Amazon's identified that edition of the Jennifer Morgue as a large print book. I trust this isn't the case?

Excellent news for those in the US. My 2 cents: "Atrocity" is a hoot and a good book besides. "Jenifer Morgue" is also a hoot and a significantly better book. At least, it was for me. (BTW, as much as I enjoyed "A Colder War", I'm really glad the Bob books aren't that. The actual news is bleak enough. But 2011? I wonder if there's Bob Howard slash fiction. Tentacle hentai? Hmmm. Must remember to not Google that.)

Jon: no, it's not large print -- it's a trade paperback. (I've prodded Amazon's product info folks to fix that.)

JDC: It's an artefact of publishing schedules. Ace publish one Stross novel a year, normally -- "Atrocity Archives" and "Jennifer Morgue" are not on my main track. 2009 is going to be "Wireless" (a short story collection) and the 2010 slot is occupied by the sequel to "Halting State". That means they don't have a slot free for "Fuller Memorandum" until 2011 -- although it'll get their full promotional muscle (and possibly a hardcover release) when it shows up. It's not impossible that it'll come out earlier in the UK, or in a special limited edition, but 2011 is when it makes it's major US debut.

2011?!!? I'm going to have to wait 2+ years for the next installment? Damn dude, get that package re-upped to the corner.

I say that we, the Strossian community, set up some kind of ARG for one of the two new books (that Halting State sequel would be the most appropriate). Use the power of the geek to get the book deep into the public conscious.

Or something like the Ilovebees ARG but for the Fuller Memorandum.

I'm still reckoning it would make an awesom series for the Beeb to convert!

Hopefully the S.F. book Club will have it early in the states! Saturn's Children had different art than the standard U.S. cover(I think). May be they get supplied from (gasp) Canada. Anyway who can't relate to Bob,having bosses expecting them to impossible things that they're not qualified to do,"And like yesterday"?

So Bob Howard is no longer published by Golden Gryphon?

And for Australians, consider joining Electronic Frontiers Australia, particularly relevant at the moment for the fight against mandatory internet filter^Wcensorship.

OGN: correct. (Reason: TAA was GG's second best-selling title ever, when they published it. TJM outsold it by 2:1. Expected sales on TFM are somewhere from 1.5 to 2 times those of TFM. The unsold returns alone could easily exceed what, for GG, would be a record print run. I have no desire to gain a track record for killing small publishers ...)

I prefer to have my books shipped along closed time-like curves.

9+10 together: the exponential sales curve of TFM reach by putting the output into a closed time-like recursion would be astroid worthy for H. SCNR

My friend Dave proudly held up TJM and TAA and said "These are great. When is Charlie Stross going to publish the next Bob Howard adventure?" He will be crushed when I tell him that TFM isn't due out until 2011. Here in oz we get most of our books from British publishers, so I am hoping that TFM will be available sooner from one of them. Hoping.........

But I want them all. Now. Please.

Quiller in the UK as a special, yes, please.

I have TAA and TJM in an SFBC omnibus so I'll probably have read them by the time TFM comes out.

Don't worry, I asked my wife for a copy of Saturn's Children for a holiday present.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that I won't be buying either of these but that's because I already own them in hardback.

MikeB@16: They would make great gifts?

They would, in fact. At least, I think so. Someone I know has a birthday coming up and I wanted to introduce him to another name in the industry; this seems like the perfect opportunity.

I've ordered "The Jennifer Morgue" in the last week of November. Since it takes 6 whole weeks to arrive in south lands I guess it will be here around January... Just too late for Christmas & New Year... Perhaps in time for "Dia de Reis" (which is not really important in Brazil).

Soon Lee@17 - true enough but due to my current living/working location I have learned to do my personal shopping whenever I can get into a larger town. I did most of my Christmas shoppping in Vancouver in September and I won't able to get back down there until March. The only reason I have internet service here is because I can link via a dedicated government line to a commercial provider on Vancouver Island. However the skiing is unbeatable...

So bn.com here in the States makes note that "Hen MacLeod" wrote the foreward.

I'll assume that's Ken, yes?

Dan, he'd like to think so.

if the Fuller Memorandum is writ, why does it only get published in 2011?..... I just know the answer will be something to do with the odditties of publishing...

if the Fuller Memorandum is writ, why does it only get published in 2011?..... I just know the answer will be something to do with the odditties of publishing...

Ian: because publishers create their schedules years in advance and stick to them (and I wrote the book two years ahead of schedule).

Clearly the way to get TFM published earlier is to create a space in the publishers' schedules. However I don't endorse finding your least favourite author on Charlie's publisher's lists and emailing or calling them with lots of questions for interviews, soliciting short stories for magazines and anthologies and/or inviting them to exciting conventions and events and generally promoting their career in order to make them miss their deadlines and create space in the schedule. That would be bad.

4: "2011?!!? I'm going to have to wait 2+ years for the next installment? Damn dude, get that package re-upped to the corner. "

Duncan

Charlie, can't we just send you money directly? You do like money, right?

Regarding the returns issue -- will Borders's no-returns deal with HarperStudio books (just that imprint, it seems) be the start of a trend, or is the consignment model still as entrenched as ever?

2011... so... far... away...

Well, I did buy all the Merchant Princes books that have been published in the US and need to dive into those... but that won't last me too long. I do so love the Laundry-verse.

Charlie, I'm reading the US mmpb The Merchants War and a character has a fanny pack. Was this changed from bum bag for the US?

Marilee: no, the US edition is the first edition. I stuck it in deliberately to see if my UK publishers change it to "bum bag" for the British edition (next year) ...

Aha! Sneaky!

For you Charlie, I bought the hc of JM years ago.

PS-2011? laaaame.