Solar Clipper Diary

News from the Golden Age

Pink Snowbunnies…

By on September 1, 2011

Yeah. Not a title I thought I’d use here.

A few months back, Debora Geary made an offhand comment on a forum. It was something along the lines of, “Yeah, and pink snowbunnies will ski in hell before THAT happens.” Within a few hours, a graphic artist had whipped up the cover and a totally silly project was born.

This is a flash fiction anthology from twenty people who have nothing in common except they volunteered to write a story using “pink snowbunnies in hell” or some variation thereof. I have a story in there — a bit of backstory about Stacie Arellone before she joined the Agammemnon.

The whole collection of stories is 99-cents and all proceeds will go to an animal shelter that we haven’t picked yet. We don’t expect this is going to make a lot of money, but we all had a lot of fun putting it together. Well, maybe everybody but Debora Geary.

Anyway, you can find it on Amazon and Smashwords. It’s a cool way to discover some new indie authors that you might otherwise never run across. Give it a try and see what you think.

This entry is filed under News, Short Stories. | 8 Comments

Merch

By on August 28, 2011

Private trades or just dressing up your area?

I’ve fixed up my Cafe Press Store and added a new item! I’ve also lowered the prices on some of the stuff and re-done the logo on the watchstander’s mug.

Be ready for the next Co-op meeting!

Yes, this is my store. Every once in a while somebody discovers it and asks if this is a bootleg. Nope. I started this right after I produced Quarter Share and got a little carried away, but haven’t spent much time there since. Do you have any requests? Leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

This entry is filed under Merchandise. | 17 Comments

Coffee Anyone?

By on August 24, 2011

Hey, Crew?

One of the perennial questions I get is “Where can I buy Djartmo Arabasti? How about Sarabanda Dark?”

As a matter of fact, I’m in negotiations with a local roaster to provide exactly those coffees as a custom blend. One question that really needs to be answered is “How many?”

The coffee will be about $12 plus shipping for a standard 12 oz bag of fresh roasted, whole beans, but I think the price comes down to around $30 for a three pound bag. I’m not sure on the price and it’ll depend on the final mix but that’s about what the roaster currently offers for one-off custom blends. I might be able to negotiate something better than that if we have enough volume and the blends aren’t too expensive.

Bottom line, this is The Good Stuff, folks. I’ve sampled his work and it’s spectacular.

If you’re interested and likely to be willing to drop the dime on this, would you leave a comment? It’s not a purchase commitment or anything. Just a rough gauge of the interest.

Thanks, crew.

[Update: I talked to Keith again today at the farmer's market and he's hooking me up with his "label guy" to do some special labels for this. I also sampled what I'm pretty sure will be the base coffee for the Sarabanda Dark. Keith is amazed and amused by the whole idea and I'll be going to visit next week for some sample tastings with various blends. This is going to be epic. -Nate Aug 27, 2011]

This entry is filed under Merchandise. | 76 Comments

Double Share Delayed

By on August 24, 2011

Well, crew, I thought we’d get the book out this month. It was on the Ridan calendar for August as of the end of May but they’re saying September now.

I know the book is with the editor but I haven’t seen the response yet so I don’t know how much more work will have to happen before we can release it. They’ve had the draft for awhile now, so I’m hoping to see that edited draft come back soon and we’ll see about getting the ship back on course. I’m still hoping we’ll get Captain’s Share out in December and Owner’s Share out by April 2012.

In the meantime, Cape Grace is chugging along (slowly right now but building up some speed) and I’m giving serious consideration to releasing the Ravenwood series as a self-publish and sandwiching it between Ridan releases of the Solar Clipper Tales. By the time I could get to that, I’d expect to have Cape Grace, and the Ravenwood sequels both done and available in audio.

That’s a big step for me and we’ll have to see how things shake out over the next couple of months. I’ve got a ton of audio work to do for a variety of people so that’ll also have an effect on my written output.

In the meantime, the Parsec Awards will be announced on September 3rd and I’ll be attending Dragon*Can’t again this year. We’ll be having some kind of Parsec Party during the ceremony so that’ll be a hoot.

That’s all I got for now.

This entry is filed under Books, Double Share. | 12 Comments

Parsec Finalist

By on August 1, 2011

For the fourth year in a row, I’ve got a novel in the finals of the Parsec Awards. This is the Sixth Annual award ceremony so that’s a pretty good average. I don’t think anybody else has had that many finalists*.

To recap:

2008: Full Share and South Coast.
2009: Double Share
2010: Captain’s Share (Won!)

This year, I’m honored to have two nominations in the finalist lists.

  • Owner’s Share is on the short list for Best Speculative Fiction (Long Form)
  • The Amazing Amulet of Amenartas is on the short list for Best Speculative Fiction (Short Form)

The ceremony and awards will begin at 4:30pm EDT, Sept 3, 2011. I won’t be able to attend (drat) but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of live tweeting and we’ll undoubtedly have a Parsec Panel following along at Dragon*Cant this year, as well.

For the full list of finalists, visit the Parsec Awards web site.

Thanks to everybody who nominated and supported these two works. Special thanks to Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine for inviting me to play in their sandbox by contributing a steampunk story to the Tales From the Archives anthology, and for the superb post-production work.

We’ll know in a month …

* As Mainframe pointed out in the comments, I’m certainly not the top dog in “most finalists” overall. I was thinking *Long Form* and mis-spoke in my excitement.

This entry is filed under News, Owner's Share. | 19 Comments

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