Hi, let me fill you with anguish (Book of the Week, only it can never be).

There is a book called “The Stone Table.” It was written by a fellow called Francis Spufford. It is, as far as I can tell, spot-on in its emulation of the tone of the Chronicles of Narnia.

AND THERE IS NO WAY FOR ME TO GET A COPY. Only 75 exist (privately bound, I wager, and absolutely not offered for commercial sale). I don’t even know who to suck up to. This is torture.

So. *Mayyyyybe* DragonCon in 2020.

Not 2019 because it’s far too late to get a hotel room, I have other stuff going on usually on DragonCon dates, and… 2020 because there is a Plan. It is in the early stages yet, and there have to be things done first, in a particular order. The whole thing will be a bit of a decision tree, in its way.

But there is a Plan.

Book of the Week: River of Night.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I have spent most of the last week or so fitfully asleep and/or mildly delirious. I reread a bunch of stuff, when I was reading at all, and I was not particularly concentrating on what I was reading. But I have been haunting Baen.com for the E-ARC of John Ringo and Mike Massa’s River of Night (the next one in Ringo’s Black Tide Rising zombie apocalypse series), so I guess that should count, hey? …No, it’s not up at the site. It’s not even coming out until July. But I wants it, I do.

Book of the Week: Pirate Utopia.

Bruce Sterling’s Italian Futurist alternate-history Pirate Utopia is, indeed, more of a novella than a novel, so pick it up in Kindle. If you like Italian-themed dieselpunk that is very, very strange and not at all concerned as to your expectations from books. I will warn you; this is an odd-tasting tome. Many people who have reviewed it seem to scratch their heads as to whether or not they actually liked it, although almost nobody seems to be upset that they read it. I’m not even sure whether I really liked it, either. But I’m not upset that I read it.

In the Mail: To Sir, With Love / London Underground.

These are both ‘Unofficial Legends of the Secret World,’ but author Blodwedd Mallory has gotten the licensing rights to write To Sir, With Love and London Underground and set them in the Secret World video game universe. And before you ask: why, yes, I have emailed FunCom’s legal department to inquire about how one might go about getting permission to do that. Why do you ask?

Continue reading In the Mail: To Sir, With Love / London Underground.

Book of the Week: The Missing and the Lost.

It’s not available yet, but surely Robin Laws will sell The Missing and the Lost on Amazon. And get it print-published: it’s simply that good. Basically, it’s an alternate-history horror novel set in an America that has just had a successful revolution against the Imperial Castaigne Dynasty of America. It’s all full of Yellow Sign and Carcosa goodness, and absolutely stands on its own as a novel.

No embed, but you can preorder here.