Bookscan reports that Lee and Miller's Accepting the Lance, the 22nd novel set in their Liaden Universe®, debuted on its bestseller list at the Number Three position, behind Dead Astronauts, by Jeff Vandermeer; and Rebecca Roanhorse's Star Wars novel, Resistance Reborn.
Lee and Miller extend their thanks to all Liaden Universe® readers -- give yourselves a hand!
We have been in touch with Mr. Feldberg at Audible, who lets us know that the audiobook edition of Accepting the Lance will be available from Audible tomorrow.
"Tomorrow" from the reference of Mr. Feldberg and ourselves would be Tuesday, December 10.
Mr. Feldberg apologizes that the fact of the delay was not shared with us -- so we could share it with you -- there was an internal mismatch of schedules, which has since been resolved.
OK, everybody, deep breaths -- good. . .good. . .
Focus, now -- Can you hear me? Good. . .
Now.
As I write this, Lee and Miller have FOUR MORE Liaden books under contract.
The first is Trader's Leap, which is scheduled for publication in November/December 2020.
Then, there will be two Jethri books -- Steve is lead of both of these; the first of which is due with Madame the Editor in May 2020. The second is due in January 2021.
After those are two nameless and as yet formless Liaden novels. I'll probably start with them while Steve's coping with Jethri, but first? I'll finish the revisions of Trader's Leap.
TO SUM UP:
Accepting the Lance is the 22nd novel set in the Liaden Universe®. It will be followed by!
Number 23 -- Trader's Leap
Number 24 -- Jethri book, sequel to Trade Secret
Number 25 -- Jethri book, sequel to the above, as yet titleless
Number 26 -- Liaden book
Number 27 -- Liaden book
Everybody up to speed? Good.
Today is the day! The day that Accepting the Lance, the 22nd novel in the Liaden Universe® created by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller is officially released*!
We here at the Confusion Factory are of course very excited, and grateful that Baen was able to get the book -- submitted in January -- out this year.
We do know that there are a number of you who purchased the eARC, and therefore are finding the Book Day festivities a little flat. If you wish, you may celebrate by leaving a review for LANCE on the venue of your choice.
The authors are celebrating each in our own way. First, by announcing Book Day as far and as wide as we may. Secondly, Steve is celebrating by working on the next book detailing the adventures of Jethri Gobelyn, which is due on Madame's desk in May 2020. And, thirdly, I am celebrating by editing Trader's Leap, scheduled for publication in November/December 2020.
The chickadees, titmice, nuthatchen, goldfinches, sparrows, and cardinals are celebrating by mobbing the bird feeders, because it's snowing up a Real Storm here in Central Maine.
In other news, I am due at the surgeon's office tomorrow at 2 pm, by which time the snow will have stopped and the driveway cleared. This visit will determine if my time in the Command Chair is about to end or if it will be another four weeks until I see my shadow.
Fingers crossed.
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*Yes, there is supposed to be an Audible edition. No, I don't know why it's not available. No, I don't know when it will be available. Authors are always the last to know these things. Naturally, I deplore my ignorance, and the distress of those who had hoped to listen to the book today, but, really, the non-appearance of the Audible edition is not my fault.
Tomorrow, December 3, is Book Day for Accepting the Lance by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller!
Here's the promo:
KORVAL IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Exiled from Liad after bombing a city to save it from The Department of the Interior’s infernal weapons and plans, Clan Korval has gone to ground on the back water planet Surebleak, whose people are as untamed as its weather.
Far beyond the surface of frigid Surebleak, Korval’s far-flung trade network needs a serious reset. From flagship Dutiful Passage to the experimental self-aware Bechimo, the clan’s ships are prowling space lanes seeking trade. Meanwhile, old tech from a failed universe and the machinations of the mysterious Uncle are coalescing into dangerous opportunity or nefarious trap.
And the Department of the Interior is not done with Clan Korval yet. They seek a final fully reckoned revenge, with Surebleak and Korval’s ships and people everywhere in the crosshairs.
About Accepting the Lance:
"Accepting the Lance is a tour de force! So many threads woven, so many pieces moved on the board, old and new friends met, this book is an extraordinary installment in a brilliant series. I stayed up till 3 a.m. reading it and I have zero regrets. An incredible ride of a book!"—Nalini Singh
Even more news you can use!
The Uncle writes to remind us of the deadline for ordering signed and/or personalized copies of Accepting the Lance.
After, you may still order SIGNED copies, until supplies run out.
Today is Book Day for Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers! Here are your links to BN /
Amazon
Offworld Designs is having a half-price sale on all things Liaden! Here's your link.
Our authors' copies of Accepting the Lance arrived yesterday. It is beautiful, no?
The Uncle has spoken, to wit:
People have been asking all year when they will be able to order signed copies of the next Liaden novel by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Accepting the Lance ($25.00, expected early December), and you can get your copy personalized if you order by November 10. We’ve just arranged to also have signed copies of two Liaden novelettes in trade paperback, Adventures in the Liaden Universe #28: Fortune's Favor ($8.00, expected by mid-September) and Adventures in the Liaden Universe #29: Shout of Honor ($10.00, expected by mid-September). These will be signed but not personalized. If you wish to order all 3 Liaden books, we can either send the trade paperbacks right away (with a $6.00 shipping charge) and the hardcover in December (with another $6.00 shipping charge), or we can hold them all until December (and only have a single $6.00 shipping charge). If you are ordering all 3 Liaden books, please let us know in the Order Comments section during checkout if you want one shipment or two shipments. The Order Comments section is also where you should put your personalization request for Accepting the Lance.
Here is your link to the preorder page at Uncle Hugo's SF Bookstore.
Here is the link to the Uncle's newsletter, which lists events and lots of other opportunities to acquire signed books from your favorite author.
For those joining us for the first time: Signed means that the authors will write their names in your book. Personalized means that the authors will transcribe a short message supplied by you in your book, and also sign it.
Notes about personalized books: The authors reserve the right to reject any personalization request for any reason. This is solely up to the authors; there is no appeal. Pro Tip: The best way to make sure your personalization request is honored is to keep it short, keep it clean, and keep it polite. Thank you.
All righty, then! Start that pre-ordering.
One! More! Time!
The file of typos has been mailed to Baen. Many, many thanks to the Mighty Tyop Hunters! As per Tradition, your names will be listed on the acknowledgements page in the final, published edition of Accepting the Lance.
MIGHTY TYOP HUNTERS! Your hour is NOW!
If you have found TYPOS* in the eARC of Accepting the Lance, you may send them to me at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom. However, you may only do so until 9 PM EASTERN, Monday, September 9.
The format for sending typos is to send a few identifying words around the typo so it can be found (my pagination is not your Kindle's pagination; this is a True Fact, so page numbers are useless).
This is correct format for reporting a typo: "Very nearly as bad! Perhaps I ought not to remark at all, but merely flout my skill in becoming silence." QUERY: Should "flout" be "flaunt"?
*WHAT TYPOS ARE: Spelling errors. Wrong words. Missing words. Wrong character name and/or misspelled character name.
WHAT TYPOS ARE NOT: Grammar "errors" ESPECIALLY in dialogue. Sentences you don't like. We're not writing at this point; we're seeking to make the existing narrative as clean as possible.
Everybody psyched?
Go!
The Uncle has spoken, to wit:
People have been asking all year when they will be able to order signed copies of the next Liaden novel by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Accepting the Lance ($25.00, expected early December), and you can get your copy personalized if you order by November 10. We’ve just arranged to also have signed copies of two Liaden novelettes in trade paperback, Adventures in the Liaden Universe #28: Fortune's Favor ($8.00, expected by mid-September) and Adventures in the Liaden Universe #29: Shout of Honor ($10.00, expected by mid-September). These will be signed but not personalized. If you wish to order all 3 Liaden books, we can either send the trade paperbacks right away (with a $6.00 shipping charge) and the hardcover in December (with another $6.00 shipping charge), or we can hold them all until December (and only have a single $6.00 shipping charge). If you are ordering all 3 Liaden books, please let us know in the Order Comments section during checkout if you want one shipment or two shipments. The Order Comments section is also where you should put your personalization request for Accepting the Lance.
Here is your link to the preorder page at Uncle Hugo's SF Bookstore.
Here is the link to the Uncle's newsletter, which lists events and lots of other opportunities to acquire signed books from your favorite author.
For those joining us for the first time: Signed means that the authors will write their names in your book. Personalized means that the authors will transcribe a short message supplied by you in your book, and also sign it.
Notes about personalized books: The authors reserve the right to reject any personalization request for any reason. This is solely up to the authors; there is no appeal. Pro Tip: The best way to make sure your personalization request is honored is to keep it short, keep it clean, and keep it polite. Thank you.
All righty, then! Start that pre-ordering.
One! More! Time!
For those who indulge, the eARC edition of Accepting the Lance, the 22nd Liaden Universe® novel, created and co-written by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller is now available. eARCs are electronic Advance Reading Copies; they will contain errors of formatting, grammar, and perhaps even spelling. However! There will be no major story changes between it and the final book, which will be available in All Its Perfection on December 3.
So, mostly, Steve and I have been working, which is, as we all agree, boring to tell, no matter how exciting to do.
Since you and I spoke last, we proofread the galleys for Accepting the Lance, which actually was more exciting than it strictly needed to be, and have been working, variously, on a short story, and the (yes, still title-less) novel.
Last Wednesday, we took a day off to celebrate Steve's birthday. We had breakfast in town at Selah Tea, then to Lake Wesserunsett to view the water lilies, dragonflies, and of course the lake. After that, we took a ride out toward Bangor, paused at Searsport, and so to home, with a fresh-made pizza from Rita's. A low-key celebration, but a pleasant change from the same-old, same-old.
The cats have been taking all this sitting-in-one-place and staring at pages/screens in stride. They of course have a tremendous work ethic; they can watch us at it all day.
For those who have been out of the loop, we here at the Confusion Factory have a tightly-scheduled few months coming up. This is what it looks like from here:
We will be taking a couple of days OFF for some too-long-deferred downtime.
The yet-titleless novel will be turned in before October 18. This is a firm date because!
On October 18, I will be having an operation on my foot, which will require me, in addition, to stay off of both! feet -- for at least eight weeks. In celebration of this event, I have purchased an actual laptop, to replace the Chromebook (geek note: laptop is a System76 DarterPro, call-name Fezzik), and also a command chair, which really is a very nice chair, except we'll need to rearrange the entire living room to accommodate it, and I didn't want the house to be full of furniture, and fill in your favorite grumpy comment here. I expect there will also be a knee-scooter in my life, since crutches and cats and unsteady user seem like a recipe for disaster.
Conflict of Honors (sorry, no link; I cannot find the 2019 edition on Amazon) thirtieth anniversary edition will be published by Baen in November; Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers will be published in November, including brand-new Liaden story "Dark Secrets," and stories by CJ Cherryh, Tanya Huff, Jack Campbell -- and more! Also in November, a new Liaden story for Baen.com in support of!
Accepting the Lance, the twenty-second Liaden Universe® novel, which will be published in December.
Uncle Hugo's will be accepting pre-orders for signed copies of ...Lance, beginning in September. So, watch the skies.
. . .and that, I think, is all the news that's fit -- or unfit.
Here's a picture of Steve at Searsport town pier on his birthday.
Today's blog post brought to you by Todd Rundgren, "Bang the Drum All Day." Here's your link.
So, today is Sunday.
It is as I write this 85F/29C feels-like-93F/34C, calling for a high of 87F/31C. The weatherbeans are teasing us with the bare possibility of thunderstorms, which I shall believe in when they arrive to thunder down the rains.
Today's Mission, besides tending to chores, is to finish this section of the manuscript here, which needs one more scene to round it out. Then I need to write another brief scene, location TBD, add all of it to the Complete Manuscript (going by the call-name Jigsaw Puzzle), and! Read it. This will be hard, as there are portions of this book that I've read at least twenty times -- and no, that is not an exaggeration.
I expect that I will also today crack the Elusive 90,000 word barrier, that milepost being a mere 700 words in the distance.
Back to weather, yesterday it hit 100F/38C here in beautiful Central Maine. Today is as reported above. Tomorrow? The temperatures dip back in the high 70s/low 20s, slowly creeping back up into the mid-80s/high-20s by the end of the week. Possibly, summer is over.
I also have here sitting on my desk an iteration of Accepting the Lance*, which I am assured is the typeset manuscript with the copy editor's notes included. Steve and I need to work out when and how to read it. At the moment, it looks like getting up an hour earlier, brewing a pot of coffee, and Getting On With It may be the most workable plan. This all in service of not having to read proofs during the week we have marked out as one of those things that people have -- ah. Vacation.
So, that's the news hereabouts. Everybody have fun. If you're in a hot zone, keep cool, stay hydrated, check up on vulnerable friends and family.
Today's blog title brought to you by Jude Cole, "Start the Car." Here's your link.
__________
*Accepting the Lance, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the twenty-second novel set in their Liaden Universe®, will be published by Baen Books in December 2019. Earc will happen when it does. Don't start with me.
After a review of procedures and past adventures in the taking of pre-orders, Uncle Hugo has agreed to undertake the task. The pre-order option for signed copies of Accepting the Lance will appear in the Uncle Hugo's online web catalog after Labor Day.
Repeat: Yes, there will be signed books available from Uncle Hugo's, which you may order after Labor Day. Yes, I will post a reminder (and, as in past years, instructions) when ordering is live.
Everybody cool now?
Good.
We here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory have been in discussions with the Uncle (aka Don Blyly at Uncle Hugo's SF Bookstore in Minneapolis). We have established that said Uncle is interested in accepting pre-orders for SIGNED copies of Accepting the Lance.
Details will follow: Watch this space.
Or, yanno, the skies.
There are Four -- 4, that's FOUR -- points of possibly interesting information below, to wit:
1. Accepting the Lance pre-order; 2. Podcast availability; 3. ...Lance cover reveal; 4. How to order the cover art
For those who may be interested in such things -- Liaden Universe® novel Accepting the Lance by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller is now available for pre-order from Amazon*. Here's your link.
The podcast of Steve reading Lee and Miller's short story, "A Choice of Weapons," formerly only available to Patreon subscribers, has now been made public.
You may listen to it here.
A couple days ago, we showed you David Mattingly's art, which was destined to become the cover for Accepting the Lance.
We are now pleased to show you the actual cover:
For those who aspire to own a print of the original artwork (shown here), David Mattingly often makes a limited number of his cover art for sale. You may write to him at david at davidmattingly dot com.
________________________
*Hardcover only. No, I don't know why Baen ebooks cannot be preordered through Amazon or BN or, or, or -- so it's an Entire Waste of Your Time and My Time to ask me this, 'k?
This just in!
David Mattingly's artwork for the cover of Accepting the Lance by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, to be published by Baen Books in December 2019.
[caption id="attachment_9603" align="alignnone" width="660"]
Cover art for Accepting the Lance by David Mattingly
Accepting the Lance, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the twenty-second novel in our original Liaden Universe® series, our eighty-sixth collaborative effort, has been turned in to Baen.
Lance weighs in at just about 130,000 words.
It will be published in December 2019. Cover art will be by David Mattingly.
It is now traditional for the writer to say:
THUD.
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