Crunchy Little Newsbites, Nom Nom Nom

Various quickie updates, for those who care to have them:

• I asked Scott Sigler if he wanted to take a look at my upcoming novel, ZER0ES (where hackers fight a sinister, self-aware NSA surveillance program), and he said, “Sure, kid, whatever,” and then he patted me on the head and gave my beard a lucky rub and then danced back into the forest from whence he came. Well, he has once more returned from the briar and he has given me not one blurb but, in fact, several of them. In fact, he blurbed the book while drinking whisky, and so the blurbs… they sort of degenerate quickly. He has posted the results of this drunken blurbing for all to behold. I laughed so hard at this until I realized the one about pooping might accidentally make it onto the book. *hurriedly emails the editor*

• (Fine, jeez, if you want the actual blurb, I think this is the one you want: “ZERØES turns ones and zeroes into pure gold — Wendig hacks the action thriller.” — Scott Sigler, New York Times best-selling author. Thanks to Scott, who rules.)

• As a sidenote, while he was reading ZER0ES on the plane ride into Phoenix ComicCon, I was coincidentally reading his newest, ALIVE — a head-trip YA thriller about a group of teens who wake up in coffins in a strange place and have to survive and figure out what the unmerciful crap is going on. It’s weird and awesome. I like to think of it as LORD OF THE FLIES mashed up with HELLRAISER. That comes out later this month so go make with the grabby-grabby.

• Also speaking of Herr Doktor Sigler, he recorded a podcast whilst at PHXCC with me and Delilah S. Dawson, and the three of us sit and chitter-chatter about being YA authors who also sometimes say really inappropriate things in public and in our books and oops is that bad? I’ll drop a link to the podcast when it emerges from the Internet the way Godzilla emerges from the briny sea.

• Storybundle! A dozen e-books on writing by authors like Bob Mayer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith and yours truly. Set a price. Determine how much of that price goes toward bundler, author, and charity. You’ve got less than 24 hours left on the clock to nab it.

• Atlanta Burns is on sale at Amazon along with a whoa-dang host of other great YA books — Gwenda Bond’s Girl on a Wire, Sarah Fine’s Sanctum series, Christina Farley’s Gilded series, and more.

• Fantasy Faction’s Dan Hanks did a very kind review of Under the Empyrean Sky — you can read the whole review here, but if you’re looking for a snippet: “Under the Empyrean Sky is that most wondrous of things – an intimate tale, set against an epic backdrop that leaves you feeling as though you’ve experienced a story far grander than the words on the page actually convey. In that respect, Star Wars: Aftermath is in great hands. And as for The Heartland Trilogy, I absolutely can’t wait to see what happens next.” You can nab the first Heartland book right here.

• Some folks have said that I should talk more about the books I blurb on here, and to that end I totally agree, so let’s do that, yeah? I blurbed three books that landed very recently…

• Peter Clines: The Fold. “The Fold is that rare thriller that always keeps just one step ahead of the reader…a crackling, electric read.” A group of scientists find a way to bend space and create a teleportation channel, except, oops, they don’t know how they did it and hilarity I MEAN TERROR swiftly ensues. The third act is gonzo amazing good times.

• Eva Darrows (aka Hilary Monahan): The Awesome. “Hilarious and twisted, this is one bad-ass jump-kick of a book. Moveover Buffy, because monster hunter Maggie Cunningham is in town.” If you want to meet the little sister of Miriam Black, this is probably your book. A sex-positive, ass-kicking YA heroine? Check the book out. (Also one of those rare books that tries to be funny and actually does it.)

• Richard Thomas: Disintegration. “Sweet hot hell, Richard Thomas writes like a man possessed, a man on fire, a guy with a gun to his head. And you’ll read Disintegration like there’s a gun to yours, too. It’s a twisted masterpiece.” This is just a fucked up book, folks. Like, in the best way possible. Noir thriller. Go grabby. It’s like, $2.99, to boot.

• Last but not least, hey, I’m going to San Diego Comic-con! I’m doing one panel there that’s some kind of [edit: secret thing]. More details as I know ’em.