pad in South America and the odd Caribbean island). Their major motivation for keeping their foothold was more commercial, though. Both islands remain useful spots for French fishermen to put into port, and guarantee access to the cod fisheries of the St. Lawrence Gulf and Grand Banks - and in the 18th century the cod fisheries were worth far more than the French colonies on the mainland - which they were happy enough to get rid of.
Ron - No connection with the subject matter To repeat what I said in an ealier comment: 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.
I have UK copies of both - although I checked out the cover art from Pyr - and it is very nice. Will Intrusion be out from Pyr in the near future also?
I am amazed that The Execution Channel did not sell well.
Rob - Pyr, Intrusion: no doubt my agent is on the case.
The Execution Channel got good US reviews, but it had a somewhat disconcerting cover and the first printing, through no fault of the publisher, had a quite baffling misprint throughout due to the printer applying a change AFTER the proofs had been signed off. don't know if either of these had much to do with its disappointing sales, though. There may be some readers who will never forgive me the absence of exploding spaceships and anarcho-capitalism.
I'll have to reread my copy to find the misprint.
As I recall it did have an exploding space drive - but anarchocapitalism was thin on the ground, as you say.
I myself found the most attractive parts of the Fall Revolution series to be the descriptions of student politics. They took me back to my student days with an almost painful wrench.
I just read the sample of Intrusion available on the web. It looks outstanding. It is good enough to order from overseas, given that it is not published in Canada yet.
By
Rob, at
Tuesday, March 06, 2012 11:28:00 am