Annual Brutally Cold Discount Email

Wed 30 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ach, blind consumerism, doh, feh, ffff, meh, och, ouch, ow, ugh, Weightless Books| Posted by: Gavin

Cold? Yep. Our distributor just sent along the new Am*zon discounts for the next two years which I would post here except I can’t because of the NDA Am*zon insists everyone sign. Why an NDA for a discount? Because it is brutal.

You may remember me whining about it in the past — just imagine a tiny bit added onto that previous whine. That’s another tiny bit less income for us & our authors (who are paid on net received on ebooks, unlike for print where they are paid a royalty on the retail price), a tiny bit more for Bezos et al. Ugh.

I don’t think we can stop selling books through Am*zon as many people find it is a handy database. But we don’t have Am*zon buttons on our site, we don’t buy ad space on those overcrowded pages, we don’t advertise on Goodreads, I don’t retweet links there, I don’t shop at Black Hole(sic) Foods, etc. Feh to them and their soul crushing tax-cut supported warehouse-enslaving main street closing goals, feh! (Sure, Jeff Billions, buy us out. The press is for sale for say $10 million and I’ll be nice and quiet. At least until that NDA runs out and I can start a new press.)

Every year Michael DeLuca and I have chat about the future of Weightless Books and every year I think about how the authors make more money from each sale, we get to sell DRM-free ebooks, and it gives us a venue to sell our own (and thousands of others) ebooks without $$$ going to Am*zon, etc. So, yes, we’ll keep it going.

Going to repost this even though it’s not Christmas but hey the Lunar New Year is coming up along with many more holidays so it still applies:

I know not everyone has a good local bookstore, a local branch of a chain, or a decent library, but if you have, *please* consider buying/borrowing books there. Am*zon still want to crush all competition (Bezos’s first name for the business was Relentless dot com [<— still leads you know where]) in all markets that they enter. They are fantastic at customer service, especially compared to some local businesses, but they are terrible for everyone else, suppliers, intermediaries, etc.

The discount creeps up a little more every year — something has to give. I suppose it won’t be Am*zon. Guess it will be us Small Gazelle Presses who want to publish interesting books, work with a wide range of people and artists, and see if we can send these weird things out into the world and find readers.

We are all together building the world we want. I want small and big bookstores all over the place. Loads of publishers following their own visions. This Christmas/holiday of your choice, please consider Powell’s, Indiebound, Kobo, B&N, anyone, anyone but Am*zon.

Thank you.

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Fire Logic: Back in the World

Tue 22 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

In 2002 I was the sf&f reviewer for BookPage. I reviewed one book a month and every three months I’d do a column review of three books. It was an interesting gig trying to find books I could write about, books with big enough reach to interest readers of a general interest publication distributed in libraries and bookshops. It helped that I was working at BookSense.com — the ABA‘s website which later became Indiebound — and had access to a larger pool of incoming books.

Early in the spring of 2002 I came across Laurie J. Marks’s Fire Logic, published by Tor. The cover didn’t grab me but it didn’t put me off — I know people who found it offputting but the cover was just a signal that the novel was epic fantasy with a woman at the center so I gave it a shot. I loved it.

“Marks has a wide-angle view and has written an immensely political and unflinchingly optimistic novel. Differences are celebrated as often as scorned, and love can be found even with an enemy without the costs that might be expected in our world. Fire Logic questions both the real magic behind faith and the self-selective blindness involved in following a leader: religious, military or political. Characters and story come together effortlessly even as Marks refuses to shy away from complex issues of self-determination, ownership and multicultural coexistence.”

Here was a book that attempted to capture some of the complexity of personal and political relations and didn’t flinch from the difficulties and opportunities these offered.

The second book, Earth Logic, came out in 2004 (also from Tor). In 2007 we published the 3rd novel, Water Logic (Water Logic is still shipping the first edition cover. The new edition will ship in June), and in June we’ll publish the final volume, Air Logic. It’s been a long wait for Air Logic but it has been worth it.

While we work on getting Air Logic out in the world we’re enjoying seeing the reaction to new and returning readers to the earlier books. Don’t miss the 15-copy giveaway of Water Logic — along with 15 copies of Air Logic also up for grabs — on LibraryThing this month.

The new editions have interlocking artwork by the eternally patient and eagle-eyed Kathleen Jennings.

The new edition of Fire Logic is out today. Happy RePublication Day, Laurie! Anything you can do to spread the word about these magnificent books will be much appreciated over the next few months. Enjoy!

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Fire Logic

Tue 22 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper  · $20 · 9781618730886 | ebook ·  9781931520393
2nd printing: November 2022

An occupying army, cut off from their homeland, has to make peace with those they have brutally suppressed.

Elemental Logic: Book 1
Spectrum Award winner
Romantic Times Reviewers Choice award nominee

Fire Logic · Earth Logic · Water Logic · Air Logic

The martial Sainnites have occupied Shaftal for fifteen years. Every year the cost of resistance rises. Emil, an officer and scholar; Zanja, a diplomat and last survivor of her people; and Karis, a metalsmith, half-blood giant, and an addict, can only watch as their country falls into lawlessness and famine. Together, perhaps they can change the course of history.

Read an excerpt. Listen to Chapter 1 read by the author: part 1 · part 2

See the Map of Shaftal by Jeanne Gomoll.

Benjamin Rosenbaum and Jake Casella Brookins talk Fire Logic on the Ancillary Review of Books podcast.

Reviews

“Fire Logic is a delightful, feminist fantasy epic featuring a ragtag bunch of misfits, swashbuckling, romance, and some weird elemental magic.”
— Bustle

“I’m re-reading after some years away, and loving the book even more than I did the first time! Marks creates a realistic society in which women are the dominant sex. The home country has been conquered by an army with no home to return to, and its leaders have been fighting a long, guerilla war against them. What they need is the leader who is joined by her magic with the earth, but the one who inherited the office from the former leader is a drug addict and former prostitute who doesn’t believe in her worth or her job. The second-in-command of the army is beginning to see that her people have to re-think what they are doing if they are to survive, as do some of the rebel leaders. The characters are complex, facing complex problems. I . . . love them and the world-building.” — Tamora Pierce, author of Tempests and Slaughter

“I’m a longtime fan of this series. . . . Zanja is one of my favorite protagonists in fantasy fiction — smart, courageous, and passionate despite the heavy weight of being the only surviving member of her people. These books look at oppression, queer identity, and morality during a protracted civil war — definitely worth picking up.”
— Gretchen Treu, A Room of One’s Own

“Marks has created a work filled with an intelligence that zings off the page.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“A deftly painted story of both cultures and magics in conflict. Marks avoids the black-and-white conflicts of generic fantasy to offer a window on a complex world of unique cultures and elemental magic.”
—Robin Hobb

“Marks is an absolute master of fantasy in this book. Her characters are beautifully drawn, showing tremendous emotional depth and strength as they endure the unendurable and strive always to do the right thing, and her unusual use of the elemental forces central to her characters’ lives gives the book a big boost. This is read-it-straight-through adventure!”
—Booklist (Starred Review)

“Like real life, it is all about shades of gray. . . . an immensely political and unflinchingly optimistic novel. Differences are celebrated as often as scorned, and love can be found even with an enemy without the costs that might be expected in our world. Fire Logic questions both the real magic behind faith and the self-selective blindness involved in following a leader: religious, military or political. Characters and story come together effortlessly even as Marks refuses to shy away from complex issues of self-determination, ownership and multicultural coexistence.”—BookPage

“A deep and intriguing read.” – BookSense Daily Pick

“Contained in Fire Logic are some of the most sensual and tender sexual encounters ever captured on paper. She perfectly portrays the timidity, the lust, the uncertainty, of that first connection and the exultation of discovery. The emotion, so raw and vulnerable, is arresting and humbling.”
– ME Reviews

“A cast of memorable characters whose lives, loves, and sacrifices combine to imbue faith in a shattered land.”
—Library Journal

“Marks vividly describes a war-torn land, and the depth of character development makes this novel a page-turner.”
—VOYA

“Cuts deliciously through the mind to the heart with the delicacy, strength, beauty, and surgical precision of the layered Damascus steel blade that provides one of the book’s central images.”
—Candas Jane Dorsey

“Laurie Marks brings skill, passion, and wisdom to her new novel. Entertaining and engaging—an excellent read!”
—Kate Elliott

“This is a treat: a strong, fast-paced tale of war and politics in a fantasy world where magic based on the four elements of alchemy not only works but powerfully affects the lives of those it touches. An unusual, exciting read.”
—Suzy McKee Charnas

“A glorious cast of powerful, compelling, and appealingly vulnerable characters struggling to do the right thing in a world gone horribly wrong. I couldn’t put this down until I’d read it to the end. Marks truly understands the complex forces of power, desire, and obligation.”
—Nalo Hopkinson

“Most intriguingly, about two-thirds of the way into the book, the low-key magical facets of her characters’ elemental magics rise away from simply being fancy “weapons” and evoke—for both the readers and the characters—that elusive sense of wonder.”
—Charles de Lint, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

“An exquisite novel of quiet charm. Fire Logic is a tale of war and magic, of duty, love and betrayal, of despair encompassed by hope.”
—SF Site

Cover art by Kathleen Jennings.

Laurie J. Marks (website) has published nine fantasy novels, including Dancing Jack, The Watcher’s Mask and the Elemental Logic series (Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Water Logic, and Air Logic). She has been writing since her childhood in California, inspired by the works of C.S. Lewis and Lloyd Alexander. Her books have been shortlisted for the James D. Tiptree/Otherwise Award, and have twice been awarded the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. Laurie J. Marks lives in Massachusetts with her wife, Deb Mensinger, and their Welsh corgi, Serendipity.

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Pinsker, Samatar, Marks (x3), Brennan, Schoffstall, Crowley

Wed 16 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Crowley, John Schoffstall, Laurie J. Marks, Sarah Pinsker, Sarah Rees Brennan, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Not to bury the lede, but in November we are going to publish John Crowley’s new collection — his first for a long time — And Go Like This: Stories. The book will be published in hardcover and ebook and in a limited edition. We will contact Kickstarter backers from The Chemical Wedding first about the limited edition then make it generally available.

Ok, so 2019: yeah! One aside: it is amazing to see the news reporting on events they reported on before yet now with added shock and horror: the Russian asset AKA the US President had 5 meetings with his boss Vlad P. and no one knows what was said? Yup. That’s why we’ve been, are, and will continue to be upset with the GOP, Mitch McConnell (good argument for him being a fan of Vlad, too; see 2016-present), and those who keep going along to go along with the Idiot Baby-in-Chief. Hoping 2019 will see the Idiot, McConnell, et al, chucked out and maybe imprisoned. Goals!

Another aside: Hope to see you at the Women’s March this coming Saturday either in my hometown of Northampton (12 p.m., Sheldon Field) or wherever you can march.

In the meantime, in the interests of sanity, good reading, and getting tremendous art out into the world, we are going to publish more fab books!

Besides LCRW (subscribe?) and perhaps an omnibus ebook edition of Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic novels and innumerable reprints and possibly one other reprint, here’s what we know we are publishing this year:

• Jan. 22 — Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic, Elemental Logic Book 1
  — available now, whoopee!
• Feb. 19 — Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic, Elemental Logic Book 2
  — about to ship from the printer!
• Mar. 19 — Sarah Pinsker, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea: Stories
  — at the printer!
• Apr. 9 — Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories, trade paperback
  — about to go to the printer!
• Jun. 4 — Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic, Elemental Logic Book 4 . . . !
• Sep. 3 —  Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands, trade paperback
  — Sarah’s new novel Season of the Witch (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Book 1) comes out from Scholastic on July 9th. That will be fun!
• Oct. 22 — John Schoffstall, Half-Witch, trade paperback — the sleeper book of the year!
• Nov. — John Crowley, And Go Like This: Stories

Cheers!

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Meet a PKD Finalist

Mon 14 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Awards, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

I’m paperback-sf-delighted to see that both Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster and Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Machines are finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award, yay! — and congratulations to all the finalists!

Where’s your chance to meet a finalist?

Vandana Singh will be the Hal Clement Science Speaker at the Boskone convention which runs from Feb. 15-17 at the Westin Boston Waterfront, in Boston, MA. We’ll be there with her book in the dealers room.

And in the meantime, here’s the whole PKD Award nominee announcement, Cheers!

2019 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The judges of the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce the six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

TIME WAS by Ian McDonald (Tor.com)
THE BODY LIBRARY by Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)
84K by Claire North (Orbit)
ALIEN VIRUS LOVE DISASTER: STORIES by Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press)
THEORY OF BASTARDS by Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions)
AMBIGUITY MACHINES AND OTHER STORIES by Vandana Singh (Small Beer Press)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 19, 2019 at Norwescon 42 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society. Last year’s winner was BANNERLESS by Carrie Vaughn (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) with a special citation to AFTER THE FLARE by Deji Bryce Olukotun (The Unnamed Press). The 2018 judges are Madeline Ashby, Brian Attebery, Christopher Brown, Rosemary Edghill, and Jason Hough (chair).

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I love this book completely — Karen Joy Fowler

Mon 7 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sarah Pinsker| Posted by: Gavin

We’re about to send Sarah Pinsker’s debut to the printer and just in time we received this fabulous note:

“This collection of stories is simply wonderful. Each story is generous and original; as a collection, the tales are varied, but with recurring themes of memory and music through-out. Pinsker has emerged as one of our most exciting voices and I’m glad to note that I’m not the only one who thinks so. I love this book completely.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves

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Carmen Maria Machado Recommends . . .

Fri 4 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Over on Electric Lit Carmen Maria Machado, or, rather Carmen Maria Machado — yeah! — got 2019 off to a shiny bright start with some lovely lovely things she said about books by Shirley Jackson, Joanna Russ, Gloria Naylor — as well as Sofia Samatar and Kelly:

Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link

When I was a baby writer, a friend recommended I check out Kelly Link’s stories, and it changed my life. I don’t mean that hyperbolically: if you are a reader who loves my work, you have Kelly Link’s mind-bending, genre-smashing, so-good-you-want-to-die fiction to thank. An entire generation of female fabulists have been profoundly influenced by her, and she was also my gateway drug into some of my other favorite authors: Angela Carter (The Bloody Chamber), Kathryn Davis (Duplex), Shirley Jackson (Haunted of Hill House), and so many others.

Tender Sofia Samatar

2017 might seem like a pretty recent year for a book to have influenced me, but Sofia Samatar has been publishing these stories in magazines for ages, and they haven’t lost an ounce of their magic or eeriness. Samatar is best known for her secondary-world fantasy duology A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, but this collection of short stories occupies a different, more liminal space. Samatar’s keen and nimble mind, gorgeous sentences, and incredible imagination are on full display here; she balances beauty and horror in a way that thrills and inspires me. If you love Helen Oyeyemi (What is Not Yours is Not Yours), Karen Russell (St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves), or Kij Johnson (At the Mouth of the River of Bees), you need this book. (Bonus: It was published by Small Beer Press, owned by Kelly Link and her husband, Gavin Grant. They publish tons of amazing fiction, much of it by women. Check them out!)

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