Well, that was quick… Only one day after Amazon released Infoquake on the Kindle, they’ve now made MultiReal available too. Go check it out on Amazon. Expect Geosynchron to be released tomorrow.

I’ve received a number of emails from potential readers out there griping that my books aren’t available in electronic format. You’re writing about a digital future where people can call up any text in the world instantly and project it holographically on their retinas, they say. So how come I’m stuck reading your work on this crummy hunk of pulped wood, jackass?

Until now, my answer has always been, It’s not my decision, pal. I don’t own the electronic rights. And don’t call me a jackass, punk.

To which they reply… well, you get the picture.

But as of today, I can now join the ranks of the electronically published. Yes, via the Pyr-o-mania blog, I see that Infoquake is now available on the Amazon Kindle. Go check it out on Amazon. Not only is it available, but it’s one of the first five titles available on Kindle from Pyr. (For the record, the others are: Justina Robson’s Silver Screen and Going Under, Mike Resnick’s Starship: Pirate, and Lou Anders’ anthology Fast Forward 1.)

I’m told there are a lot more Pyr titles in the works — including, yes, MultiReal — but there’s no telling exactly when they’re going to hit the street. So hopefully by some point next year, you’ll be able to read the entire Jump 225 trilogy electronically. You won’t be able to project it holographically on your retinas yet, unless you’re Ray Kurzweil, but here’s hoping we’ll be able to do that in our lifetimes too.

(And by the way… yes, I would love to be able to post a picture of what Infoquake actually looks like on the Kindle. But unfortunately, I don’t own one and don’t anticipate buying one anytime soon. So if anyone does get a chance to email me a nice high quality digital photo of Infoquake on the Kindle, I’d really appreciate it.)

I’ve always claimed in interviews that it doesn’t really matter whether the actual future resembles the future I wrote about in Infoquake and MultiReal. There are simply too many variables in predicting the future, such that if you do get it right, it’s largely a matter of luck. But like all authors, I do secretly harbor this fantasy about the world turning out exactly like I predicted it, and my books being hailed as visionary tomes before their time, and my grave becoming a tourist spot for centuries where young kids with beards hang out writing romantic poetry late at night.

So it’s comforting to see that the visionary Ray Kurzweil (whose The Age of Spiritual Machines I heartily recommend) has, in effect, completely endorsed my idea of multi technology. Here’s what he says in an interview with GOOD Magazine:

By the late 2020s, nanobots in our brain (that will get there noninvasively, through the capillaries) will create full-immersion virtual-reality environments from within the nervous system. So if you want to go into virtual reality the nanobots shut down the signals coming from your real senses and replace them with the signals that your brain would be receiving if you were actually in the virtual environment. So this will provide full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses. You will have a body in these virtual-reality environments that you can control just like your real body, but it does not need to be the same body that you have in real reality. We’ll be able to interact with people in any way in these virtual-reality environments. That will replace most travel, but we’ll also have new travel technologies for our real bodies using nanotechnology.

Contrast that with how I describe the multi network in the appendices for Infoquake:

A multi projection is a virtual body that “exists” in real space. While the multied body is only an illusion created by neural manipulation, it can interact with real (”meat”) bodies in a way almost indistinguishable from physical human interaction…. The multi network depends on two key components: (1) the trillions of microscopic bots that process and relay sensory information to the network, and (2) neural OCHREs that manipulate the mind into “seeing” the sights, “hearing” the sounds, and “feeling” the sensations of the network. Similarly, those who interact with multi projections allow neural manipulation to trick the mind into believing the virtual bodies are present.

The big difference between good ol’ Ray and me is that a) he actually knows what he’s talking about, and b) I didn’t figure we’d get this working for another few hundred years. Kurzweil thinks we’ll be sending multi projections around the globe about the same time that Malia Obama gets her Masters degree. I think many of Kurzweil’s predictions are a tad on the optimistic side — he thinks the singularity will happen, oh, any day now — but basically sound.

(Thanks to Richard Strayer for pointing out the interview.)

Two more pieces of book promotion for y’all to chew on.

First, I’ve been interviewed by Shaun Farrell for the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. It’s a rather lengthy interview — 30 minutes or so — and it covers everything from whether Natch is the “hero” of Jump 225, why the series is titled Jump 225 in the first place, what is the nature of Natch’s drive to succeed, and why Moonwatcher from 2001 was in a way the first Natch.

Stargate writer and producer Joseph Mallozzi posted my answers to his book club questions about Infoquake recently. The group really seemed to delve into the book and had a very insightful discussion, not only here, but during several days of preceding blog posts. Topics covered include my favorite character, how likely I think the Infoquake future is, and why (or whether) the book ends abruptly. Excerpt:

Iamza writes: “I’m not so sure I really understand MultiReal. As outlined by Margaret, it sounds kind of great — a chance to have things turn out exactly as you wanted. But what happens when the batter wants to hit a six and the bowler wants to get his tenth wicket for no runs (hah, take that, baseball analogies! Give me cricket any day of the week). Whose reality ultimately wins out — or do both batter and bowler split off into separate universes, each achieving their individual goal? For every individual who’s installed the MultiReal program, are there a zillion universes in which things go wrong, and only one in which everything is golden.

DLE: Now you see the big dilemma with MultiReal technology. One of the main subplots in book 2 is how to resolve conflicts very much like you describe. Natch, Jara & Co. discover that there are a lot of broad sociological implications in how MultiReal resolves these conflicts. For instance: how do you charge customers for all those realities? Do you charge a flat fee, or do you charge for each alternate reality they pick? If you choose the latter, does that mean the rich would automatically win every argument?

(Admit it, you’re just making these funny cricket terms up. “The batter wants to hit a six”? “Getting his tenth wicket”? Surely you should not be using such language on a family blog like Mr. Mallozzi’s.)

I’ve managed to carve out enough time from all of the diaper changes, spit-ups and late-night feedings to conduct two new interviews in support of MultiReal. (And don’t even get me started about the babies.) <rim shot>

Fast Forward, the Arlington, VA-based cable science fiction TV show, conducted a 19-minute interview with me a couple of weeks ago. (Video requires QuickTime 7, but there’s an audio-only version available too.) Interviewer Tom Schaad really seems to have read Infoquake and MultiReal carefully. In our discussion before the cameras started rolling, he picked up on a number of hints in the margins of the books that nobody else has remarked on. (Hint: In which orbital colony did noted philanderer Marcus Surina die? And in which orbital colony was a certain fatherless character born?) Topics in the interview proper include MultiReal, technological paradigm shifts, the difficulty of writing the middle book in a trilogy, ethical systems in a post-religious world, and how the Jump 225 Trilogy is all about trying to find balance.

And blogger Fábio Fernandes has posted a seven-question interview with me on Post-Weird Thoughts. Topics covered include the influence of Dune and William Gibson, my favorite novels, the timeline of the Jump 225 trilogy in relation to today, and Geosynchron. Quick excerpt:

What can we expect of Geosynchron, the next novel of the Infoquake series? (BTW, it will really be a trilogy or there will be other stories in that universe?)

Geosynchron will definitely be the last novel of the trilogy. (I’m not precluding the possibility of writing additional novels in this universe down the road, but this particular story will come to an end at the conclusion of book 3.) As for what’s in store in the final book… You’re going to see the characters go off to places we haven’t been before, like the Pacific Islands and the orbital colony of 49th Heaven. You’re going to meet some of the Pharisees. You’re going to see a lot more of Quell and delve into his relationship with Margaret Surina. And you’re going to see a big ending that involves military strikes, philosophical debate, and (of course) creative marketing techniques. I think I can promise that it’s going to be a very, very unique conclusion. Currently the schedule is for the book to hit the stores in early 2010.

I’m told that Post-Weird Thoughts will have reviews of Infoquake and MultiReal up shortly as well.

Go. Watch. Read. Contemplate. Comment.

Patrick St-Denis has just posted an interview with me on his popular Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist blog. Subjects covered include Infoquake, MultiReal, Lou Anders and Pyr, my strengths as a storyteller, the John W. Campbell Award, cover art, websites and interactivity with readers, the trend of high-quality British SF, and whether SF will ever get proper literary recognition by snooty academics cowering up in their white towers.

But the best part of the whole thing is that Pat has seen fit, unprompted, to post this neat little Photoshopped poster that puts the full force and weight of Uncle Sam behind getting you to read Infoquake and MultiReal. And really, ain’t that how it should be?

Brief excerpt from the interview:

What do you feel is your strength as a writer/storyteller?
I feel like I’m very good at the worldbuilding aspect of things. Really, structure in general. The trilogy has layers and layers of metaphor in it, and I’m really quite proud of the way it all works together as an organic whole. My tendency is to wander off into history and background and structure, and sometimes I have to curb that impulse. If I had written The Lord of the Rings, it would have been three whole books of the Council of Elrond, and nobody would have read it.

Were there any perceived conventions of the science fiction genre which you wanted to twist or break when you set out to write Infoquake and its sequel?

Yes, I wanted to avoid the typical mindless action set-pieces that you find in a lot of bad SF, and bad novels in general. I really wanted to write an exciting novel about business. A lot of authors just use the business aspect as window dressing, and then quickly throw their characters into the same car chases and murder mysteries and gunfights. I wanted to write books that really are about the workplace, where the excitement revolves around product demos and marketing meetings and government hearings and that kind of thing. So that’s what I’ve tried to do.

There’s an amusing comment string that’s cropped up on the Amazon page for MultiReal around Harriet Klausner’s review of the book. It began when Klausner, the (in)famous #1 reviewer on Amazon, gave MultiReal a five-star review, and folks started piling on to diss it. Then I broke the cardinal author/reviewer rule — Thou Shalt Not Criticize Thine Book’s Reviews — by saying this:

Normally I wouldn’t comment on a review of my books, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Looks like *someone* read the book, or at least skimmed it, since that bit about “Natch plead[ing] with the Melbourne legislature to no avail” isn’t in the back cover copy. (But to reinforce your point, Ghost of M, she does get that plot point wrong. It’s not Natch, but his mentor Serr Vigal, who pleads before the Melbourne legislature.)

Hard for an author to complain about a 5-star review, though, especially when it’s the only reader review currently up on Amazon…

The discussion continues on from there, and it’s still ongoing.

So now I’ve been inspired to write a little piece here answering the question: what do authors want from reviews of their work anyway? I can’t speak for anybody other than myself on this one, but what I want is very simple:

1. Opinion. Have one. Better yet: have several.
2. Honesty. Love it? Hate it? Moved? Unimpressed? Offended? Enraptured? All I want is your honest opinion, whether it’s favorable to me or not. Don’t worry about the politics, don’t worry about the personalities, don’t worry about what’s popular or unpopular in the stores or what other critics are saying. What do you think?
3. Insight. I want to know that you engaged with my work. Whether you loved it or hated it is not always the point; I want to know that you thought about it. And if my book left you with a soul-crushing emptiness that sucks light out of the universe? That’s fine too, as long as you gave the book a fair shot. Skimmers and summarizers don’t impress me.
4. Elaboration. I can handle the fact that you found the book far-fetched. But I want to know how and where. Specific examples help. Better yet, specific quotations that you took the time to type verbatim from the text.
5. Disclosure. Are you and I up for the same award? Are you the brother of the guy I dissed in an article on my blog? Are you a specialist in the field that I’m writing about? Are you my uncle? None of these things disqualifies you from writing a useful review of my books. I just want to know.
6. No anonymity. There’s a reason Slashdot’s default label for commenters who don’t leave their names is “Anonymous Coward.” Give your review a byline. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your full name or your real name; just don’t say something provocative and then duck behind the shield of anonymity. I want to know something about you; I want to be able to put your opinions about my work in some kind of context.
7. Originality. Anyone can find a detailed summary of MultiReal on the website, or on Amazon, or in other reviews for that matter. Anybody can toss around the phrases “high octane,” “edge of your seat,” and “page turner.” Feel free to confirm impressions that other readers have had, but I’m much more impressed when I see some positive or negative tidbit that I haven’t seen before.
8. Accuracy. Probably not the most important point, but important nonetheless. I can forgive misspellings of minor characters’ names; I can forgive that you said the assassination by beer bottle bludgeoning took place in Barcelona instead of Madrid. But when you completely mangle entire plot threads because you weren’t paying attention, you’re just wasting my time.
9. No pandering. It’s nice to be quotable, and yes, quotable blurbs can often find their way into the front matter of the next book. But please, don’t say pithy things just for the sake of trying to get on the book jacket or the website.
10. No spoilers. It’s not for my sake that you should avoid spoilers; it’s for the sake of my (potential) readers. When a review blithely spoils a suspenseful plot element a third of the way into the novel — like this review of MultiReal from SFRevu does — well, it’s irritating.

By the standards listed above, I’d have to say that the most interesting and plain useful reviews I’ve read of my books are probably Paul Kincaid’s take on Infoquake for the New York Review of Science Fiction, Norman Spinrad’s discussion about Infoquake in Asimov’s, and Jason Pettus’ detailed review of Infoquake on the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography.

Mostly positive reviews, true, but not wholly positive reviews. Paul Kincaid calls Infoquake “a brisk, well-told science fiction adventure set in the normally unadventurous world of business”; but he also takes me to task for the silly character names, the preponderance of appendices, and the backwards-looking historical quotations. He complains about the science. But Kincaid’s review did something that other wholly uncritical five-star reviews did not: it had an impact on the writing of books 2 and 3. Specifically, his point about the improbability of a multi-generational dynasty like the Surinas caused me to rethink certain background elements of the plot that will come to the forefront in Geosynchron. It cast a light on some ideas about the Surinas that I had been toying with beforehand but never quite parsed out.

I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of impact I want to have on the authors I review.

Life moves fast, and this MultiReal promotion stuff is zipping by like an F-16. Here’s a passel of news about book stuff, which I’m just going to lump here behind bullet points for lack of any better idea.

• Chat with Me on LibraryThing: From now until next Friday, August 1, I’m participating in my own LibraryThing Author Chat. Which basically means that any LibraryThing member is free to post questions to the author in an open forum, and I’ll answer them. Somebody please log on and ask me something so I can prop up my frail, stunted ego.
• SFFWorld MultiReal Review: Rob Bedford of SFFWorld has given MultiReal what can only be called a rave review. Remember that this is the guy who called Infoquake “THE science fiction novel of the year, if not the past five years,” and said that “the genre might not be quite the same after this book.” So I’ve been looking forward to what Rob has to say. Excerpt:
  

  MultiReal is on par with the previous volume for Edelman’s ability to change the game a bit and still maintain what made Infoquake such a great novel; his growth as a writer is most evident in the characters themselves. If anything, MultiReal may be a bolder novel… MultiReal is also not a “treading water middle book” of a trilogy… it really drives home much of what Edelman was setting up in the first volume and leaves the reader eager for the next volume. David Louis Edelman has crafted another winner with MultiReal… I for one can’t wait to see where Edelman takes the conclusion of this [thus far] spectacular trilogy.

• Listen to My “Key to Publishing” on Audio: The popular podcasts Adventures in SciFi Publishing and I Should Be Writing are jointly holding a Keys to Publishing Contest. Not only will they be giving away copies of Infoquake and MultiReal, but they’ll also be giving away books by my buddies Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Sean Williams, and Kay Kenyon (as well as Brenda Cooper, whom I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting). As part of the contest, they asked the authors to contribute short audio pieces on the key to getting published. Here’s my contribution, on I Should Be Writing 94. The whole podcast is worth listening to, but for reference’ sake, the intro to the Keys to Publishing sections starts at 3:40, and my audio piece runs from 4:50 to 7:36.)
• Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist Contest Winners: Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has announced the winners of their MultiReal giveaway contest, which ended up being an Infoquake/MultiReal giveaway contest. (In case you’ve forgotten, Pat called Infoquake “one of the very best science fiction debuts I have ever read.” And he hasn’t reviewed MultiReal yet, so I’m very interested in making sure he’s happy. Can I FedEx you a pillow, Pat?)
• POD People Review: Chris Gerrib of POD People has reviewed MultiReal and given it a rating of 10 out of 10. Says Chris (a self-published SF author in his own right):
  

  MultiReal is a deep book, full of plots and counter-plots, with a stunning vision of the future. It manages what seems to be impossible, making the act of computer programming exciting, while reflecting on the nature of government and business. This is high science fiction at its finest.

  Which prompted this amusing reply from one baron_waste on the LiveJournal mirror of the article:

  In ten years, that book is going to be as embarrassingly dated as any 1950s “Atomic Mutant Vegetables Conquer the World” story. I mean, look at it. Maybe he won’t care — royalty checks are their own currency, in the literal sense of the word — but this ain’t exactly The City and the Stars you’re describing here.

  Fine, baron_waste. Not only do you pick on my book, but you make fun of the title for my next book, Atomic Mutant Vegetables Conquer the World. See if I care.

In last week’s contest — week 2 of 4 — I asked you to submit your favorite science fiction parody porno titles. I did indeed get some creative entries, though not as many as I would have liked. (And from many of the same people who entered last week.)

The winner this week is Jim Haley. The title he submitted would never fit on a DVD case, but he scores extra points for hitting Douglas Adams’ entire Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, including “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe”:

The Hooker’s Guide to Servicing Aliens at the Truckstop at the End of the Universe, Avoiding His (Her/Its) Wife, Her Purse, and Everything in It, and Knowing When It’s Time to Say, So Long, You Were a Quite a Dish (with the addendum Young Bods May Not Like to Play It Safe, But They’re Mostly Harmless Anyway)

And if that wasn’t enough, he submitted a number of other good titles, including:

The Unzip My Fly Effect

and

So LONG… But It Smells a Little Like Fish

The closest runner-up was Mike Wolffe, for his fabulous entry:

Butt Pirates of the Perineum: At Girl’s End

(I might have awarded Mike the contest, if I didn’t eliminate him for reasons of nepotism. I’ve actually known Mike since we both stood out in deep right field in a softball game in fifth grade and let fly balls fly by us. Go read Mike’s blog, if you want to see some great photography, deviant humor of the Butt Pirates of the Perineum sort, left-wing politics, general deep thoughts, and lots of Calvin and Hobbes. But I should warn you, this is a guy who still likes Guns N’ Roses.)

As for other runners-up… Stephen Stull came close to the grand prize with an entry that made me grin. Although in the end, I thought Titus Groans was a little too — well, obvious.

GormenghASSED Revisited: Titus Groans… Again.

Dave Crampton submitted a few good entries as well, but the one that really made me giggle was:

Anansi Boys on Boys

Very simple and elegant. Neil Gaiman would be proud.

* * *

For this week’s contest, due to popular request (and due to this blogger wishing to get more contest entries so as to not look foolish), I’m opening up entries to the entire world. Yes, that means you, in Zimbabwe! And you, in Portugal! And you, in the Cayman Islands! Not to mention you, in the United States.

I’m also going to lower the decency bar back down where it belongs, in deference to all of the Internet censors in your foreign countries. In fact, I’m so interested in getting your input that I’m going to let you influence the course of the next U.S. presidential election.

Your task is this: pick a comic book superhero to run as either Barack Obama’s or John McCain’s running mate this fall. And then tell me why said superhero would be an asset to the ticket. You can be funny — or heck, if you can really think of some good, solid reasons why Obama should choose Wolverine as his vice president or McCain should be stumping through Idaho with Nick Fury, I’ll be willing to reward a thoughtful enough entry with the prize.

Example: “John McCain should choose Spider-Man as his running mate in ‘08, because 1) his punchy one-liners could really liven up McCain’s stump speeches, 2) who knows, underneath that costume, Spidey might be a black guy too, and 3) his New York residency might actually help win the state for the GOP.”

Same contest rules apply as before. Email your response to dedelman@gmail.com with the subject line “Summer Giveaway Contest 3″. Entries are due Sunday, July 20 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time. Submit as many entries as you like. Winning entry gets:

• One signed copy of the Solaris mass market of Infoquake
• One signed copy of the Pyr trade paperback of MultiReal
• One signed copy of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two (containing my story “Mathralon”)
• One signed copy of the new Overlook Press edition of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone (containing my introduction)

Jon Armstrong, author of the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated Grey and fellow nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, has interviewed me on his “If You’re Just Joining Us” podcast. Jon’s been interviewing all of this year’s Campbell nominees; he’s already posted his chats with Mary Robinette Kowal and Joe Abercrombie, with chats with David Anthony Durham and Scott Lynch still to come.

Jon’s strategy with these podcasts is to steer away from the typical bland interview questions (”what was your inspiration for [insert book title]?”, “who were your biggest literary influences?”, etc.). So our 20-minute chat covered the coming death of the novel, the MacBook Air, the similarities between Infoquake and Grey, the pantheon of superheroes I created when I was a kid, my editor Lou Anders, how my dad taught me to always be the devil’s advocate, how 9/11 changed Infoquake, and the engineering of foreign toilets and doorknobs.

(Our conversation was actually over an hour long, and we talked about a ton of great stuff. I regret that our talk about David Lee Roth’s vocal track for “Runnin’ with the Devil” didn’t make it in.)

I’m quite pleased with this interview. Go give it a listen.

Before I report this news about yet another opportunity to win free copies of Infoquake, I feel compelled to remind you that you can actually, you know, buy these things too.

LibraryThing has a program called LibraryThing Early Reviewers, wherein certain publishers make review copies of their books available to LibraryThing members. All you have to do is sign up for LibraryThing, go to the Early Reviewers Request List, and click the big “Request It!” button next to Infoquake. If you’re selected, you get a copy of the book, which you are then theoretically supposed to read and review on the site.

Of course, it’s by no means a sure thing. As I write this, there are 20 review copies of Infoquake available and 186 reviewers requesting them. That’s five fewer requests than Dali & I by Stan Lauryssens, which is being turned into a movie starring Al Pacino. So all we need to do is overwhelm LibraryThing with requests, and I have it on the highest authority that Pacino will drop the Dali & I film and star in a cinematic adaptation of Infoquake instead.

Really! Would I lie?

As if telling Abigail Breslin to “suck it” wasn’t enough for one day, I am also on record praising Adolf Hitler in my “Big Idea” piece on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog. The piece is about the inspiration for my books Infoquake and MultiReal, and it’s not quite as offensive as it sounds. An excerpt:

Could Adolf Hitler ever have been the good guy?

The man was a warped, murderous bastard who ordered the slaughter of millions of people, started an unnecessary war of conquest, and permanently 86′d the dreams of an entire generation or three. But seriously — let’s say you hop in a time machine, track the dude down as a teenager, and put him through a serious reeducation program. And maybe give him a heavy dose of Prozac. Or better yet, hand him a Macintosh. Could he be redeemed?…

That was one of the Big Ideas behind my novels Infoquake and MultiReal. Create a character with Hitler-like strategic genius, with Gates-like business savvy, with Clinton-like personal magnetism, with Machiavelli-like disregard for ethics. Stick him on the fence between the ultimate selfishness and the ultimate selflessness, give him a technology that could revolutionize the world or destroy it, and see what he does.

“The Summer of Jump 225″ is here! Or at least, I’m declaring it “The Summer of Jump 225,” because I really want people to buy the books from my Jump 225 trilogy this summer. Towards that end, I’m starting a four-week-long Jumbo Mega-Bonanza Giveaway contest.

Here’s how it works. Every week for the next four weeks, I’m going to hold a contest here on my blog. You, the anonymous denizens of the Internet, will send me your contest entries. And every week, I’m going to pick one winning entry who will win the stack of books pictured to the right, namely:

• One copy of the Solaris edition of Infoquake
• One copy of the Pyr edition of MultiReal
• One copy of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two (containing my story “Mathralon”)
• One copy of Overlook Press’ new edition of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone (containing my introduction to the book)

Yes, that’s right: I’m giving away four sets of four books each. That’s a total of… uh… hold on, let me dig out my calculator… forty-two sixteen books! And not only that, but you’re winning the entire David Louis Edelman ouevre to date. The “DLE Canon,” as it were.

So here’s the first contest.

You may be aware that I’ve gotten some nice advance blurbs from authors. Kate Elliott said that Infoquake was “inventive and provocative, with a surprisingly emotional kick.” Peter Watts called MultiReal “a thoroughly-successful hybrid of Neuromancer and Wall Street.”

But did you know that there were a number of author and celebrity endorsements that my publisher decided to turn down? For instance, President George W. Bush weighed in on Infoquake with this advance blurb:

“David Louie Eldermint’s Info-Quake just might be a weapon of mass destruction all by itself. If Eldermint was out to eliminate all my free time trying to finish his book, then mission accomplished! All I can say is, heckuva job, Davey!” — George W. Bush, Presimadent of the US of A

Pyr wisely decided that they didn’t want to publish an endorsement from such a controversial public figure. Likewise, they turned down this one from DNC Chairman Howard Dean:

“Edelman’s gonna sell books in Borders! And then he’s gonna sell books in Barnes & Noble! And then he’s going on to Books-a-Million, Waterstone’s, Powell’s, Waldenbooks, and B. Dalton… AND ALL THE WAY TO WAL-MART! YEEEEEEEEHAAAGH!” — Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee

I can understand why my publisher decided to turn down blurbs from such political figures as Bush and Dean. You don’t want to go around alienating half of your potential audience. But why would they have turned down this perfectly acceptable blurb from lovable ol’ Jar-Jar Binks?

“Meesa bustin’ with happiness at readin’ dis-a book, MultiReal! My afraid that my not been reading such good tings for a long ol’ time! Infinito possibiliteez is only a state in da mind, indeed!” — Jar-Jar Binks, Irritating Orange Asshole

So your mission for this week is: email me some more blurbs that were too controversial to print on the jackets of my books at dedelman@gmail.com. Whoever submits the best, funniest, most offensive, most shocking, or just plain weirdest blurb between now and 11:59 PM Eastern time on Sunday, June 6 will win the complete David Louis Edelman book set. Put “Summer Giveaway Contest 1″ in the subject line so I know what you’re emailing me about.

You can enter as many times as you see fit, but you can only win one set of books. I’ll be the sole judge, jury, and executioner (but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that). I’ll post the best blurbs here on the blog. Unfortunately, due to the prohibitive cost of shipping, I’m going to limit this contest to the United States and Canada.

(And no, in case you’re wondering, I’m not going to use your email for nefarious marketing purposes. Unless, I suppose, you count this contest as a nefarious marketing purpose, which is fair.)

Ready? Go!

Two new reviews for my new novel MultiReal have hit the web.

Because this is my blog, I’ll start with the review on the Grasping for the Wind blog, which is about as good a review as one could hope for. Here’s how John at Grasping for the Wind sums up the book:

MultiReal is an exciting and excellent sequel… This is one of those rare cases (like The Empire Strikes Back vs. A New Hope) where the second movie far surpasses the first in quality and level of enjoyment. Fans of stories that mix philosophy and ethics, with action and technology will enjoy Edelman’s works. It is a Matrix fans’ delight, and a worthy successor to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. I highly recommend Edelman as an author, and suggest you read Infoquake and its sequel MultiReal if you are looking for high-octane action, deep thinking, and eloquent writing.

John also praises the turn towards more action he sees in MultiReal:

Edelman has maintained the high level of energy from the previous novel and even ratcheted it up a bit higher… Edelman relates the action with the same skill as the speeches and it is both exciting and epic. Some readers may feel that the way the MultiReal program is used by Natch and some of the other characters may be a little too similar the action of The Matrix. However, it is amazing that a probability program could have such far-reaching implications, and cause so much upset.

Fair enough about the Matrix comparison. Unfortunately, the Wachowskis did such a good job with the concept of biologic software that it’s impossible to talk about the concept now without referring back to The Matrix. Kind of like you can’t write about a heroic quest without looking over your shoulder at J.R.R. Tolkien. Good thing I took out all of the stuff in the early drafts about Magan Kai Lee being a master of martial arts…

Finally, GFTW has some good things to say about my prose style in the book:

The writing in MultiReal has also gotten more adventurous. Edelman is willing to try new ways of writing, including a whole chapter written as a letter from one character to another… [I]t shows that Edelman is willing to take chances with his writing. An author willing to push himself to new heights in style can only be doing the same in the substance of his story, reminding the reader that he or she will never really know what is around the next bend of the story.

All the great things GFTW had to say about MultiReal took the sting out of the review by the UK website SFCrowsnest. Read it for yourself — it’s not good. I couldn’t find a single complimentary thing in GF Willmetts’ review, not even enough for a blurb on the reviews page.

Willmetts starts off by complaining about plot confusion:

It’s been a little while since I read the first book, ‘Infoquake’, in the ‘Jump 225′ trilogy and throwing myself in without a recap at the front of the book wasn’t a good idea… It wasn’t until I was a third of the way through the book that I spotted the recap as the first of eight appendixes… [M]uch of this information really needed to be incorporated within the confines of the story. It’s like looking at a painting and being told about what you haven’t seen. The skill in any storytelling is in putting the information in context and letting the picture build up in the reader’s mind. I frequently came away from reading this book thinking Edelman has internalised too much. He knows what is going on but hasn’t confided enough knowledge to the reader which is a big mistake. None of this is helped by the fact that he’s pushing so much material into the story that there is little room for the characters to breath so this time we don’t see so much depth with their personalities.

Ouch. Willmetts elaborates from there, but it’s clear to me that the reviewer never recovered from his initial plot confusion and thus never invested in the story. Which is fair criticism.

This is a reaction I’ve long been expecting from some reviewers (but I won’t pretend it doesn’t still sting). The problem is that you’ll be totally in the woods trying to read MultiReal if you haven’t read Infoquake first. And even if you have, you’ll still be in the woods if you don’t remember it very well. MultiReal not only picks up soon after Infoquake leaves off, but it extends the themes and metaphors of that book, and makes references to things that happened in the margins of it. I tried to ameliorate this problem by including a four-and-a-half page synopsis of Infoquake in the appendices of MultiReal, but I knew that wasn’t going to please everybody.

For better or worse, I’ve written the entire trilogy to be read in close proximity, preferably in one long pass. In this I was inspired by the ballsy way that Peter Jackson handled The Two Towers. Lost? Confused? Tough. Go rent The Fellowship of the Ring, and come back when you’re done.

Unfortunately, as much as I think it’s worth your time to read Infoquake and MultiReal one after the other so you can pick up the delicate interplay of plot and metaphor, I can’t very well insist that you read them that way. Pyr would never go for it, because they’re planning to, you know, sell these things. All I can do is suggest.

Well, this is a cool thing. Solaris Books is offering Infoquake wallpaper on the Downloads section of their website. So if you’ve ever wanted a hi-res closeup of Stephan Martiniere artwork on your desktop, now’s your chance. The available sizes are up to 1680 x 1050.

It’s here.

I mean, a copy of MultiReal is literally sitting in my lap as I type this. The stack of my author copies is sitting on the ottoman in my living room right now, as this photo here can attest. They were waiting for me, all tidy and snuggling in a box of styrofoam peanuts when I got home from work.

The book’s so hot off the printer, you could make pancakes on it. It’s so slick, those pancakes would slide right off the book cover without leaving a trace. And I feel so sweet, I wouldn’t need any syrup. (Anybody else suddenly in the mood for an IHOP run…?)

My first thought on opening the box was wondering how long it’s going to be before men can have children, like Arnold Schwarzeneggar in that stupid movie or that weird George Michael-looking dude on Oprah. Because seeing the cover of MultiReal with this fabu Stephan Martiniere artwork, I was struck by a sudden urge to bear the man’s children. Really, it’s that good. It’s also a little darker on laminated cardboard than it is on a computer screen, which somehow seems to lend the book a bit of gravitas.

My second impression, just as I had when I saw the finished trade paperback of Infoquake for the first time, was that the book is both taller and thinner than I had imagined it would be. I found myself holding the book up and pinching the entire section 5 (called “Possibilities 2.0″) between my thumb and index finger. It’s 70 pages packed full of intrigue, drama, and intellectual stimulation, yet it’s about the thickness of an issue of Playbill. How can that be?

Once I’d gotten over staring at the book in isolation, of course the next thing I had to do was stack it next to both versions of Infoquake. As you can imagine, the Solaris Infoquake with the complementary Martiniere painting looks super keen next to MultiReal. But what was totally surprising to me was how well the Pyr trade paperback with the original cover looks side-by-side with the new book 2. Witness:

(Yes, I did take those photos myself on my cell phone. Sorry, Annie Leibowitz isn’t returning my calls anymore, that minx.)

So I now officially have two published books to my name, and I’m feeling as high as a zeppelin right this moment. Hey, lookit me! I’ve got an oeuvre!

In addition to thanking Stephan Martiniere for the fabulous cover, special mention should also go to my editor, Lou Anders, whose fabulous instincts are what make Pyr books look as special as they do. Also at Pyr/Prometheus, Jackie Cooke, who is responsible for the marvelous type treatment and overall layout of the book. (She used a font called “Tall Films” for the titles, and a font called “Am Sans” for the rest of the cover text.) And finally, Peggy Deemer, who shepherded the book through production and put up with about 400 paranoid emails from me about things I misspelled and section breaks I mistakenly left out of the final Word documents.

The “official” launch date for MultiReal is July 8, but if you know anything about this business you know how meaningless those official launch dates are. Amazon is claiming they already have it in stock and can deliver it to your door by Monday morning…

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, the fine SF review website that brought you the recent Infoquake giveaway — not to mention the fine SF review website that recently called said book “one of the very best science fiction debuts I have ever read” — is now giving away three copies of MultiReal. All you have to do to enter is go to the website and send an email to the guys running the giveaway contest.

But better yet — if you haven’t yet read book 1 of the Jump 225 Trilogy, Infoquake, Pyr will throw in a copy of that book as well. Go! Enter! Encourage these people to pay me lots of attention and thus encourage more sales.

And if that’s not excuse enough for me to dust off the ol’ Adobe Photoshop and stick a copy of MultiReal in a sleazy used car salesman’s hand, I don’t know what is.

Believe it or not, I’ve never read anything by Terry Pratchett. Which, for a science fiction writer, is kind of equivalent to a film student admitting that he’s never seen The Wizard of Oz. Today I decided to rectify the situation by purchasing the first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic.

I haven’t had time yet to read more than the first dozen pages or so, but it’s already clear to me that my novel Infoquake is a far, far better book.

How do I know that? Well, The Color of Magic only has three pages of blurbs inside the front cover — in large type, no less — while the Solaris edition of Infoquake has four and a half. The upcoming trade paperback of MultiReal ups the stakes considerably, with over nine pages of blurbs inside the cover. Nine and a half pages! By my reckoning, that makes Infoquake somewhere between 50% and 216% better than The Color of Magic.

Of course, by this standard I’m still playing catch-up to Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind. If you open up the mass market paperback for Pat’s debut, you see page after page of ecstatic blurbs and reviews from folks like Orson Scott Card and Robin Hobb, explaining why they would gladly burn the world’s last copy of Crime and Punishment if only to feed the fire that’s keeping Pat’s feet warm for twenty minutes. (I’m not saying this to be mean-spirited; it’s awe-inspiring stuff. We all love the guy who’s a scrappy loser, but less frequently admitted is how much we love the guy who’s an overbearing success. A part of me wishes that Pat was eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer this year. I would have loved to see him win by an overwhelming, blow-out margin. Remember how cool it was to watch The Return of the King take just about every Oscar in existence?)

Okay, back to the blurbs and review snippets. To quote Triumph the Comic Insult Dog: I kid! I kid!

We all know that this inside-the-cover blurb stuff is really just a marketing game that the publishers play. We all know that the presence of a ton of laudatory quotes might — might — signal the presence of a worthwhile book, but the lack of these quotes doesn’t mean the book is lacking in quality. We all know that the number of mouth-foaming quotes you find on the jacket or inside the cover serve one purpose and one purpose only: to sell you a book.

Nonetheless, it works. There are plenty of readers out there who claim that review snippets and author blurbs are totally meaningless and don’t impact their purchasing decisions. I’m not one of them. I utterly depend on compelling review snippets and/or blurbs from sources that I trust when I decide what to buy. Because to me, seeing a page of quality reviews and blurbs indicates several things:

• The blurbing authors thought highly enough of this book to have their name slathered all over it, knowing that it’s going to be used specifically for promotional purposes.
• Discerning, thoughtful critics liked the book enough that they took the time to think up a clever way to phrase their feelings about it, knowing that it’s going to be etc. etc.
• The publisher believes this book will appeal directly to readers like me by highlighting critical praise for the book and not putting one of those cheesy mini-excerpts on the first page.

(As an aside: I find those miniature excerpts on the first page of mass market paperbacks incredibly condescending. I’m sorry to report that if your book has an excerpt like that, your publisher has just dramatically decreased the probability of me buying it. Why?

1. Because you’ll usually find the most sensationalistic, cliffhangery passage of the whole book there, whether it’s germane to the plot or not.
2. Because the folks that package the book often take liberties with the author’s grammar and/or punctuation in these excerpts.
3. Because often these snippets give away crucial plot points or color my reading of the story.
4. Because they’re usually printed in a large font that screams, “Hey! I know you’re already headed to the checkout line, but I’m hoping this tiny irrelevant snippet of suggestive kinkiness, frenetic action, or lobotomized ideamongering just might be enough to inspire you to make an impulse purchase!”)

So ever since I saw the final typeset version of MultiReal with the nine and a half pages of review snippets, I’ve been ((way) over)analyzing it in my head. What does this say about my writing? What does it say about my career? Should I be proud that so many people had so many nice things to say about my first book? Does the book exhibit a Napoleon Complex by trying to show off so much? Should I mention on my blog that I wanted to include a lot of the positive comments from bloggers, as a way to show my respect and gratitude to the blogosphere for being so generous? And if I do mention that, am I being defensive?

And I’m also wondering: will these blurbs influence people’s buying decisions? Pretend you know nothing about me or my writing, and you stumble across MultiReal and its panoply of impressive-looking blurbs and review snippets in your local bookstore. How much would these pages impact your choice of whether to buy the book or not?

Well, it took me long enough.

I intended to finish podcasting the first seven chapters of Infoquake about two years ago, when the book was first released in trade paperback. For one reason or another, I only got up to chapter 4. I blame it on the cocaine, or the Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, or perhaps Martians.

But I never forget a promise! (I do sometimes ignore them, but that’s not the same thing.) And so, after much distraction and delay, tonight I have finally posted the complete chapters 1 through 7 of Infoquake in audio read by the author. You can listen in MP3 format, you can make Steve Ballmer happy and listen in Windows Media format, or you can make Cory Doctorow happy and listen in open source Ogg Vorbis format.

In fact, I had such a ball finishing up the audio excerpts for Infoquake that I went ahead and recorded chapter 1 of MultiReal in audio as well. I intend to record chapters 2 through 8 of MultiReal soon, so you’ll be able to listen to the full excerpt on your iPod while you jog.

Hopefully I’ll be able to put together some giveaway CDs packed with both podcasts, downloads, and lots of other cool stuff as well. And then the CDs will go into circulation, they’ll get passed all around the country, my books will sell like naked chocolate money, Brad Bird will get a hold of one of my CDs, and he’ll be so enamored of my voice that he’ll cast me as the lead in an upcoming Pixar movie. Hey, it happened to Patton Oswalt, didn’t it?

After seeing the rush of new reviews for Infoquake, I decided to do a round of vanity Googling and found several more that I had been unaware of. Yes, I know how unusual it is for me to blog three times in one day. But don’t worry, after today I promise I’ll go back to sporadically throwing out blog pieces about random topics at no fixed interval.

The book cover for Indian Larry: Chopper Shaman here has no relation to any of these book reviews. I just stumbled upon it while Googling and found it amusing. Tell me Indian Larry isn’t the coolest guy on the planet. Go ahead, tell me. No, I don’t believe you. You’re lying.

Now, the new reviews:

Graeme Flory of Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review recently reviewed The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two, and called my story “Mathralon” one of his two favorites in the collection. “George Mann’s second collection of science fiction makes for some enthralling reading of other worlds and the people who inhabit them,” says Graeme. “…My favourite stories were Dan Abnett’s ‘Point of Contact’ and David Louis Edelman’s ‘Mathralon’, two tales that leave the reader in no doubt as to how cold and lonely our universe can be.”

Not really a review, but the Antiaging Wellness Blog uses Infoquake as a starting point for a brief essay about biological programming. “In reading through the programs used in Infoquake, it is hard not to ask oneself, are these not the very mechanisms that the body is designed to control itself, through our hormonal and neurological pathways.”

Don D’Ammassa apparently long ago posted a capsule outtake review of Infoquake, which I completely failed to notice at the time. Says Don: “Lots of interesting speculation and a plausible and interesting plot. I found the prose a bit awkward from time to time but not so much that it significantly interfered with my enjoyment of the story.”

Some Amazon reviewer apparently has been using his copy of Infoquake as a makeshift Frisbee. Says Ray A.R. “Abe” in his 1-star review: “This is one of two supposedly highly rated books I read lately that were completely awful. I read the whole thing but wished I’d stopped after the third time I threw the book across the room. Take out the technojunk and this is nothing but a subpar novel, weak on character, weak on plot. Suffice to say I’ll never read another thing written by this awful author.” FYI, the other highly rated book that “Abe” disliked was Pat Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.