David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

In an incredible coincidence with yesterday’s release of the Space Magic audiobook, you can hear me reading my Hugo-nominated story “The Tale of the Golden Eagle” (an excerpt from that very audiobook) on the Escape Pod podcast today! Enjoy!

#SFWApro

As you may know, I’ve been working for some months on a professionally-produced audiobook version of Space Magic, my award-winning short story collection. Well, it’s finally done, and today is its release day!

The Space Magic audiobook is now available from Book View Café, Audible, Amazon, and iTunes in a variety of audio formats. Tell all your friends!

If you’d like to try before you buy, you can download a five-minute sample of “Tk’Tk’Tk:”

• M4B (audiobook) format. This format is best for iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
• MP3 (music) format. This format is best for other music devices and apps.

This has been quite an adventure. It’s been a lot more work than either I or the audio engineer had expected, and a real learning process for both of us. I’ve learned all about sibilants and plosives and “mouth noises,” and I’ve discovered that I don’t really have as many different voices in my repertoire as I thought I did. But I hope that you will find an entertaining variety of voices within each story. There are some dramatic scenes I’m really proud of, and I’m quite pleased with how the alien language in “Tk’Tk’Tk” came out.

This has also been a couple of months of having my own fiction rubbed in my face. You know how they say you should read your work aloud as part of the editing process? They’re right — there is no better way to spot problems in your own prose, and now I wish I had done this for some of these stories before they were published. And having to not only read my own work over and over, but then listen to it over and over (and I know I’m far from the only person who hates the sound of his own voice) has been truly humbling. But, on the whole, I find that I am still proud of these stories, and despite the problems I can still hear in the recordings I’m happy with the audiobook and I hope that you will enjoy it.

Many people have told me how much they enjoy my readings at conventions. Now here’s your chance to take a little piece of that experience home and enjoy it at your convenience.

Some people have asked me where and when they should buy my stuff. The bottom line is, you can get it wherever and whenever you like. If you buy from Book View Café I get more money, but if you usually get your audiobooks from Audible or iTunes or Amazon you should go ahead and buy it there, because those sales will help drive the “if you liked this audiobook you may also enjoy” engines at those sites. It would also be helpful to me if, after you’ve listened to the audiobook, you would rate it or even post a review at the site where you bought it (or on your blog, or anywhere really). But what I really care about is that people read (or, in this case, hear) and enjoy my work.

So, wherever you go, just go out and buy it… and then you can stick me in your ear! :-)

#SFWApro

We are okay here in Minneapolis after the storm, though we have no power or hot water. There is power in some nearby buildings, and the hotel says power will be restored "soon," but we're not holding our breath. 

The storm hit last night while we were out for dinner at a fine local Indian restaurant. Wind, lightning, horizontal rain, then the lights flickered and went out. We hung out there until the rain slackened, then walked back to the hotel, becoming only lightly soaked.

Back at the con, the scheduled yarn swap and music circle continued in the dark. Texture in yarn is so important, don't you think? And singing songs in the dark, by the light of flashlights and cell phones, felt very right.

Weather forecast for our flights MSP-MKE tomorrow and MKE-MSP-PDX Wednesday is not encouraging, but we'll see.

We are okay here in Minneapolis after the storm, though we have no power or hot water. There is power in some nearby buildings, and the hotel says power will be restored "soon," but we're not holding our breath. 

The storm hit last night while we were out for dinner at a fine local Indian restaurant. Wind, lightning, horizontal rain, then the lights flickered and went out. We hung out there until the rain slackened, then walked back to the hotel, becoming only lightly soaked.

Back at the con, the scheduled yarn swap and music circle continued in the dark. Texture in yarn is so important, don't you think? And singing songs in the dark, by the light of flashlights and cell phones, felt very right.

Weather forecast for our flights MSP-MKE tomorrow and MKE-MSP-PDX Wednesday is not encouraging, but we'll see.

As I've mentioned before, I'm working on a self-published audiobook of my short story collection Space Magic. Well, it's nearly ready for release! So I'm looking for a few good readers… er, listeners.

If you are an audiobook reviewer, or if you can suggest a review site that might be interested in an SF/F short story collection audiobook, or if you are an audiobook listener who would like to beta-test an audiobook (especially if you listen to audiobooks using something other than iTunes, iPod, or iPhone), please drop me an email at dlevine@spiritone.com. (This offer expires 6/27/13.)

!!EXCITED!!

#SFWApro

Sorry for the radio silence lately. I’ve been extremely focused on a variety of writing projects, including the YA Regency interplanetary airship adventure novel (first draft nearly done!), the Space Magic audiobook (hope to have the final audio files today!), a novelette (completed, rejected by one market, off to the next), a proposal for the next Wild Cards book (not accepted, alas), two characters for Wild Cards (one accepted, the other awaiting response), and the ebook of “Second Chance” (cover is done, review comments received on the text). Whew! I haven’t been blogging, or even reading blogs much, and I’m way behind on television.

Today we’re off to Minneapolis for the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention. This is the first time I’ve attended this convention, but it comes highly recommended. I’ll be appearing on the following panels:

• Friday 5:30-6:30 PM: Short Fiction with Michael Merriam (moderator), Marissa Lingen, and Michael D. Thomas: It can be challenging to bring worlds to life at novel length, much less in a handful of pages. What are the specific challenges of writing fantastic fiction at short lengths, and what are some ways in which short fiction’s effects and goals differ from those of novels? What strategies can be used to overcome these challenges, and how much grounding in genre protocols does a reader need to be able to unpack short-form fantasies?
• Saturday 8:00-9:00 PM: Tell, Don’t Show with Emma Bull (moderator), Steven Brust, Marissa Lingen, and Skyler White: Let’s talk about exposition! Authors like James Michener, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Francis Spufford have written novels that break all the “rules” about people hating exposition, and sometimes it’s better to just come out and tell readers things (c.f. Douglas Adams). What’s going on here, and what techniques and insights can we glean from it?

After the con, my father had planned to come to Minneapolis, which is where I was born, and we’d all hang out together there for a few days. Unfortunately, when I called him on Father’s Day I found him in the hospital with a blood clot in his lung. :-( He’s already home from that and doing much better (though he’ll probably have to take Coumadin, aka rat poison, for the rest of his life), but he was advised not to travel, so instead of him coming to Minneapolis we’ll be going to Milwaukee. Kudos to Delta Airlines for waiving all those nasty last-minute change fees for us.#SFWApro

Mark your calendars! Powell’s Books will be hosting JayFest, a group signing and book fair in support of local author Jay Lake.

Date: June 13, 2013
Time: Book fair 6:00-9:00 pm, group signing 7:00-8:00 pm
Place: Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton, Oregon

Authors in attendance will include David D. Levine, Phyllis Irene Radford, Devon Monk, Barb and J. C. Hendee, Shannon Page, Mark Ferrari, J. A. Pitts, M. K. Hobson, Diana Pharaoh Francis, and Tina Connolly.

Ten percent of the proceeds for each book sold during the book fair will go to the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund, which helps professional science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery writers living in the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska deal with the financial burden of medical expenses.

Please see http://www.powells.com/events/5348/ for more information and updates. #SFWApro