Month: July 2019

AI Portrait and Interview

Lex

I am punchy AF this afternoon, and in a fit of optimism I gave AI Portraits my most pre-Raphaelite hair photo, hoping I would turn out looking like Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s hand painted selfie or something and instead I think we have more of an Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun look. Or maybe Angry Rembrandt.

I love this picture, don’t get me wrong. And Angry Rembrandt would do nicely as a name for my imaginary Mighty Mighty Bosstones cover band.

Because we’re the lead-up to Gamechanger’s release (!!!) I am beginning to get some reviews and interviews. Here’s a profile from My Entertainment World. I’m not going to link you up to every review—that would be tedious—but my unhumble brag of the week would definitely be Kirkus saying:

A thought-provoking cautionary tale that will, hopefully, compel readers to see the condition of our civilization and our planet with more clarity and understanding.A visionary glimpse into the future—the narrative equivalent of a baseball bat to the skull.

Kirkus Reviews, 2019

I am pleased with this—if Gamechanger can be a clue-by-four or a wake-up call for anyone at all, that’s terrific. (It seems likely that most of the people who read it will share my feels about the planet and where we’re going as a society… but one can’t know, and one can always hope to do good.) The only thing that could have been better was if they’d said something like The narrative equivalent of a really really fun baseball bat to the head.

But hey- you can’t have it all, right?

(If you can have it all, I would like it delivered, and I will need at least two weeks to arrange storage.)

With 69 days to Gamechanger, preorders are love!

Lex

Gamechanger will be out in the world on September 17th, 69 short days from now, and to say I am excited might be a bit like saying the surface of the sun is a bit toasty.


Ahhhhh book book book book book!!!

You can all expect this space, and my fabulous newsletter, The Lexicon to get ever more Gamechange-y. There will be excerpts, Goodreads Giveaways, bragging about reviews (I already told you Publishers’ Weekly called it a delightful pinball machine of a book and compared it to Snow Crash, right?)

But before we get there, I want to do the thing where I ask for pre-orders. If you’re gonna buy Gamechanger, and you’re inclined to get the book at one of the following vendors, I’d appreciate it so much if you ordered early and … well, order often if you want to give it to deserving readers for the holiday season.

Barnes & Noble. Amazon. Powells. Kobo. Chapters Indigo. Google Books. (iTunes keeps linking me to its store in Brazil, but I’m working on it!)

If you prefer audio, here’s the Audible link.

If you are curious about why this pre-order thing is important, here’s author Yashar Ali in a thread explaining it all.

Gamechanger imagines our world just over a century from now, after we’ve really begun grappling with carbon levels and climate change. It’s a book where we look at the grandchildren of Generation Z and the future the youngs of today and tomorrow are building. As a result, there will also be sciencey articles coming your way from me, both about technologies we’re developing to address the problem and how they might be (or are already being!) deployed. I’ll post about those too, as they appear.

Love me. Order me. Use me and reviews me. Tweet me sweetly. I appreciate it all so much.

Best Science Fiction of the Year #4

Lex

It’s out! The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Four, edited by Neil Clarke and including my novella “Freezing Rain, a Chance of Falling,” is now available in bookstores .

I won’t go on and on–I bragged when I initially learned the novella had been chosen, but I will point out that Best SF also contains novellas and stories by the likes of Kelly Robson, Madeline Ashby, Yoon Ha Lee, Sofia Samatar, Daryl Gregory, John Chu, Ken Liu, Elizabeth Bear and so many other awesome writers. It’s going to make for great summer reading–I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting on a contributor’s copy so I can dig in!