It’s that time of year again. Congrats/commiserations to those on/off the shortlists. It doesn’t matter who wins--in some ways it doesn’t even matter if you’re shortlisted, although it is an honour to be there, one I’m very grateful for. The award thing is primarily a celebration of community. I booked my ticket to the party weeks ago and am looking forward to it already.

The Grand Conjunction continues to be treated very kindly.

Not Free SF:
"Resexed rising redux. ... A complex and psychologically dense work. Some of Williams' space operatic counterparts could probably take a lesson or two in bloat trimming from this gentleman." (Ouch!)

HorrorScope:
"...a vast, many chambered volume that actually manages to surpass its predecessors Saturn Returns, Cenotaxis and Earth Ascendant. ... A continuation of those novels? Yes. The same philosophical and cordial prose we have come to love? Yes. But what lies at this novel's heart is more layered in its transparency. Like a Russian Doll, the revelations slide away in a manner that the author himself probably found unexpected and even humorous." (True.)

Terra Incognita:
"This is a tale of unimaginable span. ... It doesn’t seem possible that a series of books could do or contain more. The Grand Conjunction concludes a grand achievement. Five stars."

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don't want to inundate you with the full reviews, but I'm very pleased at how people have responded to the characterisation, the ending, and my little noir experiment. It reinforces my belief that, in SF, anything is possible.

Thank you, Simon A of Bookgeek, for this awesome line:

"breathless space combat and desperate gambits...a truly jaw-dropping piece of SF extrapolation and large-scale thinking"

But the review is a masterpiece in and of itself, and a touching lament to Imre Bergamasc. Farewell indeed. I'm going to miss the old gal.

(That isn't a spoiler, btw, except on the issue of gender. There'll be no more in the series, so what happens next is entirely up to your imagination.)

Also, from The Age: "Williams' world-building skills--and the ambition and intricacy of his ideas--make this top-flight SF fiction" (with a superfluous "fiction" there, thrown in as a bonus).

And Stuart Mayne in aurealisXpress: "rip roaring science fiction adventure... [Sean Williams] he has the ability to invent horizons that defy belief. That is a grand gift."

I'm very excited by how well this book has been received. Long may it continue!

One quick thing before I go.  Gary of Concept Sci-fi has given me my second review of The Grand Conjunction, and it's as exciting as the first.  Not just for lines like "epic space scenes spanning portions of time that the mind can barely comprehend" and "the words just seem to flow so easily that you're halfway through the book before you even realise it" and "an absolute winner and a joy to read", although they are of course wonderful on every level.  I'm excited for two other reasons.

One: Gary liked the ending.  "All of the loose ends are tied up nicely, and you're left with a nice warm 'cosy' feeling rather than a 'is that it?' feeling."  That concurs with Liviu Suciu's "the ending is pitch perfect", and suggests that I nailed at least one of my objectives (perhaps two, counting the humungous space battles).  After being criticised for leaving readers unsatisfied in previous series, I was determined to do it differently this time. I listen to feedback, and I know there's always room to improve. Looks like I did something right here.

Two: Gary again echoes Liviu, who said about the beginning, "I had to close the book and look at the cover to make sure I am reading the right book and then flip some pages to make sure pages from another book were not inserted inside by mistake - so great was the cognitive dissonance I suffered".  Gary's response was similar: "My initial reaction on pages one and two was 'what the hell has this got to do with Astropolis?' But the truth is that this bit of the book was actually the best bit for me."  He concludes: "Sean really has proved that he's an exceptionally talented writer who doesn't just do sci-fi and fantasy - Sean, if you're listening, you REALLY should write a detective novel!"

I'm listening, and I'm very pleased indeed.

Congrats to everyone nominated for a Ditmar!  I'm honoured to be one of them, for Earth Ascendant in the Best Novel category.  If you're going to be in Adelaide for the natcon, you can expect a huge celebration.  That's what it's all about, isn't it?

Also, the first review of The Grand Conjunction has hit the screens, thanks to Liviu Suciu at Fantasy Book Critic.  I was a bit nervous at first (I'm not often called "audacious and unconventional", like it's a good thing) but it worked out very well in the end:

"I would say the best in all the series and the novel succeeds grandly indeed.  Highly, highly recommended."

Whew!

Seven reasons I'm proud of The Grand Conjunction:

• It contains the biggest kick-arse space battle I could imagine.
• There's more than a hint of film noir.
• I had fun dicking around with structure.  For instance: the "Previously in Astropolis" intro contains an important hint as to both the identity of the series narrator and the ultimate fate of our hero.
• All the important questions (why Imre was reborn female in book one; what his other self has been doing all this time; etc) are answered at the end, so no one's going to be left scratching their heads.  I hope.
  
• The Gothic text I chose for inspiration was Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  Predictable, but still a wonderful text to work with.
• The main characters literally go through a wringer.  Literally.  (Not really.)
• It's dedicated to Gary Numan.

Oh, and the last line is possibly my favourite from all my novels to date.

(Okay, that's eight, but I liked the alliteration of the subject line.  So sue me!)

If this doesn't call for a celebratory chocolate (or two) I don't know what does!



(Should be in stores any day now.)

If you're looking for a read, here are some things I have out at the moment:

• The Scarecrow - the final book in my first kids' series, set in the same world as the Books of the Change/Cataclysm.
• The Hanging Mountains - the third book in the Cataclysm series, now out in a delicious tpb from Pyr in the US.

(Despite being separated in time from The Scarecrow by several hundred years, these two books do share an important character, someone who may or may not be a dragon.)

• "Signs of Death" - seed story for The Crooked Letter (the First Book of the Cataclysm) as reprinted in Australian Dark Fantasy + Horror Volume Three, edited by Angela Challis.
• "The Haunted Earth" - in the bushfire benefit e-zine Hope.
• "A Longing for the Dark" - set in the Geodesica universe and podcast-only from Terra Incognita, as read by yours truly.

Coming up real soon is The Grand Conjunction - the finale of Astropolis, which I received in the mail on Friday. It looks awesome! More on that later.

The UK cover of The Grand Conjunction has been out for a while, but for some reason I forgot to post it here. Not for any reason; I'm just forgetful. Here it is in all its glory:



Technically there are three moons in this cover (foreground, background, and creating the eclipse). Could that be any cooler?

( Here's the blurb. )

Meanwhile Mark Chitty Hub reviewed Saturn Returns in its latest issue, concluding: "a great Space Opera novel... Highly recommended."

BBC Focus thought Earth Ascendant "admirably rich and baroque, bringing to mind Iain M. Banks's Culture novels."

And Bookspot Central recommended Saturn Returns to "anyone who likes dark, epic-scale space opera, stories with intense action, or science fiction about subjects such as slower-than-light interstellar societies and the technological transformation of the human mind. ...an excellent combination of atmospheric power, thoughtful speculation, and visceral excitement that I recommend highly."

No need to comment, unless you're moved to by the awesomeness of my lovely Lunatic trio. :-) I post reviews and stuff here for my own record, mainly. Much easier to search LJ than my hard drive.

Long-term readers will remember the noirish novella I wrote in 1994 called "The Perfect Gun", which used the lyrics of the still-awesome band MC 900ft Jesus as a plot-point. Some might even remember talk of turning it into a novel, Widow of Opportunity, about a PI unravelling a science fictional plot in a far-future city dressed-up to look like the twentieth century.

Well, that title has fallen by the wayside, but the impetus to pursue that story has never faded. And finally it's going to see print.

Here's an excerpt. At the end of the excerpt is the name of the book. Why am I being so coy? Because the connection between this story and the one it's now part of might seem a little unlikely. But when you take out MC 900ft Jesus and insert a certain early-80s electro pioneer, it starts to make sense...

"The sky changed no less than three times on the way to the detective's office."

(Here and here are two other excerpts from the same novel.)