On the road again: Chicon, day 6

Last night, after visiting multiple parties and working, I slept for the better part of eight hours.  It was glorious.  I awoke feeling merely tired, as opposed to sick and exhausted, so I was pleased with my body's progress. 

After some work, late brunch was at a well-reviewed vegetarian place, Green Zebra.  The food was decent but no more, a far cry from what the reviews described.  Not a bad meal, but not really worth the cab ride to the restaurant.

More work, then time hanging with friends, checking out the dealers' room, and so on.  I didn't want to miss the Hugo Awards ceremony, so dinner ended up being a quick burger, chips, and soda at the once-famous (courtesy of Saturday Night Live back in the Ackroyd and Belushi period) Billy Goat Tavern. 

From there, we headed to the main ballroom for the awards ceremony, stood in long lines for a long time, and ultimately found seats two-thirds of the way back in the large room.

The two-and-a-half-hour ceremony went well, and Toastmaster/MC John Scalzi did his usual fine job of running the show and being entertaining.  I cheered for the winners and felt bad for the losers.  I'm particularly happy to be able to report that my pal and cover artist for No Going Back, John Picacio, finally won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist.  I say "finally" because this was his eighth nomination.  In an earlier post, I urged folks to vote for him, and though all the nominees were excellent artists worthy of the award, I'm glad John won.

Watching the Hugo Awards ceremony is always bittersweet for me--and, I suspect, for most writers and artists.  Realistically, I am likely never to be nominated, much less win, and that is a hard bit of realism to swallow.  Still, as I have to remind myself regularly, in the end there is only the work.  It is all I can control and all I can do, and when I hope for awards or bigger sales or greater recognition or whatever, that is my ego screaming, and I need to learn to ignore it.  That is a lesson I seem to be taking a very long time to learn. 

No Going Back is busting out all over!

My newest novel, No Going Back, the fifth in the Jon & Lobo series, went on sale yesterday, May 29.  I'm excited that the physical book is now out there!

And, indeed, it is in bookstores, as this photo of the shelves of a nearby bookstore's new science fiction section shows. 

Over at Baen's Web site, you can still vote for the No Going Back trailer you prefer.  If you haven't already done so, please check out both trailers and let us know which one you believe does a better job of making you want to buy the book. 

The redoubtable John Scalzi was kind enough to let me do a Big Idea piece on his very popular blog; you can check out that write-up here.  With these pieces, John lets other writers explain some of the backgrounds of their books.  He was nice enough to let me write one for Children No More and again for NGB, so I am grateful to him. 

NGB is also in all the online bookstores, and you can order the ebook via baenebooks.com. 

Over at Fantasy Book Critic, Liviu Suciu has posted a fairly long and very nice review. 

You can also, by the way, get the audiobook version of No Going Back from Audible.com here. 

So, what are you waiting for?  Nothing says summer fun, birthday present, or even very early holiday gift like a lovely hardcover copy of No Going Back!  Pick up one today--or, better, go for two so you have a spare.

The first day home after a trip

is always a rough one, because somehow no matter how hard you try to keep up while you're away, you find out you're behind once you're home. Today was no exception. I was up late last night processing mail, unpacking, getting settled, and so on, and then it felt like I started running when I woke up and never stopped. So, I'll keep this short.

John Scalzi was nice enough to mention Slanted Jack, One Jump Ahead, the Compton Crook award, and me over at his blog. If you're an SF fan, you probably already read this fun site at least now and then, but if you don't, give it a look. Scalzi's been at blogging a long time, he works at it consistently, and he does good work. His fiction also deserves your attention--and judging from the Hugo award and reprints and so on, it's getting that recognition.

In completely unrelated news that I may have mentioned before, I'm looking for a new chair for my home office, because ever since my last chair died I've been using this twenty-five-year-old POS that hurts my back. If you know of a great office chair, particularly one designed for lots of ass in chair time (a key part of writing), please let me know. This task has been living at the bottom of my enormous to-do list for a long time, but my aching back is helping it rise to the top.

The introduction of a major character awaits me in Overthrowing Heaven, so I'm off to write her first appearance.