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no moods ads or cutesy fucking icons

April 30, 2019

PETER WATTS IS AN ANGRY SENTIENT TUMOR: REVENGE FANTASIES AND ESSAYS slithers your way this November

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized beyond the rift, elizabeth story, Hugh Sicotte, no moods ads or cutesy fucking icons, peter watts is an angry sentient tumor: revenge fantasies and essays, russian, the freeze frame revolution, vk

PETER WATTS IS AN ANGRY SENTIENT TUMOR: REVENGE FANTASIES AND ESSAYS delivers a collection of rants and essays, potentially ranging from climate change to colonoscopies to cats, but really, who knows what might might come from the eclectic mind of Peter Watts.

Which of the following is true?

Peter Watts is banned from the U.S.
Watts almost died from flesh-eating bacteria.
A schizophrenic man living in Watts’ backyard almost set the house on fire.
Watts was raised by Baptists who really sucked at giving presents.
Peter Watts said to read this book. Or else.

In these unpredictable essays and revenge fantasies, Hugo Award-winning author, former marine biologist, and angry, sentient tumor, Peter Watts is the savage dystopian optimist that you can’t look away from. Even when you probably should.

Watt’s himself chimes in on his No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons blog:

My suggestion was simply “Revenge Fantasies”, but apparently in the #MeToo era such a phrase, in isolation, is too evocative of “revenge porn”. I believe the whole sentient tumor thing was originally coined by Analee Newitz.

As titles go, I admit that it rocks.

I’m surprised to be bringing this up so early. I don’t even know what the collection is going to contain— Tachyon gave me a ballpark word count and I sent them over twice that, leaving them to decide what makes the cut.

A few months back Tachyon‘s Jacob Weisman pitched me the idea of an essay collection. My initial reaction was, I suspect, similar to yours: In God’s name, why? My essays are already available; I’ve been writing them on this very ‘crawl for somewhere around 15 years now. I’ve been writing them for Nowa Fantastyka over in Poland. I’ve even done occasional prestige gigs at places like Aeon and The Daily (generally when someone far hotter than me is struck with flesh-eating disease, and the media needs a memoir from someone who isn’t currently in a medically-induced coma). Hell, even my lectures are sprinkled online here and there.

But apparently THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION continues to do well (so they tell me, anyway), and so did BEYOND THE RIFT in its day (which also packaged old wine in new bottles to good effect, now that I think of it). So Tachyon is interested in keeping me out there. And if John Scalzi can get away with anthologizing his blog posts, why not me? (I’m a lot less virtuous than Scalzi, of course. Hopefully at least some will regard that not as a bug, but a feature.)

The book has already garnered some international excitement as evident from the Russian site VK.

Tachyon Publications will publish a collection of Peter Watts articles and essays entitled “Peter Watts Is An Angry Sentient Tumor: Essays and Revenge Fantasies” I really hope that the collection in Russian will also be released.

Translation from Russian courtesy of Google

For more info on PETER WATTS IS AN ANGRY SENTIENT TUMOR: REVENGE FANTASIES AND ESSAYS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story

For more info on BEYOND THE RIFT, visit the Tachyon page

Cover art by Hugh Sicotte
Design by Elizabeth Story

April 17, 2018

SF fans will love Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, a tale of bizarre future employment and genuine wonder

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized do some damage, elizabeth story, no moods ads or cutesy fucking icons, Peter Watts, Publishers Weekly, read well, review, sandra ruttan, suncerae smith, the freeze frame revolution

In a starred review, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY praises Peter Watts’ THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

Watts pits the drive toward success against the need for connection, leading to an ending as open and as expansive as the universe. SF fans will love this tale of bizarre future employment and genuine wonder.

On his blog NO MOODS, ADS OR
CUTESY FUCKING ICONS, Watts shares some revelations about the book.

There’s the backcover, for one thing. You’ll notice actual blurbs from some pretty big names.

To my immense relief they continue to trickle in even now; as usual, I’ve stuck the lot of them over on the Pull Quotes page. As of yesterday there were fourteen, only four of which hail from personal friends.

There’s also the section breaks. FREEZE-FRAME is broken into six large chapter-like things, and Tachyon has graced each with its own title page. Each is simple, each is evocative, each is perfectly suited to the ambiance of the pages that follow. The one on display here steals its name from an old Jethro Tull song, because you can’t copyright song titles.

<snip>

I have to hand it to Tachyon; they’ve done a bang-up job on a project that, for all its modest size, cost them way more time, effort, and money than you’d expect for a trade-paper novella. Even the basic printing costs were unusually high, for reasons which are apparent on almost every page.

The reader responses offer some more interesting bits.

livens, on April 11th, 2018 at 8:25 am Said:

Pre-Order confirmed, cannot wait!

So its the red letters right? You know the first thing we’re going to do it parse through the entire book and write down all of the red letters to find the secret code ;).

Peter Watts, on April 12th, 2018 at 4:49 am Said:

livens: You know the first thing we’re going to do it parse through the entire book and write down all of the red letters to find the secret code ;).

Good luck working through all the typos we deliberately stuck in to throw you off the track.

Peter Watts, on April 14th, 2018 at 8:39 am Said:

keithzg: When possible I do try and buy from publishers who will provide DRM-free files themselves, since otherwise I’m encouraging the questionable practice of DRM.

Good point. Did I mention that Tachyon e-books are DRM-free?

At READ WELL, Suncerae Smith enjoys the story.

I’m surprised how well paced the story manages to be when all the humans have to go back to sleep for thousands of years every couple of chapters. However, the book misses out on what should be some good emotional reactions to fellow shipmates, Chimp, and the events that follow from the protagonist. Recommended as a short hard scifi that’s big on both time and spatial scope!

Sandra Ruttan on the crime fiction blog DO SOME DAMAGE makes an unexpected mention of THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION.

Just finished the excellent THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION on that score and that was a blast… and who here is talking about Brian Cohn’s The Last Detective? Oh, that’s right… another book that hasn’t gotten its due.

For more info on THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Elizabeth Story