Sold Out!

The Subterranean Press edition of Songs of the Dying Earth has sold out! They won't be printing any more.

But look what Uncle Walter has found for you! A handful of copies remain in an obscure, hard-to-find online venue.

If you don't buy a copy now, you'll have to wait a year or more for the Tor edition.

My Fame Advances

The Review Fairy has been good to me this week.

First, This Is Not a Game got a nice review in the Seattle Times.

Fast-paced and with an immensely satisfying resolution, "This Is Not a Game" uses the latest true-to-life phenomenon of "Alternate Reality Games" to make its gripping story's grasp tighter, more relentless, and one you'll miss when it at last lets you go.

Then, Implied Spaces got a nice mention over at the Mad Hatter.

Williams has amazing ideas about technology and what could happen to society given the chance . . . Williams somehow mashes up conspiracies, zombies, AIs, government bureaucracy, planet crushing weapons, and galactic war yet it never seems absurd.

And then Songs of the Dying Earth, and my story in particular, were praised in a very thorough review over next door in the Wertzone.

'Abrizonde' by Walter Jon Williams is a highlight, featuring the besieged castle of Abrizonde and charting the fortunes of the hapless Vespanus who is trapped within. This is a great story, tense and dramatic with an amusing finale . . . Songs of the Dying Earth (****½) is an exceptionally strong collection, a rich and sumptuous banquet of tales from the end of time. The weak links here are not enough to dilute the impact of the best stories in the collection, and the best stories are thought-provoking, memorable and sharply funny.

And it's only Tuesday! The only way it could get better is for you all to go forth and buy some of my books!

And Speaking of Jack Vance . . . .

A new Dying Earth volume will be released any day now, a book that is not by Jack Vance but of Jack Vance.

Songs of the Dying Earth is a collection of stories written in honor of Vance, by writers like Kage Baker, Tanith Lee, Mike Resnick, Dan Simmons, Robert Silverberg, and yours truly. It's a pretty nifty anthology, if I do say so myself.

Or, as Library Journal put it in their starred review:

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance. Subterranean. Sept. 2009. c.632p. ed. by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois. illus. ISBN 978-1-59606-213-9. $40. FANTASY

Of the many novels written by sf Grandmaster Vance, his "Dying Earth" series remains the most popular and most memorable of his oeuvre. Now top sf and fantasy authors including Tanith Lee, Mike Resnick (Hazards, reviewed above), Tad Williams, and Robert Silverberg have contributed stories and reminiscences to this mammoth collection of tales set in that unforgettable universe, one in which Earth's sun is a dying red dwarf and in which irascible mages, clever scoundrels, and ordinary folk wait around for their world's inevitable demise.

VERDICT From Dan Simmons's new novella about a wild search for the Ultimate Library ("The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderoz") to Walter Jon Williams's tale of an architectural student caught up in a war between two great powers ("Abrizonde"), the 23 stories not only capture the unique feel of Vance's dying universe but stand individually as one of the strongest gatherings of writers to pay homage to one of their own. Despite the price, this is highly recommended.

The book is from Subterranean Press, and is a hardback with excellent illustrations by Tom Kidd. A limited, slipcased edition will be available later, for the collectors among you.

But why not buy both?