ENDGAME advance readers request

[ksmith]

eosblog is looking for 10 folks to read/review ENDGAME:

"If you're interested, send an email to eosbooks@harpercollins.com with your name and address."

US readers only, unfortunately.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Bah. More prejudice against Canadian reviewers who happen to have already read it. When I say "more", I mean "the first that I know of."

(Sorry about needing three drafts for this comment. When will I learn to proofread and spellcheck my LJ comments?)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

More prejudice against Canadian reviewers who happen to have already read it.

You've read it????

::ponders::

I am hoping that the fact that SFBC picked up the books implies that you didn't despise it.

And the review paranoia begins. Not since 2003--damn, it's been too long...

When will I learn to proofread and spellcheck my LJ comments?

I wish LJ allowed comment editing.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I read them, oh, two months ago? Maybe more recently: I got that box the day after I posted about it. (http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/874092.html)

As it happens, I didn't hate the books but I'm just the reader and my opinions matter less than you'd think. It's the editors at Bookspan who call the shots.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Ah--I was falling behind in my LJ reading at about that time, and missed it. Otherwise, I'd have thanked folks for reading.

(And I don't happen to think all my science is all that soft, but that's just me.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I am somewhat dubious about hybridizing species from unrelated worlds.

I don't remember exactly when this happened but I ran into two otherwise dissimilar paranormal romances with the same background detail and commented on the odd coincidence on my LJ [1]. Ilona Andrews observed that her book would make number three, at which point I had to point out to her that I'd mentioned getting her book just a couple of days before she joined my FL.

1: This happens to me all the time. I get runs of "books about magical apocalypses in the future", followed by "horrible families do terrible things to each other", "Aging male SF writer forgets how to do basic math" and so on. I don't know if this is random chance, a reflection publishing realities or if someone at Bookspan deliberately arranges for streams of themed books to be sent my way.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I am somewhat dubious about hybridizing species from unrelated worlds.

I did realize that I was standing on shaky ground there. Some backstory that I never included implied some sort of common ancestry--that probably would have made a decent story but not one I was interested in writing at the time. I did take pains to note that these weren't rapid processes--they required a lot of medical supervision, they could blow up at any time, and it was a long road to completion. I was actually surprised that more folks didn't take issue with it, but hybridization had been played roles in other stories, and with a lot fewer physical consequences. I think it's almost an accepted trope, like traversible wormhole networks.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Even in hardish SF, biology tends to be the child who shows up at school with unexplained bruises. Readers tend to have a high tolerance for problematic biology in SF.

Take Niven's Pak. In Known Space, humans come from a planet in the galactic core and are utterly unrelated to anything on Earth back to the days when the Slavers seeded worlds with life. The problem is that humans are clearly related to terrestrial life and the idea that two unrelated worlds would come with eg the same basic design of skeleton is absurd. The idea that a species could randomly pick a world 28,000 light years from home and manage to hit one whose lifeforms were so similar is also pretty silly.

The really odd thing is that other intelligent species in KS don't look at all like humans under the skin. The bauplans are completely different.

My explanation for this is that someone (Porbably the Outsiders) transported Terrestial primates to the core millions of years ago and when the first ship of Pak headed out of the core, they were heading back to the world that that they somehow knew was their original homeworld.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Did you see this? (http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/925113.html)

It was a high point on an otherwise dubious day, since a few hours later I went off to see why my ex's boyfriend wasn't answering his phone or email. (http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/925785.html)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I did see your post--it made me happy.

My sympathies on the loss of your friend. July was a bad month.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Worse for him than me, though. In my experience, it's always better to be the finder and not the findee.

The funny thing about the whole event was the discussion where everyone agreed that his diet was a contributing factor to his premature death and how awful all this prepackaged stuff is and that said, throwing out perfectly good food is a waste, so why doesn't James take it?

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for letting use know, I signed up as soon as I saw.

Michelle in Colorado Springs

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Great--I hope you get it!