Calling all Niven (and Lerner) scholars

Newly organized notes, outlines, synopses, drafts, page proofs, etc. covering the development of the entire Fleet of Worlds series are now available to literary researchers (and the curious public). Many thanks to the Special Collections & Archives Department of the University Libraries at Northern Illinois University. 

"This collection houses materials pertaining to the 5-book Fleet of Worlds fiction series co-authored by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner from 2007-2012. It consists of manuscripts in various stages of development including partial drafts, copyedited versions, and publisher page proofs as well as research and correspondence between the collaborative authors."

You can read all about the Niven/Lerner collection here. 

Something to consider the next time you'll be near DeKalb, Illinois. 

(I posted about the similar availability of my solo authorial archive last year, in "A Milestone.")

Today, it's official. And still epic.

Tor Books today released a discounted five-ebook bundle of the entire Fleet of Worlds series. That series is my joint venture in Known Space with Larry Niven.

(What about the Other Good News hinted at in last week's preview of today's release? That independent event came a few days earlier than I'd anticipated, and I posted then. So: if you only drop by here Tuesdays, my typical posting day, and so missed my out-of-cycle celebratory post Woohoo!, you may want to check it out, too. Stat. Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction (ebook) won't remain on deep-discount for long.)

But let's get back to the Fleet of Worlds series, and the news of the day ...

Bottom-lining it: This is an epic offer on an epic -- and much acclaimed -- hard-SF story line that spans centuries and light-years. A story line with: Existential dangers. Larger-than-life deeds, both villainous and heroic. Truly alien aliens. Amazing advanced technologies.

How epic? Here's my favorite blurb per novel (in series order, from first to last):

Talk about epic!

On June 12, Tor Books will be releasing a discounted five-ebook bundle of the entire Fleet of Worlds series. That's my joint venture in Known Space with Larry Niven.

Why the advance mention? Because there is Other Good News in the pipeline to be announced next week :-)

And any of the major ebook providers will be happy to queue up your order ....

Bottom-lining it: This is an epic offer on an epic -- and much acclaimed -- hard-SF story line that spans centuries and light-years. A story line with: Existential dangers. Larger-than-life deeds, both villainous and heroic. Truly alien aliens. Amazing advanced technologies.

How epic? Here's my favorite blurb per novel (in series order, from first to last):

A note to my UK readers ... kindling

(Last updated January 10, 2013)

For the longest time, my Fleet of Worlds series novels (with Larry Niven) have been unavailable in the UK for download to the Kindle. I won't bore you with why, but -- as of today -- the fifth and final volume is here (or, from my perspective, there).

Now available for the Kindle at amazon.co.uk:

• Fleet of Worlds 
• Juggler of Worlds
• Destroyer of Worlds
• Betrayer of Worlds
• Fate of Worlds

(If this was all Greek to you, click any series cover thumbnail on the right-hand side.)

It's a Festivus miracle!

Of the Ringworld, the Fleet of Worlds, and the Worldcon panel that wasn't

Many visitors to this blog are familiar with the sprawling, enduring future history that is Known Space. They know about Larry Niven's Ringworld novels and Larry's and my Fleet of Worlds novels. They know that Fate of Worlds: Return from the Ringworld, newly published, is the finale to both series.

In the beginning

And so, regular visitors to SF and Nonsense may not be surprised to read that Larry and I envisioned a panel at the just concluded Worldcon at which we would field moderator and fan questions about the two interrelated series.

(Which isn't to suggest that you can't read these books standalone. You can -- and more on that later. But the more Known Space books you read, the more connections you'll see.)

Alas, circumstances kept Larry from attending the con, and the panel didn't happen. And I'd hate to see my in-advance musing about likely questions go to waste ...

In the following Q-and-A with myself, I've tried to keep spoilers to a minimum. That said, read on at your own peril.

Ice, water, and fire

Google searches on "Gw'oth" are among the top referral sources to this blog. Reader emails and (at cons and signings) in-person questions that I'm asked also often relate to the Gw'oth.

Europa: ice, cracks, and all

(The Gw'oth, if the word doesn't ring a bell, are aliens who feature prominently in the Fleet of Worlds series of space operas that I write with Larry Niven. The Gw'oth evolved on a world somewhat  like Jupiter's moon Europa, in an ocean beneath the ice. Above the ice lies deadly vacuum. A Gw'o (that's the singular) is an aquatic creature who looks something like a starfish crossed with an octopus. I gave a more detailed physical description in the post Gw'oth revealed! And other fun stuff).

And the question that I am most often asked about the Gw'oth is: living underwater, how did they ever develop technology? Doesn't it take fire to develop technology? As regards non-biological technology, my guess -- like many readers' suspicions -- is: yes.

Wildfires were a part of our forbears' natural environment. Fire was possible in our forbears' natural environment. How the Gw'oth would master (or encounter) fire underwater is less than intuitive ....

One such reader question came up several weeks ago, far down in a thread of comments about a merely semi-related post. I answered with another comment in that same thread, but on reflection, I decided to address the topic in a post of its own. A post that people Googling "Gw'oth" will more readily find. This post.

There aren't major plot spoilers in my answer; I'm dealing primarily with back story before the opening of the series. Before humans and other species of Known Space ever met the Gw'oth. But if you continue, know you will encounter snippets of plot and text from a couple of the books.

Continue as you think best ...

Of fleet Fleets and Known Space

(Updated August 21, 2012, to reflect the release of Fate of Worlds)

Readers often email me to discuss fine points of Known Space lore, including how the Fleet of Worlds series of collaborative novels relates to other books and stories within Larry Niven's Known Space future history.

Behold: the Fleet!

(No spoilers herein. In this post I'll say little or nothing about plots. For per-book descriptions click embedded links to go to the book-specific Amazon pages. For books in the Fleet series, you can also click the book covers on the right-hand side of this post page for more description.)

Erroneous web references abound that Fleet/Juggler/Destroyer of Worlds are a trilogy (they're not), and that Betrayer of Worlds is the first of a series (a new sub-series is more accurate, in that Betrayer introduces a new main character), and wondering if the series is complete (as of today's update, with the release of Fate of Worlds, #5, it is).

Other online articles -- from mainstream reviews to fan sites to blog posts -- offer conflicting opinions as to whether and how individual Fleet of Worlds series books relate to earlier-written Known Space stories -- and even to each other.

You know what? I thought I'd offer an opinion.  Being a coauthor imparts some qualifications, right?

Ring(world) around the betrayer

(Updated December 14th)

The release (last October) of Betrayer of Worlds led to several interview requests, which Larry and I divvied up.  For those of you curious about things like how the book came to be written, how we work together, or about Larry's massively award-winning Ringworld -- to which Betrayer (and the rest, so far, of the Fleet of Worlds series) is a prelude -- here are a few items that you may find interesting:

A whole Pak of trouble

Pak are humanity's (fortunately only fictional) cousins: lean, mean -- and scary smart -- fighting machines. In Destroyer of Worlds (which I first announced here), the Pak were the latest menace to confront the Puppeteers, aboard the Fleet of Worlds, and their human allies.

As of today, Destroyer of Worlds is out in paperback.

I've been delighted with the reviews since the novel debuted. To mention only a few:

Betrayer of Worlds

Puppeteers are the sneakiest, most conniving -- and for many SF readers, most fascinating -- aliens in the galaxy. They're certainly the most cowardly. Arguably, they're the most ruthless.

Maybe that's why I so enjoy writing about them. As in -- just released today -- the latest installment in Larry Niven's and my epic Fleet of Worlds series: Betrayer of Worlds.

Since the chain reaction of supernovae at the galactic core sent a trillion Puppeteers aboard the Fleet of Worlds fleeing for their lives, the two-headed aliens have lurched from one crisis to the next ...

Until now, when -- like every Puppeteer's worst nightmare -- past crises have converged.

The great read spot

Nope, not a typo.  An atrocious pun, I'll grant you.  It all has to do with my recent silence -- due, in turn to a lot of reading.

Possibly the most overused cliche of recent years, (the Mother of All Cliches, if you will), is "the perfect storm." And the mother of all storms, in our solar system, at least, is the way-larger-than-Earth-itself Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

There's no way I can write four books in a year.  Two is pushing it.  But not all books make it through the publisher's pipeline on the same time line. And so, in 2010, I'll have four books come out:

No gap between Worlds

The Fleet of Worlds series so far consists of Fleet of Worlds (#1), Juggler of Worlds (#2), and Destroyer of Worlds (#3). (If that's Greek to you, check out the Fleet series page on my website.)

Fleet and Destroyer were released for the Kindle almost concurrently with the hardback edition. Not so Juggler: I've gotten lots of frustrated emails about the nonavailability of Juggler as an ebook. (One irate Amazon customer even gave Destroyer a one-star review solely because he couldn't get JOW on his Kindle. As much as I sympathized, I thought that a bit unfair.) As for why books one and three, but not two -- truthfully, I simply don't know.

So: I am delighted to report that the Amazon Kindle Store now offers Juggler of Worlds for the Kindle. For all of you who have been waiting -- I appreciate your patience.

Destroyer of Worlds

Fair warning: this is a commercial announcement. (But likely my last for a while. Gotta refill the pipeline.)

Destroyer of Worlds

Destroyer of Worlds, released today, is a far-future space epic. It's also my latest/third collaboration with Larry Niven -- all part of our Fleet of Worlds series.

Destroyer, like our earlier books, deals with Puppeteer manipulations -- these aliens are aptly named for more than their appearance. And the afraid-of-everything Puppeteers have more than ever to fear, because on the horizon looms another, particularly scary, alien species: the Pak.

(That brings us to our second cover snap [below the fold].

Time for another chat?

(Updated June 17, 2012) This post has become of historical interest only ... the chat log lived on someone else's website and is now overcome by events. But if chatting is your thing, check out my new discussion group at Goodreads). 

Where does the time go?

My thinking about occasional SF and Nonsense internet chats was: every couple of months. Today I noticed that the first-and-so-far-only chat was way back in ... January. Yikes!

That inaugural chat was a lot of fun. (Curious? Check the chat log here.) So: I thought I'd test the waters (see virtual toe dip) for doing another. Hence, the poll on the righthand side of this page, immediately below my profile. As before, the chat would be on a Saturday late afternoon (as such things are judged in Eastern time).

You want to know more? IIRC the last chat touched on many of the topics you read (and comment) about here: aliens, SF tropes, TV and movie SF. Those are all fair game if we do this again. But the calendar suggests my own writing as a topic (internet chat hasn't been foremost in my mind for a reason):

Last June: Juggler of Worlds (a collaboration with Larry Niven) was reissued in paperback.

September 1: Fools' Experiments will be reissued in paperback.

October 13: Small Miracles will be released.

November 10: Destroyer of Worlds (a collaboration with Larry Niven) will be released.

The poll runs through September. Vote early and often ;-)

Busy busy busy

I spent last weekend at the Virginia Festival of the Book, cosponsored by (among others) the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and the University of Virginia. The festival is very broad spectrum, covering nonfiction and fiction, small press and large. The festival offered but one panel on science fiction and fantasy -- and I was delighted to be invited.

Turns out I was the sole SF author on the panel. Besides being a lot of fun, the SF&F panel turned out to be a great venue for discussing Fools' Experiments. I was gratified by the interest.

So three days not writing ... with lots more to come. Because last week's mail brought two major projects.

First, copyedits for Destroyer of Worlds. That's the third book in my series of collaborations with Larry Niven. For aficionados of Known Space, Destroyer is a sequel to both Juggler of Worlds and Protector. (I hasten to add, Destroyer is written so you don't have to have read the earlier books. You'll get some aha! moments, though, if you have.) Expect to see Pak protectors, Puppeteers, and -- introduced in Fleet of Worlds -- the starfish-like Gw'oth -- among others.

Second, galleys for Small Miracles. This is a Lerner solo, a near-future technothriller about medical nanotech. Small Miracles is a standalone, not part of a series.

So: that's more than 200,000 words of proofreading I'll be doing over the next couple of weeks. I'm not complaining -- just providing fair warning my blogging may fall off a bit.

I've learned not to offer precise dates for book releases. Best guess, Destroyer of Worlds and Small Miracles will both be released by Tor Books in 4Q09.