Ketchup

Yep, it’s true! The first chapter of Plague Zone is now available. But be warned! If you haven’t read Year and War yet, your eyes may be permanently seared by the spoilers inherent in the third book. ;)

You can find it here.

Labels: PLAGUE ZONE excerpt

I would be remiss if I didn't mention here to everyone and anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area that my friend Emerian Rich, the vampire herself, is having a book release party this Friday at 7pm at Bay Books in Concord. There will be prizes and people with long teeth. And food. In fact, some of us may become food for the people with the long teeth... But they'll be gentle, I'm sure.

Come! Come and participate in the madness!

The party is for the print debut of Emerian's righteously popular podionovel Night's Knights. If you say you don't like the cover art, well, dude, you lie like a Persian rug.

In other exciting news, Plague Zone is also in print. No, it's not available yet, not unless you're me and they sent you author's copies. Bwah ha ha ha ha! But I'm contractually prohibited from passing out the book until the official release date, which isn't until 11/24.

The exciting news is that the first print run of Zone puts me well over 100,000 books in print worldwide. With the German and Spanish editions of Year and War, I was already very close to the 100K mark. In fact, all of a sudden I'm much closer to 150K books in print, and there are other editions coming right on down the pipeline. Some of the European print-runs will be very small, of course. Romania just isn't a big country. But I hope to hit 200K next year. Maybe more.

It's true that I know any number of writers whose initial print runs for a single title is 100 or even 200K, so this would be small change to them, but I'm still getting my feet under me and I'm excited to hit six digits with just my third book. It's a milestone. So the ice cream is on me.

Labels: Emerian Rich, Nights Knights book release party

I know a lot of readers and writers who like to bash Dan Brown. I'm not one of them. As far as thrillers go, I thought Angels & Demons was far better constructed than The Da Vinci Code, which was full of cardboard and coincidences, but even so Code was a good entertainment and the man obviously hit a popular nerve. I mean, hey, the idea that Jesus was having sex is awesome. We should all come up with such high-concept material.

I haven't read The Lost Symbol yet -- I hardly read at all anymore, which is a shame, and I'll surely wait for it to come out in paperback -- but I had to laugh when my father forwarded me this prominent national review. As someone who has to face the critics' music himself, I felt for the guy.

Thumbs down.

"This lame non-thriller took him five years? What the hell?" --Newsweek.

The emphasis is not mine. That's how they wrote it. Ouch!!!

Labels: book reviews, Dan Brown, Newsweek, The Lost Symbol

So I'm excited to share the news that I have a nice long new story in Asimov's and, surprise, I made the cover! Wow! Nobody tells me anything! I mean, the artwork must be for Nick Wolven's story, but look at that splashy little bit of love just above the bar code. Who is that guy?!?!

Uh, I'm also told there's a full page ad for Plague Zone in this issue, which is pretty rockin'. It's always awesome to get some love from Ace/Penguin USA.

More to the point, the story itself is a jolly biotech-and-special-weapons adventure set in Missoula, Montana, where our heroine Julie Beauchain returns with her sidekick Thomas Highsong for another unique, sexy, mayhem-filled caper. "Christmas Fire" is one of my favorites, like "Gunfight" before it, because these stories are light-hearted action comedies unlike most of the very dark thrillers I'm known for.

Also fun: "Christmas Fire" has been published simultaneously in Germany in Piper Verlag's Das Fest Der Elfen anthology (Elves' Christmas). This story has also sold already in the Czech Republic, where it's slated to appear in Pevnost Magazine in December 2010.

So run! Run to your nearest book store or news stand! The bugs are coming!!! What bugs? The hyper-active gene-altered Heterotermes aureus machovsky termite swarms! Gaaaah!!!

Labels: A Lovely Little Christmas Fire, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, er, Short fiction, The cover of the Rolling Stone

It's hard to believe it's been a full month since I posted here. But what a month! As of today, I have more than 250 pages of rough draft and first draft material for the new book, which is, well, completely frickin awesome.

This was a very busy summer. We have kids, remember, plus I had surgery on the leg followed by a fair amount of PT, all of which was a great big time suck, plus the usual go-rounds of editing the last book, plus my new short story for Asimov's, plus a new piece for Boys' Life, plus other stuff.

The truth is that I've really only been working on the new book for two months. To be halfway done with an initial draft already is INSANE. It's INSANE, I TELL YOU! Yes, I'm shouting.

Exciting stuff.

More soon. I have an Idiots You Can't Believe Story I especially want to share.

Labels: The Dramatic Return of Jeff