Let's Clear Out All These Announcements and Whatnot in One Big Post

First, I guess I shall mention some reviews. (Hooray!)

Second, I guess I shall mention things that are now available, or will be available very soon. (Hooray!)

(Note to livejournal, facebook, and etc.: I'll be posting lots of links to things, and those don't usually feed through the RSS. Do click through to jmmcdermott.blogspot.com for the whole heap of links!)

Reviews, reviews, reviews... This is the exciting time when such things start popping up all over.

Let's see... The Book Smugglers did a dueling review, and both gave NEVER KNEW ANOTHER 8-Excellent

[quote]

Ana: The more I think about Never Knew Another the more I appreciate the intricacy of its narrative and storyline and the strength of its characters. Can I also just say how much I love the title and how when it is revealed to the reader what it means I got goose bumps?

Thea: Agreed! This is one of those rare books that gets better the more that you reflect on it. I loved the nested storylines and the tangled characters; I loved the intricacies of this world, and the author’s distinctive writing style. I cannot wait for more from the talented J.M. McDermott. Absolutely recommended.

[/quote]

SFSignal's Peter Damien gave NEVER KNEW ANOTHER five stars out of five and offered this basic breakdown before his more in-depth write-up:

[quote]
MY REVIEW:
PROS:A clear, unfettered prose style, allowing for moments of poetry without becoming florid or overwrought; an inventive story which takes a fairly simple pair of ideas and builds a complex narrative out of them; the length.
CONS:The structure of the novel, the stories within stories, might make it hard for readers to instantly pick up, but will reward them if they do; dialog is sparse throughout the book, excellent when it appears, but I wish there'd been more.
BOTTOM LINE: A powerful, visceral fantasy novel which has at its heart the a tragical love story, well-populated by people you cannot help but care for. Strong language and writing makes this a book to revisit.
[/quote]


Right... so, onward to other things worth mentioning.


The Raleigh Review has gone live with their latest issue, and I am told a print version will come out later this year. In their latest, though, do check out the very short little story Gaia. (Also check out Renee LaGue's flash story. It's a good one!)


I've written a lot of fabulist, surrealist re-imaginings of women and monsters from Greek Mythology as part of this integrated collection my agent's looking at, at the moment. Gaia is the first of these to see print, and I doubt it will be the last. The whole collection of short stories, monologues, novelettes, and etc. is called Arias for Women and Monsters, and if anyone is interested in more of these things, well, drop me a line and I'll see what I can send your way. I've got quite a few of them making the rounds, independent of the whole collection.


Apex Books, fine publishers of all things dark and speculative, have started an Alien Shots program, offering 99 cent short stories for ebook readers as a means of previewing the work of Apex authors, including Dru Pagliossotti, Gary Braunbeck, Matt Wallace, and me. I'm certainly going to give my colleagues an alien shot by reading these stories!


Apex is also reprinting LAST DRAGON, and all pre-orders done through the publisher will be signed by me before going on to you. Unfamiliar with LAST DRAGON? Well, it was one of Amazon.com's Year's Best SF/F of 2008, shortlisted for a Crawford Prize, and on Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading List. I hear it's pretty good. Not convinced? Here's a preview. 


Last I checked, Barnes&Noble is apparently convinced everyone should buy the reprint of LAST DRAGON, because -- again, last I checked, it was 8.39+shipping. Not bad, no?

Okay... Lemme check the open tabs and see if I forgot anything... OH, YEAH!

Friend and first-time author Stina Leicht's book OF BLOOD AND HONEY has finally arrived, and I expect to curl up with it this weekend. I think you should too. So does Omnivoracious, the books blog of Amazon.com. So, if you already didn't have enough books, there's one more you should definitely check out.