Oddly...

[seawasp]

... there are only THREE reviews so far (one of them my own) for Mountain Magic. I find this peculiar as there are no less than *15* reviews for Digital Knight -- a first book by a completely unknown author -- and about 10 of those had been posted in the first couple of months of release. This despite the fact that Mountain Magic is selling MUCH better (AFAICT) than DK did, and DK didn't sell badly at all, and that Mountain Magic has much bigger names on the cover.

Wierd.

Comments

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

i meant to tell you before, i really, really liked mountain magic

:) I'm glad!

[seawasp]

I loved writing "Diamonds". Eric has even made some noises about doing a full-blown sequel to it sometime, which would be fun.

Re: :) I'm glad!

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

i love his work, too...he must totally rock to have as a co-author...

Re: :) I'm glad!

[seawasp]

He's a slave driver and a hack! Haven't you been reading r.a.sf.w? :)

Oh, and a butcher. The poor, defenseless text....

[cateagle.livejournal.com]

*Shrug* I don't know what to say since it was the first review I've posted on Amazon.

And I appreciate it.

[seawasp]

The message was more an observation than a gripe; I was wondering what mechanism was causing it, as my INIITAL expectation was that Mountain Magic would garner a LOT more reviews than DK.

Re: And I appreciate it.

[cateagle.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, between that and DK, you're definitely on my "must buy" list. I don't know why Mountain Magi isn't getting more reviews, I'd not expect that many folks, these days, to be familiar with Kuttner's stories any more and, going by sales of the original collection, the Old Nathan stories weren't that well known; certainly no where as much as they deserve.

Re: And I appreciate it.

[seawasp]

The Old Nathan stories were, IIRC, the REASON for the anthology in the first place. Eric wanted to reissue them so they could get the exposure they deserved, but there weren't enough of them to make a full-sized book. So Jim said "Well, if you can make a theme that works, choose some other stuff and you can publish them in an anthology."

So he took the "backwoods Kentucky/Appalachia" theme and found the Hogben stories, and decided that an anthology which had some new stuff would be more likely to sell, and started to kick around an idea or two. But he never quite got the time. Then when he was looking for something for me to do as a followup to DK, he said to himself "You know, the tone of voice I want in this is rather like Digital Knight. Let's see how Ryk does with this." And the rest is a footnote in history.

Boundary is much more a joint effort, and much more OF an effort. Eric got a lot of stuff on Mammoth Caves and related material, and I did a few days of research here and there, but for the most part Diamonds Are Forever was just "sit down and crank it out". Boundary has involved MANY hours of research, consultation with real scientists and experts in the field, etc., and I'm still going to be getting things wrong. Some I'll get wrong on purpose, but some I'm sure will just be screwups.

[meril.livejournal.com]

I bought Mountain Magic about 3 weeks ago. I haven't got around to reading it yet, as I'm still trying to pound through this stack of library books.

I was going to review it on my blog....wait, you're talking about Amazon reviews, not generic bookblogger blather, right?

Yes ...

[seawasp]

... and no, in a way. Any reviews are good, but on Amazon not only are they (supposedly) a minor publicity thing, they're also the only place things like that get gathered together. FInding online reviews of books that are posted in personal locations is HARD. I managed it for DK mainly by watching web listings like a hawk, but I'm sure I missed some anyway.

So yeah, I love seeing ANY review of my stuff, but I encourage anyone who DOES do a review to ALSO put it up on Amazon. (only if it's a POSITIVE review, naturally... ;) )

[meril.livejournal.com]

The only thing I have reviewed at Amazon ever was a Pikachu toy, and I did that anonymously. I did not even review the anthology my friends had a story in. I should probably fix that.

I just remembered I have robots.txt blocking all engine-robots from indexing my blog, because I had a horrible case of blog spam. Now I see your point.

It is probably good that I did not review your other book. Which I honestly did not know existed until I friended you. I need to *find* your other book.

Well...

[seawasp]

... if you don't mind electronic copies, you can get Digital Knight from Baen's Webscriptions. Amazon still claims that they, or their agents, can get physical copies, too.

[groblek.livejournal.com]

Last I checked, the local bookstore (The Avid Reader) here in Davis, CA has a second copy of DK (I bought the first) - it may have sold by now though. I just finished Mountain Magic, and I loved "Diamonds Are Forever" - now I'm really looking forward to "Boundary"

Thanks!

[seawasp]

Diamonds was just plain fun to write, and Eric and I have kicked around ideas for possible sequels (full length) in that world.

Boundary will probably be out, oh, around Halloween I'd guess. Hopefully I can get underway with another book well before then so as to step up the release speed.