This doesn’t suck.

(makes entry into chart.)

Okay, prelimary ranking is between "Cubs rotation (when healthy)" and "120 lumen LEDs" on the doesn't suck chart.

It'll have to be tweaked, I'm thinking it's more likely to be up with "Fuller's ESB on cask, properly kept" and "40GB iPod with a new battery.", but I'm conservative with initial rankings.

Anybody else have something for the chart?

So how long does it take until the mere mortals get their fix?

(WANT!)

Ah, I can't wait to get my greedy little hands on it.

Review copy?

SQUEEEE!

No, wait. That means I still have... (calculates) ...a really long time to wait.

(sigh)

Um, what Cory said? (Yeah, that's gonna happen)

*Skwid's chromatophores advance toward chartreuse*

Ooooooh!

(claps hands in girlish glee)
(realises that a Very Long Wait will be had)

Ah well. It's still somewhere around 28-y-o Springbank on the "doesn't suck" chart.

Usually my besetting sin is pride. Today, however, it is envy.

Oh why don't you just go ahead and say neener neener neener while you're at it?

Yeah? Yeah? Well--well--I got to see _Serenity_ last week, so there!

. . . along with hundreds if not thousands of other people, while _Dzur_ is going to take longer for wide release and will be seen by vastly fewer people along the way. Also, I bet I'll like it better.

Ummm, never mind.

*slinks away consumed by envy*

No. That doesn't suck at all.

I am in awe of just how much it doesn't suck.

I think the average suckiness level of the world just dropped a few points after that announcement.

Has anyone ever told you that there are times when you're just plain evil?

Wait. I did. Back when it was Sethra Lavode...

Hmm. Now to see if I can wrangle a review copy.

now i get to spend the rest of my summer fretting in anticipation. but i am SO happy anyway!

Nope, that don't suck at all.

There have been only a few times in my life when I've hated someone for base, petty reasons. Today it's YOU!!! :-)

Just wait 'til you read about Vlad's newly-minted kid brother. Oh, those wacky Serioli monks and the false memories they create!

I wonder about Steve's decision to call him Melvin, though.

Dear Patrick,

That last bit was just plain cruel.

Please, Kate, how was "Serenity"? No, I don't want spoilers. I only want to know if it's good, for those who are fans of "Firefly" and for those who never saw the show.

I shouldn't mention that I got to hear part of it at SFRA, should I?

And yes, it's good. But you knew that. *g*

YAY! The wait will be long and hard, and I'm not sure I got enough food to survive that long. But I must.

At which point I must say how cool it was to be at SFRA and hear BOTH Elizabeth Bear and Steve Brust. They defined the "cool table" when formal events paused and drinks began. Steve Brust did one-up others at said table by describing "Serenity" to the jealous (John Barnes et al.) with some faux spoilers.

Did I say how often Steve Brust praised Patrick's editing?

Elizabeth Bear was more clever AND cogent on some panels than several distinguished professors in the SciFiLitCrit world. And tied with Serena Powers for best urbane-in-the-face-of-mundanes (and Las Vegas is like feeding time at the Zoo of Mundanes).

Please, Ms. Bear, tell us your memories of the high points of the SFRA con!

Dear Patrick: Nuh-uh, he did not. Not Melvin. Really.

Tease.

Dzur! Dzur! It rhymes, sort of, with mirth! Will the book be of large girth? When will we see its birth?

Serge, my reaction to _Serenity_ was somewhat mixed, but I think it will improve on re-watching: I may have misinterpreted a spoilery thing that I disliked, and I was not at my best last week due to personal stuff. The general fan opinion seems to be very good, though there doesn't seem to be consensus on how well it will work for non-fans.

It is certainly very exciting.

A no-spoiler reaction with a little more detail is here; for those who's seen it ONLY, you can read the spoiler version hitting the little green right-arrow button that will bring you to the next post.

You really, really don't want to be spoiled for the movie. In fact, I'm going to go add some whitespace to the post now in case someone clicks the button by accident.

Thanks, Kate. Maybe your reaction to "Serenity" had the same cause as mine to my first showing of "X-men" in 2000: I was so concerned that they wouldn't do it right that I kept looking at the movie's parts and not the whole. I'm kind of feeling that way about the "Fantastic Four" (but at least, Chikliss and the actor playing Doom are both fans of the original comics so THEY won't screw it up).

I'm trying to think of a more cogent response than "Ooh! Ooh!", but fangirly glee has temporarily deadened my upper brain functions.

So: Ooh! Ooh!

It’ll be showing up in my mail as a set of attached files.

Which will immediately be forwarded to everyone posting in this thread.

(I can dream, can't I?)

Patrick Nielsen Hayden: "Just wait 'til you read about Vlad's newly-minted kid brother."

Uh-oh, the Vlad Taltos series jumps the shark, just like when Cousin Oliver joined the Brady Bunch!

TH asks a good question. How long until the book hits the bookstore shelves and Amazon.com warehouse? How typical is that delay time? In general, what's the lead time for books between acceptance and publication?

(Yes, I know the answer you want to give is "it depends," but.)

So, if someone were to jump into this universe, which book should they start with?

Starting at the beginning is usually the best. *heh* Of course, with a series that jumps around in time like this, beginning can be a relative concept...

Most of the early novels are out of print and have been reprinted the last few years in omnibus editions. Look for _The Book of Jhereg_ which contains the first two novels, _Jhereg_ and _Yendi_. If you like those, the next omnibus should be _The Book of Taltos_.

This would be a good place to take a break from Vlad and try _The Phoenix Guards_. Note that TPG takes place in the same world at an earlier point in history and has an entirely different narrative voice.

After that, you should be able to figure out where you want to go with the books on your own. ;-)

Any self-respecting Dragaeran would not think of reading Brust's books in any other order than that of the cycle (that's Taltos, Phoenix, Dragon, Lyorn, ..., Athyra, Phoenix again, and finishing with Demon, or whatever Brust calls his 19th book). This order is not recommended for us mere Easterners, however.

Read "Orca" after most of the other books. Read "Issola" last. Read "Jhereg" first. Read "Brokedown Palace" somewhere in the mix. The 19th Book will be called "The Final Contract" or something similar.

When I do re-reads I alternate between publishing order and temporal order. Both work well.

So, is it wrong to want to become an author just so you can make author friends and get to read their books before everyone else?

Not me. All I want is a review copy. I can get those if I ask the right people.

To those wondering when this will be published: I have no more idea than you, but Mr. Brust wrote:

The occasion was the completion of the first draft of Dzur.

Now, on to revisions.

which, sadly, seems to imply that Dzur may still be a ways off from being ready to publish.

Tina: it seems you have either an odd accent, or an odd sense of rhyme.

Chris Sullins:

"... is it wrong to want to become an author just so you can make author friends..."

Not wrong at all. In fact, a pretty good reason. One reason I write is find friends among my readers. Another reason is to be able to find friends among coauthors and coeditors. Another is to better understand myself, so that I can be a better friend.

As the comic says darkly: we're all born alone, naked, bloody, and screaming, and we all die that same way. So why not burn our books at both ends in the meantime, and meet someone in the glow?

And now, for something completely different: "squeee!"

We now return you to your usual nattering.

(Whoops. Sorry 'bout that. Ny inner fangirl snuck out for a minute.) However, I do agree with her.

Jonah: 'Sort of', meaning, 'okay, not really'.

Also, sleep dep.

Skwid,

Never hurts to ask. I recently emailed Jeff Vandermeer's UK publicist and asked for a review copy of the new expanded edition of City of Saints and Madmen, which won't be out here in the US until next spring. They cheerfully sent me one. (my review of the book is here).

From what I gather, this is a lot less likely to happen in this instance but the worst thing you'll hear is, "No."

Jonah: That post from Steven was June 17 - the revisions referred to in that post were the ones he wished to make before sending a draft to Teresa. Now he will wait for Teresa's comments, then the book will no doubt be revised again. This is a not uncommon way in which an author interacts with an editor. After all, Teresa may not take to the goofy antics of young Melvin, no matter how many times Loiosh hurts him, or threatens to.

There is little way of knowing how many cycles this will go in or how much time there is from now until the book comes out, but I join you in hoping it will not be long.

Oooh, that was just the pick up needed to get through the rest of today! Of course, the coffee's not hurting either. :)

Note to self: start making room on the bookshelf.

Wonderful news.

Is it prying to ask where it fits in the time sequence? Is this set after Issola, or do we finally get to find about about Vlad's adventures with potato soup in the East, or the man he assumed couldn't make a ten-meter jump who could?

Also - Serenity was great.

It starts about ten minutes after Issola ends. Reading the prologue made me hungry.

What TOR needs is a nice ARC program we can enter our grovelling requests to. Something like this.

As suggester, I claim first grab.

Jonathan--

I don't think *anybody* is as urbane as Serena. She ranks first in urbane.

I was fighting a cold and a wildfire-induced cough for most of SFRA, but I did have a delightful time providing Native Guide services to Las Vegas for attendees and guests alive, and meeting a lot of delightful and interesting (and intimidatingly intellectual!) people.

Chris, you don't have to be an author to get to read your author friends' books before other people.

Oops, forgot to check the date of Steven Brust's post before posting here. As Anne pointed out, it's from over a week ago.

Dzur! Dzur!
I smile, I purr.
I stroke its fur.
Long wait? What fer?
GRRRRRR!

All one can say is, yippee!

TK

Teresa produced the printout when I saw her this weekend, so it really does exist -- the drool on it was not strictly due to the prologue, at least in my case. Alas that it was in my hands for a comparatively brief time (defined as a period far less than that required to savor the whole); indeed, its removal was as clear a case of sorcerous interruptus as can be imagined.

And no, I can't imagine that any of you are the least bit sorry for me; I doubt I'd be had one of you been in my shoes.

Well isnt this mighty interesting? I've been checking SB's weblog about once a week for longer than I care to admit and was not able to access his site during the last two days - So I threw 'Dzur' into a search engine and *poof* a community of people waiting(well some waiting...) just like me (impatiently). Very exciting.

*drool*

A new Taltos book? And Dzur!?!

*drool*

I suppose the good news is that the wait is four months less than it might have been had I seen this thread originally.

I just re-read Issola, and fell in love all over again. Mumblety-mumble books ago in this series I was Pat Robertson certain that Steve had written himself into a corner with no way out. And of course he's shown me what a fool I am, laughing all the way.

10 mins after Issola, eh? Oh boy oh boy oh boy. I am also reminded that the very first time I read Issola, upon hitting the last word on the last page, I immediately ran to my pc and sent Steve some swiped Thin Lizzy. . .

"Vlad is back in town, Vlad is back in town. . . ."

Yes, that wild-eyed boy has been away.

Word on the street is that it is still 9 months away. If it was complete last June than why does it take well over a year to put it in our hands? And they think the gitmo dudes have it bad!

According to Amazon, DZUR will be available on August 8, 2006.

I can't wait!