Let Us Sum Up

1.  Saltation, the Second Book of Theo Waitley, published by Baen Books in hardcover with a street date of April 13, 2010, sold out at the warehouse before the subscriber copies were shipped to Maine.

1a.  The authors are aware that the book has been for sale from bookstores for A Really, Really Long Time

1b.  The authors are also aware that subscriber copies have not yet been mailed

1c.  Really, they are

2. Upon learning of the sell-out, Baen Books immediately ordered a new printing of Saltation.

2a.  It takes time to print books

2b.  It takes time ship books

3.  The subscriber copies of Saltation arrived in Maine on Tuesday, June 8.

3a.  That’s 1200 subscriber copies

4.  Each book must be:

*signed

*packed

*mailed

*in addition, there is considerable database wrangling involved

4a.  The above tasks take time

5.  The authors are going to a convention from June 17 through June 21.

5a.  This has been in the works for a Very Long Time; it is a professional commitment.  While we are away, no books will be processed.

5b.  Had matters gone as originally planned, Saltation would have arrived in Maine at the end of April and we could have begun the process of signing-and-shipping before we left for Oasis.  Conceivably, some folks would have had their books by now.

5c. Pursuant to 1, above, that didn’t happen

6.  We will begin the process of getting the books to subscribers when we return from Duckon

6a.  As with Fledgling and pursuant to 4 and 4a above, the process of getting books to subscribers will take time.  Steve basically does the mailing single-handedly, and mailing 1200 books is non-trivial.

7.  The authors thank you for your understanding.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

In Which Yr Hmbl Hostess Has Not Had Enough Caffeine

Bruce Sterling is trying to make a point over here.  Mind you, I’m not sure what his point is.  It sorta smacks of the old assurance from A Certain Male SF Writer that his female colleagues didn’t have to write fantasy!  They could, with only a little research, learn to write science fiction, too.

Lack of caffeine, right.

Anyhow, Mr. Sterling provides a list, lifted from a Must Read SF posting at The Galaxy Express, with the note that there is not a single male author appearing.  One of the authors listed is Steve Miller, who, last time I checked — quite recently, in fact — was male.  And an author.

When this was pointed out to Mr. Sterling, he amended his editorial to exclaim that there was a male author of half a book! on the list.

Since there were three books listed by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Mr. Sterling clearly can’t do arithmetic, either.

Back to the point of the thing.

If there is only a single male author of SFRomance on the list compiled by Galaxy Express, does that mean there are no men writing SFRomance?  I confess that I can’t think of a name — ref. lack of caffeine — but perhaps someone else can?

And!  If there are “no” men writing SFRomance, does that automatically make SFRomance an Inferior Form, as Mr. Sterling’s commentary seems to suggest?

Discuss.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.