I’ve been telling people that I’m not going to worry about publicizing my upcoming book Geosynchron until 2010. Well, the year has arrived. Let the blitzkrieg begin!

The website for Geosynchron is live at www.geosynchron.net. See screen capture here (and more below the cut).

Not only will you find a spiffy website design that matches those of the first two book sites, you’ll also find:

• Chapters 1 through 8 in their entirety, or the entire first section of the book (titled “The Prisoners”). Wonder what happened to Quell after he got dragged out of the Revelation Spire by the Defense and Wellness Council? Wonder what happened to Natch after he blacked out on the streets of Old Chicago? Want to know what the “MultiReal-D” code that Petrucio Patel shot Natch with in the Tul Jabbor Complex does? Find out now.


• An updated glossary that contains all of the terms from all three books. (You might have noticed that the glossaries in the actual books themselves have been trimmed slightly to only include terms pertinent to that particular book.)


• Three new appendices from Geosynchron: “On the Islanders”, “On the Pharisees” and “On the Autonomous Revolt”. Here you can read about how the Band of Twelve founded the Luddite civilization in the Pacific Islands, the history of the Three Jesuses, details about the Islanders’ Dogmatic Oppositions, and details about the AI revolt that nearly destroyed humanity. One of these appendices contains a spoiler, but you won’t recognize it as such until after you’ve finished Geosynchron.


• The Afterword to the Trilogy, straight out of the back of Geosynchron. Read about how my politics affected the story, how 9/11 changed everything, regrets I have about the trilogy, and why rejecting Infoquake because the opening chapters are libertarian propaganda is kind of like rejecting Star Wars because the first 20 minutes glorify Darth Vader. (Warning: some spoilers here about what happens at the end of Geosynchron.)


• A reviews page that right now only features three reviews, and one of those is by Harriet Klausner so it hardly counts. But the page also contains a link to Fantasy Book Critic contributor Liviu Suciu’s review on GoodReads, in which he calls the book “the best mundane SF has to offer.”

Keep your eye on this space for more stuff to come, including details about cons I’ll be attending, interviews I’ll be doing, and giveaways for the complete signed Jump 225 trilogy. Go thou and retweet, blog, spread the word.

Edelman presents a gritty, tech-heavy thriller that builds on cyberpunk tropes in interesting and detailed new ways. The world developed in 2008’s MultiRealand 2009’s Infoquake has become inflamed with civil war and rebellion as MultiReal, a technology that mathematically projects possible futures to aid in decision making, suddenly becomes inaccessible. Into this chaos, MultiReal-D makes its first tentative appearance… Numerous characters seek their own goals in a labyrinthine plot, but Edelman does manage to bring his disparate threads together to create a coherent and even cohesive conclusion that’s most accessible and satisfying to those who have read the earlier books.

See? Pretty good review, though alas, not a coveted starred review. The spoiler isn’t too irksome, especially if you know that there are four or five other major surprises waiting in the book.PW also messed up the release date for Infoquake — which was the first book of the trilogy and released in 2006, not 2009. But hey, there really isn’t a bad word in there. I’ll take it!

(And hey, did I mention that Geosynchron is available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound, among others?)

It’s done.

This trilogy that began with something I dashed off on a laptop back in 1997 or 1998 is now, more or less, finished. Complete. Finito. I have some line editing and a couple of appendices still to write (”On the Islanders” and “On the Pharisees,” if you must know). But it’s a complete story.

Here are some of the things you can expect from Geosynchron, the concluding volume of the Jump 225 trilogy, when it hits the stores in late February-ish of 2010. (Pre-order it on Amazon here.) I’m going to try to keep this light on the spoilers, so don’t worry that I’ll ruin something crucial. But if you’d rather go into the book completely blind, then, you know, stop reading. Duh.

Some of what you’ll see in Geosynchron:

• Natch imprisoned in a windowless chamber where MultiReal is useless and “time has become unpredictable”
• A ruinous civil war between Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee, including some actual large-scale battle scenes
• A five-chapter-long climax involving a military strike, a MultiReal choice cycle battle, a covert mission, and (of course) creative advertising and marketing techniques
• Quell again giving a one-man exhibition in whoopassery (this time with a dartgun and his bare mitts)
• My homage to the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: an 18-person, 8,276-word Council of Magan Kai Lee
• A court battle between Jara’s fiefcorp and Margaret Surina’s unscrupulous cousins, Jayze and Suheil
• The introduction of several new characters, including:
  • Richard Taylor, Pharisee and member of the Faithful Order of the Children Unshackled
  • Josiah, son of Quell and novice representative in the Islander parliament
  • Bali Chandler and Triggendala, seasoned representatives in the Islander parliament
  • Plithy, a young punk caught in a Council orbital prison
  • Rodrigo and Molloy, a black code junkie and a black code dealer
  • Martika Korella, an attorney in Andra Pradesh
• Horvil imploring Jara to have sex with him in a Sigh environment called “Vat of Baked Beans”
• The truth behind the Autonomous Revolt that devastated humanity hundreds of years ago (hint: it involves blood sacrifice)
• The truth behind Quell’s thirty years in the compound at Andra Pradesh
• The truth behind the infoquakes that have been wreaking havoc since midway through book 1
• A political manifesto by Quell’s son Josiah, which explains the concept of Grand Reunification
• Events that happen and then unhappen, as well as events that take place in virtual time
• Chapters set in:
  • 49th Heaven, the orbital colony known for its licentiousness
  • Sao Paulo, home to the Patel Brothers
  • Manila, capital of the Free Republic of the Pacific Islands
  • Orbital Detention and Rehabilitation Facility, 12th Meridian, a Council prison
• An ending that’s — well, unique, being that it consists of six chapters that are 95% dialogue
• The climactic confrontation between Natch and Brone that you’ve all been waiting for
• The fate of the world being put to a vote by… the drudges?

A few interesting facts about Geosynchron:

• The current length of the book is 138,244 words; add in the as-yet-unfinished appendices, acknowledgments and afterwords, and the total will probably be around 145,000 words. Slightly shorter than MultiReal’s 150,000 words, a bit longer than Infoquake’s 122,000 words.
• The book is once again divided into six sections:
  1. The Prisoners
  2. A Game of Chess
  3. The Consultants
  4. Nohwan’s Crusade
  5. Tyrants and Revolutionaries
  6. The Guardian and the Keeper
• Geosynchron contains 42 chapters. The shortest chapter (Chapter 1) is 646 words long; the longest chapter (Chapter 30) is a whopping 8,276 words. (I am, however, considering splitting that chapter in two, even though the Douglas Adams fan in me recoils at the thought of adding a 43rd chapter.)
• The first sentence: “Margaret Surina is rejuvenated.”
• The book’s epigraph is a quote from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden: “Not every man is defeated. I can name you a dozen who were not, and those are the ones the world lives by.”

After reading all this, you might be asking the question, Is he really going to tie up all of those loose ends in one book? This isn’t one o’ them Robert Jordan-type situations, is it? And my answers to these questions are Yes, for the most part and No.

Geosynchron will end the Jump 225 trilogy. Meaning, the three primary stories I’m trying to tell with this trilogy will conclude at the end of this book. (For the record, those stories are: 1. Natch’s attempts to break free from his utter self-absorption, 2. Jara’s attempts to find value in herself, 3. A world trying to cope with out-of-control technological change.) Does that mean you’re going to see a nice, tidy conclusion where I summarize what every character does for the rest of their lives, Animal House style? Nope. If you’re looking for neat, foursquare endings to all of the plotlines in the trilogy, you’ll be disappointed.

I’m not going to preclude writing more in this universe at some date in the future. But at present, I’ve said all that I’ve got to say in this universe. There are other milieus and other genres that I’d like to take a stab at. There’s this YA fantasy series I’ve been itching to write since the late ’90s about an English boy who attends a school for wizards. I’m not too late, am I?

(Oh yeah, and hopefully this means I’ll have a little bit of time to blog again. Hopefully.)

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.

Now it can be shown: my editor Lou Anders has posted on the Pyr blog the cover art and synopsis for Geosynchron, the last book in my Jump 225 Trilogy. Here, without further ado, it is. (You can also view a larger version.)

The cover painting is once again by the incomparable Hugo Award-winning artist Stephan Martiniere, whose paintings for the covers of Infoquake and MultiReal have been blowing minds for many a month.

And here is the catalog copy for the book, which provides something of a spoiler (though a necessary one) for the cliffhanger at the end of MultiReal.

DAVID LOUIS EDELMAN’S BUSINESS SCIENCE FICTION SAGA THAT BEGAN WITH INFOQUAKE AND MULTIREAL COMES TO A STUNNING CONCLUSION WITH GEOSYNCHRON, THE LAST BOOK OF THE JUMP 225 TRILOGY.

The Defense and Wellness Council is enmeshed in full-scale civil war between Len Borda and the mysterious Magan Kai Lee. Quell has escaped from prison and is stirring up rebellion in the Islands with the aid of a brash young leader named Josiah. Jara and the apprentices of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp still find themselves fighting off legal attacks from their competitors and from Margaret Surina’s unscrupulous heirs — even though MultiReal has completely vanished.

The quest for the truth will lead to the edges of civilization, from the tumultuous society of the Pacific Islands to the lawless orbital colony of 49th Heaven; and through the deeps of time, from the hidden agenda of the Surina family to the real truth behind the Autonomous Revolt that devastated humanity hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile, Natch has awakened in a windowless prison with nothing but a haze of memory to clue him in as to how he got there. He’s still receiving strange hallucinatory messages from Margaret Surina and the nature of reality is buckling all around him. When the smoke clears, Natch must make the ultimate decision — whether to save a world that has scorned and discarded him, or to save the only person he has ever loved: himself.

I’ll have more to say about this later, but figured that it couldn’t hurt to just post this stuff asap.

(Oh, and if you’re so inclined, the book’s now available for pre-order on Amazon.)

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.

In last week’s contest, I asked for unpublishable blurbs for my novels, and you did not disappoint. I’m now ready to declare a winner. That winner? Frank Schiavo. Mr. Schiavo submitted this unpublishable (and borderline unbloggable) blurb:

“MultiReal is the biggest and best thing I’ve held in my hands this year. It is filled with a white-hot explosion of goodness that literally comes up from every page in a burst of salty yet sweet power. An earth-shaking winner that will be stiff competition for awards come next season and that I’m sure to tell all my friends to strap on and try out for themselves.”
– Award-winning actress & author Tera Patrick

I thought this blurb was hilarious even before I had any idea who Tera Patrick was. Then I Googled the name and discovered that this woman on the right is Tera Patrick, star of such films as Teradise Island and Asian Street Hookers 6. (Perhaps I might have recognized her if I hadn’t stopped watching the series after the disappointing Asian Street Hookers 4: Electric Boogaloo.) Even more amusing was the fact that Frank sent this blurb from his work email at a law firm in New Orleans, complete with ridiculous law firm confidentiality disclaimer in the footer.

Such shameless and enterprising genius has earned Mr. Schiavo a copy of the Complete David Louis Edelman Canon, consisting of:

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

I will say that Mr. Schiavo did have some tough competition. I thought the best runner-up was this clearly well-thought-out blurb, submitted by Mick Summer:

“MultiReal is tonight’s word! Have the literati snobs left yet? Just for us sci-fi readers, MultiReal is real meat for hard science fans! David Louis Edelman’s godless, liberal future cleverly masks an explosive expose of today’s mediascape, with truthiness and balls by the spadefull. Get MultiReal! Don’t forget Infoquake, the prequel. For a two-patty brain-shaking read, get the pair! MultiReal — and so can you!”
– Stephen Colbert

In a similar pseudo-political vein was this one, submitted by David Crampton:

“MultiReal? Liberal propaganda! Everyone knows there’s only one real! More than one real is un-American! This Edelman character is probably terrorist fist-bumping with sleeper cells! Now, I’m not saying that he’s a criminal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in Gitmo! How many reals will he have then, huh? What do you mean, did I read the book?”
– Bill O’Reilly

There were even some good quick one-liners, like this one from Steven Klotz:

“Forget steak. I’d go Judas on Neo’s ass for just a glance at MultiReal.”
– Cypher

Jim Haley put a smile on my face with this twofer from James T. Kirk. The ellipses are a nice touch.

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 07032008. Bones gave me a… copy of this… MultiReal book and I just… can’t seem to put it down. Not even an… Orion slave girl could… tempt me away.”
– James T. Kirk

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 07032008.1. As it turns out… a Orion slave girl… COULD drag me away. But not for long.”
– James T. Kirk

Overall, a very nice batch indeed — and there were more worthy entries than those I published here. Thanks to all who entered.

* * *

As for the approximately 6 billion people out there who are not Frank Schiavo… here’s your next chance to win the complete DLE canon.

This week’s contest: inspired by Frank Schiavo (and Tera Patrick), I want to see the best science fiction or fantasy-related porno parody title. You know, like:

• Star Whores III: Revenge of the Tits
• Rod Emperor of Dooin’
• J.R.R. Pokien’s The SeeMoreJillian
• MultiFeel: Book 2 of the Hump 269 Trilogy

Bonus points if you stay away from the old stand-bys. I mean, come on, we’ve all thought of a million porno parody titles for The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by now. Let’s see some good porno parody titles for really uber mega geeky works that only a confirmed SF/F addict would recognize. Where are the parody titles for C.J. Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur? Or Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said? Norman Spinrad’s Bug Jack Barron?

Submit as many titles as you want. I’ll be picking the winner based on the single best title. Once again, you’ll be competing for the four books you see here. Deadline is Sunday, July 13 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.

Submit entries via email to dedelman@gmail.com, with “Summer Giveaway Contest 2″ in the subject line. (Really, use that subject line. I had to fish a couple entries out of the spam filter last time. Having a subject line to look for really helps.)

“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!

This is fabulous, fabulous news, and I’m going to share it with you all first because I love you so much.

Nick Sagan, author of Idlewild, Edenborn, and Everfree, screenwriter for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager, and former child ambassador to the universe on the Voyager Golden Record, has read and blurbed my novels Infoquake and MultiReal. Here’s what the esteemed Mr. Sagan has to say:

David Louis Edelman’s vision of the future is so alive and full of energy the pages are practically buzzing. Wonderfully intricate with smart, satisfying complexity, Infoquake and its sequel MultiReal serve up a world where mindbending technologies promise a freedom nearly as endless as the Machiavellian ambitions of those who would control them.

Blurbs don’t get much more sophisticated (and laudatory) than that. Together with the existing blurbs from Robert J. Sawyer and Peter Watts, the front matter for MultiReal is going to look pretty nice indeed.

I first met Nick almost exactly twelve months ago, at least year’s Penguicon (you know, the one before open source breast fondling). We spent an afternoon dishing and drinking, and then drinking, and then drinking some more. After that, I think we did some drinking. By the time evening stumbled blearily around, we had talked so much that I think I was ready to take a bullet for the guy.

My deepest thanks to Nick Sagan for this. Now y’all go out there and buy some of his books, y’hear?

Just happened to catch the latest Agony Column from the incomparable Rick Kleffel, and he’s chosen to headline today with a brief look at MultiReal. I’m unclear whether Rick has actually read the book yet — it looks like he hasn’t, but I can’t say for sure. But he’s taken the occasion to say some nice things about the Jump 225 trilogy in general:

Edelman’s vision of a corporate future seems ever more relevant as each day goes by and another electronic gadget becomes indispensable — and makes us all just a little (or perhaps a lot) more vulnerable to those who manufacture the damn things. Edelman imagines a future where pervasive technology, the titular “MultiReal” offers great power. But with great power comes great vulnerability…

This is your chance to watch corporate sharks devour one another against the backdrop of a well-conceived futuristic landscape. As the real-world economy circles the Big Swirly, what could be more exciting and relevant than to read about what happens some mumble-hundred years afterwards? Edelman lets readers gaze up the drainpipe.

You may remember that Rick did a full 32-minute audio interview with me the summer Infoquake came out, approximately 30 seconds of which ended up on a NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday feature alongside T.C. Boyle, Charles Stross, Jeff VanderMeer, and Amir Aczel.

I am extraordinarily proud to give you the first look at the mass market version of Infoquake, the first copy of which arrived in my mailbox yesterday. It’s back from the printers quite a bit earlier than I expected, considering the official release date isn’t until June, but that’s the publishing business for you. At least I managed to get the matching redesigned website up first.

Here are the front and back covers. (Forgive the lousy Treo camera pics and the even lousier attempts to brighten up the lousy Treo camera pics in Photoshop.)

The mass market edition of Infoquake is being published by Solaris Books, the folks who also recently published my story “Mathralon” in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two.

And they’ve done a bang-up job of it too — this thing looks sharp. Not only is the cover art by Stephan Martiniere crisp and stunning, but Infoquake might be one of the few books that will catch just as much attention when the spine’s facing out as the cover. It’s hard to tell from the pics above, but you can read the title on the spine from across the room. Plus the book has a nice weight and thickness to it, and it tickles my vanity by opening with several pages of rave quotes from authors and reviewers. (Not as many pages of rave quotes as the mass market of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind, but one can’t set the bar too high.)

Those who have read Infoquake in the (equally stunning) Pyr trade paperback version might be interested to know that I’ve made 155 changes to the text for this edition as well. But lest I be accused of breaking my own rules for ethical self-promotion, I should point out that they are entirely minor changes. For instance, one of the most substantial changes I made was to alter this somewhat nonsensical sentence…

It became less comforting still when Natch realized that several of the dartguns pointed at him were actually multi disruptors.

to this much clearer version…

It became less comforting still when Natch spotted a few multi disruptors in the group.

Much better, don’t you think? For the edification of all those future students of literature who I predict will one day be obsessively studying my works in classes taught by stuffy university professors, here is the actual Excel spreadsheet I sent to Solaris detailing my changes for the mass market edition. Really, it’s not that interesting. I’m guessing that two-thirds of the changes are me rethinking the use of italics for emphasis in character dialogue. So, “We can’t just let people die!” became “We can’t just let people die!”

(And if you future stuffy university professors are having trouble thinking up a name for the course, might I suggest “Edelquake: Decontextualizing the Metaphorical Implications of Jump 225 in a Hyperrational Postmodern Society”?)

My only regret is that it didn’t occur to me to change the Acknowledgments section in the back of the book to thank the guys at Solaris for all their hard work. So, to George Mann, Christian Dunn, and Mark Newton, I will now put on my proper British bowler hat and tip it on your direction.

The mass market of Infoquake won’t hit the stores for some weeks yet, but have I mentioned that you can pre-order a copy on Amazon? Oh yeah, I just did.

Interested in reading chapters 1-5 of my new novel MultiReal, a good three and a half months before the book’s in stores? Now’s your chance. Pyr has just released a 326-page sampler (PDF, 3.5 MB) of its upcoming titles for the spring and summer, and the first 45 pages or so of MultiReal are in it. Keep your eye out at science fiction conventions if you want to get your hands on a paper copy, sure to be a collector’s edition and make you a multi-millionaire when you auction it off on eBay in the year 2035.

(FYI, the announcement for this sampler mistakenly says that my excerpt is from 2006’s Infoquake. Rest assured, the 45 pages in the Pyr sampler are indeed from MultiReal.)

Also included in the sampler are excerpts from Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged (sequel to the acclaimed The Blade Itself); Kay Kenyon’s A World Too Near (sequel to the equally acclaimed Bright of the Sky); Theodore Judson’s The Martian General’s Daughter; Robert Silverberg’s classic Son of Man; and two from Mike Resnick, Stalking the Unicorn and Stalking the Vampire.

But first, a few words about the excerpt from MultiReal.

What you’re reading in this sampler is the entire first section of the book, titled “Lessons Learned.” Three of these chapters are written from the point of view of a new character, Magan Kai Lee, the lieutenant executive of the Defense and Wellness Council. (Actually, he’s not entirely a new character. If you re-read Infoquake, you’ll notice that he makes a cameo appearance in chapter 5, though he’s not mentioned by name.) One chapter is a 40-year-old flashback written from Margaret Surina’s point of view. Only one chapter of this excerpt features Natch, the trilogy’s protagonist and central character. Jara, the series’ secondary protagonist, isn’t even mentioned in these five chapters, even though she plays a major part in MultiReal.

I always knew it was going to be difficult to create a suitable excerpt for this book. As I’ve written before, the middle book of a trilogy is an enormous challenge. I’ve made it doubly so by creating such a complicated backstory for the universe. Pity the poor opening chapters of MultiReal, because I’ve saddled them with all of these duties:

1. Re-introducing the important background concepts in the story (multi, bio/logic programming, creeds, L-PRACGs, MultiReal)
2. Re-introducing the important bits of background history (the Autonomous Revolt, the death of Marcus Surina)
3. Re-introducing the main characters (Natch, Horvil, and Jara) as well as the secondary characters (Len Borda, Margaret Surina, Benyamin, Merri, Serr Vigal, Quell, the Patel Brothers, and Brone)
4. Introducing several new characters (Magan Kai Lee, Papizon, Rey Gonerev, Ridgello, and Khann Frejohr)
5. Summarizing the important bits that happened in Infoquake
6. Setting up the conflicts for the rest of MultiReal
7. Engaging the reader so they’re interested in reading more (or buying the book in the first place)

I concluded that it’s nearly impossible to cover all of this ground without turning the opening chapters into one big, fat gelatinous glob of exposition. So when you finally do get your grubby hands on MultiReal (have I mentioned that it’s available for pre-order on Amazon?), you’ll find that Appendix A is a rather detailed summary of Infoquake. It will be interesting to see if that summary is enough for those who haven’t read Infoquake to still enjoy MultiReal. At the very least, I hope it will jostle the memories of those who did read the first book, but have forgotten some of its details.

One last thing to note: for those who haven’t read Infoquake, there will be spoilers in this five-chapter sample of MultiReal. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I don’t think there’s anything in the first few chapters of book 2 that would spoil your experience of book 1. (And if you’re that concerned — well, you could always go ahead and start reading the first seven chapters of Infoquake instead.)

Go. Read. Enjoy. Buy. Discuss.

When I set out to create the world for my Jump 225 Trilogy, as I’ve written elsewhere, I started with a few technological principles:

1. Imagine that we have virtually inexhaustible sources of energy.
2. Imagine that we have virtually unlimited computing power.
3. Imagine that enough time has passed to allow the scientists to adequately take advantage of these things.

I discovered that starting from these basic principles, there are almost unlimited possibilities. You can easily have a world that’s intermeshed with virtual reality. You can create vast computational systems that have billions and billions of self-directing software programs. You can have pliable architecture that automatically adjusts to fit the needs of the people using it. And so on. It’s actually fairly easy to figure out a technological solution to just about any problem if you don’t have those constraints.

The interesting questions in such a world, then, are questions of interface. You don’t bother to discuss if you can accomplish your goal anymore, because the answer is almost always “yes.” You just need to know how you’re going to accomplish it, and who’s going to pay for it, and what happens when your perfectly achievable goal clashes with someone else’s perfectly achievable goal.

In other words: you’re at point A. You’d like to be at point B. How do you go about getting there?

Note that when I’m talking about user interface, I’m not talking about how you actually get from point A to point B. The interesting thing about this whole new science of interface is that it doesn’t really matter. We can treat all kinds of science and engineering as a simple black box and just skip right over it. What I’m really concerned with at the moment is how human beings translate their desires into actions in the physical world. How do you tell the black box you want to go from point A to point B?

It seems like a ridiculously easy question, but turns out it’s not. Let’s just take a very simple example of a black box that we all know: the toaster. You might think we already have the perfect user interface for toasting bread. You stick bread in a toaster. There’s one big lever that turns the sucker on, and a dial that tells you how dark you want the toast. How can you improve on that?

Well, wait just a second — the desire we’re trying to accomplish here is to take ordinary bread and turn it into toast. And if you think of user interface as the way you go about accomplishing this, the user interface for toasting bread is much more complicated than you might think.

You need to buy a machine to do the toasting, and you need to plug that machine into a power socket. (The right kind of socket for your part of the world.) And not only do you need a bulky machine that takes up counter space, but you need a dedicated machine that really does nothing else but toast bread and the very small number of specialty foods designed to fit in toaster slots. If you’re trying to toast bread in my house, you need to know that the toaster and the microwave are plugged into the same outlet, and using them at the same time will blow the fuse. You need to experiment with every new toaster you buy to find exactly the right setting — and yet, chances are that you burn toast at least once every couple months. How inefficient is all that?

So going back to our world with inexhaustible energy and computing power, how would you want to make toast? Would you want to put the piece of bread on a plate, push a button, and instantly have perfect toast? Would you want to bio-engineer a plant that grows perfect toast? Or no, let’s take it a step further — do you want the interface to anticipate that you’re going to want toast and have it already prepared for you? Hell, let’s take it one last step: do you want to just imagine that you’re eating toast through some nanotechnological neural manipulation, when you’re really just eating a hunk of tank-grown nutritional protein supplement?

The science of user interface is a fairly recent branch of knowledge. I’m not sure when it first came into being, but until I find some other contrary piece of evidence, I’m going to guess that the origin of the concept of user interface roughly coincided with the creation of the microprocessor. Why then? Maybe it’s because that’s the point in human history where technology disappeared from sight. You may not understand how the combustion engine works or the ENIAC computer computes, but at least you can look at it. You can actually see how the controls you have interact with the mechanics of the thing. But a microprocessor — well, pop open the chassis of your computer and look at it sometime. It just sits there. (That spinning thing on top is just a fan to disperse the heat.) For all intents and purposes, it is a black box to you and me. Suddenly we can leave the engineering to the engineers and think about that black box from a whole other level.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about user interface, and I’ve been writing a lot of random stuff in random draft WordPress posts. Now I’m going to try to write it all down in some kind of cohesive order. Here are the main questions I’m hoping to explore over the next however-long-it-takes:

1. What exactly do you mean by user interface? (this article)
2. What’s wrong with the user interfaces we’ve got now?
3. Do we need user interface at all?
4. A quick overview of bad science fiction user interfaces and why they would never work in the real world
5. What makes the perfect user interface?

(For the insanely curious: the first illustration for this article is by illustrator Frank Paul, and according to this page, dates back to before the invention of the ENIAC; the second illustration, by Charles Schneeman, dates back to Astounding Science Fiction in 1941, according to this page.)

I had been planning to unveil this news at a later time closer to the book’s July release date. But I just browsed to the Amazon page for MultiReal and saw that the news is already out. So no use waiting.

Peter Watts, Hugo Award-nominated author of Blindsight and the Rifters Trilogy (Starfish, Maelstrom, and Behemoth), expert in the ecophysiology of marine mammals, Canadian, and just all-around nice guy, has given an advance blurb for my upcoming novel MultiReal. Here’s what Peter has to say:

A thoroughly-successful hybrid of Neuromancer and Wall Street, MultiReal is the kind of thought-experiment we need more of around here: rigorously backgrounded, tightly plotted, and built around one of the most intriguing neurotech conceits I’ve encountered in years. William Gibson once observed that the street finds its own uses for things. David Louis Edelman reminds us that both boardroom and back room do as well — and the people who lurk in those places are a lot scarier…

I invite all of you to visit Peter’s website and Peter’s blog (which currently bears the title “No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons (Reloaded)), and throw the man some love. Go buy Blindsight. Go build monuments in the man’s honor.
I’m very, very pleased with this blurb. I especially like the ellipses at the end. And being compared to William Gibson (twice!) is a high honor, considering that the man is one of my favorite authors, period, in any genre.

If I can convince people like Peter Watts, Ian McDonald, and Norman Spinrad — people who are much, much smarter than me — that I know what I’m talking about, I must be doing something right. Spinrad even said in Asimov’s that I have “convincing and convincingly detailed knowledge of the physiology and biochemistry of the human nervous system down to the molecular level,” a quote I never, ever get tired of repeating because of its sheer, unmitigated untruthfulness.

Remember, folks: MultiReal hits the stores in July of 2008. That’s plenty of time for you to buy copies of Infoquake for all your friends this holiday season and get them hooked on the trilogy too.

Thanks, Peter.

What is there to say about this cover that isn’t implied by “holy fuck!!!!”? It complements the MultiReal cover incredibly well. You’ve got the buildings curving at exactly the opposite angle, you’ve got a color scheme that provides a nice contrast, and you’ve got the same circular mechanical whatchamacallits that are present in the other painting.

When you enlarge the pic, you can see all kinds of groovy stuff here too. I love the way those pink light rays or whatever they are frame the illustration. The holographic image to Jara’s left is, I think, the same one that appears to Natch’s left on the MultiReal cover.

Once again the illustration doesn’t quite match up with the vision I had in mind. I never provide a detailed description of hoverbirds in the books, but I’m pretty confident I never implied they were supposed to look like the cover of Led Zeppelin’s first album. And if that’s Jara standing there, she doesn’t have the mass of curly dark hair and Sephardic features I described in the book. (Nor could I ever picture her wearing a slinky dress and a flower in her hair.)

But once again, I just don’t care. Jara’s posture captures her attitude perfectly, and the world outside her window feels more like the world of Infoquake than an actual photograph from the year 359 YOR would.

I noticed a few slight differences in the covers of Infoquake and MultiReal, and I’m not sure if they’re intentional or simply oversights, because not everybody’s as obsessive-compulsive as me. The title type for MultiReal is transparent while here it’s white. There are also slight font sizing, spacing, and leading differences throughout. If they’re intentional differences because of the different demands of trade paperback and mass market paperback publishing, heck, that’s just fine with me. And if they’re unintentional… well, be rest assured that the same maniacal and pointless attention to insignificant detail I’m exhibiting here also goes into my novels.

One last note: as far as I’m aware, Pyr will still be using the old black-and-blue Infoquake cover with the curved building on their trade paperback edition, and they have no plans to recover it. Which I’m perfectly okay with, because I really dig that cover too and would hate to see it disappear from the shelves altogether. But I’m sure if the Infoquake mass market zips to the top of the Amazon sales charts and Oprah finally returns my calls, Pyr might be moved to reconsider. (Oprah, if you’re reading this, that’s a hint.)

Feel free to leave digital burnt offerings on the altar of Martiniere in the comments below.

If you were to stand back at the end of Bruce Wayne’s life and try to chronicle it from the beginning, chances are that his balance sheet will show a number of defeats alongside his victories. How often does Batman defeat the Joker, and how often is the Dark Knight thwarted by him? Well, let’s be charitable and say that Bruce collars the bad guys more often than they elude him. If that’s the case, why chop up the narrative the way we normally do — starting from stasis, going to crisis, ending in victory? Couldn’t we just as easily tell a series of Batman stories the other way around, where we begin with him triumphantly nabbing the Joker and end with the Joker escaping and creating more murder and mayhem?…

When does the story end? It ends when the moral or ethical or psychological question is answered, whether in the affirmative or in the negative or some combination of both. Bruce Wayne finds the strength to put on the mask one more time. Bruce Wayne chooses to follow his convictions, even though they clash with society’s. Bruce Wayne perseveres when a lesser man would have given up. Whether he actually succeeds in capturing the Joker or not is of secondary concern.

Feel free to comment there or here.

I mentioned that Pyr was moving in a new direction for the MultiReal cover art. Well, feast your eyes on the final cover of MultiReal, hitting bookshelves early summer 2008. (View the larger size here.)

The painting is courtesy of the brilliant Stephan Martiniere, who has also done artwork for such works as Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, Karl Schroeder’s Lady of Mazes, Larry Niven’s Ringworld’s Children, Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky… I could go on and on. Herr Martiniere has also been visual art director for Cyan Studios on their latest games in the Myst series.

I.e., the dude rawks.

And in case I failed to mention it before, the Solaris Books mass market paperback of Infoquake will also have a complementary Martiniere painting on the cover. Same style, different color scheme (although I don’t think he’s finished it yet). I believe the plan is to feature Jara on the cover of Infoquake, while Natch graces the cover of MultiReal. (Geosynchron, whenever it’s done, will presumably have Horvil on the cover.)

So what do I think about the new look? Honestly, I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl. No, I’m giddy as a very giddy schoolgirl.

It doesn’t exactly look like what I pictured the world of Jump 225 would look like. It doesn’t look much like it at all, in fact. The skylines I describe in Infoquake and MultiReal are low and curvy to take advantage of the “collapsible building” technology. It’s very difficult for tall, angular structures to automatically expand and contract, according to some bedrock architectural principle I shamelessly made up. Nor did I imagine anything like those circular mechanical things you see on the left-hand side, whatever they are. And when you enlarge the painting, Natch looks a little bit too much like Peter MacNicol for comfort.

And yet somehow, it captures the essence of the novel anyway. You’ve got Natch standing before a window surveying the city like he owns it. You’ve got a claustrophobic sense of information bearing down upon you from all sides. And you’ve got a warm color palette of greens, yellows, and browns.

Will this cover detract from the book’s crossover potential? Possibly. I’m not sure a besuited 42-year-old fund manager would feel comfortable whipping this book out on the subway, while he might feel at home with Infoquake. But the crossover strategy didn’t exactly win over the CNBC crowd for Infoquake; if you read the praise page, you’ll see that almost every blurb comes from an SF-flavored publication. Meanwhile, Charles Stross’ books are looking more and more like Atari 2600 video game boxes circa 1982, and he’s selling like hotcakes smothered with chocolate and money.

Much thanks and credit should also go to Jackie Cooke at Prometheus, who was responsible for complementing Martiniere’s painting with a wonderful, clean type treatment. And of course, my editor Lou Anders, who I predict will one day have so many Best Editor Hugos that he’ll be able to construct a large, pointy throne out of them.

So whattaya think?

I’m still reeling from this news, which I just heard about literally 20 minutes ago… but it appears that Solaris Books has just inked a deal with Pyr to release a mass-market paperback edition of Infoquake. What does that mean in practical terms?

• I’ll have two new books on the shelves in Summer 2008: Solaris’ mass-market paperback of Infoquake, and Pyr’s trade paperback of MultiReal. (The trade paper of Infoquake will still be available as well, natch.)
• There will be a new look for the Jump 225 series, with matching covers across the series. I’ve heard some very encouraging news about what these new covers are going to look like, but I can’t tell you yet.
• Solaris’ distribution deal with Simon & Schuster in the U.S. should put copies of Infoquake and MultiReal in just about every bookstore across the country. Which means I’ll no longer hear that complaint I’ve heard a hundred times now: “I went out to buy your book today, but I can’t seem to find it in any of the stores.”
• Solaris has also optioned mass-market paperback editions of MultiReal and Geosynchron, which means there’s a good chance I’ll see mass-market versions of these books in the stores as well.

Extreme thanks go to George Mann and Christian Dunn of Solaris, who were just the coolest guys at Readercon this year. Thanks also to Lou Anders of Pyr, who is automatically the coolest guy in any room he enters that Keith Richards isn’t already in.

More when I catch my breath.

The photo you see here is the completed manuscript of my second novel, MultiReal, the sequel to Infoquake. It’s been somewhere around three years in the making, and now it’s done.

The book measures 477 pages, or about 148,000 words (including appendices). There are 6 sections, 46 chapters, and 8 appendices. The opening epigraph comes from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” The tagline? “Infinite possibility is only a state of mind.”

Now, when I say the book is done, of course that doesn’t mean it’s absolutely, completely done. That means it’s going off to my editor at Pyr, Lou Anders, for any last-minute comments. I’ll be printing out another copy of the book for myself and giving it a last read-through with red pen in hand. I’ll be incorporating those changes by the end of the month — and then the book goes off to the copy editor. But I expect the changes to be pretty minor from this point on.

(Want to know how finicky I am? The printouts after the jump below showing some of my line edits to MultiReal are from the fourth complete draft of the book.)

Here’s an example of the kind of changes I’m talking about. I discovered yesterday that, after who knows how many read-throughs and rewrites, in chapter 45 one of my characters was “threading her way through the throngs of Thasselians.” I’ll admit I’m not always above allocating an assortment of alliteration in my writing, but this one was totally unintentional. And it sounded ridiculous, so it needed to be fixed. (The even more ridiculous part is that I had misspelled “throngs” as “thongs.” Freudian slip?)

So having completed the book, I can definitely say this: you have never, ever read a book like MultiReal before.

MultiReal might be the most exciting book you’ve ever read that contains both a series of Congressional speeches and a three-way dartgun battle. It has both a granular discussion about the ethics of different software pricing models and a virtual sex scene with four-breasted mermaids.

To give you an idea of how complex this book is, chew on this: there are three main point-of-view characters, three minor point-of-view characters, one chapter in epistolary form, and one chapter from the global omniscient point of view. The prose slips from past to present tense a few times. You’re going to learn that one important piece of history mentioned in Infoquake didn’t quite happen the way you think it happened. Some of the characters speak in code. More than one have double allegiances. Oh, and have I mentioned the multiple, alternate, simultaneous, and asynchronous realities?

The plot bobs and weaves around, with a number of false starts and red herrings. There really isn’t one single narrative thread running through the book like there was in Infoquake. It’s still largely Natch’s story, of course, but Jara’s going to come much further into the foreground. And by the time the book comes to a close, you’re not going to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, or whether some of them are still alive. If I’m counting correctly, there will be a total of eight different competing factions by the end.

In other words: MultiReal is designed to be trippy, challenging, and more than a little disorienting. One of the major themes of the book is the difficulty of making tough decisions based on incomplete information — and what if you didn’t have to? So if I’ve done my job correctly, you the reader will get a taste of what the characters are going through.

It’s a delicate tightrope for a writer to walk. The book has to be daunting enough to surprise you and confuse you at times; but it also has to be easy enough to follow that you don’t need a pad of graph paper and a scientific calculator. It’s got to have the meat of a grand political saga, the seasoning of a science fiction thriller, and the special sauce of old-school Wired magazine.

But that’s not to say MultiReal won’t be a lot of fun. You’ll meet a Natch look-alike named Geronimo who plays for a band called Dregs of Nitro. You’ll see Robby Robby with a big, frizzy Afro. You’ll see Quell opening a six-pack of whoop-ass with a big, electrified shock baton. You’ll see the top floor of the Revelation Spire (the world’s tallest building), which houses the remnants of the Venus de Milo. You’ll get a taste of what a MultiReal-fueled soccer match would look like. You’ll see how the diss make coffee. You’ll get to meet the infamous Aunt Berilla and see what happens when the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp crashes her estate. You’ll see a drudge get pushed in front of a moving tube train. You’ll see the Defense and Wellness Council kicking ass, taking names, and then putting all those names on 24-hour surveillance. You’ll see Horvil using MultiReal to perform acrobatics on a darkened stairwell. And oh so much more.

I’m still a novice at this novel-writing thing, so take this opinion with a grain of salt. But book 2 was about five times as hard to write as book 1.

I had a number of false starts. At some point, I intend to post all the first drafts of MultiReal’s chapter 1, just like I did with Infoquake. (Read the nine drafts of Infoquake’s chapter 1.) But we’re not just talking about differences in style and tone here. There were entire subplots considered, begun, and abandoned. There were a few times when I polished and polished that first chapter until it was perfect… only to decide that I needed to go in an entirely different direction. My wife and I even drove out to Harper’s Ferry so I could get a good look at the setting for one of those abandoned chapters. (Luckily, it wasn’t an entirely wasted trip; Harper’s Ferry does make a short appearance in the beginning of chapter 2.)

I’m hoping that Geosynchron, book 3 in the Jump 225 Trilogy, proves to be much easier to write. I’ve got a detailed outline and some individual scenes sketched out in my head. I’ve also got a very old first draft already written, though it’s so far out of date it will almost be no help. (To put things in perspective… when I wrote this first draft, Quell was an old man who liked to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, Brone had died during the Shortest Initiation in book 1, and Natch still had a spunky girlfriend named Ferris. Then again, when I finished this draft, the only thing special about September 11 was that Bob Dylan’s long-awaited new album was expected to be released on that day.)
Excited? Can’t wait? Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time to order a copy of Infoquake and read it through before MultiReal hits the shelves. Pyr has yet to announce their final schedule for the season, so I’m not going to pretend to give you an official word about scheduling — but it looks like we’re talking about Summer 2008.

And don’t worry, I’m planning all kinds of crunchy, wholesome promotional goodness surrounding the book. There’ll be free online material, con appearances, giveaway contests, podcasts and video blogs, readings, and more. So keep your RSS feed readers tuned to this here blog now, m’kay?