Hi, how have you all been?
Apologies for the light duty on the website recently, I’ve been working on a lot of stuff that’s not quite ready to see the light of the day. This has been an… interesting year for me professionally, in both senses of the word, and it’s had a really unusual effect. I mean, aside from the CM Punk/Bartlet-esque over articulate micro rants.
I’m cautious. Not about involving myself in stuff, I still roll my sleeves up and answer the call to adventure at any opportunity. No, I’m cautious because I’ve had a lot of things whiffle ball away this year, and a lot more near misses than I’d have ever wanted. My friend Dan Sawyer said this is the year I start transitioning from being a freelancer to a business owner who writes and I really hope he’s correct. It’s rough out there in the trenches right now and if you know a journalist or a writer? Buy them a coffee. Or at the very least throw them a kitten link on twitter. Or a new swear word. We love them.
But the time has come to not be cautious. In fact, the time to hesitate, as Lucas from Empire Records would put it, is through. Because a project Dan, Kitty and I have been working on for four months is about to go live.
Dan is a friend of Gail Carriger, author of the fantastic Parasol Protectorate series, phenomenally nice human being and hugely talented writer. Gail, just before the Parasol Protectorate series took off, wrote a YA science fiction novel. It’s called Crudrat and follows the horrible Dickensian existence of Maura, the heroine, a girl employed to run through the power cores of the space station she lives on and use her alien sidekick to clean the crud out of them. The job is incredibly dangerous and your reward if you live long enough to be too tall to do it is to be thrown out on the streets to fend for yourself, fail and die.
It turns out Maura has other plans.
The novel is wonderful. Literally, wonderful. This is the sort of book that I clung to like a drowned rat when I was growing up. It’s crammed full of ideas, character, heart, absolutely kick ass fight scenes and a unique world filled with unique, flawed people. I read it, loved it and immediately wanted the sequel.
There is, of course, a problem. The book hasn’t been published.
Enter Kickstarter, stage left.
Here’s how this is going to work; Dan is an audio producer of tremendous experience and talent. He’s putting together a cast of top flight podcast and voice acting talent, a full score, the whole nine yards. We’re asking for $7000 to produce it.
Here’s the video:
[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/42403918/gail-carrigers-crudrat-full-cast-audiobook width=480]
Doesn’t that look great? Dan and Kitty (Who’s art makes that trailer I think) sweated blood over that damn thing but holy crap does it work. If you noodle about on the project page you’ll also find details of the rewards, what you can get and how you can get it. Also on there you’ll find a link or two to crudrat.com. That’s the official project homepage and there will be regular new and bonus content there for backers as the project goes on. That’s also where I come in.
Over the course of the next four weeks, I’ll be answering queries, writing updates on the project page and crudrat.com and putting up articles dealing with just what the world of Crudrat means to me and how it relates to other classic pieces of science fiction. Because believe me, this thing is a classic in every sense of the word. It’s old school with a very new perspective, a story that’s about friendship and family and remarkably fancy face punching.
Alliteration. That’s how good Crudrat is. It has driven me to alliteration.
So, that’s one of the places I’ll be over the next four weeks. I’m really looking forward to it and I’m happy to talk about the project anywhere people want me to. Consider this an open door for guest posts of any sort, in any location. Please, invite me, this is a book I want to evangelize about. The mail link is here.
So join us and get your hands on the best book I read this year. I know, believe me I know, that it’s all too easy to fight shy of risks in a year like this but trust me, it’s fun out here. So don’t be cautious, be crudrat, and come and join us for the ride.