The just-released SF anthology Straight Outta Tombstone has a lot of good stories in it, with a nice mix of authors. Good to see Phil Foglio working in prose again, and I particularly liked the fact that Jim Butcher’s story isn’t one of his usual “you’ll need to read this to understand the next Harry Dresden novel” (which is often used to sell anthologies full of stories I’m not interested in…).

As is usual for Baen, the first two stories can be read for free here.

If you’re a novelist, and I’ve never heard of you, the fastest way to get knocked off my maybe-read list is to include anything in parentheses or after a colon that even hints that this is not a standalone novel. Saga, Series, Trilogy, Book N, A something something, whatever.

A series title that’s significantly longer than the book title guarantees that free is too much to pay for your work. Also, price over $7 for an ebook; I’m willing to go over that for writers I like, up to a limit of $9.99, but that’s it, and only if that’s not higher than the paperback/hardcover price.

A colon followed by the words “A Novel” is a no-shit-sherlock way to guarantee that I’ll cross you off my list, except in the extremely rare case of the moronic publisher who puts it on recent Tim Powers novels. But you’re not Tim Powers.

I read a lot of SF and fantasy novels, but you need to remember that when you put your book up on Amazon, you’re not just competing with this week’s best-sellers. You’re up against decades of novels by Ray Bradbury, Gordon Dickson, Gene Wolfe, Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, Andre Norton, Clifford Simak, Poul Anderson, Tim Powers, Diane Duane, Lois McMaster Bujold, Vernor Vinge, C. J. Cherryh, George Alec Effinger, Barbara Hambly, Patricia Wrede, Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, John Varley, and Doris Piserchia, to give a partial list of whose books I’ve bought on Kindle over the past few years. And I’ve left out a lot of lower-tier names.

Admittedly, some of their publishers are imbeciles who think that a badly-OCRd thirty-year-old novel is worth $12.99 despite the easy availability of used paperbacks for $0.99 plus shipping, but enough of the stuff is out there for a decent price that I can afford to assume that your ambitiously-titled series is crap.

Update: Amazon has started showing a lot of recommendations that include a new warning label, the use of LitRPG in the subtitle. If your work is so weak that you need to call out its obscure genre in the listing, I want no part of it.

I’ve been a big fan of Patricia McKillip’s stories since the ’70s, and I’ve been generally pleased to see her stuff come back into print.

But I’m not going to pay premium prices for reprints, and even more for a DRM’d ebook, so “fuck you, Random Penguin”.

#1 with a bullet to the back of the head: “ebook sales declining”.

Maybe charging 16% more for the Kindle edition than they do for the hardcover has something to do with it? Note that the paperback edition is no longer in print.

I don’t remember what specific book this was. It doesn’t matter, because when the publishers set the price, the Kindle edition is almost always more expensive than the paperback, and pricing it above the hardcover isn’t rare.

And if you look at the reviews, the Kindle editions from major publishers are frequently riddled with errors, and illustrations are often misplaced, mangled, or just plain missing.

Small plug for a book of poetry by my old Japanese teacher, Yumiko Tsumura. Scheduled for release in November.

No, not like this, although the title is certainly Potterish:

Instead, I’m referring to a rather long bit of alternate-canon fan-fiction in which young Harry Potter was raised, not by the Dursleys, but by a science professor at Oxford. As a result, he grew up reading science fiction and fantasy, and learned to apply the scientific method to the world around him. The quite long story has finally been completed:

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The ending is less satisfying than the beginning, or even the middle, but it holds together surprisingly well. And the author was very careful to not only use real science, but to cross-reference each chapter so you can follow up on any concept that strikes your fancy.

Steve lowered his voice. "Now listen to me. This thing is big. The two you ran up against yesterday were not good samples. We're dealing with some tough professionals. I don't know who they are, but from what I've seen I can tell you they're dangerous. So you two are to stay out of this case. That is an order. Stay on Clipper Cay and have fun."

(from The Wailing Octopus, a Rick Brant science-adventure story)

The new Vlad Taltos novel arrived. Drat that horrible evil Amazon! It’s not bad enough that they work hard to sell me the things I want at prices I like, but they had to go and deliver it a day early. The fiends!

I haven’t even read the blurb on this one yet, since I’ll pretty much buy anything Brust writes, the moment it’s available. He may be an unrepentant communist, but the man can write.