Friday Quick Updates: Robin Sloan tonight, Maile Meloy on Tuesday, Steven Brust on Wednesday, The Escapist Expo next weekend, and more

Friday Quick Updates: Robin Sloan tonight, Maile Meloy on Tuesday, Steven Brust on Wednesday, The Escapist Expo next weekend, and more

Posted on 2013-09-27 at 18:10 by montsamu

Friday, September 27, 2013: Tonight, Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books welcomes Robin Sloan, the bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. The novel started as a 6,000 word self-published short story of dataviz, cryptography, Google, and books. 3 years later, grown tenfold and then some, it would be published to wide acclaim by Farrar, Straus & Giroux before spending 6 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list. Now the book is out in paperback, along with a new prequel short story, Ajax Penumbra 1969, and Sloan is on a nationwide tour in support of the new books, with one lonely stop in the entirety of the southeast: Friday, September 27, at Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books. There, special printed editions of the “officially” digital-only new short story will be on-hand as promotional freebies to those buying a new book:

Personally, I loved the novel, and the new short story refreshed in my memory just how much enjoyment I found in its pages. It’s got everything: Hadoop, dataviz, bookstores, secret societies, encryption, epic fantasy trilogies, excursions to the Google campus, special effects wizardry, typography, San Francisco walks, mechanical Turks, … I am very much looking forward to hearing the author talk about where he came up with any of this stuff, let alone how he mashed it all up together.

Among other upcoming events: Tuesday sees the first of the Wake County Libraries’ month-long series of science fiction panels by local authors, while Quail Ridge Books hosts Mali Meloy for The Apprentices, sequel to her YA/YR debut The Apothecary; Wednesday will see another of those Wake County Libraries panels, while Flyleaf Books hosts bestselling author Steven Brust for new novel The Incrementalists; and next weekend (Oct 4-6) is the second Escapist Expo at the Durham Convention Center, where you can pick up copies of Bull Spec #8 signed by the cover artist, Cynthia Sheppard.

Among other news, Duke University will on October 25-26 host The Race in Space conference, “a first of its kind event that seeks to explore the issues of race, culture and nationality in the colonization of space stations, planets, and stars in space. This two day conference held Oct 25-26 at Duke University will highlight astronauts research, artists and authors who have studied the realities and imaginative events involving the dynamics of race and space settlements.” Hat tip to Laura Haywood-Cory via RTSFS for this one, which looks to be a fascinating conference.

-Sam

UPCOMING EVENTS, SEPTEMBER 2013

27 (Friday) 7 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Robin Sloan for the paperback edition of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. More info: Robin Sloan discusses his novel Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore (paperback release). Additionally, special printed editions of the “officially” digital-only new prequel short story Ajax Penumbra 1969 will be on-hand as promotional freebies to those buying a new book. [Facebook Event]

OCTOBER 2013

1 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Science Fiction panel (one of six in an October series) at the Wake County West Regional Library. With David Drake, Mark L. Van Name, Terrence Holt, and Lisa Shearin. More info: http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/events/Pages/scifiauthors.aspx

1 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Maile Meloy for The Apprentices, sequel to her YA/YR debut The Apothecary. More info: http://www.quailridgebooks.com/event/maile-meloy-apprentices

2 (Wed) 7 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Steven Brust (author of the Vlad Taltos series) for new novel The Incrementalists. More info: http://flyleafbooks.com/event/steven-brust-skyler-white-discuss-sign-their-urban-fantasy-novel-incrementalists

2 (Wed) 7 pm — Science Fiction panel (one of six in an October series) at the Wake County Southeast Regional Library. With Ariel Djanikian, Clay & Susan Griffith, and James Maxey. More info: http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/events/Pages/scifiauthors.aspx

4-6 (Friday to Sunday) — Second Escapist Expo at the Durham Convention Center. More info: http://www.escapistexpo.com/

5 (Saturday) 11 am — McIntyre’s Books hosts Allan Gurganus – Local Souls.

5 (Saturday) 2 pm — Author John Claude Bemis, who is serving this year as the Piedmont Laureate for Children’s Literature, is leading a series of roundtable discussions with local children’s and YA authors about writing craft, creativity, and the magic of children’s literature.  The series includes events at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham on Tuesday, September 17 at 7 pm, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill on October 5 at 2 pm, and Quail Ridge Books on Tuesday, October 15 at 7 pm.  For more information, visit John’s website at www.johnclaudebemis.com or the Piedmont Laureate website at www.piedmontlaureate.com. From John: “I’m still working on the line-up, but once I know I’ll let you know who will be speaking at each event.  Should be lots of fun.”

5-6 (Saturday and Sunday) — The annual family festival “Autumn at Oz” at Beech Mountain, NC. More info: http://www.autumnatoz.com/

8 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Local book release day for Pull Down the Night (The Suburban Strange) by Durham’s Nathan Kotecki (Oct 8, 2013) with launch to be held at Flyleaf Books. Kotecki will be on WCOM-FM on Monday, October 7, to discuss the novel on Carolina Book Beat. More info: http://flyleafbooks.com/event/book-launch-nathan-kotecki-discusses-and-signs-his-new-ya-fantasy-novel-pull-down-night

8 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Science Fiction panel (one of six in an October series) at the Wake County North Regional Library. With David Drake, John Kessel, Mark L. Van Name, and Mur Lafferty. More info: http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/events/Pages/scifiauthors.aspx

10 (Thursday) 7 pm — Science Fiction panel (one of six in an October series) at the Cameron Village Regional Library. With Jenna Black, Tony Daniel, John Kessel, and Mur Lafferty. More info: http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/events/Pages/scifiauthors.aspx

[As usual check out the most recent newsletter for the complete listings.]

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