State of Correia

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Many people have asked me if I’m going to Fisk last night’s State of the Union like I did last year. If you will recall, it was an epic.

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/the-state-of-the-union/

Sadly, listening to that much nonsense in one sitting took a year off my life. I couldn’t bear to subject myself to it again. Plus I’ve got killer deadlines to write things that actually pay me money. That’s okay though, let me summarize the State of the Union for you:

We’re boned.

Okay, moving on… Oh, wait… You want more? I don’t know, it was something about how everything is going to be just swell, because even though we took government spending to the highest levels ever, it’s cool, because after we took spending to new highs, we froze it there.  Yes. That’s the answer. Because if I have an annual income of $50,000, but I spent $75,000 each year for the last few years, and now I’m in huge trouble, the answer to my financial woes is to freeze my spending at 75 K, because… Hell, I don’t know why. F*** fiscal responsibility is why.

Then there was something about everything was going to be okay because of subsidized Green Jobs. You see, Green Jobs are the answer to our woes. (so awesomely profitable that they don’t exist!) That is kind of like wishing for unicorns to save us, but hey, whatever floats your boat. If Obama had told us that the economy was going to be okay because he’d just got an awesome deal on some magic beans in order to grow a bean stalk and then he was going to pay down the debt with golden eggs, that would be more believable than Green Jobs.

Remember everyone, only government spending can stimulate the economy. Just not at Lockheed, because screw those guys. What would we ever need more than a handful of F-22s for? It isn’t like any ambitious nation is going to try to match our military capability any time soon—

Crap. Never mind.

That J-20 Chinese 5th generation stealth fighter there was paid for by a couple days worth of interest on the money we borrowed to subsidize the development of the Chevy Volt. Hooray for Green Jobs!

The State of the Union is just spiffy though. Gas is $100 a barrel and rising fast, but we’re not allowed to use our own resources. Ken Salazar recently ruined the economy of eastern Utah with stupid new regulations and screwing the oil workers. But I digress, because why would you want to stimulate those kinds of jobs?

At least there wasn’t any heated rhetoric. Heaven forbid. I don’t know why anybody should be upset or angry, anyway.

Enough of that depressing crap. Now back to the real writing. I’m currently working on Dark Ocean, the second book in The Grimnoir Chronicles.  I’m pumped for you guys to get to read the first one, Hard Magic. It comes out in May. I’m getting the proof pages this week, so we should have eARCs available shortly.  Seriously, it is an excellent book, and I’m not just saying that because I’m biased.

By the way, ordering info for autographed copies from Uncle Hugos is going up soon, and by popular demand, I’m going to be doing personalizations on request. Because that is how much I love you guys. (and even more, that’s how much Uncle Hugo’s loves you, because they’re going to keep track of all those as the orders come in).

I’ve got 4 books coming out in 2011. Hard Magic in May, Monster Hunter Alpha in August, Dead Six in October, and Dark Ocean in November. I’m going to LTUE, StellarCon, ConDuit, WorldCon, DragonCon, and I’m doing a 7 state road trip book signing. All in all, I’m traveling to 11 states for book stuff. (Utah, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Minnesota, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina) Plus I just got back from doing an event at SHOT.  

Then I’ve still got a few books to write along with John Ringo, two more with Mike Kupari (Swords of Exodus & Project Blue), Monster Hunter Legion, Monster Hunter Nemesis, two more Grimnoir novels, and then I’ve got a couple of standalone projects, and other very big and very exciting stuff that I’m not even allowed to talk about on the internet yet. Dang, I am busy.

My family is awesome. Kids are in a good school now and not surrounded by hooligans. I live in the mountains where the air is clean. We are woken up by avalanche cannons and have yard moose. I have a custom 10mm personally blessed by the Motor City Madman coming. By day I help keep F-16s in the air and by night I get paid large sums of money to (as my Mom puts it) tell stories and make crap up. Life is good.   

The State of Union might suck, but the State of the Correia is doing just fine.

Back from SHOT!

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I got back last night. Wow, what a show.

I was invited to be a special guest and do a book signing at the STI booths. For a little background, back when I was in the gun business I was a huge STI geek, and ended up being their 3rd biggest volume dealer in the country. Their sales guy at the time, Rabbit Boyett, has since gone on to become STI’s marketing director. (you may have seen Rabbit’s name pop up in the Thank You section of MHV).  So, since other gun companies were brining in their own fancy bestselling novelists, the boys from Texas figured that they knew one of them fancy bestselling authors too!

I already had a Perfect 10 on order from them. So since I was going to be there anyway, the staff at STI went above and beyond to build an awesome custom gun to have it in time to display for SHOT. Turns out that I’ve got a bunch of fans on staff. Special thanks go to Chris Schirmer, head of QC for putting in a ton of work. (and he is totally getting red shirted in Monster Hunter Legion)

Behold the AWESOME:    

 

 

I wish I would have taken more detailed pictures at the show, because this still has to go back to Texas for some finishing touches. Wait until you see the crown. The fit on the end of this thing is the best that I’ve ever seen. Super pistol smith Mark Morris thought it was nice. It also has a second fitted .40 barrel. Since the breech face is the same, I can swap calibers in a minute.

STI makes amazing pistols. Absolutely amazing. My Tac 4.15 makes me look like a much better shooter than I actually am. There is a reason that among the top shooters in the country, most of them either run an STI or get sponsored by somebody else so they can’t run an STI even though they’d like to.

The book signings went well. I sold 100 of the books I brought and signed a bunch more that people brought with them.

I got to meet all sorts of cool folks.

 

And Uncle Ted personally blessed my new custom 10mm as being “awesome”.  Plus it got fondled by some of the top shooters in the world as they came through the STI booth, so hopefully their mojo rubbed off on it. (Note, if you bite a top competitive shooter you DO NOT gain their powers!)

I found a bunch of other cool products. I’m going to be checking a few of them out in the near future and posting about them here.  

That is the actual Model 29 from Dirty Harry.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, but at some point I ended up wearing a pirate hat and a live parrot.

Now it is back to work. I’ve got a couple hundred e-mails to respond to, and Toni has sent back some edits she needs me to make to Hard Magic. Then back to Dark Ocean. Busy times!

Tanya, Princess of the Elves: The REST of the story

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The entire Tanya story has been published over on the Baen page.  I continue the epic saga of a young trailer park elf and her quest to be more like Elvis Presley. Will Tanya ever realize her dream of becoming a Hunter? Why do orcs like talk radio? Why won’t bacon stay crispy in milk? FIND OUT!

http://www.baen.com/tanya.asp 

Baen recently revamped their page. Each month they will be releasing an original work of short fiction there. I sold two stories to them.  Tanya, Princess of the Elves, and The Grimnoir Chronicles: Detroit Christmas. Both of which came out great in my not so humble opinion. They are pretty big too. With Tanya being over ten thousand words and Detroit Christmas being over 12K.  Basically I’m incapable of writing anything short.

I hope you enjoy reading Tanya as much as I enjoyed writing about her.

REMINDER: Post on the previous blog post if you want an autographed copy of Hard Magic!

Who wants an autographed copy of The Grimnoir Chronicles: Hard Magic?

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It is almost time! So I need to get a rough head count. Hard Magic will be out in May. For those of you that don’t know, this is my alternative-history/epic-fantasy/adventure/pulp/noir/diesel-punk extravaganza. No BS, but I honestly think it is the best thing I’ve ever written.

When Monster Hunter Vendetta came out last year, I decided to steer all of the Monster Hunter Nation (i.e. you guys) that wanted autographed copies toward a store that reported to all the bestseller lists. We used Uncle Hugos because they were the bookstore that introduced me to Baen to begin with.

This turned out to be a Win-Win for both of us. MHV was the #1 bestseller and MHI was the #3 bestseller for them for the year. The large number of books sold at such an important indy store in one week helped boost me in the rankings enough that I ended up on the New York Times bestseller list.

So we’re going to do it again, only this time, we’re going to do it better.

Last time the books were shipped to me, I signed them and then I shipped the books to Uncle Hugos, and then he shipped them to you. Because of shipping times back and forth you guys didn’t get them as fast as I hoped. So this time I’m flying to Minnesota at the end of April and signing them all in person. Once I get back from Uncle Hugos, I’ll be spending two weeks doing signings in Utah, Phoenix, San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and Boise.   

If you’ve not read the sample chapters of Hard Magic, the following link will take you to the first seven for free. Check it out.

http://jiltanith.thefifthimperium.com/site/book/TheGrimnoirChroniclesHardMagic/-/

What I need from you guys is to please post here to let me know if you want autographed copies, and how many you want of hard cover, and how many you want in trade paperback. Remember, there will only be a single limited run of hard covers, so when they are gone, they are gone.  Originally we were only going to have a trade paperback release, but it was becasue of the success of MHV that they squeezed in a run of hard covers too.

The trades are probably $15 and the hard covers are probably $25.  Please post how many of each kind you want in the comments below. Please be honest so we can get a good count, and if you know any Correia fans that don’t check this blog, please spread the word.

Thanks. -Larry

EDIT to clarify some questions.

1. Uncle Hugos ships to APOs and out of the US, no problem.

2. I will be doing a book signing at Uncle Hugos in person for the locals.

3. I will post again here when we are ready to start taking orders. It will go through their shopping cart and I’ll provide a link. Don’t worry, I’ll spam it across the internet. 🙂

4. There should be an E-Arc of TGC:HM, but I don’t know the date. They are doing the final typesetting and sticking the artwork in currently.

Baen-May-2011-Hard Magic Sell-Sheet[1]