Shuddering News Spasms

(I know, I’m doing a lot of news-bit posts lately. I apologize! But we’re hitting a rather tumultous time of releases here — ZER0ES just landed. STAR WARS: AFTERMATH hits next week. BLACKBIRDS hits middle of September in gloriously shiny hardcover. It’s a busy time but it’ll quiet down again as fall rumbles on.)

Let us begin.

• Hey, look. It’s me over at The Mary Sue, interviewed about ZER0ES. My thoughts on the book, why I wrote it, and why hackers are awesome and artificial intelligence is scary.

• (Actually, The Mary Sue also has a few nice things to say about the book, including: “Chuck Wendig’s Zer0es is one hell of a novel that resonates particularly strongly in our day and age. It centers around a motley crew of hackers who find themselves bound together in a fight against a rogue AI that threatens their very lives. It’s exciting, and what’s more: it’s realistic. It’s that kind of near-future realism and these parallels that really make the book for me.”)

• Laura Roberts did a very nice review of the book here, but I cannot help but share a particular sentiment of hers now, one she both bolded and italicized: “Go read this fucking book now!”

• Kirkus did an article — 40 Years Of Hacker Sci-Fi In 7 Notable Works. It has the expected crowd of luminaries there — Stephenson, Gibson, Doctorow, and yet, somehow, this exclusive club must’ve had a bouncer go on break because I snuck into that list with ZER0ES. (This is where I repeat, as a mantra, I’M NOT WORTHY I’M NOT WORTHY.)

• As always, thank you for checking out the book. And here, one of those irritating (but sincere!) pleas: if you’ve read the book, please leave a review somewhere. Amazon reviews in particular have value — they determine what kinds of promotions Amazon and other marketing companies run. Publishers look at them. The industry in general monitors Amazon reviews because it suggests an engaged audience and fanbase.

• MOCKINGBIRD (Miriam Black book 2) remains $1.99 until Monday for your Kindle.

• B&N did a review of BLACKBIRDS this week. A choice snippet: “The book moves with the same hellzapoppin’ pace that has become Wendig’s trademark… Blackbirds unspools with the frenzy of a bag of mad cats, an unpredictably energetic thriller with a supernatural hook. It clocks in at under 300 pages, and he uses that compact canvas wisely. The themes are pitch black, the violence is quick and constant, and Miriam is charismatic enough to hold the chaos together.” The book is also a September pick at B&N alongside folks like Fran Wilde, Seanan McGuire, Ilana Myer, Zen Cho, Bradley Beaulieu, and more.

• Did I mention that AFTERMATH releases next week? *wibbles*

• Did I mention I’ll be at DragonCon next week? *wobbles*

• I may be headed to Charlotte, NC in November to do an event at Queens University.

• I may be headed to Brazil (!) in December to support the Brazilian release of AFTERMATH and the release there of BLACKBIRDS — it’ll be at ComicCon in, I believe, Sao Paulo? I’ve never been to Brazil, so happy to take advice from folks who have been there.

• And if you’re here in PA, I may see you at Doylestown Bookshop next week, where I’ll be emceeing and hanging out with the aforementioned Fran Wilde, whose Updraft releases soon. The event is on Wednesday and should be awesome because it’s a hella great store.