Today’s awesome things are all about me (I swear this wasn’t the plan when I started this on Sunday). :)
First, today is the official release day for WALKING DEAD, book four of the Walker Papers! As far as I can tell, everybody I know bought it two weeks ago, but still, today is the official release day!
Seattle’s a great place to live…if it weren’t for the undead.
For once, Joanne Walker’s not out to save the world. She’s come to terms with the host of shamanic powers she’s been given, her job as a police detective has been relatively calm, and she’s got a love life for the first time in memory. Not bad for a woman who started out the year mostly dead.
But it’s Halloween, and the undead have just crashed Joanne’s party. Now she has to figure out how to break the spell that lets ghosts, zombies and even the Wild Hunt come back. Unfortunately, there’s no shamanic handbook explaining how to deal with the walking dead.
And if they have anything to say about it–which they do–
No one’s getting out of there alive.
Second, to go along with WALKING DEAD’s release, my web guru, Laura Denson, recently did a recording of “Rabbit Tricks”, the Walker Papers short story that fits chronologically between COYOTE DREAMS and WALKING DEAD.
Third, my longtime friend and writing partner Sarah Palmero did a two-minute voice recording from THE QUEEN’S BASTARD. I think both of these are pretty damned cool (if utterly bizarre, because wow, really weird to hear someone else reading my words!), and would like to thank them both profusely for doing these and letting me post them publicly!
Fourth, I just noticed several of my books have been nominated as contenders for 101 Best Fantasy novels. I have to admit that given some of the company (which ranges from Lloyd Alexander to Diana Wynne Jones with all points between), I feel my presence there is a bit ludicrous, but also quite wonderful and I wouldn’t mind making it onto somebody’s top 100 list, so if you wanted, you could go vote. :) And my thanks to whomever nominated me, how cool of you. :)
Fifth, I’m terribly smug to show off the (tiny–if you want to see it full sized you’ll have to buy the story) cover for “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”, which was painted by manga artist Lanny Liu.
Along those same lines, “Hot Time” has debuted amongst its patrons today. (I wasn’t thinking, when I changed its due date to September 1st, that that was also the release date for WALKING DEAD. Oh well, everybody got WD early anyway, so “Hot Time” still gets to be a little bit special.) For those who didn’t join the fundable commission the first time through, the novella will be available to purchase in February 2010, after which it’ll go off the market permanently until it finds a traditional publisher.
Also, it is possible I’m just flat-out taking the rest of this week off. I have one million things to do, but I’m not sure I care that much right now. A week of down time is not going to put me any more insurmountably behind than I am already. :)
(I’ll post real awesome things later, honest. :))
Walking Dead is up at Audible today!
And your reader is the FABULOUS Gabra Zackman, who has been reading the series since book 2.
I am impressed you rated a Tuesday release for them, as usually it’s the following Saturday.
Ooh, excellent! I haven’t listened to any of the audio books, it’s too weird. :)
Thank you for linking to the 101 of the Best Fantasy Books project! I hope your books do well!
I hope that when Joanne reaches for her sword in the ether she does not accidentally grabs Annja Creed’s (the Rogue Angel) sword which is also being kept there for quick access. Any chance of a Harper Blaine/ Joanne Walker cross over novel or A Mercy Thompson/Joanne Walker radio show to to compete with the NPR Car Talk Guys
In all seriousness I truly enjoy the Walker Papers and the Pretender series thank you for writing them