Psst!
A bit of news just for my mailing list subscribers (well, and for anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook, and possibly some places I’ve forgotten my feed goes to…) Anyways, here it is: The Bellbottom Incident paperback has gone up on Amazon TEN DAYS EARLY. The Kindle version is still on track for release at the end of this month, March 31. But as of today, you can find the papeback for sale on Amazon US and on Amazon UK.
Hope you all like this one and happy reading!
Amazon’s algorithms sent out the “Coming Soon” email this morning, sooner than I expected, so this isn’t exactly a cover unveiling as everyone can already see it on the Kindle preorder page. But here goes anyway. Ta-da:
The Far Time Incident, the first book in the series, had a cover that was on the light side, off-white and gray. The Runestone Incident cover was mostly black with some red accents. So for this third one we went with lots of color, which also happened to match the time period the book takes place in. That it’s the seventies is pretty clear from the title, I think! TheBookDesigners get the credit for turning my vague word-sketch into a lovely and eye-catching cover.
Here is the back-page description:
Julia Olsen and Nate Kirkland, St. Sunniva University’s time-traveling crime-stoppers, are back and facing their toughest challenge yet in this third and final installment of the series. Sabina, their adopted niece from the lost city of Pompeii, has gone missing—in the bellbottom decade, of all places.
The situation requires sharp investigative skills of the literary kind, as Sabina has managed to outwit History and disappear into parts unknown, with the only clues to her whereabouts hidden in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. But fiction and reality collide as it soon becomes clear that the consequences may be all too real…and all too high. Can Julia and her teammates rescue the out-of-her-time Sabina before the final, unstoppable showdown with History?
Continuing where The Far Time Incident and The Runestone Incident leave off, The Bellbottom Incident brings the series to a gripping conclusion in this lively adventure through history, science, and literature.
Though only the Kindle book has gone up for preorder, there will be a print book of course, releasing the same day, March 31. This final book in the series comes to you via Westmarch Publishing, so there are some changes in how things got done, but none that should affect the reading experience itself, which is all that matters.
Thanks for supporting my books and hope you enjoy this one as much as I did writing it!
I also have a short story in the works, a prequel to the Incident series. More details on that when (or possibly if) I can think of a good ending to the story.
Hope everyone is enjoying their summer (or winter, depending on which part of the world you’re in). Lots of rain, green, and mosquitoes here.
Over on Chris Henderson’s blog, TheWriteChris, I talk about Writing Sci-Fi and Making it Real. Chris sent me a list of insightful questions, such as What’s the best advice about writing you want to pass along? Spoiler alert — I quote Neil Gaiman in the answer.
The sequel to The Far Time Incident has gone into the developmental edit and I’ve been reworking the draft based on feedback from my editor, Angela Polidoro. Angela is fantastic at her job, somehow managing to zero in on small, sentence-scale issues while simultaneously keeping her finger on the big-picture pulse of the story. This stage of things is both fun and stressful, as I’m making any last major changes to the story and watching it (hopefully!) all come together.
Book 2 in the Incident series is slated for publication sometime in early 2014, which seems really far away, but there is a lot to be done between now and then for the book via the trusty hands of everyone at 47North. After the developmental edit, there’s the copyedit, the proofread, cover design and promo text, Advance Reader Copies to be printed and sent out, and whatever else I might have forgotten to put on the list! Rolling up sleeves and getting back to work…
Today’s news is that the big May snowstorm veered off at the last minute and just missed us — towns just south of us got 8+ inches, but our lawn stayed green. Also that I was invited to write a guest post for the Kindle Daily Post. The topic suggested was What are your five favorite time travel novels? Had I thought about it really deeply, it would have been hard to choose from all the great time travel novels out there, so instead I went with the more straightforward method of listing the first five books that popped into my head (figuring that was a sure-fire way of guaranteeing they were my favorites). Read my guest post here and let me know what your favorite time travel novels are!
In other news, I’m doing a giveaway on Goodreads for both the new book and my first one. If you’re a Goodreads member, you can enter to win a signed copy of The Far Time Incident or Regarding Ducks and Universes (or both!). The giveaway runs until May 13.
Finally, The Far Time Incident has been picked by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Kindle editors for their list of books “no self-respecting geek should go without,” which is, of course, unbelievably cool. I don’t know how often they change or update these lists, but for now you can spot the book there, nestled between Flatland and Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Like I said, very cool stuff.
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor, 2010) and Glamour in Glass (Tor, 2012). In 2008 she received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2011, her short story “For Want of a Nail” won the Hugo Award for Short Story. Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary, a professional puppeteer, also performs as a voice actor, recording fiction for authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. She lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Visit www.maryrobinettekowal.com
I am so glad that the book is in such experienced hands (note that Mary is not only a Hugo Award winner but also a puppeteer — how cool is that?). Early last week we fine-tuned the pronunciation of the Latin names and words in the Pompeii section of the book, something I didn’t pay a lot of attention to in the writing stage. Mary needed to know whether to use Classical Latin or the more modern (Ecclesiastical) Latin. (As an example, Veni, vidi, vici would have been way-nee, wee-dee, wee-kee originally.) We settled on having her use Classical in the short bits of dialogue with Pompeian locals Sabina, Secundus, and others, and the more familiar modern Latin for place names and such. And yes, I’m going to be more aware of this side of things from now on, and maybe think twice before incorporating tongue-twisters like Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius (who was a real person, by the way) into the manuscript. Mary seemed to take it all in stride, though.
As an added bonus, Mary’s own books sound right up my alley and will make for great reading on our upcoming winter break. Other things to look forward to are seeing family and feeling that warm Florida sunshine… Bone-chilling subzero temperatures here this week.
A couple of weeks ago, I learned a bit about how an audio book gets made—the audio version of Regarding Ducks and Universes is being recorded by the lovely people at BrillianceAudio, with the talented Alexander Cendese narrating. Mainly I learned that there wasn’t much for me as the author to do, as my contribution consisted of supplying preferred pronunciations of names (Mrs. Noor, to rhyme with “sure”) and of words unique to the novel (macar tree, ma-CAR; yabput, YAAB-poot), all of which took about fifteen minutes. I’m very much looking forward to “hearing” the story — the audio book is available for pre-order and will be released on November 6, 2012.
Another bit of exciting news is that a German translation of Regarding Ducks is in the works, through Amazon Crossing (as translated by Peter Friedrich, author and translator). I don’t have many details yet, only the thought that being a translator is probably hard enough without having to deal with finding German language counterparts for made-up terms such as A-dweller, B-dweller, and yabput. (I speak from experience, being bilingual and needing occasionally to translate a phrase in one direction or the other for a family member. There is an art to it. I tend to flounder and say, “uh,” a lot.) But Peter sent me a nice note saying he had fun translating the book, so perhaps it’s all in a day’s work when you do it for a living….
Finally, the publication date for the novel I’ve been working on for the past year, The Far-Time Incident, has been set—March 26, 2013, which would seem like a long time away, except that I know there’s a lot to get done before the big day. This month the final edits are going in with the help of my editor extraordinaire, Angela Polidoro, after which there’ll be cover choices to make, the polishing of the back blurb, the proofreading of the ARC… All great fun.
Neve Maslakovic