Category: Books

In 24 hours, the signed, numbered, limited edition hardbacks of The Happiest Days of Our Lives will finally go on sale, and I’ve been signing and numbering books so we can process and ship orders as quickly and efficiently as possible.

There are only 300 in this limited edition, (which sounds like a lot to me until I look at my traffic stats and see over 30,000 RSS subscribers and an average of about 6000 different people actually hitting my site every day) and I’ve been signing them 50 books at a time, to ensure that my signature looks good — it turns out that a standard Sharpie pen is good for about 20 signatures from me before the tip breaks down, for those of you scoring at home.

The last few weeks have been frustrating and discouraging, but the last few days have been a hell of a lot more fun while we get ready to sell these books tomorrow. Signing them has been fun, too, mostly because I’ve been keeping myself entertained by singing little songs when I sign different numbers:

"17/300 – She’s only seventeen . . ." (Kip Winger, why hast thou forsaken me?)
"19/300 – Ninteen! Ninteen! Nuh-nuh-nuhnuh-ninteen!" (Paul Hardcastle FTW!)
"25/300 – Twenty-five, twenty-five, does whatever a twenty-five does." (I didn’t pick up the book and make it walk on the ceiling . . . or did I?)
"42/300 – Don’t ask me, for number 42, don’t have to tell you, I signed your precious book." (To the tune of INXS’s ‘Never Tear Us Apart.’)
"87/300 – Star Trek: The Next Generation . . . started in niii-eye-yiii-teen eighty-seven" (Sung to the tune of our theme song, of course.)

I think I need to move to a more well-ventilated area.

The Compulsive Reader reviewed The Happiest Days of Our Lives, and says:

Frequently, I found myself smiling at memories of my own that reading
this book evoked. Ah, yes, I remember the weekend-long Dungeons and
Dragons marathons with my fellow geeks. I, too, grin like an idiot at
the thought of my fictional relationship with the cute girl in 10th
Grade that didn’t even know my name. There are few geeks our age that
don’t flinch in terror recalling the institutionalized bullying that is
dodgeball, with the flying, red-rubber spheres of shame.

Wil’s writing style is very easy-going, almost conversational.  He is a master storyteller who takes the ordinary aspects of all our lives, wraps them
in nostalgia, and sets them on a dusty shelf in the sun to fill the
room with rainbows.

The nostalgia, however, is one of the small weaknesses of this book.
While not over the edge, the combination of nostalgia and optimism
could get overwhelming in a longer book. Even in the unhappiest of
memories, Wil finds elements of hope and beauty.

If you want to get a paperback, you should order now, because the signed, numbered, limited edition hardbacks go on sale at Noon PST, on Sunday November 18.

Because PayPal refuses to address their multiorder shipping problem, and because I know so many people are waiting for autographed books to give as holiday gifts, I’ve made an executive decision: I will halt paperback orders for one week, or until the limited edition hardback sells out, whichever comes first. This will make it possible for me to ship signed books everywhere, so they will arrive in time for the holidays. I’m still working on a more sustainable long-term solution.

If you have any questions about the hardcover, post them in comments. I’ll be chained to the computer for the next two hours or so, and I’ll answer as quickly as I can.

I asked my pal John Scalzi, author of The Ghost Brigade, The Android’s Dream, The Sagan Diary, and other awesome books, if he’d read The Happiest Days of Our Lives, and give me a pull quote if he liked it.

He says, “Wil gives lie to the idea that there are no second acts in American lives. He’s on his second act now — as a writer — and he’s doing it without a net, because he’s let us watch him start from zero. It’s been hellaciously impressive to witness. I can’t wait to see what he writes next.”

I guess he liked it!

I’ve been in the car a lot more than usual lately, so I’ve been listening to The Minority Report and other Stories by Phillip K. Dick, read by Keir Dullea (best known as Dave Bowman in 2001.) It’s a fantastic collection of unabridged stories, and Mr. Dullea does PKD’s stories more justice than any of their adapted film counterparts.[1]

It’s been captivating and entertaining to hear him bring stories like We Can Remember it for You Wholesale and Paycheck to life, but it’s also been terrifically inspiring to me. One night about three weeks ago, while driving home and listening, one phrase he spoke came out of my speakers, hit me in that part of my brain that makes me want to be a writer, and knocked out a story idea that has refused to let me do anything else until I bring it into the world and make it real.[2]

Stephen King advises writers to read a lot. If you’re not going to make time to read, he says, you’re never going to make time to write.[3] Harlan Ellison once said that writers shouldn’t write what they know as much as they should write what they love and wish there was more of in the world.[4] It’s good advice that’s kept me focused and given me a justification to read as much as I can without feeling as guilty about it as . . . well, as I do.[5]

Since I don’t have as much time as I’d like to actually read a book, I listen to them when I’m driving, when I’m on the train, and occasionally when I’m at home. There’s also something special about listening to a great actor — like Keir Dullea, for example — performing a great work of literature that speaks to me (ha. ha. ha.) on a different level than reading alone.

So now that I’m nearly done with this audiobook, I went looking for something else. I’ve enjoyed PKD so much, I thought I’d stick with the masters and maybe pick up something from Bradbury or Asimov that my friends would be horrified to learn I hadn’t already read.[6]

While I was browsing, I came across a couple of stories from Asimov that were dramatized on something called Dimension X. A bit of research revealed that Dimension X was a Sci-Fi radio program in the 50s. It was a collaboration between Astounding and NBC, featuring dramatized works from some of the greatest SF writers of the 20th century, like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jack Williamson.[7]

A bit of further research revealed that Dimension X is in the public domain, and nearly all of its episodes are available at Archive.org. I listened to The Outer Limit and Nightfall today, and plan to work my way through the remaining episodes over the next several weeks while I finish this SF story that desperately wants to enter our world, if I’d just stop talking about it, and actually hold open the goddamn door.

[1] Don’t buy it from Audible, though. The transfer sound quality is terrible and there are no tracks within each disc when you burn it to CD. Lame.
[2] Delusions of grandeur FTW!
[3] He says this and much more in On Writing . . ., which every writer should read at least once a year.
[4] He then ate a baby for breakfast. Allegedly. Score 100 points if you get this reference without using the Internet. Hell, score yourself 1000 points, actually.
[5]I have this "I should be working now" complex that’s taken over my life
lately, and it seriously cockblocks me a lot of the time.
[6] My best friend Darin, it turns out, still hasn’t seen The Godfather. See how horrified you are? It would so much worse if you knew that, for example, I haven’t read — Ha. Like I’m actually going to tell you. But trust me. You’d think so much less of me, it’s probably best that we pretend this note doesn’t exist beyond the point where I point out that Darin hasn’t seen The Godfather. I mean, WTF? He’s seen Lion King a hundred times, but not The Godfather?
[7] If you enjoy pulp science fiction like the stories from Astounding, you will love this collection called Retro Pulp Tales, from Subterranean Press. I sprung for the lettered edition, because I’m becoming that guy with all those books in my old age.