Eagles Over the Kennebec

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.

As reported elsewhere, the amusement park is closed for the season.  

Ah, well.

Yesterday, around 11 a.m., Every Motorcycle in Nearest New England hit town with a roar and a snarl, and behold! the town began to act as if it was summer.  Bars and restaurants that had been sealed up tight all week, were open, lights on, music pouring out of open windows, bikes and cars were doing the vanity cruise up and down the hill, and around the Fountain Circle.  Bathers appeared on the beach above the Pier, though not so much below.  The Pier threw the switch, and really bad, live, rock music wafted over the beach.

In other news, I clocked 3.5 miles yesterday, and 2,550 words, so that.

I see in the latest issue of the Courier, by the way, that the local animal rights folks are still trying to keep the Wormwood Cats in place.  The town appears to be allowing itself to be bullied by the man from Away, however, so still not sure how all that's going to play out.  The rights folks do mention that:  working harbor + no cats = rats.  Perhaps the gentleman from Away has never seen a harbor rat.

I note that Moonrise Kingdom is not showing in any theater within the sound of my voice, which is kind of a shame.  I had wanted to see that. *makes note in Netflix*.  Sigh.  At this rate, I'm gonna have to take off two weeks to catch up all the movies in my queue.

Today's activities include grocery shopping, minor housekeeping chores, a walk on the beach to see how that Surge Warning looks up close and personal (yes, I'll be careful; I won't go in the water; and I will be very, very respectful of waves), and more with the writing.

Hope everybody's having a fun and/or relaxing weekend.

I was going to write a longish blog entry about why there have to be Books Between, but…I’m tired, and the dishes need to be done, and after that I wanna curl up and read one of my geisha books, so…maybe later.

Today was cleaning, early, and getting bread started, and then the visitation of the Bath Guy, Stage One in our intention to remodel the bathroom, replacing the bathtub with a shower enclosure.

This consultation took much longer than I had planned on, and the execution of Stage One will be somewhat more expensive than I had anticipated — Balancing the under-budget work we had done in the fall. We signed the contract, gave a deposit and sometime in mid-June we’ll have a brand-new shower. Upon which time we will commence in saving for Stage Two.

Does it strike anyone else as Completely Unfair that the least glamorous room in the house will cost the most to redo?

Anyhow, I also finished compiling the second volume of short stories, and writing the foreword for that, so everything’s ready for an orderly transfer, just as soon as the contract’s ready.

Oh! And exciting news, for those who didn’t hear it elsewhere: We heard from David Mattingly this afternoon; he’s finished reading Necessity’s Child, and is excited about doing the cover. Can’t wait to see it!

Before I answer the siren call of the dishes, I want to assure fans of Silversocks that he’s settling in nicely. Here’s a picture Steve took of him yesterday afternoon, while he communed with a box:

Bread’s in the oven for the first rise. Next on the agenda is to start the lentil soup for the meal we eat in the middle of the day, which we call dinner. Lunch is the lighter meal that we eat at the end of the day. Or possibly at the very, very skinniest half-hour of tomorrow.

For those tracking deliveries: Just My Type and the CD set of A Night in the Lonesome October have made it safely to the Cat Farm. Still to arrive is The Sleeping Partner, and The Shattered Vine.

Last night, after I was finished with Necessity’s Child, I started reading the contents of the file marked “Steve’s Klamath,” being a chronicle of the life and times of Corporal Miri Robertson, late of Surebleak.

For those wondering what the devil is keeping the woman from getting new words done on Necessity’s Child — new words are getting done, but they’re getting done in existing chapters as scenes shift, expand or contract. It looks like I should have announced these first 60,495 words A Draft. Who knew?

So, anyhow, not much of interest to see here at the moment.

Cat census: Scrabble sleeps with the heffalumps, and Mozart is still curled up in my spot in the bed, now that I’ve had the good grace to vacate.

That’s all I’ve got.

What’s doing at your house?

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