Category: Publishing

Are you prepared for Ribbon Dance?

Tomorrow, June 4, Ribbon Dance, the 26th novel set in the Liaden Universe® created by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, officially drops in hardcover and in ebook*.

For your optimum reading experience, you’ll want to lay in plenty of cake, not to mention pretty little cookies with pastel icing, tea, wine, nuts, and maybe a nice tray of cheese and crackers.

After all, nobody wants an incident.

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*As previously reported, Audible has passed on the opportunity to produce a audio edition of Ribbon Dance. Those rights are being shopped elsewhere and as soon as I know more than that, be sure that I’ll share it.

 

Double Vision available to download

Double Vision, including twenty-nine early works by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, was originally published as a trade paperback in 2009 by SRM Publisher, Ltd. This is its first electronic edition.

Titles included are: Ginger and the Bully of Lowergate Court, Sharon Lee; The Cat’s Job, Steve Miller; A Matter of Ceremony, Sharon Lee; Coffee Cat, Sharon Lee; The Big Ice, Sharon Lee; Rain Day, Steve Miller; Master of The Winds, Sharon Lee; The Pretender, Sharon Lee; The Silver Pathway, Sharon Lee; The Year They Brought The Bears to Belfast, Sharon Lee; The Naming of Kinzel, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Kinzel The Innocent, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Kinzel The Arbiter, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; And Hawks for Heralds, Steve Miller; Charioteer, Steve Miller; Stormshelter, Sharon Lee; The Solution, Steve Miller; The Girl, the Cat, and Deviant, Sharon Lee; The Afterimage, Sharon Lee; Master Walk, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Choices, Steve Miller; Cards, Sharon Lee; The Handsome Prince, Sharon Lee; Stolen Laughter, Sharon Lee; The Winter Consort, Sharon Lee; The Inventoried, Steve Miller; Gonna Boogie With Granny Time, Sharon Lee; Passionato, Sharon Lee; Candlelight, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Double Vision is available from your favorite online bookstores.  There will not be a paper copy.  Links below provided as a courtesy.

Baen Books link

Amazon US link

Universal link

First Sunday Check-In

In the US, this is Memorial Day Weekend.  For those of us who are freelancers and still hold to the Old Ways of keeping track of days by mail delivery, this is the first Sunday (no mail day) of the week, the second being tomorrow, aka Memorial Day (celebrated).

It has been a week of Parts, some of which I am not yet at liberty to share.

I can, however, talk about yesterday, which was a perfect Maine edge-of-summer day, when I went to Snow Pond Arts Center in Sidney to the Art/Makers Fair.  By myself.  It was a nice show, with a good cross-section of Maine artists — stained glass, handmade jewelry, pottery, photographs, art prints, designer clothes, cat toys (yes, I bought toys for the cats; that’s in the contract), tie-dye, live music . . . spread across three or four lodges on really beautiful camp grounds.

As I was walking from one lodge to another, having recently departed a conversation with a silversmith, it came to me, as a bolt from the blue (or indeed, as something Steve might suggest), that the silversmith might be able to resize Steve’s wedding ring, so that I could wear it.

Now, I have to pause here and explain that my relationship with Steve is rooted in magic; our first letters to each other talk about how Instant Recognition such as we experienced never happens; that as grown-ups we knew this, and so it was with eyes open that we were going forward — trusting magic.

So, I turned around and went back to the silversmith and asked her if she could resize a ring for me.  She allowed as how she could, so I went home, got the ring and went back.  The silversmith thinks she’ll have it ready for me next week.

I had a few errands to dispatch, afterward, in Augusta.  I thought I might actually eat out, but courage failed, so I came home and made myself a hot tuna and cheese sandwich in celebration (no really; hot tuna and cheese is a treat), noodled around the house some, putting things away and talking with the coon cats, and went to bed early, worn out by all the excitement.

Speaking of excitement — see what I did there?

Yes, excitement.

On June 1 — that’s Saturday! — Double Vision drops.  It is an ebook-only edition, for Reasons.  On June 1, it will be available from All of the Usual Suspects (including Baen). If you’re so minded, you may right now preorder from Most of the Usual Suspects (not including Baen).

As if that wasn’t enough excitement — The Uncle is, even as I type, shipping signed copies of Ribbon Dance to those who ordered.  If you want a signed copy, there are still some left, and you can order from the Uncle here.

The Official Release Day for Ribbon Dance is Tuesday, June 4, when hardcover and ebook will be available from All of the Usual Suspects.  You may preorder now from Most of Them.

A word regarding the Ribbon Dance audiobook.  Audible has chosen not to acquire the audio rights (no, I don’t know why; I expect because previous books haven’t made them enough money; that’s usually the reason for these things).  Baen is trying to place it with another audiobook publisher, but as of Right Now, there is NO Ribbon Dance audiobook on your horizon.  I know some people will be disappointed by this.  Trust me, I join you in your disappointment with a nice side helping of terror.

. . . and I think that catches us all up on the Important Things in Life.

Oh, no, I’m wrong.  Have a picture of Trooper, who has helping me write.

 

Looking for something to read? Of course you are

This just in!

Chicks in Tank Tops, edited by Jason Cordova, including a whole buncha stories by a whole buncha swell writers, including Esther Friesner, Joelle Presby, David Drake, Jody Lynn Nye, Lee & Miller, and more! is now available as an audiobook.  Here’s your link.

And as if that weren’t exciting enough, you may now preorder from your favorite vendor, Last Train Outta Kepler 283C, edited by David Boop.  Check out the table of contents:

David Boop, Introduction
Kevin Ikenberry, Time Marches On
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Last Train to Clarkesville
Kelli Fitzpatrick, The Rogue Tractor of Sunshine Gulch
David Mack, Living by the Sword
M. Tod Gallowglas, The Ballad of the Junk Heap Man and Mistress Bullet
Dr. Chesya Burke, This World Belongs to Monsters
John Stith, Jasper and the Mare
D.J. Butler, Support Your Local Audit Chief
Lezli Robyn, Grace Under Fire
Christopher Smith, Last Transport to Kepler-283c
David Afsharirad, The Double R Bar Ranch On Alpha Centuri 5
Mel Todd, Not My Problem
Mark L. Van Name, Enjoy Every Sandwich

Here’s the Amazon preorder link

About the Carousel Books

So, I’ve had some Questions about the Carousel books (by Sharon Lee) and, more particularly, about the Archers Beach chapbooks.  Follows an attempt to bring everybody up to speed.

NOTE:  There are links embedded for the titles discussed.

In 2010, Baen Books published Carousel Tides, a small-town contemporary fantasy set in the fictional town of Archers Beach, Maine.  Tides was supposed to have been a one-off, but — I blame my brain, which eventually produced two more books in the series, Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas, published by Baen in 2014 and 2015.

My brain also obligingly produced some short stories in the Archers Beach universe, which I eventually collected into three chapbooks.

Surfside, published in 2013, contained short story “Emancipated Child,” dealing with the town of Surfside, just next door to Archers Beach, which had long been without a Guardian; and very short story “How Nathan Archer Came to be a Prince in the Land of the Flowers (by Kate Archer as told to Sharon Lee)” dealing with — well.  What it says.

The Gift of Magic was published in 2015, collecting two stories that had originally been published on Baen.com, “The Gift of Music,” and “The night don’t seem so lonely.”  The first story talks about the healing power of music, in 1920s Archers Beach.  The second story is set in 1969, and deals with finding your home and your heart-family.  It offended some delicate sensibilities when it was published, so, yanno:  Good on you, Past Me.

Spell Bound was published in 2016.  It collected two longish stories first published on Splinter Universe:  “Will-o’-the-Wisp,” and “The Wolf’s Bride.”  The first story again has to do with families of the heart, as well as the nature of truth.  “Bride” is set in Sempeki, the Land of the Flowers, and it’s the origin story of Cael the Wolf, who appears in the novels.

Coming up, on February 20 (no link yet, because it’s still a-building) is Doors Into Change, which includes three short stories:  “The Road to Pomona’s,” “The Vestals of Midnight,” and “Wolf in the Wind.”  “Pomona” was first published on Splinter Universe, and then collected in Horror for the Throne.  It’s a precursor to Archers Beach, dealing with the danger of being able to see into the wyrd.  “Midnight,” first appeared in Release the Virgins, and pits Kate Archer (the lead of the novels, and Guardian of Archers Beach) against the power that inhabits what is possibly the strangest corner of her land.  “Wolf” is a slice of life from Archers Beach, where we find that some folks just aren’t meant to settle down.  The introductory chapters were posted on Splinter Universe; the chapbook includes the complete novelette.

Now, the Carousel books did not sell all that well, but they don’t seem to be as much of a surprise to people as the chapbooks, which sold even less well.  I hope that the above clarifies matters for everyone.

 

New Archers Beach chapbook in the works!

For those coming in late, a bit of History.

Steve Miller ((and Sharon Lee)) were, for many years SRM Publisher, Ltd, a very small press that put out a number of Lee and Miller chapbooks, as well as chapbooks for other authors, notably Ru Emerson, David M. Harris, James A. Hetley, Lawrence M. Schoen, Mark W. Tiedemann, in addition to Liaden Universe® Companion Vol 1 and 2, which were hardback and trade Liaden Universe® paper collections.

Due to a cascade of colliding challenges, including increasing post office rates, the retirement of our longtime printer, and Steve’s health, SRM Publisher ceased operations in 2011, following the publication of Skyblaze: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® No. 17.

Organized in 1995,  SRM Publisher produced paper editions only.  After a period of reorganization, in which rights were returned to authors and Accountings Were Made, there arose in the Lee-and-Miller Fictioneering Empire, the Electronic Heir to SRM Publisher — Pinbeam Books.

Pinbeam Books, aka Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, republished all of SRM’s remaining holdings as ebooks, and, when new chapbooks were inevitably created, because Lee and Miller will keep writing those silly short stories of theirs, Pinbeam Books published those, as well

What does all this, I hear you say, have to do with a new Archers Beach chapbook?

I’m glad you asked.

Way back in 2010, 2014, and 2015, Sharon Lee published a fantasy trilogy with Baen Books, alternatively known as the Carousel Trilogy and the Archers Beach Trilogy.  As almost always happens when I’ve written a novel, there are characters and story-bits left scattered about after, which often become stories, which then have to be published.

Baen accounted for two of those stories, commissioned to appear on their front page, and the rest were nobody’s fault but my own.  After the stories were written, or fell out of contract, they needed to be republished so that people who missed the first publication would have a chance to read them and Pinbeam Books was responsible for those republications, and eventually for reprinted paper editions, as well.

Now! We finally get to the point.

Pinbeam Books will be publishing Doors Into Change, three stories of Archers Beach, on February 20 2024.  This chapbook will include reprinted short stories “The Road to Pomona’s,” and “The Vestals of Midnight,” and newly-completed novelette “Wolf in the Wind.”  The ebook will be available from All of the Usual Suspects, which I am not going to name, because I’ll absolutely miss one by accident and there will be an Outcry.  There will also be a paper edition.

This has gotten unexpectedly long, so I’ll close here with a Sneak Peek of the Cover:

 

Hitting the ground running

. . . for values of running that include a leisurely amble.

So, last year, we had Things to Do, and we were a little lazy in the matter of writing new stories and publishing chapbooks.

Steve and I have just gotten up from a Creative Meeting, and we’ll be doing some work behind the scenes, in and around Novels in Process, and on-going Medical Recalibrations, with an eye to getting new Pinbeam books up and out there.

At this stage in our planning, I’m going to be cautious about sharing details, knowing, as we all do, that no plan survives contact with reality.  I will say that I hope to put out another Archers Beach chapbook, and we also hope to reissue an specialty anthology that has been out of print for more than a decade.  Also in the plan are new Liaden stories loosely (so we think now) around Events on Surebleak while Val Con and Miri are . . . away.

What we can tell you is that the mass market edition of Salvage Right will be published at the end of April; Ribbon Dance will be published on June 4; the Plan B anniversary edition will be published at the end of the year, when we also expect to see The Last Train Outta Kepler 283-C, which will include Liaden story “The Last Train to Clarkesville.”

As for WIPs:  I’m lead on the sequel to Ribbon Dance, and the sequel to it, as the Traders are demanding Equal Time.

Many people have been writing to us about Trade Lanes, the last Jethri Gobelyn novel.  Trade Lanes is taking much longer than we’d like.  Steve’s  recasting the book since an insidious plot miscue meant two of the core threads actually conflict with established Liaden Universe® canon.  Which means the novel is being re-written from the ground up.  Obviously, we want to get this right, and sometimes getting it right means tearing it down and starting over.

For those keeping track at home, we have four books still under contract with Baen:  Trade Lanes, the sequel to Ribbon Dance; the sequel to the sequel ; and a Player to Be Named Later.  At current rates, the last book will be turned in some time in 2027.

And that’s the news that’s fit to print on this fine, cold, Maine morning.

Everybody stay safe, and thank you all for your support, from one side of the Universe to the other.

 

Saturday in the City

It’s a holiday weekend, so I’m told.

Here in the center of Maine, we’re looking at sun and warm weather starting, oh, today, and getting progressively warmer — kissing 90F mid-week — before exiting on thunderstorms, next Friday, and falling off into more seasonal temps.

For those following along at home, I’ve been using my XChair for a little over two weeks now, and it’s a delight.  Well worth the money.

The household is slowly reforming around the hole where Belle used to be.

Trooper has stopped going to her usual places and calling.  He had seemed to form the theory that the front door was involved, and twice tried to step out onto the front porch to scope things out while we were in-loading groceries.  Turned out that was too scary for everybody, and I think we’re past that now.

Sprite has been stepping up into what had been Belle’s special duties, such as sitting on Steve’s lap while he reads, and felining his copilot’s chair.  Firefly has also been coming forward to cover some of Sprite’s duties.

The humans still get lumps in their throats at odd moments, or will abruptly notice that they haven’t seen Belle in a while and hope she hadn’t gotten herself stuck in a closet . . .

It’s a process.

On the Professional side of the coin, Baen has let us know that Ribbon Dance will be released in June 2024.  David Mattingly is even now hard at work on the cover.

Steve is working on Trade Lanes.  Though I had intended to put my feet up and take it easy for the next while, it looks like I’m working on the follow-up to Ribbon Dance.  Well.  If the book’s ready to be written, I guess I’m ready to write it.

I think that catches us all up — no, not quite.

Steve and I went out yesterday to forage, and I very much fear that!

A dragon followed me home.

What on earth is the woman DOING?

Writing, pretty much.  With a side order of interviews/pr in support of Salvage Right, which debuted as the Bookscan Number Two new sf book — everybody give yourselves a hand!  Good work.

We are officially On Deadline for Ribbon Dance — Steve is reading the first +/- 106,000 words, while I’m finishing up the Thrilling Conclusion.  Just this morning, I made the Command Decision to remove a scene of about 6,000 words.  Said scene has been rewritten three times; it still doesn’t work; and it’s time to stop deluding myself that it actually belongs in this book.

A bit of background on Ribbon Dance — it’s based on an unpublished short story, which, being a short story, had a far simpler trajectory than a novel will inevitably have (short stories are Roman Candles; novels are Chrysanthemums — everybody clear now? Good.).

I rather liked the short story, and wanted to preserve the centerpiece scene, but — the novel wanted to talk about other things, like when does protection become oppression; who gets to decide who is Civilized and who is not; ghost routes; what’s love got to do with it; and so on.

Thus, the hard decision to excise 6,000 words from a book that’s due Realsoonnow.

What will probably happen is that Splinter Universe will  publish the origin story, and the pulled scene, after Ribbon Dance publishes.  So!  Something to look forward to.

For those who may have missed them, below is a list of  interviews in support of Salvage Right (yes, we’re still building the Big List of All Interviews Ever, but compiling it is going to have to wait until after Ribbon Dance leaves Maine for Madame’s desk in the south).

Writers Drinking Coffee (audio)

Annie’s Book Stop of Worcester (video)

Baen Free Radio Hour (video)

Speculative Fiction Showcase (text)

Paul Semel Interviews Lee and Miller (text)

We’ve got a couple more interviews upcoming; I’ll post links when they go live.

In Real Life, we did take a day off last week to visit Stonington, and of course there was the gala celebration of Sprite’s 11th birthday, the week before that. Oh, and I got fitted for a heart monitor — about the size of thumb-drive, with attendant phone — that I’ll be wearing into the middle of August.  Steve’s birthday is coming up at the end of this month, and we hope to steal another day away from the keyboards to have a proper celebration.

Here’s a picture from the Stonington adventure.