Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Ode To A Dead Hard Drive

Back in September I flew out to Celesticon in San Francisco – a wonderful game convention, by the way. I ran a fun Mars Needs Steam game and generally had a great time. Because I had a lot of work to do I took along my computer. This was very nearly my undoing. In the course of travel my computer got bumped and started acting strangely afterwards, becoming more and more “difficult” until at least it packed it in completely. The problem ended up being a bad hard drive, perhaps damaged by the bump suffered while travelling. Fortunately almost everything was on my most recent backup and in any case everything was recoverable from the disc itself. Nevertheless, I was out of action for the better part of two weeks and the following two months were a cascading story of backed-up projects and piled-up deadlines. I am at last seeing daylight – just in time for the holidays and more travel. We’ll see what that brings me, but for now I’m caught up on the fiction front. The game rules front is an entirely different story.


Here are the major writing projects I’ve packed away in that time – just so you know there’s no moss growing on me. I did a science edit of the next Space 1889 and Beyond novel, originally titled To Ceres By Steam but now renamed Mundus Cerialis and now co-authored by Sharon Bidwell and Andy Frankham-Allen. More on that later. I finished the big rewrite on The Forever Engine for Baen Books and sent that off end of October. In November I got the typesetting markups of How Dark The World Becomes from Baen and turned those around, then got the final typeset manuscript last weekend and sent my corrections back for that this morning. How Dark The World Becomes is now out of my hands and cruising toward its February release.  I know it’s not Space: 1889, but it’s a Pretty Big Deal for me, so please bear with me.

Here’s where things stand right now on How Dark The World Becomes. The novel will appear in trade paperback format in February of 2013, just a couple months from now. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com and they have it at a reduced price, under $10.00. (Its cover price is $14.00.) Here’s the link for that:

If you absolutely cannot wait that long (and how could you?) it’s now available as an electronic advanced reading copy (eARC) directly from Baen Books. Here’s the link to their main site and you’ll see How Dark features as one of the new e-releases this month.

You should check out the Baen site even if you don’t intend to buy the eARC, as  the site has the first seven chapters up as a free reading sample. That should help you decide whether the book is to your taste (although really, how could it not be?)

9 comments:

  1. Mr. Chadwick, if you travel with your laptop much, you might consider getting one with a solid state drive and using one of the 'cloud' servers such as google drive or dropbox for saving your files (or at least backing them up).

    While not infallible, a solid state drive at least doesn't have moving parts that are quite easy to bang around. I'll be making such a replacement when my current laptop gives up. I don't travel extensively with it, but I've ran into quirky drive issues and glitches after accidentally setting the computer down too firmly on a side table when I'm getting up.

    Glad to hear that you ultimately didn't lose much or anything.

    How Dark the World Becomes looks interesting, I'll be heading over to Baen to have a look. Thanks for the years of entertainment you've given with your works.

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    1. Thanks, Anthony, that's good advice about the hard drive. It's really remarkable how out of action -- or just plain out of it -- you become without a computer.

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  2. Hi Frank

    Earlier this year, you gave my work very favourable reviews on two occasions.

    I'd like to let you know that as a small token of my thanks, I have nominated you for a Liebster Blog Award...

    It's the very least I can do.

    Thanks for getting me started in VSF all those years ago!

    Colonel O'Truth

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    1. Colonle, thank you very much. Win or not I'm honored you would nominate me. As to getting you started in VSF, I've often said, "What's the point in suffering from a disease if you can't gove it other people?'

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  3. Hello Frank

    Opps, it Appears great minds really think alike, I searched through my blog list and sent you another Liebster award that Colonel O'Truth also sent to me. So two for you. From now on I think you should refer to yourself as the Godfather of Staempunk. I think it fits. Like the Colonel above tahnks for getting me started in VSF all those years ago.

    http://mlwodementia.blogspot.com/2012/11/liebster-2-another-award-for-my-little.html#more

    ColKG

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    1. Colonel,thank you as well. Very thoughtful. Much as I like steampunk (and have done so since before there was such a term), I think K.W. Jeter deserves thetitle more than I, for actually inventing the name.

      BTW, I kinda like the spelling "staempunk" in your post, although it brings a sort of Greco-Roman alternate world to mind, doesn't it?

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    2. Opps, spelling fail. Thinking faster than I can type. Jeter may have coined the term Steampunk but I stick to my statement. My current and many other peoples interests in the Steampunk genre can be directly linked to Space 1889.

      Thanks again
      ColKG

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  4. Yeah, a hard drive crash is terrible. The thought of it just forces you to check off options in your head (" Should I get external? Should I re-up my memory space?") - and be constrained by them. It's annoying. And I shouldn't have had to do, since data storage methods are plenty on the net; was just a matter of forking off the cash to buy them.

    WilliamsDataManagement.com

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