Happy day (they're here)

Four of my earlier novels are freshly re-released in spiffy new hardback, trade paperback, and ebook editions. All, IMO, still timely. 

The novels in questions are

• Fools' Experiments: “When the artificial intelligences … go maverick, they turn out to be the true
  weapons of mass destruction. A fast, fun read.” — Sci Fi Weekly
• Small Miracles: “Suspense and action enough to fuel any thriller, and even to drive it to the big screen.” — SFrevu
• Energized: “A taut near-future thriller about an energy-starved Earth held hostage by a power-mad international cartel … Lerner’s vision of the future is both topical and possible in this crisp, fast-paced hard SF adventure.” — Publishers Weekly
• Dark Secret: “I heartily recommend Ed Lerner’s Dark Secret.” — Tangent Online

The new publisher is the aptly named ReAnimus Press. 

In a word ... huzzah!

Just one of the spiffy new covers

*Start* of an era

Updated September 3, 2024. Huzzah! As in, posted today, Happy day (they're here). They being four of my earlier -- but still, IMO, relevant -- novels. 

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I'm pleased to announce forthcoming new print and electronic editions of four of my earlier novels. (Why only forthcoming? These things take time, but expect the new editions to appear before summer is out.) 

The novels in questions are

• 

  (original cover)

  Fools' Experiments: “When the artificial intelligences … go maverick, they turn out to be the true weapons of mass destruction. A fast, fun read.” — Sci Fi Weekly
• Small Miracles: “Suspense and action enough to fuel any thriller, and even to drive it to the big screen.” — SFrevu
• Energized: “A taut near-future thriller about an energy-starved Earth held hostage by a power-mad international cartel … Lerner’s vision of the future is both topical and possible in this crisp, fast-paced hard SF adventure.” — Publishers Weekly
• Dark Secret: “I heartily recommend Ed Lerner’s Dark Secret.” — Tangent Online

The new publisher is the aptly named ReAnimus Press. 

Lots of my other books remain available while you wait ;-)

Discover ... *me*

Many of you drop by SF and Nonsense because you're familiar with at least some of my novels and shorter stories -- but for some visitors, that isn't the case. If you're in that latter group, now's your opportunity ....

Courtesy of my friends at Wildside Press (and with the sign-on of other friends, at publishers Phoenix Pick and FoxAcre Press), I am delighted to point you toward a free sampler of my fiction.

In Discover a New Author ... Edward M. Lerner you'll find four short stories, originally published between 2006 and 2017, plus the opening chapters of:

• Countdown to Armageddon (2010 / time travel)
•  InterstellarNet: Origins (likewise 2010 / the first book in my InterstellarNet series)
• Dark Secret (2016 / epic and existential space adventure)

This sampler is available without charge from Wildside Press in Kindle (mobi), ePub, and pdf formats.

If you enjoy the sampler, well, you can always look for more ;-)

That's heavy, man!

After yesterday's awesome launch -- and two-thirds recovery -- of the Falcon Heavy, what more is there for a technologist and  SF author to comment upon? Read on.

If you haven't yet had OD-ed on the coverage, check out "The best photos and videos of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch."

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is highly motivated to make humanity a multi-planetary species by colonizing Mars. (Yesterday's mission seems to have gone a bit off course: "Elon Musk’s Tesla overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to the asteroid belt.") To which end (once these little navigational glitches are worked out), this recent news is very encouraging: " 'A fantastic find': Mars hides thick sheets of ice just below the surface."

Color-enhanced: blue = ice.

How much ice? Check the photo at left.

And equally awesome, IMO, is this item that has been overshadowed by the aforementioned stories: "LISA Pathfinder, the gravitational wave space mission, declared a success: European Space Agency reports final results of proof-of-concept mission, ahead the most ambitious science experiment ever attempted."

LISA stands for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. I've several times posted enthusiastically about the wonderful LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), its 2015 discovery of gravitational waves, and a few of its event detections. LIGO is an L-shaped instrument about four kilometers on a side. LISA Pathfinder was the proof-of-concept mission for an eventual L-shaped instrument 2.5 million kilometers on a side. LISA will offer sensitivity, and visibility into astronomical phenomena, far beyond anything LIGO -- or any Earth-based instrument -- can approach.

Life imitates art

Part of what spoke to me about the progress toward LISA is this quote: "... once the triangle of satellites is eventually up and running, it will be able to detect very early signs of a black hole merger, weeks before the eventual collision." In my 2016 novel Dark Secret, the (fictional) space-based Einstein Gravitational Wave Observatory kicks off the story by detecting the signs of an imminent neutron-star merger. That detection forewarns of a gamma-ray burst that will obliterate life in our solar system. (Post-wise, here's a second coincidence: Dark Secret opens on recently colonized Mars.)

Alas, we won't see LISA until, at the earliest, 2034. That's okay. LIGO was decades in coming, too (see Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space).

NOT off on a tangent

Let me just say, this was unexpected.

Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, venerable genre review website Tangent Online posted their look at last year's the-end-of-the-world-and-what-comes-next interstellar adventure, Dark Secret. The opening paragraph of that review offered:

Visit on Amazon

Regardless of the theme, subject matter, or treatment, a Lerner novel never fails to intrigue, engage the intellect, or offer pure entertainment for its own sake. He can do it all, and well.

So: I continued reading with positive anticipation. And was not disappointed. And finished with a smile.

Here -- should I have happened to catch your interest -- is the Tangent Online review of Dark Secret. 

MY life, the universe, and everything

File 770, the acclaimed genre website, this morning posted an extended interview/profile of my writing career. I'll crib their introduction rather than adding yet more words:

Retired professional scientist Edward Lerner talks about a host of hard science fiction topics, plus his collaboration with Larry Niven, his participation in SIGMA, and his nonfiction column for Analog.

Check out, if you're curious (and really, given that you're already here, you know you are), Edward M. Lerner: Crafted Science, Convincing Characters.

This (maybe) is how the world ends ...

SF writers enjoy wreaking (fictitious!) mass destruction, and I'm no exception. In Dark Secret, for example, I pretty much sterilized the solar system with a gamma ray burst. (That's not a spoiler ... you find this out early in the novel. The story is all about what comes after the discovery of that imminent danger.)(*)

Amazon link

(*) I know what you're thinking: gamma rays travel at light speed -- because they are (high-frequency) light. If the arrival of gamma rays is the first you know about a GRB in the galactic neighborhood? Well, you're toast. That said, one of the mechanisms that can produce a GRB emits "I'm going to blow" indications before the actual blast (warnings which you won't detect without a gravitational-wave observatory, such as, but more sensitive than, LIGO).

How else, at a global or grander level, might things go Really Bad? I haven't done a death-by-asteroid novel (yet), but rocks from the sky are popular among my peers. (Though not so much with dinosaurs. Just sayin'.) A recent study suggests that asteroids may pose a bigger risk to us homo saps than formerly supposed. See "Fresh craters point to constant 'churning' of moon's surface." The takeaway: More than 200 new craters popped up on the moon over the past seven years – a third more than expected.

And the moon, after all, is quite nearby ...

Of food (sorta, kinda) and bargains

Last post, in A day (well, a week) in the life, I mentioned a few of the many things that "writing" entails besides, well, writing. Among my activities during the previous week had been prepping a guest post for Eating Authors. It's where psychologist -- and fellow SF author -- Lawrence M. Schoen asks writers about their most memorable meal.

That post is now up, and you can click through to read about my most memorable meal (and see a few kind words from Lawrence).

New topic. We're approaching the end of October, and with it the bargains hinted at in the subject line. Those of you yet to look might want to check out Psst! Dark Secret is book of the month (and for this month, a steal!). I'm just sayin' ...

Psst! Dark Secret is book of the month (and for this month, a steal!)

Phoenix Pick is promoting my newly published novel, Dark Secret, as its October book of the month. BOTM status means that, in ebook formats, you can name your price. Even zero.

They're also offering a deeply discounted bundle of three of my novels: Dark Secret (the end of the world, and what comes next), Small Miracles (medical nanotech), and Fools' Experiments (AI and artificial life).

(For more about on any book, click the thumbnail cover at right.)

You'll want to check this out while the promotion lasts.

Dark Secret ... disclosed :-)

Latest update: September 3, 2024. New editions are out in hardback, trade paperback, and ebook formats. 

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I'm delighted to announce the publication of Dark Secret. This is my latest novel (number fourteen, if anyone is counting)—and an epic adventure with the very survival of humanity at stake.

Original (2016) cover

When the experimental ship Clermont is urgently recalled from a long-range test flight, neither Dana McElwain nor Blake Westford, its captain and crew, imagines that they are about to embark on a much more urgent voyage—or that this new mission will determine the fate of the human race.
A gamma-ray burst—the deadly beam of radiation spawned seven thousand years earlier in the death throes of doomed neutron stars—is about to wipe the Solar System clean of all life. Only the Clermont’s prototype long-range drive might carry anyone, and any of humanity’s legacy, to safety before that extinction.

And then what? Where beyond the Solar System is safe? What if the price of survival is to become less ... human?

Certainly I'm pleased with the early feedback:

Con-fusion / Writing updates

Last updated November 22, 2016

A few days ago, after taking a circuitous but scenic route, I finally made it home from MidAmeriCon II (aka Worldcon 2016) in Kansas City, Missouri. I had a great time there visiting with friends old and new. I took part in four panels and attended others, gave a reading, and held an autograph session. I had wonderful conversations around the convention center, and in the dealers room, the green room, the SFWA suite, the hotel lobby, and at many a meal.

Getting goonie at the con

I'm exhausted.

Happily, today I have an easy topic about which to post: writing news.

The short story "Paradise Regained," whose sale to Analog I had previously announced, is now tentatively scheduled for the January/February 2017 issue.

Analog has since accepted, but not yet scheduled, another story, the flash-fiction piece "The Pilgrimage." (For you Analog aficionados, that'll likely be a Probability Zero feature.)

And currently running in Analog, in the September and October issues, is the two-part "Science Behind the Fiction" article about AI, "A Mind of Its Own."

As for life beyond Analog ...

Dark Secret inches closer ...

Things are cooking!

Learning from experience I won't hazard a specific date, but I'm confident Dark Secret will be released soon. Till then, here -- and much classier than my PULP-O-MIZER design -- is the publisher's cover.

More news as it happens :-)

A dark turn to events = a turn to Dark events

Several weeks back, I was pleased to announce (Dark Secret ... now less of a dark secret) June 29 as the publication date for my next novel. For unimportant reasons, the pub date for Dark Secret has slipped to the right. Best guess, late summer rather than early.

Dark Secret -- the retro look

Until the publishing process offers up a cover, I've turned to Pulp-O-Mizer and had a bit of fun creating my own concept :-)

More news as it happens.

Dark Secret ... now less of a dark secret

"Gripping. Impossible to put down."
-- Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award-winning author
    of The Devil's Eye (on Dark Secret)

In January I was happy to report that Arc Manor, through their Phoenix Pick imprint, had picked up my novel Dark Secret. (The Analog readers among you may remember that epic interstellar adventure in its 2013 serialized appearance.)

A dark super-Earth ... but is it Dark?

Today's update: the novel has been scheduled for release. Soon, even. Set your calendars for June 29th (and your phasers on stun?).

June 14, 2016 update: the release date has slipped. See A dark turn to events = a turn to Dark events . The short version: now predicting release by late summer.)

Before then, I hope, we'll get a preview of the cover.

2016 is off to a fine start

For those of you who follow my non-blog writing, I'm happy to report that the new year is shaping up nicely. Here's, um, the story so far:

Sci Phi Journal, even as I type, is running my short story "Catch a Falling Star" as the inaugural work of SF they hope will lure you behind their (new business model) paywall. I'm honored that SPJ chose my story for that purpose. The tale's opening (free) is here.

Meanwhile, Analog continues my nonfiction series about genre tropes, collectively "The Science Behind the Fiction." The zine's January/February issue offers Part I of "Human 2.0: Being All We Can Be," opening a discussion of all manner of tech-driven augmentations and transformations. Part II, in Analog's March issue, will conclude the topic. As with earlier articles in this TSBtF series, I've blended science and tech with lots of literary and video SFnal examples.

We will sell no wine before its time

Fine wine -- and even, if you're old enough, the not-so-fine, screw-top beverage the subject-line slogan will evoke -- must age to reach its full potential.

I find the craft of writing to be like that. Sure, I've knocked out the first draft of some short stories in a few consecutive days (or even one!), allowing nothing to interrupt. For longer stories and novels, the process is more complicated -- and not merely because longer stories require (at the least) months to complete.

For longer works, the original story concept -- no matter how detailed my research, going-in outline, and character sketches -- benefits from a time-out. From a bit of aging, if you will. More often than not, I'll set aside a long work once the first quarter of it (give or take) is in first draft. Even when that pause comes simply from a reprioritization -- writing under contract must trump writing done on spec -- I've found that the time away is always for the best.