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DISPATCHES FROM THE BORDER

Events and News from Borderlands Books

April, 2011

Chapter One - Event Information, News, and Special Features

Upcoming Author Events

Peter Orullian, THE UNREMEMBERED (Tor, Hardcover, $27.99), Saturday, April 16th at 3:00 pm

SF in SF Presents authors Peter S. Beagle and Michael Blumlein at the Variety Preview Room in the Hobart Building, 582 Market Street, Saturday, April 16th at 7:00 pm

Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, PHOENIX RISING: A MINISTRY OF PECULIAR OCCURRENCES NOVEL (Harper Voyager, Mass Market, $7.99), Saturday, April 30th at 3:00 pm

Terry Bisson, TVA BABY (PM Press, Trade Paperback, $14.95 and Nick Mamatas, SENSATION (PM Press, Trade Paperback, $14.95), Saturday, May 7th at 3:00 pm

SF in SF Presents authors Andrea Hairston and Howard Hendrix at the Variety Preview Room in the Hobart Building, 582 Market Street, Saturday, May 7th at 7:00 pm

Andrea Hairston, REDWOOD AND WILDFIRE (Aqueduct Press, Trade Paperback, $20.00), Sunday May 8th at 3:00 pm

K.M. Ruiz, MIND STORM (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99 ), Saturday, May 14th at 1:00 pm

Cat Valente, THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING (Feiwel & Friends, Hardcover, $16.99), Saturday, May 14th at 3:00 pm

John Scalzi, FUZZY NATION (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99), Sunday, May 15th at 5:00 pm

(for more information check the end of this section)

News

*You may have noticed a silence from Borderlands over the last few months.  Don't worry, we're still here!  We were in the process of doing some major computer and service provider changes, and now everything is (cross fingers!) running smoothly again.

*It is also possible that you're getting this newsletter for the first time in a long time.  Some of the changes we've made should allow folks to get this newsletter who have been blocked by their service providers in the past.  As it always has been, this is an opt-in list.  If you would like to be removed from the list, please reply to this email and put "remove" in the subject line.  We'll take you off the list immediatly.

*March was really crazy, with three conventions, two gigantic author events, lots of other events, and a partridge in a pear tree -- okay, not really.  April and May are chock-full of authors too, and the summer promises even more fun, with the likes of Jaqueline Carey and Steve Englehart.

* This is mostly of interest to writers and publishers, but regular folks might be curious, too -- this website lets you see Amazon sales numbers for books: <http://www.novelrank.com/>

* Thanks to Pat Murphy of the Tiptree Motherboard for alerting us: "The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council is pleased to announce that the 2010 Tiptree Award is being given to BABA YAGA LAID AN EGG, by Dubravka Ugresic."  What is the Tiptree Award, you ask? See here for more info <http://tiptree.org/>.

* We are very sorry to report the death of author Diana Wynne Jones at the age of 76.  She was a tremendous talent and the genre is poorer for her loss.

* We are also very sorry to report the death of April Derleth, daughter of August Derleth and co-owner of Arkham House publishers, at the age of 56.  We all liked April very much and she will be greatly missed.

Overheard at the Con

This is a feature that appears periodically, as we attend conventions and overhear things.  The tradition of keeping track of anonymous overheard bits and bobs started for us at the 2002 ConJose in San Jose, where trying (or trying not to) fill in the blanks on overheard conversations made us laugh so much that we made it a tradition. Since we attended three conventions in March, we're going to spread out the "overheards" over a couple of months so we don't overwhelm you.  These are the things we overheard at Potlatch, the first weekend of March.

"So he's sitting there, tremendously urbane, and there's this...wombat!"

"You head for the sign that says 'Sporty's Bikini Bar' & you'll find the cheese paratha."

"I am a writer; I like to lie!"

"Check out this masive steampunk breastpump we had at the hospital!"

"Can that be their war cry? 'Greek Fire, Yo!'?"

Top Sellers At Borderlands

Hardcovers
1) Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
2) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
3) Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett
4) The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
5) Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
6) The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle by Pat Rothfuss
7) Scratch Monkey by Charles Stross
8) The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
9) Daybreak Zero by John Barnes
10) Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

Paperbacks
1) Late Eclipses by Seanan McGuire
2) Soulless by Gail Carriger
3) Blameless by Gail Carriger
4) Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
5) Feed by Mira Grant
6) Changeless by Gail Carriger
7) An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire
8) Dead Waters by Anton Strout
9) Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
10) Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie tie with License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr

Trade Paperbacks
1) The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
2) Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
3) Dreadnought by Cherie Priest
4) The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
5) Kraken by China Mievielle tie with Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh

Book Club Info

The QSF&F Book Club will meet on Sunday, April 10th, at 5 pm to discuss LOST SOULS by Poppy Z. Brite.  Please contact the group leader, Christopher Rodriguez, at cobalt555@earthlink.net, for more information.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club will meet on Sunday, April 17th, at 6 pm to discuss SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury.  The book for May is THE SECRET HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel.  Please contact bookclub@borderlands-books.com for more information.

Upcoming Event Details

Peter Orullian, THE UNREMEMBERED (Tor, Hardcover, $27.99), Saturday, April 16th at 3:00 pm - Borderlands is pleased to welcome author Peter Orullian, whose debut novel THE UNREMEMBERED has been praised by the likes of Terry Brooks and Piers Anthony!

SF in SF Presents authors Peter S. Beagle and Michael Blumlein at the Variety Preview Room in the Hobart Building, 582 Market Street, Saturday, April 16th at 7:00 pm - We are very excited to help SF in SF welcome these authors!  Each author will read a selection from their work, followed by Q&A from the audience moderated by author Terry Bisson.  Authors will schmooze & sign books after in the lounge. Books available for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books.  Seating is limited, so first come, first seated.  Bar proceeds benefit Variety Childrens Charity - learn more at <http://www.varietync.org/>.  We REALLY encourage you to take BART into the City, or use MUNI to get here - parking can be problematic in San Francisco, to say the least.  We are less than one block away from the Montgomery St. station.  Trust us - you don't want to be looking for parking and be late for the event!  Phone (night of event) 415-572-1015.  Questions? Email sfinsfevents@gmail.com.

Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, PHOENIX RISING: A MINISTRY OF PECULIAR OCCURRENCES NOVEL (Harper Voyager, Mass Market, $7.99), Saturday, April 30th at 3:00 pm - Join us to meet these fasicinating authors and check out a fantastic new Steampunk adventure! Podcast sensation Pip Ballantine and co-author Tee Morris are here to introduce you to The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, the specialty agency (based in Victorian-ish London) tasked with solving crimes that leave Her Majesty's normal law enforcement agents baffled.  We know you'll enjoy this one!

Terry Bisson, TVA BABY (PM Press, Trade Paperback, $14.95 and Nick Mamatas, SENSATION (PM Press, Trade Paperback, $14.95), Saturday, May 7th at 3:00 pm - Borderlands is happy to welcome these two distinguished local authors who both have new titles from the awesome, Oakland-based PM Press!  From PM's site, about TVA BABY: "Beginning with a harrowing, high-speed ride through the Upper South (a TVA baby is a good ol’ boy with a Yankee father and a 12-gauge) and ending in a desperate search through New Orleans graveyards for Darwin’s doomsday machine ("Charlie’s Angels"), Terry Bisson’s newest collection of short stories covers all the territory between—from his droll faux-FAQ’s done for Britain’s Science magazine, to the most seductive of his Playboy fantasies ("Private Eye"), to an eerie dreamlike evocation of the 9/11 that might have been ("A Perfect Day"). On the way we meet up with Somali Pirates, a perfect-crime appliance (via Paypal) and a visitor from Atlantis who just wants a burger with fries, please.  Readers who like cigarettes, lost continents, cars, lingerie, or the Future will be delighted. For those who don’t, there’s always Reality TV." And concerning SENSATION: "Love. Politics. Parasitic manipulation. Julia Hernandez left her husband, shot a real-estate developer out to gentrify Brooklyn, and then vanished without a trace. Well, perhaps one or two traces were left . . . With different personal and consumption habits, Julia has slipped out of the world she knew and into the Simulacrum - a place between the cracks of our existence from which human history is both guided and thwarted by the conflict between a species of anarchist wasp and a collective of hyperintelligent spider. When Julia's ex-husband Raymond spots her in a grocery store he doesn't usually patronize, he's drawn into an underworld of radical political gestures and Internet organizing looking to overthrow a ruling class it knows nothing about - and Julia is the new media sensation of both this world and the Simulacrum.  Told ultimately from the collective point of view of another species, Sensation plays with the elements of the Simulacrum we all already live in: media reports, businessspeak, blog entries, text messages, psychological evaluation forms, and the always fraught and kindly lies lovers tell one another."

SF in SF Presents authors Andrea Hairston and Howard Hendrix at the Variety Preview Room in the Hobart Building, 582 Market Street, Saturday, May 7th at 7:00 pm - Details forthcoming.

Andrea Hairston, REDWOOD AND WILDFIRE (Aqueduct Press, Trade Paperback, $20.00), Sunday May 8th at 3:00 pm - Join us to meet Andrea Hairston, author of the critically-acclaimed MINDSCAPE, as she presents her new novel!  From Aquaduct Press: "At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville, which slides into moving pictures.  Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images.  This 'dreaming in public' becomes common culture and part of what transforms immigrants and 'native' born into Americans.  Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a 'city of the future.'  They are gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, not just on stage and screen, but on city streets, in front parlors, in wounded hearts.  The power of hoodoo is the power of the community that believes in its capacities to heal and determine the course of today and tomorrow.  Living in a system stacked against them, Redwood and Aidan's power and talent are torment and joy.  Their search for a place to be who they want to be is an exhilarating, painful, magical adventure.  Blues singers, filmmakers, haints, healers, and actors work their mojo for adventure, romance, and magic from Georgia to Chicago!"  In addition to being an author and performer, Ms. Hairston is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for over thirty years. She is also the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College.

K.M. Ruiz, MIND STORM (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99 ), Saturday, May 14th at 1:00 pm - Join us to check out the debut of this exciting new science fiction author! From the book jacket: "Two hundred and fifty years after the world was nearly wiped out by nuclear war, what's left of society fights to survive on a ruined Earth while the rich and powerful plan to ascend in secret to another planet. But the nuclear fallout has led to a deadly new breed of humanity, "psions." The human rulers have enslaved these gifted beings to protect government interests. However, the psions are about to change everything.  K.M. Ruiz's debut novel, MIND STORM follows Threnody Corwin, a "psion" with the ability to channel electricity like lightning through anything she touches. As a solider-slave for the human government, Threnody is recruited by an unknown enemy: the scion of Earth's most powerful (human) family, the Serca Syndicate. But Lucas Serca is far from human and he intends to make Threnody and her fellow psions meet their destiny, no matter how many people he has to kill to do it."

Cat Valente, THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING (Feiwel & Friends, Hardcover, $16.99), Saturday, May 14th at 3:00 pm - We are delighted to welcome Cat Valente back to Borderlands to share her young readers' book THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING!  Fans of PALIMPSEST will remember this as the character November's favorite childhood book, the one she read 217 times. "THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED[. . .] is a story about twelve-year-old September.  September lives in Omaha, and she had a very ordinary life there, until her father went to war and her mother went to work.  One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a most excellent green jacket), who invites her on an adventure to Fairyland.  September finds Fairyland lovely but problematic, with the number one problem being that Fairyland’s Marquess is power-hungry, fickle, and doesn’t like September.  And it turns out that only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and this makes the Marquess even unhappier than usual.  Will September figure out how she and her new friends  - an ifrit and a book-loving wyvern  - can make this story into one with a happily-ever-after ending?" You will not want to miss this most unusual event and uniquely talented author!

John Scalzi, FUZZY NATION (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99), Sunday, May 15th at 5:00 pm - We are so excited to welcome the always-entertaining John Scalzi back to Borderlands!  This time the Campbell and Hugo Award winning author will present his "re-boot" of H. Beam Piper's 1962 classic LITTLE FUZZY!  Do not miss the chance to meet the author of OLD MAN'S WAR (and also apparantly the first man in Internet history to tape bacon to his cat).

Borderlands event policy - all events are free of charge.  You are welcome to bring copies of an author's books purchased elsewhere to be autographed (but we do appreciate it if you purchase something while at the event).  For most events you are welcome to bring as many books as you wish for autographs.  If you are unable to attend the event we will be happy to have a copy of any of the author's available books signed or inscribed for you.  We can then either hold it until you can come in to pick it up or we can ship it to you.  Just give us a call or drop us an email.  If you live out of town, you can also ship us books from your collection to be signed.  Call or email for details.

Dispatches from the Border
Editor - Jude Feldman
Assistant Editor - Alan Beatts

All contents unless otherwise noted are the property of

Borderlands Books
866 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA  94110
415-824-8203
http://www.borderlands-books.com

Comments and suggestions should be directed to editor@borderlands-books.com

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