Eagles Over the Kennebec

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!

Here's the link.

1.  Sharon Lee and Steve Miller will be Writer Guests of Honor at Confluence in Pittsburgh, PA, August 4-6.  Here's your link, and we hope to see you there.
2. Due Diligence: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 24 is now available as an ebook from most of the usual suspects, and as a paper edition from Amazon only.  Here's your link to the Amazon catalog page.
3. Change Management: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 23 is also now available in paper from Amazon only.  Here's your link to the Amazon catalog page.
4. This is as far as we're going down the path of "converting to paper editions," until we see what happens with these two books.
5. The Gathering Edge -- y'all remember The Gathering Edge, right? -- currently has 143 reader reviews on Amazon, which is awesome, and we thank you for your time!  You know what would be Even More awesome, though?  If Edge could get as many reviews as Alliance of Equals -- 266.  Can we do it?
6. In case you missed it yesterday, Steve and I were interviewed by the Maine Sunday Telegram.  Here's a link to that article.
7. Spoiler discussion for Due Diligence here
8. Thanks to whomever sent me the gadget for use in waiting rooms.

Here end your Monday morning adverts.  Everybody have a great week.

A.  For those who have been anxiously waiting to learn who the narrator of The Gathering Edge Audible edition will be -- your waiting is at an end.  Eileen Stevens, who has narrated all the Theo Waitley books from Fledgling through Dragon Ship, will also be narrating TGE.

B.  We've gotten the list of TGE personalization requests from Uncle Hugo -- just under 50 folks want their books personalized. The rest of the 200 books Uncle ordered are to be signed, only. So, just as soon as they arrive here at the Confusion Factory, we'll get busy writing in books!

C.  The Year's Best Military and Adventure SF, Volume 3 will be published by Baen Books in June.  For those interested, here's the Table of Contents:

Preface by David Afsharirad
Introduction by David Weber
“Cadet Cruise” by David Drake
“Tethers” by William Ledbetter
“Unlinkage” by Eric Del Carlo
“Not in Vain” by Kacey Ezell
“Between Nine and Eleven” by Adam Roberts
“Sephine and the Leviathan” by Jack Schouten
“The Good Food” by Michael Ezell
“If I Could Give this Time Machine Zero Stars, I Would” by James Wesley Rogers
“Wise Child” by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
“Starhome” by Michael Z. Williamson
“The Art of Failure” by Robert Dawson
“The Last Tank Commander” by Allen Stroud
“One Giant Leap” by Jay Werkheiser
“The Immortals: Anchorage” by David Adams
“Backup Man” by Paul Di Filippo

A. Books make wonderful gifts.  For those who wish to give the gift of the Liaden Universe® stories and novels, here is your link to the Lee and Miller Handy Clickable Catalog of Books.

B. The Archers Beach Carousel Trilogy, by Sharon Lee, published by Baen Books, is now complete.  This means that you have an Amazing Gift-Giving Opportunity before you!  You can give an entire trilogy to some fortunate reader-or-readers on your list.  It hardly gets any better than this.  Here's your link to the ebook bundle from Amazon

C. Cool clothes also make wonderful gifts.  In celebration of the season, and this well-known fact, Offworld Designs is giving you -- yes, you! -- a coupon for 20% off your entire order with them.  This coupon is not just limited to the Liaden Universe® store, though naturally we hope you'll shop there first.  Click on the graphic below:

Here ends your Wednesday advert!

1.  Have you ordered your signed and/or personalized copy of Carousel Seas from Uncle Hugo yet?  No?  Time's running short.  No, I really mean that time's running short, if you want your pre-ordered signed copy of Carousel Seas personalized.  That deadline is November 15, 2014 -- which is next Saturday.  So you need to do this now.

Here's how you can order.

1A. Uncle Hugo will also be offering signed copies of Dragon in Exile.  More on that as we get closer to June.

2.  Steve Miller and Sharon Lee will be Principal Speakers at PhilCon, November 21 - 23. We will not only be giving a speech — which is a thing I do but rarely, so you know you want to hear this one — but we will — rather, our traveling companions will be hosting a Teddy Bear Tea* on Saturday, November 22 at 11 a.m.  Coffee, tea, cookies will be served, so bring your favorite stuffed animal to share an hour of refinement, relaxation and camaraderie.

3.  If you so desire, you may order a limited edition print of the cover of Dragon in Exile from the artist, David Mattingly, by writing to him at davidATdavidmattinglyDOTcom.  In case you missed it, here's the front panel of the Dragon in Exile cover:

* * *

As advertised elsewhere, Steve and I took each other to see Big Hero Six for our anniversary.  We both liked it a lot.  Steve is thinking he might like to see Interstellar; despite the presence of Michael Caine, I'm not so sure.   ("Look, professor!  A black hole!"  I mean -- c'mon, guys.)  I definitely want to see Into the Woods, though.

. . .and I think that's all the news that's fit to print.

* * *

Progress on Alliance of Equals
23,048/100,000 OR 23% complete

He flung a hand up and toward the screen, fingers sketching disdain.

"This is the enemy that Korval cannot defeat."

"Nor can we," she observed, drily.

He sniffed.

"Nor have we.  Yet."

1.  Lee and Miller sold five Liaden Universe® novels to Toni Weisskopf at Baen Books through the offices of Jennifer Jackson of the Maass Agency.  The question has been, which book will be the sequel to Dragon Ship.  The answer is:  They all are.

2.  Fifteen Liaden novels (aka all of them), divided into four Sequences are now available from Audible.com.  For those who may wish to sample the material, or the narrator, or both before purchase, Audible has generously provided a free hour sample of the first book in each of the four Sequences.  Handy links:  right here.

2a..  We hear from Mr. Feldberg at Audible that, yes, it is his intention to acquire the audio rights to Necessity's Child.

3.  There's a new splinter/story up at Splinter Universe.  Here's the link.

4.  There was error at the bindery which resulted in some signed sheets being bound into the wrong edition (by which I mean wrong-ISBN, since the signed and unsigned editions bear two distinct ISBNs) of Dragon Ship.  This has, as you may well imagine, Caused Some Problems.  The quickest to recover is Don Blyly, who, now in receipt of Simon and Schuster's fix (no, I don't know whose fault it was, who's fixing what, or exactly what the fix is -- don't, I beg of you, ask me to explain any this; I'm reporting, here.), is continuing to ship pre-ordered books.  He lets us know that he has another 100/150 unspoken for signed editions, so if Amazon has failed you -- about which more in a moment -- contact Uncle Hugo.

4a.  Amazon, evidentally neither as clever nor as accommodating as Uncle Hugo's, is having head explosions all over the known book-selling universe.  It's cancelling orders; sending unsigned books to people who ordered signed books; sending signed and unsigned books to people who only ordered signed books; sending signed books to people who didn't order signed books.  None of that -- not one detail of that -- can we the authors fix for you.  We are very sorry for the mix-up.  But honestly?  It has sorta palled, even as black comedy.  Be it written that, by this point in the play, we are informed of the problem.

5.  Yes, we are also aware that the advertisement for Necessity's Child that ran in Locus (and the art on the catalog pages at BN and Amazon) displays "Final Art to Come" on the cover.  No, we don't believe that the final cover will display this message.   If it happens that we're wrong about that, then we'll have the opportunity henceforth to refer to that novel as Necessity's Child: Final Art to Come.  Which has a nice, academic ring to it.

6.  It's a cool and sunny day down here in the south.  I've finished my breakfast, the coffee's gone and I need to go into Saco to take on supplies.

Here ends your Thursday morning Advert and Intelligencer.

Housekeeping note:  The wifi here at Temp Headquarters went out just as I was about to post the above at 9:15ish, so I have already accomplished #6, above.  On my way to Saco, I cruised by Camp Ellis, and Wormwood's (which actually isn't on the way to anything, but I digress).  I did see two cats, so apparently the gentleman from Away has not yet gotten his way.

Asyouknowbob, the mass market paperback edition of Ghost Ship will ship on July 31 (Hey, that's Steve's birthday!  And also?  Next Tuesday!).

Now, I know that lots of people read Ghost Ship a thousand years ago, internet-time, as an eArc, and still more snabbled it up in hardcover last August.  However, there are some people who wait for the mass market, and my further remarks are mostly for them -- though all you early adopters can listen in, if you want.

There is some prep work for Ghost Ship.  It's not necessary prep -- if you've been following along the novels, you'll do just fine moving from Saltation to Ghost Ship.  However, there are a couple short stories that may deepen your enjoyment -- or at least your understanding of certain events touched on in the novel.  And, with a whole week left before your book ships, these morsels might soothe your hunger pangs.

The prep stories are:  Hidden Resources, Moon on the Hill, Prodigal Son, and (to a lesser degree) Fighting Chance.  These four stories are available, DRM-free, and in the format of your choice, in echapbooks Halfling Moon, and Allies.

Here are your links:

Allies: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® No. 12
Includes: “Fighting Chance,” and “Prodigal Son”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

Halfling Moon: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® No. 16
Includes: “Hidden Resources,” and “Moon on the Hill”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

Edited to Add:

Steve points out that Intelligent Design may also be of interest.  Your links are below:

Legacy Systems: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® No. 19
Includes novelettes “Intelligent Design,” and “The Space at Tinsori Light”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

And, here's a link to Pinbeam Books, in case you'd like to check out the other chapbooks and audiobook on offer.

Enjoy

Carousel Tides T-Shirt
Only 10 more days to order one (or more!) of these stylish and beautiful t-shirts. This piece will become an essential element in all your summer ensembles! Go here for details and order form. Orders close 12:01 a.m. EDT July 1. (P.S.: If you prefer to send a check, please drop me a note at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom and let me know that the check has been mailed, how many shirts you're ordering and the sizes.)

New Story at Splinter Universe!
In celebration of the beginning of summer -- a beach story! "Emancipated Child," presented for your reading pleasure.

Beach Reading!
Headed out to the shore? Don't forgot to load up your ereader with Lee-and Miller echapbooks from Pinbeam Books (with links to the Kindle and Nook stores and to Smashwords). And! While you've got that ereader out and primed, why not stop by Baen Books and download your favorite Lee and Miller novels in the format of your choice?

Clarion Write-A-Thon
Steve is taking part in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, and plans to help raise $1000 this year. Steve’s goal for the Write-A-Thon is to finish the upcoming Jethri novel, Trade Secrets. Clarion West is one of the oldest major workshops for science fiction and fantasy writers and proceeds are used for scholarships. Those wishing to donate to support Clarion West through Team Miller can take a look here: http://clarionwest.org/writeathon/stevemiller … donate a buck or two to the cause to let him know you’re watching for Jethri.

. . .here ends your Thursday morning advert. Thank you for reading.