Month: July 2013

CHOOSE YOUR OWN BOOK LAUNCH in Toronto on Monday!

I’m coming to Toronto this Monday night for the CHOOSE YOUR OWN BOOK LAUNCH: Two parties, side-by-side, for two different books! WHICH WILL WIN??

THE CONTENDERS:

To Be or Not To Be, a choose-your-path adaptation of Hamlet, written by Ryan North, William Shakespeare, and you! It’s over seven hundred pages and QUITE AMUSING, I’ve read it (and I also have a couple illustrations in it, along with tons of other great folks!). In the book, you can play as either Hamlet, Ophelia, or Hamlet’s dad, but if you play as Hamlet Sr., then you die on the first page and play the rest of the book as a ghost. It’s pretty great.

VS.

This Is How You Die, the brand-new sequel to Machine of Death that is just as good as the first book, if not better! The A.V. Club reviewed it and gave it an A. I helped write it, and I helped edit it, and so did Ryan. WE ARE PALS. But on Monday night we will be BITTER RIVALS.

AT THE EVENT

There will be Shakespearean rap battles! Dramatic readings! Death predictions by the score! Games and laughter! It will be a fun time; this is a guarantee from me personally. I hope you can come! (And if you already have one or both of these books, bring ’em to be signed! If you don’t, come pick ’em up there!!)

IT WILL BE HELD AT

• The Beguiling (601 Markham Street in Toronto, in Mirvish Village, beside Honest Ed’s)
• on Monday, July 29th, 7pm-10pm

More info here! Facebook invite here!

After that: Gen Con Indy! PAX Prime in Seattle! But first: this thing. THIS THING INDEED.

TWO DAYS LEFT for TIHYD! + Signing at Comic-Con!

CONFIDENTIAL TO THE PEOPLE AT THE SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON CHECKING THIS BEFORE 11AM ON FRIDAY MORNING: Come to booth #1116 (pictured above) at 11 for our This Is How You Die signing! We’ll have several of the book’s authors and illustrators on hand to SCRIBBLE AWAY in a copy that you can take home and cherish.

And/or come on by my own booth (#1229) for a Roll-a-Sketch! Like THESE LOVELY PEOPLE DID (I’ll post bigger pictures of the drawings themselves later):

CONFIDENTIAL TO EVERYBODY ELSE: We have just TWO DAYS LEFT to tally copies of This Is How You Die to count toward our attempt to make the New York Times bestseller list!

If you like, here’s another free preview story from TIHYD — Ryan Estrada’s tale of a MOD call center operative, featured on Wired:

“While overall the percentage of ironic readings is forty-nine percent,” Manisha answered, “with your reading in particular it’s been pretty straightforward. One hundred percent of those we’ve gathered data on have in fact been killed by locomotives.”

“Well, the reason I’m asking is because I just started a new job, and I begin training tomorrow,” the customer interjected nervously.

“No need to be concerned, sir.” Manisha knew what he was getting at. “If training were your cause of death, the card would certainly say ‘training’ or ‘trainer.’ Not simply ‘train.’ While unexpected synonyms are often the cause of ironic readings, the machine always gets the grammar right.”

Training might be the death of me, though, Manisha thought, remembering she had to be in three hours early for her next shift. For the third time in a month she was going to have to trade sleep for a mandatory training session…

We’re also very grateful for kind mentions about TIHYD this week from Vimeo (our video was named a Vimeo Staff Pick); Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing, and bestselling author Brandon Sanderson:

I think the concept is a great one, and the first book is quite entertaining. If you’ve read the first volume and are wondering if you should read the second, you may have noticed that one issue with the first is that a number of the stories tread the same ground, making a few of them a bit repetitive. The second book breaks that mold — the editors specifically put out a call for stories that took the concept in new and interesting directions.

I’ve read the second volume, and it certainly does that! A few of the stories do start out seeming like they’re going to be retreads and then you realize that something is wildly different…

What if you haven’t read the first volume? Don’t worry. These are both concept anthologies, not a coherent narrative. Each story stands on its own. All you need to know is the initial concept of a machine that predicts how you die, and you’re good to go. The stories can be read in any order or no order. If you haven’t read the first volume, don’t hesitate to read the second one now and decide later whether you want to read the first one. These are the cream of the crop (though the first volume also has some very good stories.)

Thanks, Brandon! If you haven’t gotten the book yet, I have only one request: DON’T WAIT. And if you have, thank you so much!!

Free stories from THIS IS HOW YOU DIE!

Today’s the day! Our book This Is How You Die is officially released. Some people on Twitter are reporting having received their pre-ordered copies already!

(The above tweet is in reference to my guest appearance on the podcast Jordan, Jesse, GO this week!)

We’re also super excited that The A.V. Club gave the book a solid A grade:

…But what is consistently surprising about This Is How You Die: Stories Of The Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine Of Death is the range and quality of the stories. Machine Of Death was smart and sophisticated. The stories often had twist endings, but they tended to be O. Henry-style twists, based in well-realized characters and the inevitability of fate, rather than cheap reversals or shock-driven rug-pulls. The sequel keeps the insight and the commitment to solid storytelling, but broadens the scope considerably. The editors challenged contributors to take the central concept in bold new directions, and the result is a much wilder collection that stretches around the globe, spans a range of genres, and experiments with the short-story form.

The review goes on to point out delightful things about several of the stories individually. It’s always funny…you work on something like this for a long time, with nothing but your own taste and judgment to guide you, and it’s so gratifying when people like it! Maybe this whole thing makes sense after all.

OKAY so you ALREADY KNOW you can buy the book on Amazon or your favorite bookstore. BUT WHAT CAN YOU READ FOR FREE? Here’s all the chunks of the book you can read without paying a single dime:

• Here are EIGHT OF THE STORIES as a free PDF. Ninety pages! That’s a pretty healthy chunk.

• The publisher’s website also has a preview featuring FOUR FREE STORIES. Two of these are also in the PDF above; two aren’t.

• Lightspeed Magazine has Ryan North’s story “Cancer” on their site, in both text and audio. It’s a lovely, heartfelt story, and really funny too. There’s an interview with Ryan as well!

• The publisher also has a short preview of the audiobook here — not an entire story, but still a fun excerpt to listen to. I’m trying to get them to send me one of the full stories, so I can post it on our MOD podcast.

And I assume at some point Amazon will enable the “Look Inside the Book” feature as well.

Hopefully this gives you a pretty good sense of whether the whole book is something you might like! OR, just read these, and enjoy them!

IF YOU’VE ALREADY ORDERED THE BOOK: thank you so much! Send me a picture on Twitter when you get your copy!!

BONUS LINK: Contributing author ’Nathan Burgoine has been reading and reviewing the stories in the book one by one, if you’d like to read even more about the different pieces that make up the collection!

BONUS LINK 2: here are a bunch of puppies looking adorable and confused

Roll-a-Sketches! Featuring MANY MERMAIDS

Here are some Roll-a-Sketches from recent shows! It’s funny how the dice work — even though it’s random, often a given element will pop up over and over for a while. Just the nature of chance, I guess! This bunch had a lot of mermaids in it. Saucy mermaids, as you can see!

RHINO + MERMAID:

CACTUS + MERMAID:

BEAR + SHARK + MERMAID + TANK:

MERMAID + HAMBURGER:

And just for good measure, HAMBURGER + GIRAFFE:

If you’ll be at the San Diego Comic-Con this week, come and get your own Roll-a-Sketch from me at booth #1229! (Mnemonic to remember: just think 1-2-3-4. We’re like 10 feet away from #1234.)

I’ll be there the whole time except for Friday morning from 11-12, when Ryan North and I will be signing copies of This Is How You Die at the Hachette booth, just an aisle away at #1116.

Comic-Con will mark the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the invention of the Roll-a-Sketch. I will celebrate it by continuing to populate the strange world that all of these creatures live in. IT IS MY HONOR AND MY DUTY.