Eagles Over the Kennebec

Diviner's Bow, the 27th novel set in the Liaden Universe® created by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is now available for preorder, in hardcover, from the Usual Suspects. The preorder page includes a book description, for the curious.

Long-time readers will of course recall that Baen puts the ebook edition on preorder somewhat closer to the publication date.

I am still writing Diviner's Bow -- it currently weighs in at just a squeak under 72,000 words -- so I guess I'd better hop to it.

Salvage Right, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the 25th novel in the Liaden Universe®, and! our 100th collaboration, drops on July 4 -- that's next Tuesday!

Have you ordered your copy yet? Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like the thrill of opening your ereader and seeing a new book all lined up and ready to be read.

Not convinced that you want to read Salvage Right? Sure you do; it's awesome, though we say so, who shouldn't. Don't believe us? About 1/3 of the book is available to read FREE at this link, to help you make up your mind.
Already read the eARC or the hardcover mailed from the Uncle?  Consider leaving a review, or talking about the book on your blog, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or wherever else books are talked about.

Want to talk SPOILERS?  There's an ongoing reader discussion right over here.

The new year is coming right on down the tracks, and that means -- lining up good reading for 2023 and! making travel plans.

Here are a few datapoints to help you plan.

January 3, 2023:  Chicks in Tank Tops publication date.  Edited by Jason Cordova, with brand new stories from Esther Friesner, Kevin Ikenberry, Jody Lynn Nye, Joelle Presby, Marisa Wolf, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, and?  More!  No, honestly, there's a whole lot of good reading in this book, and you don't want to miss out.  Available from your favorite bookstore.

January 5, 2023:  Rembrandt's Station by Christie Meierz releases, a happy fact that will be celebrated by a Zoom launch party on January 7.  Steve and I will be there, and hope that you will, too.  Party details here

February 17-19, 2023:  Boskone 60.  GOHs: Nalo Hopkinson, Vito Ngai, Tui T. Sutherland, Dave Clement.  Steve Miller and Sharon Lee will be attending in person after a several year gap.  We cannot yet reveal our schedules, but we can say that we will be reading from Salvage Right, the 100th Lee and Miller collaboration; participating in a few panels, and hosting a kaffeeklatsch.  Hope to see you there.  Here's your link to register

February 28, 2023:  The anniversary re-issue of the classic Liaden Regency, Scout's Progress, with a new and exciting cover by Sam Kennedy, and! a new foreword by the authors, releases from All the Usual Suspects.

Looking a little further down the line -- April 28-30, 2023:  Heliosphere 2023.  GOHs: Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, David M. Mattingly.  Registration is open and though it is a thought over four months away, we urge you to register now.  Heliosphere is a small con and depends on its pre-registrations.  Here's your link.

And, going way, way out, now -- July 4, 2023, Salvage Right, the 25th novel set in the Liaden Universe® created by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller back in the last century, releases from all of your favorite bookstores.

. . . I think that's enough to get us started.

Here ends the year-end advertising special.

In six days (US), it will be May 3.

Why do you care?

Because on that day, Fair Trade by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the 24th novel set in their Liaden Universe®, will be published!

You are encouraged to take any -- or all! -- of the following actions before May 3.

1   Preorder the ebook from the vendor of your choice, and start May 3 with that little happy thrill you get when you see a new book has downloaded to your ereader.

2   Preorder a signed hardcover from Uncle Hugo's.

3   Preorder a hardcover from the bookstore of your choice.

4   Block out time to read Fair Trade, and make sure there's plenty of food in the fridge, favorite beverages and snacks on-hand, because once you start reading, you won't want to stop.

Yes, yes, I know:  What in ghod's name has the woman been doing, besides reading books?

Well, for one thing -- I've been working on an embroidery project.  Also doing, as ever, less than my fair share of keeping the house running, and marveling, as I do every year about this time how, when the snow decides to go, it go.  The ground  crew will be here any day now to do the spring cleanup, and before you know it, we'll be getting the pop-up gazebo situated, and Steve will be dragging the grill out of its corner and onto the open deck.

I've also been writing a book.  Salvage Right broke 82,000 words last night, so that's right on target for its June turn-in.  For those coming in late, Salvage Right is the story of what's doin' at Tinsori Light.  Slightly more information here.

In other news, we do have a book coming out on May 3.  Fair Trade is the third book following the adventures of Jethri Gobelyn ven'Deelin, who made his first, admittedly awkward, bow in Balance of Trade; his second, somewhat more nuanced, in Trade Secret.

If you'd like a signed copy of Fair Trade, you can preorder the hardcover from Uncle Hugo's (now in a new location!) -- here.  Please note that personalizations are not available at this time.

There's still no word regarding an audiobook edition, for those who partake.

Steve and I are planning to attend ChiCon8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, in -- surprise! -- Chicago, from September 1-5.  Information here.

Going somewhat further out -- Steve and I will be Writer Guests of Honor at Heliosphere 2023 in Piscataway, NJ, in April.  We're promised that the website will be updated as soon as everyone's recovered from Heliosphere 2022.

And that's what I've been doing.  Nothing much exciting to write to y'all about, and frankly I'm OK with that.

Everybody stay safe.

Until soon.

Ah.  Today's blog title brought to you by Matchbox Twenty, "3 am."  Here's your link.

Lee and Miller are under contract to Baen Books for three Liaden Universe® novels after Fair Trade, which will be published in May.  Those novels are:

1   The sequel to Fair Trade (title TBD) -- Steve Miller, Lead Writer

2   Tinsori Light: The Novel (better title coming along RSN) -- Sharon Lee, Lead Writer

3   A Liaden Novel to be Named Later -- Sharon Lee, Lead Writer probably?  At the moment, I'm leaning toward going back to the Redlands and checking in with Padi, Tekelia, Aunt Astra, Eet, and the gang. This could change, as all things may change, and only reflect my thoughts at the moment.

For those who have been playing along at home for a long time, the above three novels complete the Triple Threat contract with Baen.

We do not at the moment have any short works under contract, but that, too, could change.

Here ends the PSA.

For those who prefer to buy from Baen, this link will go live TOMORROW, that is to say July 31, 2021.

Here's your direct link to purchase BAD ACTORS: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 33, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, from Baen.

Recall, please, that Baen and Maine keep time via the East Time Zone of the US, and plan your shopping accordingly.

Frantic deadline writing continues, and!  We have a title for the novel, which IS a Jethri novel, and that title is!

FAIR TRADE

In the midst of All That (yes, yes, but you -- at least I -- have to give my brain something to do while the backroom is slapping together the rough of the next scene besides play endless rounds of Lumeno), the thirty-third Adventures in the Liaden Universe® chapbook, BAD ACTORS, is in process.  The Tyop Hunters are returning their results, and I'm looking at putting the chapbook up for pre-order next week, with an eye toward a July 31 release date.

BAD ACTORS collects three previously published Liaden short stories that fell through the cracks in our reprint process, due in equal parts to differing availability dates (one story had an 18-month exclusivity period, the others had a year), and the publication of the various Liaden Universe® Constellations.  All three stories feature people who might have chosen better, and all three were commissioned.  No, I don't know why three different editors wanted stories that practically begged for Protags With Questionable Morals(tm).

The stories included are!  Excerpts from Two Lives, Dark Secrets, and Revolutionists.  As it happens, two of them were principally written by Steve, one by me.  So, you can have fun trying to decide which is which.  Possibly this could be made into a drinking game.  Or, yanno, not.

Watch this space, and other spaces where Things Liaden are discussed, for news.  Be sure that when pre-orders open, we will shout it from the highest buildings available.

While you're waiting, here's another look at the cover art.

Table of Contents for Derelict, coming in June from Zombies Need Brains

“Symbiote” by Kristine Smith
“The Wreck of the Sarah Mohr” by D.B. Jackson
“The Tempest in Space” by Griffin Ayaz Tyree
“Playing Possum” by Andrija Popovic
“Standing Orders” by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
“Time, Yet” by Gerald Brandt
“Flight Plans Through the Dust of Dreams” by Kit Harding
“Saving Sallie Ruth” by Gini Koch writing as Anita Ensal
“Methuselah” by Jacey Bedford
“Celestial Object 143205” by Mark D. Jacobsen
“Mercy for the Lost” by Jana Paniccia
“When the Star Fell and the Levee Broke” by Alex Bledsoe
“Derelict of Duty” by Chaz Brenchley
“Two Ruins Make a Beginning” by R.Z. Held
“Orpheus” by Jack Campbell
“Decay in Five Stages” by Julie E. Czerneda

DERELICT: A ship lost with all hands on icy Titan. A dying woman’s soul linked with the fate of an interstellar vessel. A wrecked oil tanker possessed by the ruin-demon who grounded her. A haunted space cruiser of legend again terrorizing those who travel among the stars. A pirate-ravaged frigate concealing magical secrets that can doom the wicked, or redeem the worthy. An inexplicably empty cruiser arriving at a space station amid the panic of a system-wide pandemic.

There is an allure to the ghost ship, the once-proud voyaging craft now abandoned to the void of space or the depths of the sea. In Derelict, speculative fiction authors Jacey Bedford, Alex Bledsoe, Gerald Brandt, Chaz Brenchley, Jack Campbell, Julie Czernada, Anita Ensal, Kit Harding, R. Z. Held, D.B. Jackson, Mark D. Jacobsen, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Jana Paniccia, Andrija Popovic, Kristine Smith, and Griffin Ayaz Tyree offer their tales of the lost vessel. So climb aboard if you dare, and prepare for a reading adventure that will unnerve and inspire and transport you beyond distant horizons.

Preorder here.