July Update Post

Okay, end of July, but I snuck it in under the wire.

Tour

Monster Hunter Guardian comes out next month. Because I’ve got a coauthor on this one, and Sarah’s health won’t let her do the marathon crazy 5,000 mile, 16 stop book tours like I usually do, we’re just doing an abbreviated tour for this one.

August 7 7:00 PM | Thornton, CO
Book Signing
Barnes & Noble Thorncreek Shopping Ctr

August 8 7:00 PM | Colorado Springs, CO
Book Signing
Barnes & Noble Citadel-Colorado Springs

And as an added bonus, Dave Butler will be there too for his new novel Witchy Kingdom. I’ve signed with Dave before in Texas, he brings a guitar, sings songs from his books, and always puts on a really fun show.

Audiobook

Because people always ask, yes, there is going to be a Guardian audiobook. Because this one is from Julie, a female PoV character, it’ll be narrated by Bailey Carr. Ollie Wyman will return for the regular Owen PoV books.  Bailey has done some great work though, and she was in the Monster Hunter Files so I’m really looking forward to listening to this one.

In related Audibook news, Tom Stranger 3 should be going into production soon.

Vault Special Leatherbound Edition Grimnoir

After running into a whole bunch of production delays the special edition of Hard Magic is currently shipping.

I signed all of them, and they are truly the best looking books I’ve ever seen. I mean they are straight up gorgeous. Lots of extra art from Vincent Chong inside, and the cover is just amazing, both the French slip jacket cover, and the leather embossed Grimnoir symbol inside.

They still have some available for sale too.  I haven’t heard the ETA on book 2 and 3, but they’ve got the bugs worked out at least.

https://www.vaultbooks.pub/store/p19/Hard_Magic.html

Political Crap

I was out of town most of last week for a business thing, so I missed most of the stupid controversy.  Apparently somebody decided to weaponize Wikipedia to try and delete a bunch of Baen authors off of it. (and by a bunch I mean Mike Williamson, Tom Kratman, Sarah Hoyt, Brad Torgersen, Jody Lynn Nye, Sharon Lee, and they’d started to nibble at John Ringo, and me)

Now of course, these particular editors claimed they were totally unbiased, and they were just trying to delete all of these authors because they were “not notable”.  Other editors disagreed but they got dismissed as “sock puppets”. Any sources which backed up these authors were immediately dismissed for a wide variety of silly reasons.  (and apparently, Baen Books, which is distributed through big dog Simon & Schuster, so it’s on the shelves of the majority of book stores in the country, which has like a dozen NYT bestsellers actively writing for them, is just a “vanity press”…)

All sorts of sources got dismissed and deleted. Sales didn’t count. Primary sources didn’t count. (which was why they didn’t have much luck with mine I think, because love me or hate me, I’ve shown up in a lot of news articles so it’s hard to say I’m not notable). It was pretty obviously a weak attempt to deplatform a bunch of authors for wrongthink (ironic considering what some of those people’s politics are) And many of the arguments boiled down to BUT SOME OF THEM ARE MEAN AND HURT MY FEELINGS!

But thankfully this foolishness got shut down when many honest editors rushed into to argue about why these authors are clearly notable. Thank goodness for the honest, hard working editors who care more about reality than politics.

And one in particular surprised me, but credit where credit is due, John Scalzi jumped in to defend Mike Williamson, pointing out that Mike is clearly and obviously notable as an author.  Scalzi more than likely recognizes the danger here, because if Mike, Sarah, Tom, and Brad aren’t “notable” then neither are most of his friends. You can’t just go around weaponizing info sites to scrub your political opponents. That’s just Orwellian.

Personal Stuff

We are still unpacking boxes!  Moving is nuts. I never want to move again.  The new place is amazing though, so it’s totally worth it.

 

Monster Hunter Guardian, Available Now!
Tom Stranger is the #1 Audiobook in the World. Again!

98 thoughts on “July Update Post”

  1. ” Moving is nuts. I never want to move again.”
    ~
    I’ve seen the pics. I can’t imagine why you’d ever want to. Yardmoose Mountain has become the place that good little monster hunters want to go when they die.

  2. > Scalzi more than likely recognizes the danger here, because if Mike, Sarah, Tom, and Brad aren’t “notable” then neither are most of his friends.

    For example, Teapot, who, as far as I can tell, has never published anything outside of low pay/no pay webzines, or Booger Tic Tac, whose most recent masterpiece is sitting at a lordly #3,237,540 Amazon Sales Rank as I type.

    1. > a lordly #3,237,540 Amazon Sales Rank

      Only 2,144,679 slots below a 1985 reprint of Redcliffe N. Salaman’s “The History and Social Influence of the Potato”, which was originally published in 1949.

        1. Besides being the worst Tic Tac flavor EVER :-), that’s what I call Bogi Takács, Tor.com darling, Locus nominee, and (as of this time around) multiple Hugo nominee. Author or editor of numerous books in the low-millions Sales Rank range.

          “E/em/eir/emself ” is the one who threw a monumental screeching fit on Twitter when the bio on the 2018 WorldCon site referred to “e/em/eir/emself” as “he”, and claimed that this horrible crime, an atrocity unprecedented in the history of the human race, made it “unsafe” for “e/em/eir/emself” to attend the convention.

          1. I don’t remember ever hearing about this guy before… And apparently my life is better because of that. 😀

          2. E /Em/Etc. has sent just under 92,000 tweets. I have no life and even I don’t have time to do that. ????‍♂️

          3. Larry: “I don’t remember ever hearing about this guy before…”

            There was a time when I would have at least HEARD OF all the Hugo nominees, certainly for the major awards like Best Novel. In most cases, I would have already read them all, and would go out of my way to purchase and read any that I hadn’t.

            This year, I’ve only even heard of 2 of the 6 Best Novel *authors*, much less the individual books, and have read none of them. I won’t be rectifying that, either.

            Their “appeal is becoming more selective”, as Spinal Tap would put it.

      1. Sounds like Mr. Salaman’s work needs a fan-level Book Bomb… or at least a swarm of promotion via search inquiries and social media commentary.

        Russian-robot up – astroturf – get spud!

  3. Side note: Baen comes in for a lot of disrespect from the Torling crowd, mostly because Baen A. Publishes writers who are to the right of John Kasich, B. Openly cares about making a profit instead of hiding behind “effecting social change” and “educating through culture” (while still treating its authors better than most publishing houses)vand C. Doesn’t spend all of it’s time kowtowing to WorldCon.

    On other words, it doesn’t matter what your politics are, signing up with Baen basically means you deserve to be unpersoned, because Baen=evil.

    1. Yep, to the TORlings, Baen = Evil. About the only thing they could do other than current, to piss them off even MORE. . . would be to use orange covers.

      Because Orange Books Bad. . . (grin)

    2. yep. Baen doesn’t give a flying fuck what your politics are so long as your stories are good. EXample? Eric Flint self admitted socialist and never hid it

    3. Larry…have fun unpacking your castle! That being said…you forgot the deep, gator filled, moat. Also the bridge across said moat. I mean I know you have clear lines of sight but….*sobs* hungry gators gotta eat too!!!

      1. Not a whole lot of gators in Utah. Bit too cold and dry for them, and I’m not sure the stream at the bottom of the hill in front of Larry’s spread could support more than a dozen, 1-foot long ones even in the summer. On the other hand, catching small ones on your fly fishing rig can be a lot of fun. 😉

  4. I don’t understand why people want to hurt others based on personal politics. I may not agree with someone on their beliefs, I may even fuckin dislike someone personally, but that doesn’t mean I should try and ruin their careers because of it. Unless they’re part of the KKK or something equally stupid and barbaric, personal politics shouldn’t interfere with a person’s career. I like your work, and I’ll continue to support you anyway I can as a result. If someone doesn’t like that then they should probably just, iunno, put their heads in the sand and leave you the hell alone. Maybe I am crazy though.

    1. According to those trying to delete Mad Mike, Sarah, Tom and the others. Was because Mad Mike, Sarah, Tom and the others were Racist, Bigotted Neo-nazis. Ignoring the fact that Mike’s wife is Interracial, Sarah is a Latina, and Tom is married to a traffic stoppingly beautiful Latina. Basically those trying to Unperson a bunch of authors are so full of hate that they are blind.

      1. Brad Torgersen’s wife and family also pose a severe problem for the “Racisty McRacist” narrative.

    2. > I don’t understand why people want to hurt others based on personal politics.

      Because they are evil and enjoy hurting people. The politics is just an excuse. In other eras, they’d be happily beating their slaves, throwing Jews down wells, or burning harmless old ladies as witches.

      1. Current politics rewards intolerance.

        Intolerance breeds intolerant reactions.

        They do not want to see what happens when the right decides to be intolerant.

  5. That potato book just went on my purchase list. It sounds interesting, I love potatoes, and, as a bonus, it will help keep it above that other nonsense.

  6. As a historian I am constantly amused when people so casually throw around the word “racist” when they do not know that it was created by Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Born November 7, 1879 Died August 21, 1940) , better known as Leon Trotsky who got an ice axe upside the head courtesy of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Born December 18, 1878 Died March 15, 1953) which proves God has a better sense of humor than I because after all the deaths Stalin ordered he died peacefully in his sleep in his own bed. I can’t wait for your next book Larry

      1. Didn’t Stalin lay paralyzed (or poisoned) on the floor for a couple of days before dying, because his guards were too frightened to knock?

  7. “We are still unpacking boxes! Moving is nuts. I never want to move again. ”

    When I read this I got a visual of hundreds of boxes filled with individually wrapped mini-figs.

    Have fun unpacking. 🙂

    1. Now, now. I’m sure they’re not all mini-figs. Some of them are surely spare magazines. 🙂

  8. I hope a new Grimnoir trilogy is in the works. I’m really jonesing for some new X-Men stories, and the X-Men comics and movies sure as hell aren’t providing.

  9. LOL, good thing you didn’t go in the military… 22 years, 9 moves… most of those across the country. Otherwise good news! The BS deplatforming has stopped for a while, but I’m betting it comes back next year.

  10. ” credit where credit is due” Good. It is possible for people to find common ground.

    And for folks to realise that if stuff you don’t like can be banned on the whim of a mob, then so can stuff you do like.

    Oh, and good luck with the tour.

  11. I guess “primary sources” means something different in the Wiki age than when I was doing research back in the days when the only computer on campus was the IBM 360 in the basement of the Comp Sci building.

  12. Congrats on getting moved in. The best part about moving into a larger house is realizing you get to buy some new cool new stuff to fill in the space. I followed the brouhaha of Wikipedia and the Authors of Doom but followed Mad Mike’s advice and stayed out of it as I had never cited on there before. I have one question. Although the art is exceptional, will he be correcting the gun Jake is holding? It is jarring to see a minigun in a 1930’s scene since it never appeared in the book.

    1. No. I’ve talked about the wrong gun on the French cover a few dozen times now. I know it isn’t accurate to the book. But it also sends a message which helps sell the book (which is the purpose of a cover) and I think it’s the singe best cover I’ve had.

  13. Tour

    Won’t be in those areas. Whatever health problems Sarah is having, may they be temporary.

    Apparently somebody decided to weaponize Wikipedia to try and delete a bunch of Baen authors off of it.

    Now that there is just, just… Color me boggled. I can not grok the degree of petty meanness that goes into doing such a thing. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them clinically insane, but they have proven themselves to be throughly dysfunctional spoiled children. “Waaaah! Waaaah!! WAAAAAAAAAH!!!

    They deserve to be identified, mocked and ridiculed. Held up and condemned as unfit to associate with decent folks.

    Moving is nuts. I never want to move again.

    I hear ya. Fortunately, you have an alternative — buy some more of Yard Moose Mountain and expand your Evil Lair. Maybe add an indoor range? With a bar! (To be used after shooting, NOT before!) Mountains make such good backstops…

    1. >>Whatever health problems Sarah is having, may they be temporary.

      Seconded, and with the explicit hope that they’re temporary in the _good_ way.

    2. Not only is it mean. It’s deliberate, malicious falsification of information. Frankly, people who do that ought to have their fingers removed, their tongues cut out, and their eyes spoon fed to them so they can never mis-communicate to the world again. Of course I’ve spent the last 40+ years working to ensure true and reliable information is available for people’s use, so I might be a wee bit biased.

  14. Woot. I got my copy of hard magic. It looks sweet. I’m almost afraid to read it. Gonna have to resist reading it in the littlest room.

    1. I haven’t seen you for a while, Camelstraw. I did not know that about Jody, and was going off of what I had been told. Whoops.

      But oh, by the way everybody, this disingenuous piece of shit right here is one of the people who mocked the authors who didn’t like getting erased from Wikipedia for spurious political reasons. And in fact I believe it was this particular useless scumbag, Camelstraw Flappydouche or whatever the fuck his stupid made up name is, who described the authors’ reactions to getting Yezhov’d as a “melt down” or something to that effect. You can always spot the dishonest dismiss attempts because no matter how righteous your claim or how much you’ve actually been wronged, they always paint their opposition’s words as ranting, whining, You Sound Angry, so on and so forth. It’s very predictable.

      While in reality I can say with complete dispassion that guys like this are fucking trash.

      For those of you not familiar with this particular jerk off, he’s one of the parasites of fandom, who creates nothing of worth himself, but who can always be counted on being involved in whatever the latest controversy is, finding snide ways to dismiss those who got wronged, while defending the assholes who are up to no good. I believe the term for what he attempts to do is called gas lighting, but I don’t know if Camsderp Floppytit is smart enough to have ever actually pulled that off.

      1. Yup, I certainly did mock Michael Z Williamson’s reaction as a ‘meltdown’. I think that was an appropriate and apt description given how he reacted. I certainly wasn’t aware from your past body of work here that you had strong feelings against mocking histrionics.

        1. I have little doubt that, had a leftist author been gone after in like fashion, and reacted as Williamson did, you would have applauded them for their passion and eloquence.

          1. On this specific caveat to your point://…and reacted as Williamson did…//

            Good grief no. I’d say to *ANY* author, of any politics that if they thought there page was being unfairly deleted on Wikipedia to NOT react the way Williamson did. I’d point to it as a case study in what NOT to do. It’s just plain bad tactics aside from anything else.

            Of course *strategically* in terms of the ‘Mad Mike’ brand, his reaction is going to play well with his fans and some potential fans…but that’s very specific to *him* and his whole online persona. Most authors (left or right or neither) that would be a terrible idea and damaging to their brand and reputation.

            Note, that’s not the same as people objecting to their page being deleted. As I said at the time, I was sympathetic towards MZWs page not being deleted and most of the people you might call “puppy kickers” that I know also didn’t think his page should be deleted.

          2. Yes, bad tactics. Kratman, Hoyt, Torgersen all ended with strong Keep outcomes. MZW didn’t, leaving open the possibility of the whole shebang happening again – mainly because all the shouty people ‘supporting’ him got in the way of the people doing the actual work of fixing the article.
            As for winning and losing, I stated that I sympathised with keeping the page there and people on my blog actively sought out better external references for the article. Why? Because we’d rather there WAS an article on MZW than otherwise. Of the people who opposed the Sad Puppies that I’m in regular contact with, most (maybe all) wanted MZW’s article to be there. Doesn’t mean we like him or that we’ll be fawningly respectful to him.

          3. I like the part where a talentless loser who creates absolutely nothing of value feels the need to critique the tactics of a creator–even after admitting that what Mike does works well for Mike’s brand–because really, you guys, Carneasada Florptic Cares So Hard.

            Uh huh… Dude, you are so full of shit. You fool absolutely no one. Stick to gas lighting. You are slightly less shitty at that than you are concern trolling.

        2. floppy is very hard-up for something to write about these days, Larry. He’s taken to following me around the Interwebz, sniffing for scandal. All I have to do is write “camel” at any blog, and presently he’ll be there with something slimy to say.

          One does wonder what he hopes to accomplish. Not care, particularly but wonder, in a idle sort of way.

        3. Take your pathetic, mealy mouthed, passive aggressive shtick and fuck off already, Cangeldrip. You are a lying scumbag. Everybody knows it.

          You categorized Mike’s righteous reaction to getting fucked over by the Junior Orwell club as a “meltdown” because that’s what disingenuous shitbags do when somebody on their team wrongs someone. If it had been Tempest Bradford (who has written literally fucking nothing) got upset about some politically motivated scumbag deleting her off Wikipedia, you would’ve been all “So Brave. Clap Clap” you simpering feculent.

          I gave Sclazi props because in this case because he took a consistent moral stand even though the person being wronged wasn’t one of his friends. Fuckers like you on the other hand can always be counted on to be hypocritical ass muppets. You don’t give a shit about truth, you only care about scoring points for your pathetic, whiny, gang of perpetual losers. So quit spying on my blog looking for dirt to share with the File 666 morons, and go back to licking Glyer’s greasy taint. You fucking scumbag.

        4. You really suck at this whole “gaslighting” thing, looking at the other responses to you, you seem to be all gas and no match.

        5. Look, Cameldrip Fappington, you are a hypocrite and supercilious, smarmy parasite. You leech attention by blogging your patronizing take on people whose livelihoods your little fascist pals are trying to destroy. You also unfailingly tend to show up and haughtily defend your fellow mediocrities in various places where you know people don’t like you, because you – like all parasites – love to suck up negative attention so you can justify your continued pompous, overbearing condemnation of people whose achievements you couldn’t hope to match and whose popularity you use to draw idiots to your blog.

          Mike’s reaction was perfectly justified given that shit goblins like you tried to delete him from an online source of information as somehow “not notable,” even though he’s published nearly 20 novels with major publishers, including Harper Collins and Baen. Scalzi was morally consistent in his comments. You, on the other hand, have stepped on your rather sad little dick again with your hypocrisy.

        6. Camel Foreskin:

          How many books has Michael Z. Williamson sold? A million? More? How many people have paid good money to read his words? 100,000 or more?

          How many have paid to read yours? Is there even one?

          You’re not just insulting Michael, you’re giving all of us The Finger, too. Well, I’m giving you The Finger right back. Do you see it, you little wanker?

          1. I take it he’s just butthurt over failing to digitally unperson a bunch of people whose very existence he can’t cope with. But more importantly, that it wasn’t some secret alt-right Russian hacker cell that foiled it, but merely regular wiki editors not falling for that kind of crap. Yeah, wouldn’t you know it, most people don’t really go for the “1984” approach. Even, apparently, a decent chunk of the left.

            Like I said, this is the kind of horror fit for a classic Lovecraftian protagonist – realizing that the world doesn’t work the way you want it to. That the vast majority of people aren’t like you and don’t like you (insofar as they even think about you to begin with). And now, that even those you consider on your side apparently aren’t quite on the same page as you.

            (Except, of course, that Lovecraftian protagonists usually encounter something genuinely beyond human understanding, while the equivalent for libs is a bubble so fragile it can be popped by a mere different opinion. Reality is often disappointing, I guess.)

        7. “Doesn’t mean we like him or that we’ll be fawningly respectful to him.”

          I have no idea who you are and couldn’t give enough of a shit to look you up if I ate 6 quarts of live culture yogurt and a spoonful of Entamoeba histolytica.

          The fact is that page is irrelevant to my sales, and I want those basement-dwelling wankers to delete it and go away. None of them are fit to lick the chickenshit off my farm boots, much less determine my credentials.

          Also, there was a notability challenge to me 11 years ago by an angry, immature 0bama voter (pardon the redundancy), and that failed too.

          Your kind seems determined to try to erase anyone not ascribing to your particular brand of racism and delusions of elitism from record.

          This is why you remain irrelevant.

          1. “…couldn’t give enough of a shit to look you up if I ate 6 quarts of live culture yogurt and a spoonful of Entamoeba histolytica.”

            Damn. That’s good. Wish I’d thought of it.

          1. Pretty much. Though I am impressed by how fast his last response was. I thought the very concept of trolling was to throw the occasional grenade-style irritating comment and let others waste their efforts trying to refute it. Here, it seems the opposite has happened – wannabe troll goes frantic after seeing nobody takes him seriously and scrambles to save face somehow… with no apparent success. Then again, going frantic after seeing nobody takes them seriously is the standard liberal modus operandi nowadays, so at least he’s keeping up with the theme.

  15. It’s getting old at this point, but it bears repeating. You got Infogalactic as an alternative to Wikipedia. Use it. Wikipedia is converged, compromised, and just biding it’s time. Why go along with it, when you have a good alternative available that doesn’t allow any of those shennaningans?

      1. You prefer wikiprogressiva?

        Some aphorisms come to mind. Nose … Face. Baby … Bathwater. That sort of thing.

        1. I prefer nothing at all. Don’t act like those are the only two research alternatives out there. I don’t like Vox, so I prefer profs? There’s a logical fallacy out there with which you just sodomized yourself. I don’t taint myself with the prog brush or the festering ass boil brush. Vox and his acolytes are part of the latter. Nope.

  16. Just browsed at the history sections of the wiki articles. This is some book-burning-level crap right there. Strawmanning and name-calling were already annoying enough, but vandalizing an international source of information, just to try and pretend the people you dislike don’t even exist – that is, aren’t “notable” enough to be worth considering – that’s low. I mean, hit-the-bottom-and-then-dig-some-more low.

    (Particularly on Williamson’s page, I liked how someone repeatedly tried to remove “bestselling” from the description, before being reminded that being on a bestseller list – which Williamson is – rather objectively fulfills the requirement for that descriptor.)

    In a way, this reminds me of how Lovecraftian protagonists would try and deny all evidence they’ve seen of the eldritch, since it clashes with their ingrained preconceptions of the world, and of themselves in particular. And the resulting paranoid insanity is, well, something we’ve all likely witnessed among certain circles, particularly for the past three years or so.

    1. Now I’m getting an idea for a short story about Lovecraftian Eldrich Abominations trying to destroy each other by re-writing reality to erase each other from existence.

      When Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep get into edit wars, they don’t just play on some silly little online encyclopedia…

      1. Wasn’t that the plot of the recent SpongeBob SquarePants movie? Stealing secret formulas and getting superpowers through writing stories in a magic book?

  17. I probably shouldn’t mention this, but I moved ten years ago and have boxes I have not unpacked, due to lack of space. We will not discuss the still-lingering boxes from when Red Family moved to Texas [redacted] decades ago.

    Congrats on getting everything settled in!

    1. In Pixar’s first “INCREDIBLES” movie, Helen calls Bob to celebrate the day when, (sometime after the most recent move AND the conception and delivery of baby Jack-Jack) she finally had unpacked the last box.

      A touchstone of familiar normal common middle class experience.

    2. <.< I still have boxes of books and things unpacked from when we did the move from Philippines to Australia. None of the places we have been in have a nice outdoor shed for us to sort out the stuff in. (So, yeah, I can sympathize with you and Larry, but we're not done with the moving around for a long while yet.)

      ONE DAY…!

  18. I have already pre-ordered the audiobook for Guardian. I can’t wait!! I listen on my hour long commute to work.

    Moving does indeed suck. I will be doing that soon myself.

    I wish we had an update on the MHI TV show. This NEEDS to happen already. (Yes, I know it is out of your hands now and you just cash the checks. lol)

  19. There was a bear attack up in BC this week. Now every time I see an article like that I think, “right… ‘bear attack’… probably an MCB coverup.”

    Thanks for making life a little more fun.

    1. Well, if a couple of guys in cheap suits, who seem to have had their sense of humor surgically removed, start asking if you’ve been bitten recently…

      1. Has Larry written in a were-bear yet? I don’t recall, but if he hasn’t, may I suggest the name of Sara Paylene?

        One of her supernatural abilities would be to explode the head of anyone who says her name three times fast.

          1. Aw geez, another writer to start buying from? I’ll never own my own mountain at this rate.

  20. Thanks for the update & congratulations on moving into town the new house.
    I remember reading somewhere that actually moving house was/is one of the most stressful things a person can do.
    The worst thing about it is that it takes so looong to get your shed/garage/man cave set back up to the way you want.
    I shifted house 3 times in 18 months due to schooling & purchasing a house, and I still haven’t got the shed set up correctly. I do have a fridge, a recliner, and a stereo, but I have to climb around the power tools and ride on mower to get to them.
    Looking forward to reading the new book, and congrats again on the move.

  21. Dammit Larry, BOOK TOUR BLUES! Texas will miss you and Sarah and Dave.

    And I agree the special edition Hard Magic is absolutely gorgeous 🙂

  22. Great to see all three authors last night. I figured Sarah brought in 50, Dave 30, and Larry had 4 fans. Or something.

    I’d really like to see that Ford Focus story worked into something. Totally relatable for any of us who live out here in the west.

    Here’s hoping the big bald guy gets the production thing working. That’s be awesome.

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