Announcement: The Sun Inside

So here's some good news I've been sitting on for a while: my novella "The Sun Inside" is going to be the first release from the Electrum Novella Series, done by the good people of Rabid Transit Press (formerly Velocity Press). I can tell you this now because pre-ordering is live (via PayPal). That's right, for the low, low, price of $9 you can have a slick, perfect-bound book with roughly 18,000 words all guaranteed written by me. It comes out in late May, and if you're going to be at WisCon, you can reserve a copy to be picked up there. Perfect for people who like words!

Seriously, I'm very excited about this, for a couple of reasons. First, because I'm very proud of this novella. I'm not going to say too much about what it's about, because there are some surprises in it that we want to let the readers discover. (You can find out a little bit at the ordering link, above.) I can tell you that it contains (among other things): Internet dating, psychic powers, hidden worlds, zeppelins, hyenadaons, and the Iraq war. One thing I'm always trying to do with my stuff is to marry the holy-gosh-wow feel of pulp genre stuff to real-world concerns, and I think "The Sun Inside" may be one of my best efforts in that regard.

The second reason I'm excited about this is that I love what Rabid Transit Press is doing here; novella-friendly markets are few and far between, and I love the idea of a long-running series of them, published individually. I believe their plan is to do two a year, for now, and I'm already picturing them lined up on my shelf in a few years. Little packages of awesome. (If I do say so myself.) I'm excited to see where they'll take this, and I'm so very pleased to be in on the ground floor.

Things That Are Awesome

Aside from the news in my previous post, that is.

Top of the list has to be something which is related to something that is not awesome. By now you have probably heard that Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. As a result, he's donated $1 million to Alzheimer's research, and Pat Cadigan (aka fastfwd) has started a project called Match It For Pratchett, for Terry's fans to equal his donations. Details are at the site. There's probably not a disease that scares me more than Alzheimer's, personally; this is pretty much the definition of a good cause.

Other awesome things:

A gorgeous little Flash game at the BBC site, called Questionaut, which is suitable for all ages. Click around in your airship, and answer elementary science questions for more fuel. Kind of like that smarter-than-a-whatever-grader show, except awesome. (The game is made by the same people who did Samorost, which is also awesome, perhaps even moreso.)

Awesome (unless you are easily offended by religious humor): Bible Fight, brought to you by the folks at Adult Swim. It's basically Streetfighter, only you can choose to play Jesus, Mary, Eve, Noah, Moses, or Satan. Less awesome: I canNOT get past Satan. Damn him.

Questions From the Clueless

Anyone have a recommendation for user-friendly and free (or relatively cheap) recording/podcasting software?

Thanks in advance.