This September, to celebrate the 15h anniversary of John Scalzi's blog, we'll be releasing The Mallet of Loving Correction, a huge (nearly 500 pages) compendium of columns as a signed, limited edition.

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“In a very real sense, Whatever is my life’s work; it’s fifteen years (so far) of me thinking about what’s going on in my life and in my world.”—John Scalzi

What sort of idiot spends fifteen years writing a blog? New York Times Bestselling author John Scalzi is that sort of idiot. And in those fifteen years the blog he’s written, called Whatever, has won awards, had its entries republished in newspapers, magazines and books, and has seen millions of readers each year come by to read Scalzi’s observations on life, the world, and just about everything that happens in both. It’s one of the most popular personal blogs on the planet.

The Mallet of Loving Correction (named for Scalzi’s method of moderating the comment sections of his site) is the second collection of entries from Whatever. It spans two elections, a civil rights revolution, the fall of MySpace and the rise of Twitter and Facebook, and a whole era on the Internet and on the planet Earth.

Nothing is sacred (“Taunting the Tauntable” is the motto of Whatever): Scalzi takes on politicians, bigots, vengeful nerds and major corporations with righteous sarcasm—and also takes time to muse on love, marriage, children and faith. Everything and anything is up for discussion, examination and explanation.

The Mallet of Loving Correction, in short, is the whole range of one human’s experience, in one easy-to-carry package.

Limited: 1500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $35

J. K. Drummond is really hitting her stride with Memories of Ice, the next Steven Erikson signed limited edition in our lineup. You can see a small version of the most recent color interior here, or head over ot the book's page to get a larger, more detailed look. We think Erikson's many fans are going to embrace Jae's work on this and subsequent volumes.

With John Varley's Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories safely ensconced at the printer, it's no surprise that the Publishers Weekly review has landed. If you're in the market for some of the finest short fiction of the seventies and early eighties, you can't go wrong with Varley.

Eleven long-unavailable science fiction stories showcase Varley’s signature themes of freedom and free love in this literary tour of the odder byways of the solar system. Varley (Slow Apocalypse) loves exotic settings: talking black holes in “Lollipop and the Tar Baby,” a hollowed-out comet turned into a space ship in ‘The Funhouse Effect,’ an orbiting resort shaped like a champagne glass in ‘Blue Champagne,’ a tropical ‘Disneyland’ on Pluto in the title story. The collection serves best as a time capsule of Varley’s less-known work and silver-age science fiction.

Once again, our pal Kat Howard is teaching an online writing workshop for Lit Reactor. If you're new to penning sf/fantasy, we can't think of anyone better to teach you the basics.

The class starts March 14, so time, as they say, is limited.

About the Course:

• Week One - Where do you get your ideas from? Writing science fiction and fantasy means transforming "That could never happen" into "I wonder what would happen if it did?" You'll talk about how to find our own big ideas, and to begin imagining the impossible.
• Week Two - Where are we, and what are we doing here? Hogwarts. Middle Earth. A generation ship. The moons of Mars. You're familiar with the otherworldly and out-of-this-world settings of SF/F literature, but now you'll learn how to create your own worlds, and make them believable.
• Week Three - Whose story is this? When writing fantasy and science fiction, your characters can be anything you want: Robots, elves, gods, sentient spaceships. If you can imagine it, you can write it. Here you'll learn to write complex, well-rounded characters of the human (and non-human) variety.
• Week Four - How do we make the impossible possible? Writing science fiction and fantasy works best when the reader engages in a willing suspension of disbelief. Learn how to give your imagination free rein without throwing the reader out of your story.
• Bonus lecture: Learn how to revise, accept feedback, and submit your work.

Update: This promotion has ended.

By our memory, it’s been a good year or so since we ran a 50% off sale, so here we go. We’re only going to leave the sale live for a couple of days, so please don’t hesitate to order.

Some important notes:

• You must order at least 4 forthcoming titles;
• Limit one copy per title;
• Lettered Editions are not eligible;
• In print titles are not eligible;
• Shipping is not discounted;
• Other publishers’ books are not eligible;
• Sorry, no retroactive discounts on already ordered titles;
• The following titles are not part of the sale: Memories of Ice, Smoke and Mirrors, Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows, The Shining, The Fall of Hyperion.

Discounts will be applied when you check out. Thanks, and have fun picking up some great reading at unbeatable prices.

Just a few weeks after publication, the hardcover edition of Six-Gun Snow White is over 90% sold out. Those interested in an electronic edition will be happy to know it's now available in the standard formats, from the standard sources.

As a reminder, here's a bit of the praise the novella has been drawing:

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

Valente’s adaptation of the fairy tale to the Old West provides a witty read with complex reverberations from the real world… Any attempt to derive a simple message from this work would be an injustice to the originality of the atmosphere, the complexity of the interplay of its elements, and the simple pleasure of savoring Valente’s exuberant writing.

From Library Journal:

Valente’s (Palimpsest; In the Night Garden) talent for telling stories that have the cadence and grace of poetry makes her a perfect interpreter of classic stories. Her fans will appreciate the humor and artistry in this imaginative retelling of one of the world’s most popular fairy tales.

From Tor.com:

Valente’s adaptation of the fairy tale to the Old West provides a witty read with complex reverberations from the real world… Any attempt to derive a simple message from this work would be an injustice to the originality of the atmosphere, the complexity of the interplay of its elements, and the simple pleasure of savoring Valente’s exuberant writing.

From Locus:

Catherynne M. Valente’s Six-Gun Snow White moves Snow into the wild, wild west and her take on this trope has all that you’d expect: prospectors, duels, horses, and dust. But Valente rips the beating heart out of the old versions of the story, dissects it to see how it works, jams it back into this new tale, and gives it a jolt of juice to bring it back to life. Six-Gun Snow White is a vital marvel.

From SF Crowsnest:

…any reader who loves magical, poetic prose can dive into this sad and beautiful little story and take pleasure in the author’s elegantly rendered wordscapes.

The latest, greatest, issue of Subterranean is now available, and includes wonderful work by Jay Lake, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Francis Slattery, and Tobias S. Buckell. The latter's story shares a setting with his popular novella, The Executioness.

There are a couple of stories we'd especially like to draw your attention to:

• Painted Birds and Shivered Bones (Kat Howard)—Kat may be the finest young fantasy writer we've seen since Rachel Swirsky. Her published stories thus far have all been on the short side, sharp ideas with sharp prose, honed until they fairly glitter with brilliance. We pushed her a bit, and commissioned a novelette, "Painted Birds and Shivered Bones", which marries a strong plot to the idelible prose. We not so humbly think it's her best story yet.
• The Indelible Dark (William Browning Spencer)—We are accustomed to Bill's fiction being quirky, at times crossing the border from idiosyncratic to odd. "The Indelible Dark" does that one better, containing the tale's creator's notes embedded within the story itself. "Indelible" won't be to everyone's everyone's taste, but we happen to think it's brilliant.

We hope you enjoy the stories, either on screen, or via (epub and mobi) download.

The Best of Joe Haldeman continues to rack up kudos. First up is a new review from SFRevu, followed by some fo the praise the book has received elsewhere. The trade print run isn't exactly robust, so we fully expect it to go out of print shortly after publication.

From SF Revu:

Joe Haldeman has made his formidable reputation as a hard science fiction author, combining knowledge of science with sparse yet elegant prose and an excellent grasp of what makes people tick. The Best of Joe Haldeman showcases his range, with stories from science fiction to horror, tongue in check comedy to deeply serious meditations on mortality, and from short big idea stories to lengthy investigation of character and setting. Haldeman is a compulsively readable author… Haldeman is clearly a major talent, and this collection showcases his strengths.

From Publishers Weekly:

Demonstrating that the hard-to-market novella is perfect for science fiction, this collection of 19 stories by SFWA Grand Master Haldeman (Earthbound) features several tales that bring out his ability to wrap hard science speculation with deep human feeling…

From Library Journal:

From the tense, military action of ‘Hero’, the basis for Haldeman’s award-winning classic The Forever War, to the horrific short story detailing the prison of the future, ‘Complete Sentence’, the 19 pieces collected here bear witness to the brilliant and hard-hitting prose of one of today’s most significant sf voices.

Limited: 250 signed numbered hardcover copies: $60
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition: $45
 

As the author of the bestselling Lost Fleet series, Jack Campbell’s name is well-known to fans of interstellar heroics. Now, with his thrilling new novella The Last Full Measure, Campbell brings his keen eye for military adventure and political intrigue to a tale that is earthbound, but no less wondrous…

In a transformed mid-nineteenth century America dominated by plantation owners and kept in line by Southern military forces, a mild-mannered academic from Main, Professor Joshua Chamberlain, stands accused of crimes against the nation. In court alongside him is Abraham Lincoln, whose fiery rhetoric brands him a “threat to the security of the United States of America.” Convicted, Chamberlain is sentenced to forty years hard labor, while Lincoln’s fate is indefinite detention at Fortress Monroe. But Professor Chamberlain then encounters military minds who understand the true ideals upon which the country was founded and who want to foment revolution. To succeed, they need a leader, someone to inspire the people to take up the cause of liberty: Lincoln. All they have to do is flawlessly execute a daring plan to rescue him from the darkest federal prison.

In The Last Full Measure, Campbell delivers a riveting look at an America where war is imminent, and nothing is as it should be.

Limited: 250 signed numbered copies, bound in leather: $45
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover copies: $20

Herewith the just published review of Jack Vance's Magic Highways, from Publishers Weekly:

“Even a Grandmaster needs to begin somewhere. This evolving collection of 16 early SF stories by Vance, an award winner for mystery, fantasy, and science fiction, starts off with space opera in its pulpiest form…and proceeds to the more sophisticated vocabulary and cultured characters associated with his classic works such as The Dying Earth.”

As the book is already in print, no need to delay your gratifiction. Feel free to get your order in now.