Tag: John Scalzi

Monday Fun Day! (5/13/2013 Edition)

Monday Fun Day! (5/13/2013 Edition)

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Happy Monday, friends! This is a short week for me as I'm heading off on vacation starting Thursday. Let's jump into a little Macmillany goodness to get your week started, shall we?

- Congratulations to 2013 Locus Award finalists John Scalzi, author of REDSHIRTS which is up for Best Science Fiction Novel, Mary Robinette Kowal, author of GLAMOUR IN GLASS which is up for Best Fantasy Novel (I recommended this series in Uncharted Pages!), and Gardner Dozois, editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-ninth Annual Collection up for Best Anthology!

We're also delighted to see that Tor.com is a finalist for Best Magazine and Tor Books has been nominated for Best Publisher! And while we're at it, a hearty applause for Tor Teen author Cory Doctorow and Mac Kids author Catherynne M. Valente  who are nominated for awards as well. See the full list of Locus finalists here.

Indie next logo- Looking ahead, the July 2013 Indie Next List has two perfect summer reads from St. Martin's Press: AMY FALLS DOWN by Jincy Willett and SWEET SALT AIR by Barbara Delinsky!

- We would also like to point you in the direction of Doug Lord's latest (and dare I say, greatest?) selections for Library Journal's Books for Dudes column, "A Simple Murder, Wool, and The Human Division."

- And last, but not even close to least, actually closer to most—a basket full of puppy:

 

 

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NERD ALERT: Speculative Fiction Awards Finalists!

NERD ALERT: Speculative Fiction Awards Finalists!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Ali Fisher

 

The 2013 Hugo Awards:

John Scalzi's swashbuckling space adventure with a twist, REDSHIRTS: A Novel with Three Codas, is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel! And debut novelist Max Gladstone is shortlisted for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer! Woohoo! See the full list of Hugo finalists here.

Woohoos are also in order for Tor editors Liz Gorinsky and Patrick Nielsen Hayden who are Hugo finalists in the category of Best Editor–Long Form. 

And might I add it's fantastic to see the Writing Excuses podcast (Season 7) on the list of finalists in the Best Related Work category since so many of our excellent writers are a part of it.

2013 Prometheus Award:

Finalists for the Prometheus Award for libertarian science fiction novels in the Best Novel category include ARCTIC RISING by Tobias Buckell and THE UNINCORPORATED FUTURE and Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin! Previous Tor winners include Jo Walton and Cory Doctorow.

See the full list of five finalists here.

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Monday Fun Day! (3/18/2013 Edition)

Monday Fun Day! (3/18/2013 Edition)

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Happy post-St. Patrick's Day Monday! I know, I know. I'm not actually all that happy about being awake either. So let's get straight into the good stuff going on this week.

Good thing #1: Library Journal is hosting a totally rad webinar tomorrow at 3pm (EDT) that you must sign up for called "Editors' Picks: Hot Summer Titles from HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Random House." Details! Register!

Good thing #2: We have all sorts of awesome new e-galleys up on Edelweiss ready for you to download, including:

ALWAYS WATCHING by Chevy Stevens

THE HIGHWAY by C.J. Box

WITHOUT A SUMMER by Mary Robinette Kowal

THE HUMAN DIVISION by John Scalzi

THE DEVIL IN HER WAY by Bill Loehfelm

HER LAST BREATH by Linda Castillo

DEATH OF A DYER by Eleanor Kuhns

LOOKAWAY, LOOKAWAY by Wilton Barnhardt

Get whitelisted now! 

Good thing #3: You can start reading or listening to Z: A Novel Of Zelda Fitzgerald now on HeroesandHeartbreakers.com. This will help you get through your lunch break. 

Good thing #4: You can finally get the Sweet Valley sisters on your claws (see below).

 

 

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TxLA’s 2013 Lariat Short List

TxLA’s 2013 Lariat Short List

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Ali Fisher

The Texas Library Association has announced the titles on their short list for the 2013 Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List!

Five of the titles on their list of 78 candidates are very proudly published by Macmillan:

GONE MISSING 
by Linda Castillo

MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE
by Robin Sloan

REDSHIRTS
by John Scalzi

THE SURVIVOR
by Gregg Hurwitz

HALF-BLOOD BLUES
by Esi Edugyan

See the full list of titles here (PDF).

Selections for the final list will be revealed this April at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference in Fort Worth. [...]

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Our #FridayReads + a Pop Quiz!

Our #FridayReads + a Pop Quiz!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Happy #fridayreads, librarians! Talia and I are lost in some seriously excellent books this week...

Talia's reading:

BAD HAIRCUT: Stories from the Seventies by Tom Perrotta

I'm reading:

WITHOUT A SUMMER by Mary Robinette Kowal

THE HUMAN DIVISION by John Scalzi

And because I'm feeling fangirly I've got a tricky, little quick draw pop quiz/galley giveaway for ya...

Is the following quote from WITHOUT A SUMMER or THE HUMAN DIVISION?

"[S]he was of the opinion that if one was going to issue an invitation, one should be prepared to have it accepted."

I'll send a galley of both books to the first librarian to correctly guess in the comments below! (One winner. U.S. only.)

You can also download the WITHOUT A SUMMER e-galley from Edelweiss (here's how) and start reading THE HUMAN DIVISION in serial (would you like to know more?)!

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The Big Idea: Steven Gould on Whatever

The Big Idea: Steven Gould on Whatever

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Steven Gould's latest novel in the world of JUMPER is now available! It's called IMPULSE and the story follows Cent, Davy's daughter, who is a second generation Jumper.

There are few things I love more than listening to two fantastic authors chat it up (this is also why I love all of the events at the Pop Top Stage during ALA conferences so freaking much). So I'm aggressively directing you (think stuttering neon arrow sign) toward Whatever, John Scalzi's blog, where Scalzi extended his soapbox to Gould for a quick rundown of the scientific revelations in the Jumper universe and how they magnify the drama of the stories.

Gould starts with the science,

"In the first book we learned a few things about Jumping: 1. Jumping does not conserve momentum. Davy can jump off a cliff or a tall building and, as long as he jumps before he goes splat at the bottom, he carries none of the acquired downward velocity with him when he appears elsewhere."

Then gives us a sneak peek of how Cent will manipulate that in IMPULSE,

"Cent [...] takes this to another place, exploiting rule 1: Momentum is not conserved."

And comes around to his personal journey through the series,

"I was that teenage boy with the alcoholic father. I was the reluctant parent unsure whether my own childhood would poison my ability to parent well. And, now with IMPULSE, I have daughters who amaze and surprise me."

Go read more in The Big Idea: Steven Gould!

On IMPULSE Kirkus Reviews says, "Mr. Gould, please write faster."

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Monday Fun Day! (9/10/2012 Edition)

Monday Fun Day! (9/10/2012 Edition)

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Ali Fisher

We're kicking off the week with some award-nominee announcements (yay!) and a few articles by some of our favorite science-fiction authors.

- The 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize jury has announced the 2012 longlist and we're excited to see the following titles on their list:

RU by Kim Thúy (Bloomsbury, 11/2012)

THE IMPOSTER BRIDE by Nancy Richler (St. Martin's Press, 2/2013)

Finalists will be announced in October. See the full longlist here!

- The Crime Writers' Association shortlisted GOOD PEOPLE (Minotaur Books, April 2013) by Ewart Hutton for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award! The winner will be announced on October 18th. See the full shortlist here!

- Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross spent nine years working together on what ultimately became THE RAPTURE OF THE NERDS and there's a great article on the Tor/Forge blog in which they interview one another. Read it now!

"So we began emailing the story back and forth, adding around 1000 words each time, building on each other's work (and, I think, trying to provoke each other by periodically adding preposterous elements—'here, write your way out of this!'). And at the end of the day we wound up with a novella, which Ellen Datlow bought for SciFi.com. And there matters rested in 2003 or 2004 or thereabouts, until..."

- John Scalzi was interviewed in Locus and you can read part of that interview online.

"I’ll be blunt about it: humor is one of the great taboos of science fiction. It’s not just an issue of being able to write it well. When I first started writing, I was told, 'You can’t sell a humorous science fiction novel.'"

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Monday Fun Day! (6/11/2012 Edition)

Monday Fun Day! (6/11/2012 Edition)

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Ali Fisher

We're giving you a totally exclusive, never before seen, behind the scenes look into our twitter feed this week (you lucky librarians, you!). So much good stuff is going on, so instead of paraphrasing, we're serving it all up fresh straight from the tweeters' mouths. Enjoy!

We'll start with some tweets about the 4th Annual Librarian Shout 'n Share:

 

 

 

 

And here are some people we really like tweeting about books we really like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are a few things to read on your lunch break:

 

 

 

 

And, of course:

 

 

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Wednesday Fun Day! (5/30/2012 Edition)

Wednesday Fun Day! (5/30/2012 Edition)

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Ali Fisher

It's Wednesday already?! Oh, Time, you sure are a fickle creature!

I hope you all had a beautiful Memorial Day weekend. I'm sure you all set aside at least one of the days to properly celebrate MY BIRTHDAY!! I know I did!

Here's a few fun links to get you excited for the rest of this short week:

- The New York Times Books Section recommended some Books for Basking including GRANDAD, THERE'S A HEAD ON THE BEACH by Colin Cotterill, BRING UP THE BODIES by Hilary Mantel, MOST TALKATIVE by Andy Cohen, and LOVE, LIFE, AND ELEPHANTS by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

"This year 'GRANDAD, THERE'S A HEAD ON THE BEACH' is the best beach title around, and its author, Colin Cotterill, isn’t even pandering." Ha!

chuck - Debut mystery writer Chuck Greaves, who will be livin' it up at the Pop Top Stage at ALA Annual, wrote a heartfelt love letter to libraries and librarians. He writes in part about his impressionable years checking out copies of Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein and also about the twenty years he served on the board of directors of the Pasadena Public Library Foundation. Read his post here. 

- The GeekDad section of Wired.com featured John Scalzi talking about his latest novel, REDSHIRTS. 

"So how can we take these tropes that everybody knows, jump through all these hoops that everybody knows... and still put something in there, structurally speaking, that does the job that we’re supposed to do as storytellers? The real challenge for a storyteller is to take that ‘nudge-nudge-wink-wink’ thinking and simultaneously subvert and fulfill it." See the full article here.

- Also, if you're going to be at ALA Annual in Anaheim, don't forget to pack your Unshelved swag because Saturday is officially Unshelved Day @ ALA!

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Starred Review for Redshirts

Starred Review for Redshirts

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Ali Fisher

If you notice any of your patrons loitering around the stacks wearing something like this or this or definitely this, stop them at once and give them REDSHIRTS! It's what they're looking for anyway. 

It's the future and Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the prestigious Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid. Andrew is thrilled with the assignment... that is, until he discovers that low ranking crew members such as himself have an suspiciously high mortality rate during away missions. If he doesn't figure out what's causing the deaths and stop it, he might be the next to die!

Booklist gave REDSHIRTS a starred review and said, "Scalzi takes the reality-versus-fiction idea in a new and decidedly mind-bending direction. It’s hard to imagine a reader who wouldn’t enjoy this one."

Library Journal called it "humorous and thought-provoking" and said it will "appeal to fans of sf (especially Star Trek devotees) who like a good laugh along with their big ideas and space action."

Sound like something you want to start now? Download the first four chapters for free! 

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