Archive for the 'Podcasts' Category
December 28th, 2011 by jdsawyer
There will be a new newsletter out shortly after the new year, but as we’re winding down this year I wanted to take a moment out and give you all a wave and huge thanks.
2011 has been a remarkably productive year, and the last four days are going to be some of its busiest as I hurry to package a few new short stories, finish up two books, and put together a kickstarter video.
But the best part, the part so many of you have been waiting for, has already started:
The recording studio is back up and running. We’re recording audiobooks for Free Will (which will be podcast), for the Clarke Lantham books, and for a few other things that we’ll announce later on. And today, we’re also recording new episodes of Apologia.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to have it all ticking over again.
More soon. Until then, have an excellent year’s end!
December 10th, 2011 by jdsawyer
Last April, Mur Lafferty was the subject of a fan-driven firestorm around at Escape Pod. The prevalence of lesbians in her magazine was raising a few eyebrows among both people who don’t like lesbians and people who wanted to see more gay men. As is the case with Internet controversies, the point at issue was more or less just an excuse for a good old-fashioned flame war, and in a frustration-inspired bid at surrealism Mur posted to twitter something along the lines of “Escape Pod is now soliciting stories containing gay men, soup cans, and singularities.”
I ask you, how could I pass up a challenge like that? I sent back to her “You’ll have it next week.” Not only did she have it next week, but she liked it, and she bought it. The result is this week’s Escape Pod episode, Chicken Noodle Gravity.
Read by Paul Haring, Chicken Noodle Gravity is the second of The Lombard Alchemist Tales, a series of short stories I kicked off earlier this year with At The Edge of Nowhere. The Lombard Alchemist Tales are stories of mystery, and darkness, and wonder. At the borders of society, around the next quarter, lurking in the shadows, all around us are dark and comic stories fit to unmake our darkest dreams. My job? Find them, bring them to you, and let you figure out how to survive them. Centered around a spooky pawn shop run by a devilish shopkeeper in a broken-down gambling boomtown where some people go there for salvation, some for curiosity, and some to scrape up a little bit of money to buy a few more cans of soup. And sometimes, they get more than they bargain for.
So, with that said, I hope you enjoy Chicken Noodle Gravity. Stay tuned for more fun news coming to this space in the days leading up to Christmas.
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December 1st, 2011 by jdsawyer
I’ve been waiting for this day 
a long time. When I first wrote Down From Ten as a screenplay, a production company in Canada was going to be handling rights clearances for the Alan Jay Lerner music incorporated into one of the scenes. When I did the podcast, ASCAP was very helpful. But as a print book, I had to wade into a rights clearance arena I’d never worked with before.
It was worth it. And the folks at the company that manages the Lerner estate were very helpful. Because of their kind work, I can now proudly present you with the ebook version of Down From Ten, a novel uniquely close to my heart.
In early January, a group of friends gather for an annual retreat: eight artists, scientists, and authors cloistered together in a mansion in California’s high country for ten days of games, conversation, exhibition, and hedonism while isolated from the outside world.
The biggest Sierra snowstorm in over twenty years, however, is not part of their plans.
When the house is buried in an avalanche, leaving our heroes with no way to hike out, they must somehow survive and stay sane while waiting for rescue—which becomes difficult when they all start having the same dream.
“Down From Ten is a brilliant, sometimes creepy take on a bohemian cozy with surreal underpinnings and an irrepressibly touching ending.” –Gail Carriger, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Parasol Protectorate series
For the first time in text, read the story that View from Valhalla calls “Unique, lavish, and challenging…amazing in its scope and its detail…with THE most surprising ending I’ve EVER experienced.”
Get it now for your Kindle, Nook, or any other reader.
Or, read the first three chapters here.
Enjoy!
October 23rd, 2011 by jdsawyer
Sculpting 
God, the story collection that started it all, is now available for all e-readers. With the original seven stories, plus new behind-the-scenes essays for each story and an introduction about the genesis of the series, this is first of three volumes coming over the course of the next year. Grab it while it’s hot!
A new voice in fantasy, J. Daniel Sawyer has already left an indellible mark on his readers with his trademark tales of human desires and the moral complexity they create.
This unique volume opens with the mythopoeic story of Lilith–an alternate take on creation from the point of view of a woman scorned–and continues across the scope of history from Victorian Scotland to the depths of the Amazon jungle to the far future in stories of creativity, responsibility, determination, and loss in the face of human power and frailty.
From the personal to the cosmic, the Award-nominated author of The Antithesis Progression and Down From Ten brings you a suite of twisty tales in the American Gothic tradition of Flannery O’Connor, Ray Bradbury, and Ambrose Bierce.
Bedtime stories aren’t just for children anymore.
Contains: Lilith, Angels Unawares, The Coffee Service, We Create Worlds, Control Room, The Man In The Rain, and Train Time, plus a new essay, poetry, and bonus material.
Smashwords
Kindle
Nook
XinXii
October 17th, 2011 by jdsawyer
The time has come. There’s too much going on not to have a mailing list and a newsletter, so I’ve taken the plunge. Newsletter readers will get quarterly (and sometimes more-than) updates and general goofiness from me delivered directly to their email boxes. Two weeks later, an edited version of those newsletters will be posted here.
Edited, you say?
Well, yes. Subscribers to the newsletter will get the occasional special preview, discount coupon, contest, and other such goodies that won’t be available to anyone else. Those items will be clipped out of the newsletter before it’s posted here. But other than that, it’ll be about the same thing.
If you wish to subscribe to the newsletter, simply email me at feedback _at_ jdsawyer.net, or use the contact form on this site, and say so.
So, if you’ve been trying to figure out what the hell I’ve been up to for the last year and a half, wait no longer. You can now download the inaugural issue as a epub, mobi, and PDF.
July 24th, 2011 by jdsawyer
Grab a pack of cards. Strap your pressure suit on. It’s time to head to the poker game that started it all, and the book that View From Valhalla called “lovingly detailed, well-written thinking man’s science fiction at its best.*”
Joss Kyle is a one-time National Security Advisor who barely escaped Washington D.C. with his skin intact. For three years he’s lived by his wits and the fall of the cards in the criminal underworld of South America, but jumping planet for Space Station Sidon means walking into an ambush more dangerous than any he’s yet faced:
A man named Alex Hart wants to play cards with him.
Their meeting will fling Joss into a game playing for highest stakes in town: control of the entire solar system. Chased by a revolutionary leader, agents of a corrupt senator, and an underworld boss known only as The Green Lady, he quickly discovers that in the looking-glass world above the gravity well, survival, like poker, is just another sport. And in this contest, it isn’t whether you win or lose, it’s how you rig the game.
Now available in paperback from AWP Science Fiction, Predestination is the story Nathan Lowell calls “A sweeping tale of politics, corruption, intrigue, betrayal, and murder…a fast-paced ride through a world that’s too plausible to be ignored**” and that Brand Gamblin calls “…a lush, powerful story of hunter and pray, betrayal and rebellion, and poker.***.” Available for the first time ever in paper, this handsome new edition rings in at 341 pages contains the full text of the ebook edition, plus new line art and a sample of the sequel, Free Will.
Now, it’s true that you can buy the novel at Amazon now, and you’ll be able to find it in bookstores this fall, but for you loyal folk that read my blog, it’s available for a special rate. Until Worldcon, buy your copy by clicking here and using the coupon code XX2QR2Z8, and you’ll receive $2.00 off the $14.99 cover price.
Finally, for those of you who run vending booths at conventions (or who work in bookstores) and would like to carry Predestination (or any of my other books), shoot me an email from the Contact Form and I will send you the AWP Books wholesale pricing schedule.
I’ll be back soon with news about Free Will and Down From Ten, but until then remember…
It isn’t whether you win or lose, it’s how you rig the game.
*Odin1eye, View From Valhalla
**Nathan Lowell, Author of The Golden Age of the Silver Clipper
***Brand Gamblin, author of Tumbler and The Hidden Institute
July 15th, 2011 by jdsawyer
You hear a lot of talk of “discovery writers” and “outliners” in the writing world. The “pantsers” and the “plotters,” respectively. It’s true that there are a lot of people that fall into both categories–including many of my friends–and human nature loves dichotomies, but I’ve never fit comfortably either, and I suspect I’m not alone.
Last night, I had occasion to have a long conversation with a new writer who’s vexed and confused by the options before him when it comes to writing process, and saying “you have to find your own way” only left him more despondent. I know that look–I’ve been there many times when faced with a new field of endeavor with so many options that at once feel constraining and non-specific. So, in the hope of letting those new writers who don’t comfortably fit a category know that they’re not alone, I’m going to describe my method.
Continue reading ‘Playing Jazz With Words’
July 12th, 2011 by jdsawyer
So, Free Will is in prep for release right now, with the typos and other nit-picky details being worked over, layout being done, etc. It’s a big step forward in the Antithesis Progression, and there are a lot of you out there who have been waiting patiently for the series to continue.
Some of you will get a sneak peak. You see, this is a big book. It ate up more pages, and more time, than I expected by an order of magnitude, and I’m eager to see it find a good home on the shelves and in the e-readers of all of you, including those of you who have drifted away in the meantime, intending to come back when the series continued.
To let people know Antithesis is back, we’re going to need publicity. Publicity means you! Some of you out there enjoy blogging, posting opinion pieces and reviews, etc., and you are the ones I need. Starting today, the first hundred of you that email me (either the normal way through the feedback at jdsawyer.net address, or through the web form you can find here) with the subject line “Free Will Ebook” will receive a free, pre-copyedits ebook version of Free Will (and a corrected version once the proofs are done).
In return for receiving this advance review copy, you promise to blog the book when you’ve finished reading it and, once the book is released to the general public in the next week or two, to post a copy or extract of your blog review in two of the following: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Goodreads, Kobo, Sony ebook store, Kobo, iBookstore. Those of you who feel enthusiastic enough about the book to post the review in all those places will be entered into a drawing. The four prizes in that drawing will be:
A copy of the signed-and-numbered collector’s edition of the Predestination poster
A signed paperback copy of Predestination
A signed paperback copy of Down From Ten
A Clarke Lantham Mysteries 2-pack: Paperbacks of And Then She Was Gone and A Ghostly Christmas Present
Spread the word!
Also, watch this space. There will be more announcements in the coming days about casting calls, a new Death Threats contest, and other goodies.
July 11th, 2011 by jdsawyer
As of last night, the fact-checking of what’s currently going by the uninspired name of “The Gun Book” came to a close. We’re now on to layout and diagram phase, as it’s a graphics-rich book. Once I get a proper title for it, it’s going to be a guide to firearms for writers. A spin-off short piece on science fiction weaponry that wound up not fitting in the book will appear next weekend in the relevant markets.
But, more importantly for those who have been quietly composing your death threats:
Free Will is done. The continuity edit, all the little fixes, it’s all done. All that’s left now is the copy edit, which’ll take a few days. With any luck, we’re looking at an ebook release this weekend or early next week.
We’re also currently breaking scripts out. Expect a casting call around the same time as the ebook release!
July 2nd, 2011 by jdsawyer
Neurological pharmacology–a fancy way of saying “what drugs do to brains”–is a subject with which I have a special fascination. Some of them accentuate specific aspects of personality, some create hallucinations and religious experience, some relieve depression, some kick the sex drive or the bonding drive into high gear. In a lot of ways, though, for my money, I’d nominate alcohol as the most interesting for one reason:
In vino, veritas. Pliny the Elder nailed it: Wine tells the truth. It doesn’t make you do things so much as it lets you do things. You can learn a lot about yourself, and about your friends, by watching what happens when they’re well-buzzed.
National holidays can do the same thing to people–and not just because of the amount of alcohol people tend to consume given half an excuse. Like all things, love of one’s country can come in a lot of flavors. Soviet dissidents, for example, loved their country while hating its system–they loved its culture, its geography, its weather, the shared history in which their identity was rooted. Members of totalitarian systems, on the other hand, are trained to identify the system with the country, and to see non-conformity as so unpatriotic as to deserve death. Some people are patriotic about countries where they’ve never lived, so much so that they’ll move across the world to live in them, because they’ve fallen in love with the ideology, or the people, or the culture of that country. You can learn a lot about a person by watching the flavor of their patriotism.
Writing a political thriller series these last few years, I’ve carefully watched the political micro-climates around the world and studied how they relate to the version of love of country I carry around in my own psyche. Call it a love affair with the Jeffersonian vision of freedom: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
This year has been an amazing year around the world for the struggle against different forms of tyranny, and as an Americans it’s been more exciting than I can say to watch the most action-packed year of calculated struggles against tyranny since the late 80s and early 90s (it’s also more than a little embarrassing how little my home culture seems interested in carrying on their struggle on the home front, but that’s a topic for another time). It’s quite possible that the Arab Spring, the Iranian struggles, and the other protests and revolutions around the world will all come to bad ends in the same way that the revolutions of the twentieth century almost all ended in dictatorship, civil war, and genocide; still, I have a thin hope that some of the people who are laying down their lives–for reasons as simple as the next loaf of bread or as idealistic as bringing democracy and universal suffrage to cultures where such notions are without precedent–may have read history and learned from the missteps of the last hundred years.
Because of that, in celebration of the first revolution that actually worked (if imperfectly), I’ve dedicated Free Will (my new book about revolution) as follows:
This volume is dedicated to the men and women
Who sat in Tahrir
Who crossed the Wall in Berlin
Who fell at Tiananmen Square
Who bled in the streets of Tehran
Who lost their lives in Boston
And all those like them before and since.
To them we owe a debt we cannot repay
Save that we make their dream come true
For Everyone
Forever.
I’ll be seeing you soon, with the rest of the book. Have a safe weekend–and spend it however you want to. The ability to make that choice is a remarkable thing in the history of the world.
July 1st, 2011 by jdsawyer
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The definitive update, in audio for all you grabbing this with podcatchers. Lots of news 
June 20th, 2011 by jdsawyer
Rick is a scurrilous, irascible scoundrel, 
with a heart of gold—not because he’s warm and fuzzy underneath, but because his heart is totally devoted to money. His favorite goldmine is his shop, where he vends virtual reality and manufactured novels. He keeps his customers happy, and he always knows the right party to hit to find a pliable college girl with more cocaine than sense. Life is good. But life has a way of doing unexpected things, and the world has a way of changing around the most adaptable people.
Step into Rick’s parlor. Don’t mind the bell on the door or the old fashioned cash register. Buy a manufactured novel, fresh from the computer—a first edition. Sit in the easy chair or lay out on the sofa. Strap on a helmet and a skinsuit and take a swim on Europa. He can be trusted. Really. It says so on the door. In ten foot high letters, right above the shop front, he tells you exactly what they do:
“We Create Worlds”
And they do it on the cheap.
You can find the story at Amazon and Smashwords.
—Story Sample Below the Cut—
Continue reading ‘Released: We Create Worlds’
June 16th, 2011 by jdsawyer
Have you ever seen that well-dressed 
man at the airport, or the station, who stands patiently by as if he has all the time in the world? Have you wondered who he was waiting for, and how long he’d stay? Have you ever been that man, stuck in the hours between delay and disappointment, with no way to know if the person you’re waiting for will show? Let fancy take you to the mountains of Northern Italy at the dawn of the 22nd century for the story of a woman and a train–and of a walking stick and the man who owns it, as he waits for Train Time.
You can find the story at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Below, you can find a sample.
Enjoy!
—Story Sample Below The Cut—
Continue reading ‘Released: Train Time’
May 26th, 2011 by jdsawyer
Today is the day I was hoping to post the announcement for the ebook of Down From Ten. Unfortunately, I got right to the edge and realized I still had some rights clearances to do for song lyrics that are quoted in the book, so it’ll be another few days.
However, it IS coming in the next week or less!
May 22nd, 2011 by jdsawyer
And the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, saying “It is done.”
All the original writing for Free Will is now done. I have a few days of continuity tweaking ahead of me, and then some cutting, but it really is now all over but the shouting.
New equipment for the studio arrives this week, and I’ll be resuming production on everything in two weeks after I give things a proper shakedown and take a day or two off.
What does this mean for you?
Predestination and Free Will paperbacks (and Free Will ebook) in June. New episodes of Sculpting God in June. New episodes of Free Will starting in July, and continuing through to the end of the book.
It’s been a marathon–two years of work plotting and researching, and four solid months of aggregated writing time over those two years.. Final count: 212k words. Manuscript page count: 848. (Don’t worry, that will shrink as I shake out the continuity).
Time to crack the champagne!
