Free Stuff

I've made my first novel, Ventus, available as a free download, as well as excerpts from two of the Virga books. I am looking forward to putting up a number of short stories in the near future.

Complete novel: Ventus

To celebrate the August, 2007 publication of Queen of Candesce, I decided to re-release my first novel as a free eBook. You can download it from this page. Ventus was first published by Tor Books in 2000, and and you can still buy it; to everyone who would just like to sample my work, I hope you enjoy this free version.

I've released this book under a Creative Commons license, which means you can read it and distribute it freely, but not make derivative works or sell it.

Book Excerpts: Sun of Suns and Pirate Sun

I've made large tracts of these two Virga books available. If you want to find out what the Virga universe is all about, you can check it out here:

Short Stories

I'll be adding new stories here periodically. First of all, you can try my Aurora-award nominated short story "Hopscotch." The year this was nominated, another of my stories was also nominated: "The Toy Mill," which I wrote with David Nickle. "The Toy Mill" won the award; but I've always been fond of "Hopscotch." Here it is, in its entirety excerpted from my collection The Engine of Recall.

Hopscotch

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Vote Venera in '08

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shameless cadging

Because nomination is the sincerest form of flattery

Yes, there is an alternative! It's awards season again, and my latest novel Queen of Candesce is eligible--for the Hugo, the Aurora, and others. If you were a member of Worldcon last year, or are already this year, you're eligible to nominate for the Hugo--but better do it soon, because the deadline is the end of February!

Similarly, Canadians can nominate for the Aurora online, but be quick about it. Nominations close March 17.

And why do I think you should nominate Queen? Well, don't take my word for it:

With Queen of Candesce, Karl Schroeder's Virga saga establishes itself as an SF saga of the same order as LeGuin's Earthsea stories, Asimov's Robot stories, and Niven's Ringworld stories.

--SF Revu

Comparable to classic SF epics like John Varley’s Gaean trilogy and Jack L. Chalker’s Well of Souls series, Schroeder’s saga is an awe-inspiring example of masterful world-building.

--Publisher's Weekly

Queen of Candesce . . . offers a generous abundance of reading pleasure, and its confirms that Karl Schroeder belongs in the front ranks of SF world-builders.

--SciFi.com

SF remains the home to some of the most visionary writers of the day, and to some of the most overlooked. With Queen of Candesce, [Schroeder] has achieved a clockwork balance of deftly paced adventure and humour, set against an intriguing and unique vision of humanity's far future.

--The Globe and Mail