Category: fiction

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Web site rearrangement

In case you’re reading this in reverse order in your RSS feeder: ignore the last couple of posts. It’s content I’m moving from my web page to the blog.

I’ve redesigned and rearranged the fiction section of my web site, so that it more easily answers hard questions like “What have you written?” and “Do you write anything I might like?”

The nonfiction section is OK, given how many tech books I’ve written. Hopefully the fiction section will now scale as well.

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“Forever Falls” novella print and ebook

I posted this elsewhere, but now that it’s in print I should mention it here:

I have a new Montague Portal novella out, Forever Falls, in both print and ebook.

There’s no grounds for murder.

There’s no ground at all.

The people exploring and exploiting alien universes risk everything—including their lives.But Devin Gupper’s death makes no sense. And the more questions security officer Aidan Redding asks, the less rational it seems.

But in a bottomless universe full of impossibilities, with neutronium miners at one end and a steel-aerating blimp at the other, one impossible murder is only the beginning…

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Initial reactions to “Immortal Clay”

(For my own reference later.)

One of the worrisome things about putting out your own books is the concern that it might suck. I have a long track record in nonfiction, so I’m pretty confident there. But novels are a whole different art. When I put Immortal Clay out two weeks ago, I suspected that nobody would get past page two.

Most of the initial feedback came via Twitter, with things like:

So someone I know bought it. That’s cool.

Then some of my nonfiction readers picked it up, and gave it its own hashtag:

People began reading it, and said things like:

Then someone finished it:

So the real message came through? Excellent!

And then a couple comments in private mail, like:

“You bastard! That book kept me up half the night. There was just no good place to stop!

Yep. That’ll do.

If you’ve read the book, I’d appreciate a review on Amazon. There’s four right now. Amazon won’t show it in searches and “also bought” lists until there’s five.

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And today, on Audible…

What? Lucas linking to an audiobook? What the heck?

My aversion to audiobooks is pretty well known (I don’t object to you listening to them, just don’t ask me to). But yep, I’m going to point you at Audible today.

John Campbell’s classic novella, Who Goes There, is on sale at Audible.com today for $0.99.

Less than a week ago, I put out a novel that owes certain literary debts to this classic SF work. It’s three-quarters of a century old, and certainly bears signs of the age it was written in, but when I first read it (decades ago) it left scars that endured until… well, until I had to write a novel about those scars.

Had I known this sale was coming, I would have… I dunno. Contacted Audible and begged for co-marketing? Something. Something cool.

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New novel out: “Immortal Clay”

Most of you follow me for nonfiction, but this book just came out, so I’m gonna tell you about it anyway.

My SF novel, Immortal Clay, just hit Kobo and Amazon. It’s in process at other outlets like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and so on, and print is forthcoming.

I’d describe this book as an alien invasion tale like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Thing, set after we lose.

You can read the opening on my web site. Or you can jump straight to Kobo or Amazon and buy it sight unseen. I’m good either way.

And Ben Baldwin did an absolutely amazing cover. I mean… wow! Click on the preview and take a look. If you have a big screen, look at the high-res version.