(No, not really.)

First, I’ve been interviewed by Shaun Farrell for the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. It’s a rather lengthy interview — 30 minutes or so — and it covers everything from whether Natch is the “hero” of Jump 225, why the series is titled Jump 225 in the first place, what is the nature of Natch’s drive to succeed, and why Moonwatcher from 2001 was in a way the first Natch.

Stargate writer and producer Joseph Mallozzi posted my answers to his book club questions about Infoquake recently. The group really seemed to delve into the book and had a very insightful discussion, not only here, but during several days of preceding blog posts. Topics covered include my favorite character, how likely I think the Infoquake future is, and why (or whether) the book ends abruptly. Excerpt:

Iamza writes: “I’m not so sure I really understand MultiReal. As outlined by Margaret, it sounds kind of great — a chance to have things turn out exactly as you wanted. But what happens when the batter wants to hit a six and the bowler wants to get his tenth wicket for no runs (hah, take that, baseball analogies! Give me cricket any day of the week). Whose reality ultimately wins out — or do both batter and bowler split off into separate universes, each achieving their individual goal? For every individual who’s installed the MultiReal program, are there a zillion universes in which things go wrong, and only one in which everything is golden.

DLE: Now you see the big dilemma with MultiReal technology. One of the main subplots in book 2 is how to resolve conflicts very much like you describe. Natch, Jara & Co. discover that there are a lot of broad sociological implications in how MultiReal resolves these conflicts. For instance: how do you charge customers for all those realities? Do you charge a flat fee, or do you charge for each alternate reality they pick? If you choose the latter, does that mean the rich would automatically win every argument?

(Admit it, you’re just making these funny cricket terms up. “The batter wants to hit a six”? “Getting his tenth wicket”? Surely you should not be using such language on a family blog like Mr. Mallozzi’s.)

• Charlie Jane Anders of science fiction megasite io9 has just published an interview with me. I dig the title: MultiReal Is Your Dot-Com Nightmare Writ Large. Topics covered include my progress on writing Geosynchron, whether there are any good trilogy closers, how MultiReal technology really works, and whether there are Natch and Jara “shippers” out there. (Yeah, I had to go look it up too.) In case you’ve forgotten, io9 are the lovely, lovely folks who gave MultiReal a glowing review and named the book one of their top SF novels of 2008.
• Meanwhile, Joseph Mallozzi, writer and executive producer for TV’s Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, has been hosting a discussion about Infoquake on his blog. But this ain’t just any ol’ blog book chat. Joe’s blog attracts an incredibly devoted fan base, with dozens of people participating in the discussion and asking detailed questions. I’ve now got all the questions in one big Word document. Joe will be publishing another post with all of my answers soon. In the meantime, read Joe’s original review, the first book discussion round-up, and the second book discussion round-up. Make sure to browse through the comments on each article.
• Finally, SF Signal has published another of its famed Mind Meld columns, this one on the topic “Who Are Your Literary Influences in the Ongoing Conversation of Science Fiction?” Not only did I contribute a few paragraphs (scroll to the bottom), but so did Mike Resnick, Tobias Buckell, Peter Watts, Paul Di Filippo, Jay Lake, Sean Williams, Paul Levinson, S. Andrew Swann, Stephen Hunt, Minister Faust, Julie E. Czerneda, and David Levine. Whew! I listed my two biggest SF influences as Frank Herbert and William Gibson, which should come as no surprise to anyone.

• MultiReal Is Eligible for Best Novel.
  Book 2 of my Jump 225 trilogy and the sequel to Infoquake, published by Pyr in July 2008. The book continues the story of far-future software entrepreneur Natch in his struggle to maintain control over the MultiReal technology which has fallen into his hands. In MultiReal, he’s got to cope with scheming politicians, power-hungry intelligence agency executives, an old childhood enemy, and a rebellion by his own fiefcorp apprentices. (Plus it’s got one hell of a dartgun battle between three different factions, and a scene on the virtual reality sex network featuring triple-breasted mermaids.) Accolades for the novel so far include listing on Best of the Year lists from io9, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, SFFWorld, and Post-Weird Thoughts, and lots of shiny praise from the likes of Locus, SCI FI Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Robert J. Sawyer, etc.
• “Mathralon” Is Eligible for Best Short Story.
  My story from The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two, “Mathralon” concerns a planet of oppressed miners laboring in obscurity for a ruthless combine that may or may not even exist. It’s told in the first-person plural (Greek chorus) point of view, and it’s somewhat unique in that it has no characters, no dialogue, and no plot. Curious? Go read the story in full, or listen to my reading of it on my appearance on “Hour of the Wolf.” The story got a terrific reception when I read it at both the Library of Congress and the KGB Bar, and it’s made Post-Weird Thoughts’ list of top short stories for 2008.

If you’re so inclined, you might also want to nominate my two editors this year, Lou Anders of Pyr (whose Fast Forward 2 anthology has a great shot at a Hugo nom) and George Mann of Solaris.

Fast Forward, the Arlington, VA-based cable science fiction TV show, conducted a 19-minute interview with me a couple of weeks ago. (Video requires QuickTime 7, but there’s an audio-only version available too.) Interviewer Tom Schaad really seems to have read Infoquake and MultiReal carefully. In our discussion before the cameras started rolling, he picked up on a number of hints in the margins of the books that nobody else has remarked on. (Hint: In which orbital colony did noted philanderer Marcus Surina die? And in which orbital colony was a certain fatherless character born?) Topics in the interview proper include MultiReal, technological paradigm shifts, the difficulty of writing the middle book in a trilogy, ethical systems in a post-religious world, and how the Jump 225 Trilogy is all about trying to find balance.

And blogger Fábio Fernandes has posted a seven-question interview with me on Post-Weird Thoughts. Topics covered include the influence of Dune and William Gibson, my favorite novels, the timeline of the Jump 225 trilogy in relation to today, and Geosynchron. Quick excerpt:

What can we expect of Geosynchron, the next novel of the Infoquake series? (BTW, it will really be a trilogy or there will be other stories in that universe?)

Geosynchron will definitely be the last novel of the trilogy. (I’m not precluding the possibility of writing additional novels in this universe down the road, but this particular story will come to an end at the conclusion of book 3.) As for what’s in store in the final book… You’re going to see the characters go off to places we haven’t been before, like the Pacific Islands and the orbital colony of 49th Heaven. You’re going to meet some of the Pharisees. You’re going to see a lot more of Quell and delve into his relationship with Margaret Surina. And you’re going to see a big ending that involves military strikes, philosophical debate, and (of course) creative marketing techniques. I think I can promise that it’s going to be a very, very unique conclusion. Currently the schedule is for the book to hit the stores in early 2010.

I’m told that Post-Weird Thoughts will have reviews of Infoquake and MultiReal up shortly as well.

Go. Watch. Read. Contemplate. Comment.

Update 12/20/08 @ 5:07 pm: Added embedded Google video.

But the best part of the whole thing is that Pat has seen fit, unprompted, to post this neat little Photoshopped poster that puts the full force and weight of Uncle Sam behind getting you to read Infoquake and MultiReal. And really, ain’t that how it should be?

Brief excerpt from the interview:

What do you feel is your strength as a writer/storyteller?
I feel like I’m very good at the worldbuilding aspect of things. Really, structure in general. The trilogy has layers and layers of metaphor in it, and I’m really quite proud of the way it all works together as an organic whole. My tendency is to wander off into history and background and structure, and sometimes I have to curb that impulse. If I had written The Lord of the Rings, it would have been three whole books of the Council of Elrond, and nobody would have read it.

Were there any perceived conventions of the science fiction genre which you wanted to twist or break when you set out to write Infoquake and its sequel?

Yes, I wanted to avoid the typical mindless action set-pieces that you find in a lot of bad SF, and bad novels in general. I really wanted to write an exciting novel about business. A lot of authors just use the business aspect as window dressing, and then quickly throw their characters into the same car chases and murder mysteries and gunfights. I wanted to write books that really are about the workplace, where the excitement revolves around product demos and marketing meetings and government hearings and that kind of thing. So that’s what I’ve tried to do.

I’ve now gone ahead and done the same thing for MultiReal. You can now read online the first drafts of MultiReal‘s chapter 1, along with footnotes and commentary about each draft. The big difference between the Infoquake drafts and the MultiReal drafts is this: for the latter book, there were thirty-five of them. Yes, thirty-five drafts of chapter 1. Told you I’m something of a perfectionist. (Keep in mind that most of these first drafts were simply rehashes of prior drafts, and most of them are incomplete.)

Instead of posting all thirty-five drafts up on my website, I’ve chosen to simply post the best or most representative samples of the eight different directions I tried. Along with the final published version, of course.

So among the abandoned concepts you can read about in these drafts are: Magan Kai Lee as ruthless martial arts expert (draft 1), a bureaucratic smackdown between rival governments about the weather (draft 17), Horvil fascinated by advertising (draft 18), and Henry Osterman trekking off to Harper’s Ferry to commit suicide (draft 29).

Quick excerpt from draft 29, my favorite abandoned version of chapter 1:

Henry Osterman was dying.

He stumbled into the provincial town of Harper on his own two feet, a pallid scarecrow of a man, his hair greasy, his clothes tattered, his fingernails curling in on themselves like shriveled worms after the rain.

Nobody could say how he had gotten there. The roads leading to Harper had been pulverized a quarter of a millennium ago by the wrath of thinking machines run amok. Tube trains and hoverbirds were technologies for a theoretical future when the world had learned to live without fossil fuels; multi and teleportation were the pipe dreams of lunatics. To get to Harper these days, you needed either a strong horse or a boat limber enough to steer through the debris clogging the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Osterman had neither.

The city itself was barely worth the effort. A few dozen dilapidated buildings huddled together at the bottom of a hill, that was all. The more prosperous cities nearby had pieced together a fragile shell of trade from the shards of yesterday’s civilization, but so far Harper had little to contribute. Still, you could get three radio stations again in Harper, and sometimes on clear nights you could see the feeble blink of a Chinese satellite. The local music scene was bustling. Drinking water was almost drinkable. Progress.

Hopefully this will prove useful to writers looking for some insight into the process, if not for future scholars at the Edelman Studies departments of major universities worldwide.

• Chat with Me on LibraryThing: From now until next Friday, August 1, I’m participating in my own LibraryThing Author Chat. Which basically means that any LibraryThing member is free to post questions to the author in an open forum, and I’ll answer them. Somebody please log on and ask me something so I can prop up my frail, stunted ego.
• SFFWorld MultiReal Review: Rob Bedford of SFFWorld has given MultiReal what can only be called a rave review. Remember that this is the guy who called Infoquake “THE science fiction novel of the year, if not the past five years,” and said that “the genre might not be quite the same after this book.” So I’ve been looking forward to what Rob has to say. Excerpt:
  

  MultiReal is on par with the previous volume for Edelman’s ability to change the game a bit and still maintain what made Infoquake such a great novel; his growth as a writer is most evident in the characters themselves. If anything, MultiReal may be a bolder novel… MultiReal is also not a “treading water middle book” of a trilogy… it really drives home much of what Edelman was setting up in the first volume and leaves the reader eager for the next volume. David Louis Edelman has crafted another winner with MultiReal… I for one can’t wait to see where Edelman takes the conclusion of this [thus far] spectacular trilogy.

• Listen to My “Key to Publishing” on Audio: The popular podcasts Adventures in SciFi Publishing and I Should Be Writing are jointly holding a Keys to Publishing Contest. Not only will they be giving away copies of Infoquake and MultiReal, but they’ll also be giving away books by my buddies Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Sean Williams, and Kay Kenyon (as well as Brenda Cooper, whom I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting). As part of the contest, they asked the authors to contribute short audio pieces on the key to getting published. Here’s my contribution, on I Should Be Writing 94. The whole podcast is worth listening to, but for reference’ sake, the intro to the Keys to Publishing sections starts at 3:40, and my audio piece runs from 4:50 to 7:36.)
• Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist Contest Winners: Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has announced the winners of their MultiReal giveaway contest, which ended up being an Infoquake/MultiReal giveaway contest. (In case you’ve forgotten, Pat called Infoquake “one of the very best science fiction debuts I have ever read.” And he hasn’t reviewed MultiReal yet, so I’m very interested in making sure he’s happy. Can I FedEx you a pillow, Pat?)
• POD People Review: Chris Gerrib of POD People has reviewed MultiReal and given it a rating of 10 out of 10. Says Chris (a self-published SF author in his own right):
  

  MultiReal is a deep book, full of plots and counter-plots, with a stunning vision of the future. It manages what seems to be impossible, making the act of computer programming exciting, while reflecting on the nature of government and business. This is high science fiction at its finest.

  Which prompted this amusing reply from one baron_waste on the LiveJournal mirror of the article:

  In ten years, that book is going to be as embarrassingly dated as any 1950s “Atomic Mutant Vegetables Conquer the World” story. I mean, look at it. Maybe he won’t care — royalty checks are their own currency, in the literal sense of the word — but this ain’t exactly The City and the Stars you’re describing here.

  Fine, baron_waste. Not only do you pick on my book, but you make fun of the title for my next book, Atomic Mutant Vegetables Conquer the World. See if I care.

Yesterday Paul Di Filippo posted a review for my new novel MultiReal for SciFi.com. And not only did Mr. Di Filippo give the book a grade of a solid “A,” but he name-checked half of the greats of science fiction in the process. To wit:

Readers of this distinctive and well-conceived series are sure to spot resonances with past classics of the genre… The notion of MultiReal as a power-leveling weapon seems rather van Vogtian to me. The amount of attention and insight paid to the workings of political and social institutions would please a Heinlein or a Brunner. There’s a definite Spinradian New Wave anger at authority and also a cynicism at work here as well. And the MultiReal experience resembles Paul Atreides’ precog abilities, as described by Frank Herbert… [Edelman] brings all the intellectual firepower and verisimilitude of the digerati like Sterling, Stross and Doctorow to his text. And the ontological twists and implications of MultiReal would do honor to Greg Egan.

Di Filippo then goes on to compare the series to the work of Alfred Bester, an author who I actually had not read until after I had completed Infoquake.

But the strongest overall vibe I get is that of Alfred Bester — although stylistically Edelman never quite reaches Bester’s pyrotechnical heights. Natch is in many respects a villain and bastard, the complete businessman antihero, like Bester’s Ben Reich. Yet so vivid and fierce are his desires and drives — think Gully Foyle, too — that you can’t help rooting for him. Now, Bester is much admired verbally, but very few authors really try to emulate him in print — he set the bar so high — and Edelman’s success is commensurate with his ambitions.

Finally he concludes with a little zinger that I imagine will find a prominent place on the blurbs page of future books.

[O]nce you realize that Natch is less Neo than he is Steve Jobs, you’re in for a swell ride.

Very exciting stuff indeed. The review’s even listed at the moment in the bottom left corner of the SciFi.com home page, if you hurry.

The winner this week is Jim Haley. The title he submitted would never fit on a DVD case, but he scores extra points for hitting Douglas Adams’ entire Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, including “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe”:

The Hooker’s Guide to Servicing Aliens at the Truckstop at the End of the Universe, Avoiding His (Her/Its) Wife, Her Purse, and Everything in It, and Knowing When It’s Time to Say, So Long, You Were a Quite a Dish (with the addendum Young Bods May Not Like to Play It Safe, But They’re Mostly Harmless Anyway)

And if that wasn’t enough, he submitted a number of other good titles, including:

The Unzip My Fly Effect

and

So LONG… But It Smells a Little Like Fish

The closest runner-up was Mike Wolffe, for his fabulous entry:

Butt Pirates of the Perineum: At Girl’s End

(I might have awarded Mike the contest, if I didn’t eliminate him for reasons of nepotism. I’ve actually known Mike since we both stood out in deep right field in a softball game in fifth grade and let fly balls fly by us. Go read Mike’s blog, if you want to see some great photography, deviant humor of the Butt Pirates of the Perineum sort, left-wing politics, general deep thoughts, and lots of Calvin and Hobbes. But I should warn you, this is a guy who still likes Guns N’ Roses.)

As for other runners-up… Stephen Stull came close to the grand prize with an entry that made me grin. Although in the end, I thought Titus Groans was a little too — well, obvious.

GormenghASSED Revisited: Titus Groans… Again.

Dave Crampton submitted a few good entries as well, but the one that really made me giggle was:

Anansi Boys on Boys

Very simple and elegant. Neil Gaiman would be proud.

Update, July 14 @ 10:20 AM: A few late-arriving entries from Geoffrey Allan Plauche that, while not eligible for the contest, are still worthy of inclusion on the honorable mentions list:

Joe Hadaman’s The Forever Whore
Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Banged
John Scuzzi’s Old Man’s Whore
Fred Pole’s Man Plus Man
David Louis Edelman’s Hoquake: Book One of the Hump 269 Trilogy

* * *

For this week’s contest, due to popular request (and due to this blogger wishing to get more contest entries so as to not look foolish), I’m opening up entries to the entire world. Yes, that means you, in Zimbabwe! And you, in Portugal! And you, in the Cayman Islands! Not to mention you, in the United States.

I’m also going to lower the decency bar back down where it belongs, in deference to all of the Internet censors in your foreign countries. In fact, I’m so interested in getting your input that I’m going to let you influence the course of the next U.S. presidential election.

Your task is this: pick a comic book superhero to run as either Barack Obama’s or John McCain’s running mate this fall. And then tell me why said superhero would be an asset to the ticket. You can be funny — or heck, if you can really think of some good, solid reasons why Obama should choose Wolverine as his vice president or McCain should be stumping through Idaho with Nick Fury, I’ll be willing to reward a thoughtful enough entry with the prize.

Example: “John McCain should choose Spider-Man as his running mate in ’08, because 1) his punchy one-liners could really liven up McCain’s stump speeches, 2) who knows, underneath that costume, Spidey might be a black guy too, and 3) his New York residency might actually help win the state for the GOP.”

Same contest rules apply as before. Email your response to dedelman@gmail.com with the subject line “Summer Giveaway Contest 3″. Entries are due Sunday, July 20 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time. Submit as many entries as you like. Winning entry gets:

• One signed copy of the Solaris mass market of Infoquake
• One signed copy of the Pyr trade paperback of MultiReal
• One signed copy of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two (containing my story “Mathralon”)
• One signed copy of the new Overlook Press edition of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone (containing my introduction)

Update, July 21 @ 10:10 AM: The winner of this week’s contest has been announced.