So, a bit of background. A while back, I found a series of books… somewhere. I don’t even remember. It’s a trilogy of books, the first being Starrigger, by John DeChancie. (The other two are Paradox Alley and Red Limit Freeway.)
The first book in the series was a fun story with the classic 70s-SF feel, including a bunch of “heh, this would be so awesome” happenings which really didn’t make any sense, but which kept the story hopping. By the end of the third book, something had changed; everything made sense. The things I thought were throwaway gags, the mysterious deus ex machina, were all suddenly logically clear and inevitable. It’s not too much of a spoiler, I think, to say that this is my favoritest time travel story ever.
For the longest time, Baen’s ebook store has had exactly one of these books available as an ebook. Last night, I noticed that this was still the case, and I checked around more. Barnes & Noble had exactly the first book available for NOOK. They had the second in used paperback for $20, and the third in paperback only, as I recall.
So I emailed the author to point out that I’d buy them if they were for sale. He wrote back linking me to the press release indicating that the whole series was now available as ebooks, dated June 10th of this year. … Yes, June 10th. I went and checked. B&N now had the second one in ebook, and Fictionwise had all three. I thought I’d checked for these on Fictionwise pretty recently.
Should it surprise me that the guy who wrote the books I describe as my “favoritest time travel story ever” was able to respond to a request made on the 22nd or so on the 10th? I don’t think it should. Really, it explains a lot.
Comments [archived]
From: John DeChancie
Date: 2011-06-22 12:16:42 -0500
Seriously, I appreciate the appreciation. I consider myself an obscure author and when I hear from my readers, any of the half-dozen of you, I think maybe my stuff is getting out there, or at least that I’m not seriously deluding myself. Thanks again for the kind words, and the jokes, which are spot on.
Yr. pal,
John DeChancie
From: PatrickElliott
Date: 2011-10-24 20:15:49 -0500
I’m always looking for new SF series to read, i’ll definitely have to check these out. One of my all-time favorite book series is the Pip and Flynx series by Alan Dean Foster. If you haven’t read it, you definitely should. It’s chock full of those “What the hell just happened” moments we love so much.
In fact, most of his work is like that. Should definitely check him out if you haven’t. The Icerigger series is another great one.
Umm…Darnit, I’ll get back to you on more.