Eagles Over the Kennebec

We have just heard from the Nice Editor Lady at Ace, who tells us that chain orders of Agent of Change and Conflict of Honors were so disappointing that Ace is canceling the program. The chains are declining to carry re-issues for the foreseeable future.

She also says, the Nice Editor Lady, that the economy sucks.

Remember! You -- yes, you! -- can get all of the Liaden Universe® novels from Baen Webscriptions. For those who prefer dead-tree, SRM Publisher does have some of the Ace mass market paperbacks in inventory. Before you spend $50+ for a tattered copy of an mmp edition of Plan B from ABEbooks, please check the SRM Publisher LJ: srmpublisher

...an advance copy of the Ace reissue of Conflict of Honors

Yesterday's surprises also included the delivery of a short-box of the Ace edition of Agent of Change with no accompanying note, and which we hope are authors' copies.

Home today, in respect of the weather. Got up at the Usual Time, stuck my head out the door, ascertained that it was raining, thickly, coating everything in a fine layer of ice -- went back to bed and slept for an additional three hours.

It is, at this typing, still raining, and the ice is building on the trees. We've had two mini-power outages, and anticipate the disappearance of the grid at any moment. The Leewit is charged up and ready to go, and all extraneous electrical contraptions have been turned off.

In celebration of the day, Steve decided to screen the squirrel-and-bird video, which has found an appreciative -- not to say energetic -- audience in Scrabble and Hexapuma. Mozart has no use for bird porn and settled onto the green quilt for an after-breakfast nap while the youngers try to figure out why the pigeons aren't walking out of the screen when they march to the left, and how the hotel they can get in behind the box to surprise that too-perky squirrel.

I hope the living room survives.

In other viewing news, I watched "The Brothers O'Toole" last evening as I was signing Eidolons, and am sorry to report that it has not aged well. John Astin was of course John Astin and we love him, but the film was a fair mess. The cussing contest is the high point, but it's more in the lines of a large rock in the middle of a swampy bit than the tallest peak among the Rockies.

It's a little disquieting to realize how much we change over the course of thirty-odd years. I adored this movie when it came out, laughed myself (very nearly) sick the first time I saw it, and made my long-suffering boyfriend at the time accompany me to four repeat viewings. I suppose it was a simpler time. Certainly, I was a simpler person.

Everybody stay safe and warm -- or cool, as geography dictates.

Authors' copies of the mass market edition of Agent of Change*. Thank you, Ginjer!


*...sent via FedEx to an address that hasn't been in force for five years, but, hey, when you live 'way out in the country, the regular route guy knows where to find you. Thank you, too, Eddie.

My thanks to everyone who took the time to answer the poll and/or to comment on the order in which Ace should re-issue the mass market editions of the Liaden Universe® novels. The Nice Editor Lady (hereafter referred to as TNEL) has been provided with information. And now we all get to wait and see what she does with it.

TNEL did say that, when the books come out (and in whatever order), they will hit the stands at the dizzying rate of one a month. This means that readers who are missing books in their set are going to have to be nimble -- and! you are going to have to warn your friends who haven't been able to find the books except at usurious prices at ABEbooks to watch the skies very very closely. We have asked TNEL to let us know as soon as she knows when the first book is scheduled to be published, and we will make as big a noise as we know how to make.

Again, thanks to everyone who took the time to help us out!