A couple days last week were consumed by reading the page proofs for the mass market edition of Salvage Right (by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller), which will be published on April 30. I only found seven errors, which means that the Tyop Hunt through the eARC was very thorough. You guys are good!
This weekend, my plans are to sit with “Wolf in the Wind” and write it a proper ending, so it can be folded into a chapbook with “The Vestals of Midnight,” and “The Road to Pomona’s,” which will mean that all the Archers Beach/trenvay stories will be published. Hopefully, next week, I’ll be able to get back to WIPnovel, from which I have been away too long.
The tax packet is here — and act of High Optimism by the Accountant, but, hey, it’s better to have it on hand and fill in the blanks as various paperwork arrives rather than have to do it all in one Mad Rush.
In and around things, I’m doing a homework assignment for our publisher, which is gathering Series Quotes Down the Ages. This is producing a Certain Amount of Melancholy, on the theme of Absent Friends and Not Going Home Again.
There are a surprising number of reviews and blurbs, from a surprising range of sources. Of course, the internet was cozier Back Then, and the field smaller. It was possible to know most of the people who were writing science fiction, and a lot of the reviewers. For all I know, it’s still easy to Know Everybody, and I’m just Out of the Loop. I do note that a lot of the review sites from which I have quotes are no longer in business, or greatly reduced from what they were, back in the latter part of the last century, and the beginning of this one.
My plan is to share some of these reviews, on Xitter, Bluesky, here; and make a page on Welcome to Liad. I mean, I’m doing the work, why not make it pay for itself, am I right?
So, to get us started, here’s a review from Melisa Michaels, who falls into the category of Absent Friends:
“The Liaden series is a delight . . . Lee and Miller have taken standard space adventure fare, added a touch of romance, and turned the whole into powerful stories that are at once sly comedies of manners, exciting adventures, complex spy thrillers, and compelling tales of human drama. Best of all, they’ve done it in literate yet comfortably transparent prose that brings their alien worlds, societies, and people vividly to life . . . I could not put them down, and now like any fan I am impatiently awaiting more.” —Melisa Michaels, author of Cold Iron and Sister to the Rain