Writers portrayed in movies often have endless hours to sit alone, stare off toward the horizon, mulling over a poem (okay, or maybe a story or novel) they’ve been working on for the past couple of years. Must be nice. Most successful working writers I know have a number of different plates spinning on sticks, and I am spinning with the best of them. I just finished a rush to get three projects out and for sale in time for the holiday season—the anthology A FANTASTIC HOLIDAY SEASON, an original new Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. story “Naughty and Nice,” and...
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Last June at the Campbell Conference in Lawrence, Kansas, I received the first-ever "Lifeboat to the Stars" Award for my book TAU CETI, with Steven Savile.   The Lifeboat to the Stars award is given by the Lifeboat Foundation for the best work of science fiction contributing to an understanding of the benefits, means, and difficulties of interstellar travel. Now, an even bigger honor, I've been asked to join the Advisory Council of the Lifeboat Foundation, where I will be serving alongside some very impressive colleagues. The Lifeboat Foundation, www.lifeboat.com, is a "world-class think tank with a rich cognitive diversity of philosophers,...
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As I'm busy proofreading the typeset galleys for MENTATS OF DUNE, I realized I haven't officially posted the final cover and jacket text.  The book will be released in the US and UK in March 2014. You can preorder your copy at your favorite bookstore, or on amazon at this link. Jacket text: The struggle for humanity’s future continues. The thinking machines have been defeated after Serena Butler’s terrible Jihad. But now, civilization in the fledgling Imperium faces an even greater threat—human fear and fanaticism. Gilbertus Albans has lived a secret, artificially extended life for nearly two centuries: first as...
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Next day, Sunday, I had another interview in the morning, then a two-hour author panel, this time with an interpreter (which I found much more difficult, trying to listen to the questions and the simultaneous translation), but we did just fine.  This time more than a hundred people were in the audience, and I had another lengthy autographing…complete with Star Trek Redshirts, Dune fans, Star Wars fans, even some who had copies of my old SF novel with Doug Beason, ASSEMBLERS OF INFINITY, which was my first Polish translation. As a surprise, I was inducted as an honorary member of...
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