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The World's
Largest Snippet!
A Brief History
It was late 2005 and David Weber's latest Honor Harrington novel had just been published. More than a hundred thousand people had read it and they were hungry for more.
There would be a teeny tiny wait.
Until now.
Late 2008. Rumors of a new Honorverse novel to be published in 2009 abounded. David's progress on Storm from the Shadows, the sequel to Shadow of Saganami, was followed with great glee. David, being the honest Baen writer that he is, wanted to help those rumors along.
So he snippeted. Snippeting being a technique invented by Jim Baen to torture, er, nurture Baen readers by sharing parts of the latest novels that haven't been released yet.
David, being David, does not do things in a small way. So he snippeted the whole freakin' quarter-million-word novel as it existed on September 2, 2008.
Okay, so that's not exactly what he had planned. He had just planned to let out a few chapters. So the "oopsie version," as it has come to be called in our usual dignified way, was pulled within a few hours of the post.
But not before a very few people downloaded it in all good faith. And proceeded to read it. And proceeded to gloat in front of the rest of us.
Lamentations and wailings for parity commenced. And so we let everyone know that the version that got released really was not the final version. Several rounds of revisions by the author have been made since, and the copy edit and continuity check is still in progress. We really aren't quite ready to let the book out as an official eARC (i.e. electronic advanced reader copy); we want to send it out to the world all prettied up.
But the lamentations from the faithful did not cease.
And so, we—the publisher, author of the book, and webmaster—bring to you:
The Plan ™
For those who want it—and we stress this is an early, un-edited, incomplete version—we will sell the "oopsie" now for $10. We are not asking you to buy this version, we do not recommend you buy this version, but if you gotta have it, come and get it.
In about 6 weeks, when all the revisions and edits are in, we will make available for the usual $15 the official eARC, which will get you both the "final" and "oopsie" versions—extra computer memory sold separately. If you bought the "oopsie" version, you'll be able to get the official eARC for only $12.
If you buy the Webscription month that contains Storm from the Shadows, March 2009, you will get access to all three versions, if you want 'em. If you buy the novel as a solo ebook, you get access to all three versions, if you want 'em.
And so let there be peace in the valley. Until the next snippet.
—Toni Weisskopf
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 Hail the King of Stars!
"Epic . . . lyrical . . . conceived on the grand scale," says the New York Herald Tribune. "Star-spinning allure," says The Washington Post. To which we add: "As adventurous and amazement-producing today as the day it was written."
Edmond Hamilton literally created space opera—and the flat-out weird, high-baroque far future that defines the genre. (Okay, to be truthful, we'd say he created it together with E.E. "Doc" Smith.) Yet, as formative as Hamilton's novels were, there's a richness in the world-creating combined with a sometimes downright cynical voice that keeps his tales as fresh today as ever.
"Edmond Hamilton's 'The Man Who Evolved' was the first science fiction short story to permanently impress me," Isaac Asimov famously remarked.
What was it that put a permanent dint in the young Asimov's mind?
The ideas, of course!
A city blasted by a doomsday bomb into the unimaginable future—where humans must fare for themselves on a burnt-out husk of a planet! An alien archaeological site on the Moon decoded—and a galactic secret revealed. A fighter pilot drawn into Norse myth for a decidedly noir take on Ragnarok!
And the wonder-inducing concepts keep coming and coming!
These are the great Hamilton "stand-alone" novels. This mega-volume includes:
The Haunted Stars
The Valley of Creation
The Star of Life
City at World's End
Doomstar
Yank at Valhalla
The Sun Smasher
Fugitive of the Stars
Featuring art by Doug Chaffee, the entire mega-volume will be released September 15th, 2008. It will be available in the reader-friendly, unencrypted formats Webscriptions is known for. For the next 3 months, the "Best of the Rest of Hamilton" compilation will go for $20. Then the e-volume dissolves and individual ebook titles go for $4 each.
No shipping fees. No dead tree crumble. Welcome, traveler. Fate has landed you in the near-unimaginable future!
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 There are heroes in the mists...
. . . and ghost trees infiltrating the groves of the living.
The fabric of the world, on both sides of the keleigh, is unraveling. The survival of the trees, the sea, and the world depend upon two wounded people -- Meripen Longeye, a Fey desperately tortured by humans; and Rebecca Beauvelley, a human enchanted and enslaved by Fey.
Can they learn to overcome their pasts to work together as Ranger and Gardener? Or will the world falter on its own cruelty?
. . . Longeye is the final book in the duology begun in Duainfey.
Praise for Duainfey:
The husband-and-wife writing team, authors of the "Liaden Universe" series (e.g., I Dare), begin a new series that blends the fantasy and romance genres in one seamless whole.
—Library Journal
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are adept at creating characters and societies that, no matter how removed from our own experiences, seem as real as those in our own world.
—SFRevu
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WebScription ShelfServer
for iPhone and iTouch
BookShelf is an easy to use electronic book reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Available through the iTunes AppStore, BookShelf installs easily on your mobile device. Paired with the the WebScription ShelfServer or the ShelfServer application for your desktop, you can easily download books from the internet or your computer to your device via WiFi and start reading instantly. Read More...
 Space Opera Apotheosis!
“Edmond Hamilton’s 'The Man Who Evolved' was the first science fiction short story to permanently impress me,” Isaac Asimov famously remarked.
And it wasn’t just Asimov. Hamilton literally created space opera—and the flat-out weird, high-baroque far future that defines the genre. (Okay, to be truthful, we’d say he created it together with E.E. “Doc” Smith.) Hamilton’s “Starwolves” and “Interstellar Patrol” universes positively crackle with parsec-a-minute, headlong action.
And the ideas!
Anti-gravity disks, control helmets, force field projectors, planetary rocket motors! Hamilton wasn’t borrowing this stuff—he came up with it! And the characters: Hamilton’s “Interstellar Patrol” stories forged the baseline assumptions of space adventure as a genre. The routine galactic patrol. The starship captain as independent, rogue hero who can subvert a baroque alien empire in the morning and bed its beloved princess at night—all while serving as the spearhead for civilization and decency in the chaos out there among the stars!
And when the 1960s dawned and Hamilton figured it was time for space opera to get another shot in the arm, he gave us the darker and more complex, but just as wonder-inducing “Starwolves” tales.
It’s all here!
"Epic . . . lyrical . . . conceived on the grand scale," says the New York Herald Tribune. “Star-spinning allure,” says The Washington Post. To which we add: “As wonder-inducing today as ever before.”
Featuring an introduction by Frederick Pohl and art by Doug Chaffee, the entire saga will be released August 1, 2008. It will be available in the reader-friendly, unencrypted formats Webscriptions is known for. For the next 3 months, the “Starwolves and the Interstellar Patrol” compilation will go for $20. Then the e-volume dissolves and individual ebook titles go for $4 each.
No shipping fees. No dead tree crumble. Welcome to the near-unimaginable future!
 The Gods Return
The Gods Return is the end of the Crown of the Isles trilogy and the final chapter in the Lord of the Isles. The Fortress of Glass began the tale of how the new kingdom of the Isles is finally created by the heroes and heroines who have been central to the tale: Prince Garric, heir to the throne of the Isles, his consort Liane, his sister Sharina, her herculean sweetheart Cashel, and Cashel's sister Ilna. The Mirror of Worlds followed them on an overland journey to the small kingdoms of the Isles to confirm Garric's succession and subdue, if necessary, any who refused to pledge fealty.
In The Gods Return, the Isles have been more or less unified under Garric's rule, but the Change that created the continent, has removed the old Gods of the Isles from reality and released other Gods from other planes of existence. Now the servants of the forbidden Gods of Palomir call forth The Worm, an ancient thing that threatens to devour all life in the newly formed kingdom and make way for the reign of dark Gods, now awakened to ambitions of worship and dominion. Some are bad . . . and some are worse.
 Casablanca in Space!
"Exotic locales and. . .undiscovered lands. . .Brackett took these keenly felt romantic terrestrial notions and transplanted them to other worlds," says Sci-Fi Weekly critic Paul di Fillipo, "in the process magnifying and bejeweling all that was alluring and mysterious about our own planet."
Leigh Brackett writes like Dashiell Hammett. She gives us heroes like Robert E. Howard's. Yet she put us in strange, terrifying, beautifully-wrought worlds that are all her own—but worlds that look back to H. Rider Haggard and forward to the baroque creations of Ray Bradbury and Gene Wolfe.
This is wonder-filled, wonderful stuff. Yes, it's ERB meets Raymond Chandler—although Brackett truly is in a class by herself. Cynical motives—for every character. Politically seething, highly complex worlds. Clandestine, desperate plots to throw off foreign masters—or just to make a buck off the general suffering of others.
Here are the classic "planet tales" of Leigh Brackett. All of them—conveniently divided by Solar System planet! Gems such as "Lorelei of the Mist" (co-written with Ray Bradbury and featuring a very Conan-like existential warrior), "Cube from Space," the Lovecraft-influenced "The Veil of Astellar," and literally dozens more. You'll get the Mercury, Venus, and Mars stories. You'll get all the other Brackett tales set in the solar system, as well -- and a beyond Sol volume. Together in one mega-volume. Literally everything.
These are stories that elevated pulp to an art form. Tales that put science fiction on the literary map.
You won't regret this journey into Leigh Brackett's master-work. By the way, not only did Brackett co-write the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, did you notice that the film was dedicated to her when it came out shortly after her death? Oh, she also co-wrote The Big Sleep screenplay with one William Faulkner. No doubt about it: Brackett is the definition of "legend."
Featuring a new introduction by Algyis Budrys and art by Doug Chaffee, the second of our Leigh Brackett mega-volumes will be released July 4, 2008, and will be available in the reader-friendly, unencrypted formats Webscriptions is known for. For the next four months, this massive compilation will go for $20. Then the e-volume dissolves and we offer the individual ebook titles for $4 each.
No shipping fees. No dead tree crumble.
Coming soon to Webscriptions: A huge Edmond Hamilton compilation, a writer who was none other than Leigh Brackett's husband and some-time collaborator!
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