Dennis E. Taylor

Book 2 of the bobiverse, For We Are Many, is now up on Audible for pre-order.

For We Are Many

For those who haven’t found it yet, I have a Facebook page: @DennisETaylor2 .

And I’m on Twitter: @Dennis_E_Taylor .

I’ve been using this blog as an announcement platform, but it’s really supposed to be more of a, you know, blog. I’ll still use the mailing list for book announcements, but for updates and such, Facebook and Twitter will be my primary medium, with more detail here as necessary.

And with that in mind, we’ve contracted with Kathleen Howard to edit book 3 of the bobiverse: All These Worlds. Book 2, For We Are Many, is in production at Audible. I’m still hoping for March and June release dates, although I’m hearing some rumbling of slippage.

There will also be a preorder date on each book, and the e-book, paperback, and audio versions will be released simultaneously.

It seems Legion is on a Washington Post Best Audio Books list, as well as Omnivoracious, Amazon’s book blog, as a book to listen to this holiday season.

The editor and I have finished working on For We are Many, and I’ll be sending it in by the weekend. Of course, not much will get done over the holidays…

*Ahem*

Best SF of 2016 on Audible

Here’s a short video displaying the paths taken by Bob and his clones through near space.

I’ve posted up information on my latest book, The Singularity Trap (working title). It’s in to my agent, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

The paperback version of We Are Legion is up on Createspace. It usually takes a day or two for Createspace and Amazon to sync up, so you’ll be able to buy from Amazon by mid-week or so.

ETA: As of Wednesday afternoon, 11/2, the paperback is now on amazon.

I’m finally getting around to writing about the Surrey International Writers Conference, which was held last weekend. It was my very first writers conference, and I wasn’t disappointed. I had, at the back of my mind, expected the seminars to be simplistic and filled with platitudes, like too many “educational” venues.

Not even close.

This is a conference for experienced writers, and it showed. From seminars that examined the psychology of your characters, to ‘SIWC Idol’, in which the first page of your novel got the Simon Cowell treatment, it was an eye-opener. For the record, they didn’t get around to my first page in the 75 minutes available, and I was relieved more than anything else. I think perhaps three first pages got through the entire reading without getting buzzed out. Scary.

I also got my first pages critiqued by Robert J. Sawyer, which was a thrill for me as he’s one of my favorite authors. I think I managed to keep a straight face. 🙂 And he liked my opening pages, which was a huge bonus.

There are too many seminars to keep up with, of course. In each time slot, I had to make a choice between several attractive possibilities. Hopefully at least some of them will have a summary on someone’s web page.

I got the three-day package, but not the full-meal-deal. Next year, I think I’ll not only get the full package, I’ll rent a room for the two nights. All in all, it was well worth it.

I’ve got another “fan”. And yes, the quotes are on purpose. That’s what you call “irony”.

Here’s his take on We Are Legion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ2gvVD2AOo

(I’m not embedding the video because I don’t have permission or copyright).

So, uh, Loki seems pissed. He also called me a meth-head, I think.

Okay, not really, but he is pissed. He’s also loud, abusive, profane, and right.

Wait, what?

No, not about the meth-head thing. Loki is pissed that Legion didn’t seem to wrap anything up, being more like a Batman episode: Stay tuned, next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. And yeah, there’s a lot of that.

But one thing I have to be clear on: it wasn’t a marketing ploy. Pfft. Like I’m going to do marketing willingly. If I die and find myself in hell, I’ll be sentenced to eternity in Sales and Marketing. Because that’s how hell works.

Anyway, Loki isn’t the only one. A small but significant fraction of my reviews on Amazon and Audible complain, one way or another, about there not being a satisfying ending.

Um, yes. Mea Culpa. But here’s the thing. Legion is a big story. It’s not two books, it’s actually three. And every single plot-line continues right through the third book. Bob is still dealing with Deltans; Riker is still dealing with Earth; Bill is still in Epsilon Eridani making like a mad scientist; and the colonists on Vulcan (Omicron² Eridani) play a significant part. I even add some more plot-lines.

Sorry, no spoilers.

But none—not one—of those plot lines could be resolved without chopping a major part of the book. Now, I could make one book be all about Bob and the Deltans, and one book be all about Riker and the Terrans, and so forth.

But here’s the problem. First, these sub-plots all happen in parallel. And the various Bobs interact. A lot. Especially once they all start getting the SCUT plans and communicating instantaneously across interstellar distances. How do I publish a whole book about Bob and the Deltans without revealing the big finish, or even spoilers about the other sub-plots? Only by being what’s called an “unreliable narrator.” I can’t speak for anyone else, but I hate unreliable narrators. You’re basically just lying to the reader to keep them in the dark.

So, yeah. I had to leave a lot of stuff hanging. I tried to break things at a logical point. For instance, Bob’s sub-plot ends with the Deltans arriving at the promised land; Riker’s sub-plot ends with the Colonists arriving at their promised land. And Milo’s sub-plot ends with the Bobs having more or less kicked Medeiros’ ass in 82 Eridani.

But none of this goes away. In fact it gets worse. By book 3, there are somewhere between 500 and 1000 Bobs in the galaxy. This is technically a spoiler, I supposed, but I doubt it’ll be a surprise to anyone: the Others that Mario finds evidence of, turn out to be a major pain in the butt, and the Bobs have to mobilize.

And I’ll reveal this as well: The resolutions at the end of book 2 won’t be any more satisfying than the end of book 1, if by “satisfying” you’re looking for “and they lived happily ever after.”

However, at the end of book 3, I think (at least I hope) that I deliver that comfortable just-had-a-good-meal glow.

So, okay, Legion has very much the feel of a serial, and I’m sorry for that, and I wish I could have done it more as independent books. In fact, the reason I wasn’t able to get it published by a traditional publishing company is specifically because of that. Big publishing companies won’t take a chance on a series (even a trilogy) from an unknown author. But the series wrote itself. I just supplied the fingers.

But look at the bright side: at least I didn’t end book 1 with Bob pushing a canoe out into the river while Guppy scrambles desperately to catch up with him.

I’m at SIWC this weekend — my first writer’s conference. Very, very interesting. I got to meet Robert J. Sawyer–sort of–I was in one of his seminars. He has a very practical attitude toward the whole business of writing.

I tend to expect these types of events to just reiterate platitudes and obvious advice, but some of the stuff, so far, has been very perceptive.

I’ll post more after it’s over. Right now, it’s time to head back there.