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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.
To celebrate the August, 2007 publication of Queen of Candesce, I decided to re-release my first novel as an 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 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.
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:
In spring 2005, the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada (that is to say, the army) hired me to write a dramatized future military scenario. The book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, was set in a mythical African city-state, about 20 years in the future, and concerned a group of Canadian peacekeepers who are trying to ready the city for its first democratic vote while fighting an insurgency. The project ran to 27,000 words and was published by the army as a bound paperback book.
If you'd like to read Crisis in Zefra, you can download it in PDF form.
Starting with a Japanese page for Sun of Suns
I've created a Japanese page for Sun of Suns (太陽の日曜). This is an experiment, so if there's anybody out there bilingual enough to interpret what I've done, please let me know if there's any howlers or flat-out insults accidentally rendered into the page. I used WorldLingo.com's automated translation service, so I have no idea whether any of the text I've dropped in there makes sense.
If this works, I'm going to create pages for each of the other translated languages/works.
Japan's top SF award gives me the nod
Here's the complete list under the Best Foreign Novel category. As you can see, I'm in the best possible company this year; in fact, since these books are distilled from years of English-language SF rather than the Hugo's one-year pool, I'd venture to say that winning a Seiun is probably a lot harder than winning a Hugo. Just look at this collection of titles!
Note that the complete list of nominations doesn't seem to have been translated yet. You can find ongoing updates on that here.
My thanks go out to Hayakawa Publishing for their excellent edition of Sun of Suns; and of course, a deep bow to Naoya Nakahara, whose translation is really what is being nominated here.
...If you're a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, that is
The SFBC has made the first two volumes of the Virga saga, Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce, available together in an omnibus edition (link to Canadian site; the US site is here but doesn't have a direct link to the VIRGA page). The SFBC is a venerable and highly respected institution in science fiction and fantasy publishing; they previously made my first novel, Ventus, available.
The price for members of this edition is $15.99, but if you join you can have it for $0.20.
By the way, one of one my favourite features of this edition is the wonderfully over-the-top cover by Dave Seeley. Dave and I tossed many ideas back and forth, and he consulted with me at each stage of the process. That is indeed the vitriolic Venera Fanning, riding bike-back with Hayden Griffin in the skies of Slipstream.
Sun of Suns available now from Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.
Thanks to the commitment of Hayakawa Publishing and the hard work of translator Naoya Nakahara, you can now read Sun of Suns in Japanese. I'm delighted to have this edition in my hands--and there's more announcements of foreign sales to come!
If you want to order a copy of Taiyo no Naka no Taiyo, you can do so from Amazon Japan, or direct from Hayakawa's website.
It's always been a major ambition of mine to be read in Japan. I can't tell you how honoured I feel that it's finally happened.
I'm a member of the Association of Professional Futurists with my own consultancy, and am also currently Chair of the Canadian node of the Millennium Project, a private/public foresight consultancy active in 50 nations. As well, I am an award-winning author with ten published novels translated into as many languages. I write, give talks, and conduct workshops on numerous topics related to the future, including:
For a complete bio, go here. To contact me, email karl at kschroeder dot com
I use Science Fiction to communicate the results of actual futures studies. Some of my recent research relates to how we'll govern ourselves in the future. I've worked with a few clients on this and published some results.
Here are two examples--and you can read the first for free:
The Canadian army commissioned me to write Crisis in Urlia, a fictionalized study of the future of military command-and-control. You can download a PDF of the book here:
For the "optimistic Science Fiction" anthology Hieroglyph, I wrote "Degrees of Freedom," set in Haida Gwaii. "Degrees of Freedom" is about an attempt to develop new governing systems by Canadian First Nations people.
I'm continuing to research this exciting area and would be happy to share my findings.
"Science fiction at its best."
--Kim Stanley Robinson
"Lean and hugely engaging ... and highly recommended."
--Open Letters Monthly, an Arts and Literature Review
(Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce are combined in Cities of the Air)
“An adventure-filled tale of sword
fights and naval battles... the real fun of this coming-of-age tale includes a
pirate treasure hunt and grand scale naval invasions set in the cold, far
reaches of space. ”
—Kirkus Reviews (listed in top 10 SF novels for 2006)
"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
"[Pirate Sun] is fun in the same league as the best SF ever has had to offer, fully as exciting and full of cool science as work from the golden age of SF, but with characterization and plot layering equal to the scrutiny of critical appraisers."
--SFRevu.com
"...A rollicking good read... fun, bookish, and full of insane air battles"
--io9.com
"A grand flying-pirate-ship-chases-and-escapes-and-meetings-with-monsters adventure, and it ends not with a debate or a seminar but with a gigantic zero-gee battle around Candesce, a climactic unmasking and showdown, just desserts, and other satisfying stuff."
--Locus