From Middle America to the Ends of the Universe

Happy Wednesday!

Even if you're not a soccer fan, you might have heard the World Cup starts tomorrow. Houston will be hosting some games, and even though I live and work miles from the stadium, I expect traffic will be bad on game days. A good excuse to work from home.

What I'm reading

After years of hearing his name and Hollywood adapting his books, this week I started reading Andy Weir for the first time. My 13 year old picked up Project Hail Mary on a recent bookstore trip, and after she finished, I grabbed it.

I'm about six chapters in and I can say the hype around Weir is well-earned. Project Hail Mary is solid, meat-and-potatoes SF.

There's plenty of scientific and technical content but Weir weaves it into the story well. He has a good grasp of human nature and characters. Good story-telling chops. There's a reason "first person narrator has amnesia on page 1" is a trope across genres: it works. Especially in SF and fantasy, where the character starts off knowing as little about the world as the reader does. Finally, Weir's narrative voice is contemporary without being snarky or politically correct.

From what I've read so far, highly recommended.

If Weir loses the thread in the middle or flubs the ending, I'll let you know before next month's message.

Definitely going to re-read and take notes on how Weir generates certain effects.

Publishing News

Not any new titles, but I've updated the sales pages for the Stone Chalmers series at Amazon. (I would do the same at Kobo and other bookstores if that was an option). Check out the graphics below. Feel free to share by email or social media.

If you've read the series, you can probably tell which characters and scenes these graphics are meant to evoke.

And if you haven't read the series, the ebook edition of book 1, The Freeland Vendetta, is free at bookstores around the world.

Till next time,

Happy Reading!

Raymund