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Empire Games in the UK!

Empire Games

Empire Games, the first installment in my new Empire Games trilogy, launches in Thursdy 26th in the UK!

If you're in Edinburgh, I'm going to be reading from and signing copies of Empire Games at the launch event at Blackwells Bookshop, at 6:30pm on Wednesday the 25th; it's a ticketed event but tickets are free and can be booked here.

Unlike the USA, where it's a hardcover, Tor UK have chosen to publish in trade paperback. (This led to some hitches with supplier databases which choked on the last-minute update, but it should all be straightened out now.)

You can buy it in bookstores, but here are some handly links to ebook formats and mail-order outlets:

[Amazon.co.uk Trade Paperback][Waterstones Trade Paperback]Amazon Kindle ebook][Kobo ebook]

Signed copies can be ordered from Transreal Fiction and Blackwells Bookshop (Edinburgh); email for details.

To celebrate—or maybe promote—the book launch I've been putting myself about shamelessly all over the internet: here I am, on Tor.com, with a list of five books about espionage and codebreaking—non-fiction research that was all grist for the mill when I was writing Empire Games. Meanwhile, at Tor UK, I answer five questions about Empire Games; and on io9, I felt the need to talk about why near-future SF is still relevant today.

29 Comments

1:

First!^H, I need to find out where I can get a hardcover from. Foreboding Prices, probably.

I'm still waiting for the UK release date to tick over so I can enjoy the finished product.

In the meantime, congratulations on getting your book to escape, may it become a runaway bestseller.

Chris.

2:

A N Other classic book on codebreaking & the consequences: The Zimmerman Telegram by Barbara Tuchman. Recommended.

Books/films: You mention Kubrick - surely the Black Obelisk ( "2001" )is reminiscent of the knowledge gained or hinted at as the protagonists move across the parallel worlds - with theor potential benefits &/or extinction threats.

Deaths. The female foreign correspondents who reported on the outbreak of WWII - though she was well-on in years, but we still need their insights.

3:

Hardcovers aren't legally for sale in the UK.

You're allowed to buy one overseas and import it via mail order — so Amazon.com will sell you one — but UK distributors won't carry them.

4:

This is true, but various dealers seem to cock a snook at that particular rule. (I'm sure a blind eye is turned as long as the volume stays reasonably low.) I may wander into FP tomorrow. :-)>

Failing that, there's always abebooks, BigRiverCo, or wait until Eastercon. (But boosting your early sales by one hardcover has its attractions.)

5:

Finished it last night - why yes, I do live in the USA. Enjoyed it a lot, left me immediately itching for the next one. Well-done.

7:

It's a good piece of work -- heartily recommended.

8:

Ah, spit. I've got to ferry firstborn to Ratho for his Judo at 7pm... and the wife's last two years of work are arriving at "project go live yes/no" on the Thursday, which explains why she's been working fifteen-hour days, six days a week, for all of January so far...

...have fun, wish I could be there, I'll have to rely on the appearance of the pre-purchased e-book ;)

9:

Forbidden Planet are giving a 6th March release date for this ..... I may have to use AMZN for the dead-tree-version. Grrrr .

10:

Well, Book Depository said that they have sent me the book on 14 January, but it hasn't arrived yet. A book they sent me two days later arrived on Monday, so I hope I'll have the book in my hands this week.

11:

And there it was today when I got home. So, I pre-ordered the UK trade paperback from the Book Depository, and they sent it to me 14th of January. It arrived today, and yes, it's the UK trade paperback (which, as I understand it is published tomorrow).

12:

My Kindle version has just appeared.

Thank-you Charlie for the dedication to I M B

We are going to be desperately in need of "a better way" over the next few years.

13:

Google Play has DRM on it. Kobo is DRM free, but costs more I can't figure out if Amazon Kindle version has DRM or not. Does anyone know?

14:

"Not yet dispatched", says Amazon.

Come on, get your arse in gear you penis-eating-fish-infested muddy canal...

15:

Not just 'not yest dispatched', but 'we're still trying to obtain the following item'.

So I go to Waterstones and order it from there

Then I try and cancel the amazon order and get 'Unfortunately we weren't able to cancel' as its already being processed.

So they haven't got it, can't get it, but its so close to dispatch that can't cancel it!

Well hopefully at least one copy will arrive, I;m sure i can find someone who will appreciate the spare!

16:

Amazon cancelled my pre-order last week, and is still showing the book as "unavailable". Didn't realise there was a different link for the same book!

Let's hope they don't do the same with my pre-order for "The Delirium Brief". :)

17:

"Delirium Brief" is published by Orbit in the UK and they will almost certainly do it the way they've done the previous seven Laundry Files novels. No problems anticipated.

The "Empire Games" snag was at root down to it effectively being a relaunch for my career at Tor UK, in other words a learning experience.

18:

I can confirm that the UK-version bought via amazon.de doesn't have DRM.

19:

I can also add that I found the book's pricing very strange. Amazon's pre-order price was 9.49 €. I didn't pre-order, just bought it yesterday, and had to pay 10.04 €. The pre-order price at Kobobooks was 12.99 € I believe, and yesterday's price was 13.99 €. (I hope some of the surplus goes to Charlie, and doesn't just drown in the big river.)

This seems distinctly odd to me, because I'm German, and therefore used to something called 'Buchpreisbindung'. Which means that book prices are fixed. They never change from retailer to retailer and they never change from day to day. One book, one price. Period. I feel that that's how it should be with books, but I'm sure that all non-Germans would find that distinctly odd.

20:

We're supposed to have the same thing: books, unlike everything else, come with the price printed on the back by the manufacturer, and always get sold for that price no matter where you buy them. I've no idea what the legal framework behind that is but it's been that way for as long as I can remember.

Meanwhile Amazon are still guddling about with their hands down their trousers while my Empire Games order still shows as "preparing for dispatch". It really is most annoying that it should be this particular order where they decide to break with their usual track record of competence and reliability and suddenly become uncharacteristically useless.

21:

We used to have the net book agreement but that's been gone for a long time.

"Net Book Agreement" on @Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement?wprov=sfsi1

22:

I never realised that had gone...

Anyway, my copy of Empire Games has arrived. YIPPEEE!!! On a Sunday too. Don't think I've had an Amazon order arrive on Sunday before.

23:

Charlie? Couple of technical points for the next printing... ref. p.142 (UK PB)

238U does not undergo thermal-neutron-induced fission. It requires fast neutrons with an energy >= 1.4MeV or thereabouts.

The antonym of "prompt" as in reference to neutrons is "delayed": neutrons released in the actual fission event itself vs. neutrons released a minute or two later by one of the fragments farting. Nearly all fission neutrons are prompt; the percentage of delayed neutrons is tiny, but crucial for reactor stability. "Fast" vs. "slow/thermal" is a measurement on a different axis - energy, rather than time; control of processes involving fast vs. slow neutrons can be inferred directly from the isotope mix of the fission fragments, whereas control of processes involving prompt vs. delayed neutrons is attested by the existence of stable reactors.

Hopefully that doesn't give anything away beyond what everyone already knew :)

24:

ALERT, ALERT: EMPIRE GAMES HAS GONE BACK TO PRESS IN THE UK.

This may be why Amazon are having a headache fulfilling your order in a timely way: the initial trade paperback print run sold out!

25:

Je vais gloaterais tout le blessed afternoon; I have a first edition first printing of a book!

26:

Eh, well that's excellent news! And my copy has arrived now, and is being enthusiastically read. Most entertained to note the existence of a briefcase-of-tricks which instantly reminded me of the one in "Pigeon Impossible"... and then in the very next sentence is revealed to have actual robot pigeons in it.

27:

I was looking at MZN regarding "other stuff" (and living nowhere near a bookshop) and they now report having stocks again!

28:

There was an erroneous mention of signed copies, which has disappeared ... And my local store doesn't have any, so I suppose I will have to either log on to AMZN, or wait until next week & see if "Forbidden" have got any ....

29:

Copies have now been sighted in the wild in Melbourne, Australia.

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This page contains a single entry by Charlie Stross published on January 20, 2017 7:02 PM.

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