Category: Books
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Countdown to Arkad
Five days to go before Arkad's World hits the shelves! If you're wondering what to do with that Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card Santa put in your stocking, try the novel that Booklist calls ". . . a feat of world-building: an expansive, believable setting with fascinating aliens, compelling mysteries, and a rich sense of…
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Pop Culture: Hold On to Your Hats!
As cultures develop a large and relatively affluent middle class, they develop what we call "pop culture." The upper class have "high culture" more or less by definition, and the lower class don't have the leisure time or spare wealth to create culture at all. Tom Wolfe chronicled this in post-WWII America, as people got…
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Arkad’s World Review From Booklist
One of the most anxious times for a writer is just before the book hits the stores, at the moment when the first reviews appear. You may like what you've written, your editor may like it, your wife and the people in your writing workshop may like it . . . but none of that…
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Look What Arrived!
Christmas came about a week early this year! Look what arrived: freshly-printed copies of Arkad's World! If these volumes have reached my house, there's at least a sporting chance copies are getting to Amazon's warehouses or your local bookstore. Get your copy now! I honestly believe this is the best thing I've written. Getting it…
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Things I Want Other People to Write
I've never written fan fiction. When I was young, it felt like cheating or plagiarism to write a story set in someone else's fictional setting, or using their characters. (This was before the whole concept of "shared worlds" or "expanded universes" arose, and all works actually had a single identifiable creator.) And when I was…
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Arkad eARC Available!
If you can't stand to wait for a printed copy of my new novel Arkad's World (and aren't picky about things like copy-editing), the electronic Advance Reading Copy is now available. Read a free sample or buy the whole thing here at the Baen Web site. I honestly think this is my best book yet.…
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What I Saw On Facebook Yesterday
"In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and…
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Dragon Awards!
Congratulations to this year's Dragon Award winners: Best Science Fiction Novel: Artemis by Andy Weir. Best Fantasy Novel: Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel: A Call to Vengeance by David Weber, Timothy Zahn, and Thomas Pope. Best Alternate History Novel: Uncharted by…
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WorldCon 76 Report: Day 4
Reading back over my WorldCon reports, it occurs to me that I don't seem to be doing much. A couple of panels a day, and mentions of parties, but that's it. The reason is something I had to explain to a friend: "At a con the fans have fun and go to parties. The pros…
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WorldCon 76 Report: Day 2
On Friday the 17th I dressed in my frankly magnificent Professional Author costume and plunged into the convention. All the really interesting panels seem to be first thing in the morning, so I went to one on constructing alternate histories, called "If This, Then What?" After that I took a pass through the dealer room…
The Cambias Digression 