Hook a friend on Liad

Back in February 1988, Del Rey Books published as a paperback original a space opera that asked the musical question, Can a rich boy with a severe personality disorder, and a brother who is a giant sentient turtle, find true love and lasting happiness with a tough-talking retired mercenary soldier on the run from the Mob?  The title of this odd little novel was Agent of Change, from first-time novelists Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

This! is the novel that set up the Liaden Universe®, now sixteen books strong.  And now?  You can download it for free from these sources, DRM-free:

The Baen Free Library (in all ebook formats known to man)

Amazon (kindle)

Please share this news with all your friends, and especially with your friends who need the Liaden Universe® in their lives.

In other news, it snowed last night.

Cat Farm in the snow
Photo by Steve Miller

Sufficient unto the day is the excitement thereof

So, let's see...

Early today, we discovered that Agent of Change was now available, DRM-free, from the Baen Free Library, which means it's also available for free download from Amazon, because that's how the Big River rolls. Since the purpose of giving the first one away for free is to addict acquaint new readers with the Liaden Universe®, we ask that you please point out Agent's availability to your friends, coworkers, family members, strangers chance-met on the street. . . and, if you're able, to boost the signal, by mentioning Agent's free-to-download goodness in your blog, on Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever readers congregate online. Also? The Kindle edition needs reader reviews, to help curious newbies decide whether or not they want to read this book.

As of this writing, the free edition of Agent of Change has a bestseller rank of 632, which puts it at #1 in Kindle Space Opera, and #62 in Kindle Science Fiction and Fantasy. For whatever that's worth -- of which more in a moment.

OK, so that was the morning shift.

This afternoon, we learned that Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller was the Number One Best Read of 2012, according to those who voted in SFSite's Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2012: Reader's Choice, where it is one of an amazing six Baen titles on the list.

Speaking of Amazon bestsellers (see how I did that? Smooth, right?), I came across this article, in which a new author is stunned by the financial rewards of his chosen profession.

Then there's this article, which talks about the challenges of lipreading -- if you read nothing else tonight, read this article; it's fascinating.

And, apropos of nothing much, except that I was inside Steve's camera earlier and found this -- for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of part of our living room. The part with the Yule tree (which is still up), the Skylark Award sporting it's classy! cover! that was kindly created for it by Kat Ayers Mannix.

In-between the Skylark and the tree is the Prism Award, recklessly unshrouded. Directly before the Skylark are the extra Skylark Shrouds Kat also made. And, yes, that is a red metallic cloth covering the top of the old radio on which all of this is arranged.

Yule Tree, Skylark, Prism,
Cover Art by David Mattingly