Even paranoids can have enemies

            Sigmund Ausfaller woke up shivering, prone on a cold floor.  His head pounded.  Tape bound his wrists and ankles to plasteel chains. 

            He had always known it would end horribly.  Only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all had eluded him. 

            That fog was beginning to lift.

***

Those are the opening lines of Juggler of Worlds. While I am frequently asked which one of my books is my favorite -- a question I can't answer; it's like being asked which of my children I like best -- I freely admit this is one of my favorite openings -- and Sigmund one of my favorite characters.

Why bring it up now? Because (for a limited time the publisher hasn't shared with me) Juggler of Worlds for the Kindle is only $2.99. If you encountered and took advantage of the publisher's last promotion (Fleet of Worlds), you surely won't want to miss this sale. 

Fleet and Juggler are commonly considered, respectively, books 1 and 2 of the five-book Fleet of Worlds series. That said, they're written to be standalones and they're parallel novels rather than one a follow-on to the other. So ...

If you're interested in Earth's perspective (and, in particular, Sigmund's paranoid take) on those galaxy-shaking events Fleet considers from an alien POV, you'll want to pick up a copy of Juggler. Or if you ever wondered how (in a series of seemingly unrelated award-winning short stories by Larry Niven) totally weird adventures kept befalling starship pilot Beowulf Shaeffer, you'll want to pick up a copy of Juggler. Or if you just would enjoy -- and who wouldn't? -- a rollicking good space opera ... you'll want to pick up a copy of Juggler. 

Here's that link again :-)

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):

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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 ;-)

Juggler interview with Tor Books

For those who don't subscribe to the monthly Tor-Forge newsletter, here's my recent interview (motivated by the paperback re-release of Juggler of Worlds):

Q: How do you describe Juggler of Worlds?
A: Juggler shows what happens when a paranoid government agent really does confront vast alien conspiracies.
Sigmund Ausfaller comes by his paranoia honestly. He was ten when his parents disappeared amid a conflict with the Kzinti—and everyone knows the Kzinti eat their prey. He grew up to watch aliens for a living. It’s up to Sigmund to make sense of things when the super-secretive Puppeteers, who have made worlds and species across Known Space dependent on Puppeteer technology, suddenly disappear.
The Puppeteers had good reasons to hide. The last thing they want is Sigmund bringing the military might of the human worlds down upon their heads (of which each Puppeteer has two). It’s left to the Puppeteer operative known as Nessus to somehow keep humanity at bay. Puppeteers being philosophical cowards, they’re generally incapable of leaving home. Nessus can, and that makes him insane in his own way.
Q: Sigmund Ausfaller. Nessus. Don’t I know those names?
A: If you’re a Niven fan, then yes. Sigmund played minor but pivotal roles in two of Larry’s early, award-winning stories (“Neutron Star” and “The Borderland of Sol”). Nessus most prominently figures in what is perhaps Larry’s best-known novel, Ringworld.
More than any other reason, the book came about because I felt Sigmund had leading-man potential and unique insight into the panorama that is Known Space.
Q: Juggler sounds like some kind of secret history. I’m reminded of the Ender’s Shadow books, which parallel Ender’s Game and its sequels.
A: Exactly! Events in some of Larry’s stories that seemed independent or random or coincidental … aren’t. Sigmund and Nessus—and their interstellar game of cat-and-mouse—lie behind much that readers thought they understood about Known Space.
Our model was the Tom Stoppard play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are hangers-on at the Danish court and minor players in Hamlet, they are, of course, the central characters of their own play.
Wherever Stoppard revisits a scene from Hamlet, some dialogue repeats—interspersed with muttered asides and interior monologue Shakespeare never imagined. Unless you’ve memorized Hamlet, it’s hard to know where Shakespeare leaves off and Stoppard begins—yet much of the Stoppard play happens aboard a ship far from the Danish court!
Juggler interleaves events old and new, and occasionally dialogue, in the same way.
Q: Then Juggler overlaps chronologically with some of Larry’s stories and with your earlier collaboration, Fleet of Worlds.
A: To get away from the theater metaphors, Juggler is a mosaic in which other stories are some of the tiles.
Events are examined from new points of view. Heretofore unsuspected linkages emerge. Players in past stories are sometimes revealed—by reason of self-interest, nobility, or ignorance—to have told partial truths or been honestly mistaken.
It took planning, but we’re happy with how everything fits together. Where we revisit specific circumstances—say, the expedition in “Neutron Star”—it’s always from a different character’s point of view and the event is surrounded by heretofore unsuspected causes and unrevealed consequences.
Q: So who is the titular juggler, Nessus or Sigmund?
A: We leave that to the reader to decide—fully expecting opinions to change over the course of the book.
Q: What’s your next project, Ed?
A: Next up, also from Tor (out in October), is a Lerner solo. Small Miracles is a near-future technothriller of nanotechnology and medical nanobots. In a few words:
When Brent Cleary was caught in a gas pipeline explosion, it took more than one small miracle to keep him alive. Too bad the small miracles have an agenda of their own….
Q: Thanks, Ed. It was a pleasure talking with you.
A: My pleasure.

Juggler of Worlds redux

This is a commercial announcement ...

Juggler of Worlds, my most recent interstellar epic -- in collaboration with Larry Niven -- was re-released today in paperback. (JoW is now also available in various audio formats, for those who like listening to books.)

Naturally I posted about Juggler when it originally came out, and my website has a sampling of the rave reviews. But the proof of the book is in the reading, and so courtesy of the publisher here is an excerpt.

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.

Binary stars

This isn't a post about astronomy, but read on -- you'll find that the title is apt. (An author's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a metaphor?)

SFsite's "Novel Delights of 2008" is newly posted. This isn't exactly a best-of list, but rather (in the reviewer's words) offered because "for pure thematic and/or literary variety and entertainment value I'd like to draw some attention to the following six novels." Only six books, fantasy and SF, and -- imagine my surprise -- two of the six titles are mine: Juggler of Worlds and Fools' Experiments. (Of course Juggler is also Larry Niven's.) These are excellent reviews, IMO, informative without spoilers.

The SFsite article is by Dave Truesdale, longtime contributor to the Hugo Award-nominated short-fiction review website Tangent Online and for several years now the "Off on a Tangent" essayist for F&SF magazine.

And here's a second twofer ... Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction is a syndicated cable TV show (with an affiliated website) dedicated to SF. Their December 2008 book review was about Fleet of Worlds and -- back to back -- their January 2009 book review was about Juggler of Worlds. Again, both are my (and Larry's) books, this time one a 2007 release and the other a 2008 release.

The Fast Forward write-ups are also (still IMO, of course) good and spoiler-free reviews. As is to be expected: FF's long-time book reviewer, Colleen Cahill, is, by day, Library of Congress Recommending Officer for Science Fiction and Fantasy.

(Yes, yes ... you caught me vanity-surfing. Two double recognitions were too good not to share.)

My fifteen minutes of fame

I recently had the pleasure of "appearing" on the popular SF podcast Cover to Cover. We discussed my last book, Juggler of Worlds and my upcoming (November 11) novel, Fools' Experiments. I'll post about FE when it's released. The interview starts at about 13 minutes, 15 seconds into the show (which isn't to say the whole show isn't interesting!).

And SF Signal asked me to participate in their Mind Meld feature, in which they ask the same question to a random(?) group of SF-industry people. The question this time -- one which authors are asked all the time -- was: Which authors and books have most influenced your writing? My answer appears with those of Joe Haldeman and Lois McMaster Bujold, among others. Good company.

Histories: alternate, future, and secret

Science fiction can set stories in the conventional past, like any garden-variety historical novel. Or SF can move characters -- see my previous post about the Time Travel Trope -- in and out of the conventional past. But SF can do so much more. The genre also offers:

Alternate history: What if history had gone a different way, like the South winning the Civil War? (Or, more intriguingly: What slight change -- like a Confederate battle plan not lost before the Battle of Antietam -- would lead to the South winning?) Thereafter, how might events unfold? Example: Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain.

Future history: A story set against a future so richly imagined that it feels like history. Examples: Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series or -- from the guy who arguably invented the concept -- Robert Heinlein’s Future History stories.

Secret history: A story that unfolds within history as we know it -- while making us understand that history in a new way. Example: Michael Flynn’s Eifelheim, in which aliens were stranded in medieval Germany. More mainstream: Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

Combinations: Why not mix ’em up?

Playing with history, past and future, is a lot of fun. It must be -- we SF authors do it often. And mea culpa. Fleet of Worlds and, more so, Juggler of Worlds, both of which I co-wrote with Larry Niven are -- while standalone -- also secret future histories within Larry's Known Space.

Interview -- Juggler of Worlds

I was recently interviewed by Sci Fi Wire, the news service of the Sci Fi channel.

We talked mostly about Juggler of Worlds, newly released. There's also a bit of preview of my next novel, Fools' Experiments. (FE, unlike Juggler, is a Lerner solo.)

Juggler of Worlds

Full disclosure up front: Today's post IS explicitly about my own writing. I have a new book released today, and that's still enough of a novelty (heh!) to be special.

Juggler of Worlds

Juggler of Worlds is my second collaboration with NY Times bestseller Larry Niven (the first was Fleet of Worlds). Juggler takes place in Larry's far-ranging Known Space venue – and Juggler's release is what's had me musing in a recent post about faster-than-light travel in SF.

Known Space brims with aliens and interstellar adventure -- with plots briskly advanced by FTL drives. And Juggler itself? It has a brilliant human paranoid with a gift for sniffing out alien plots, plenty of aliens plotting, and heroic aliens, too. If you're a Known Space aficionado (NOT required), Juggler is an opportunity to discover that much of what you believe about Known Space … isn't quite what you thought.

Curious about Known Space? The Incompleat Known Space Concordance is a neat resource.

If you're curious about Juggler of Worlds itself, check out Amazon or see what the publisher has to say.