Friday, February 29, 2008
Cybermancy Incorporated
Last week, I sold my last copy of the out-of-print POD title, Cybermancy Incorporated, the first of the Bonaventure-Carmody sequence. The book has been unavailable since Clockwork Storybook folded a few years ago, but I still had a few copies left over, and have sold them to anyone who wrote to me asking for a copy. Now all I have left is my personal copy, and another that I've marked up pretty thoroughly.
Sooner or later, I'm sure, I'll succeed in tricking some publisher into reprinting the thing, but even then, it wouldn't be this same text. The Bonaventure-Carmody characters started out as part of the shared world of San Cibola in the Clockwork Storybook days, but as they made the transition for the webzine to the novels published by Pyr and Solaris, they got tweaked a bit, moving away from the urban fantasy environment of San Cibola and into a more science fictional world (though admittedly a pulpish one). So the version of this novel that eventually gets reprinted will be one that takes place in some other alternate universe out in the Myriad, with revisions and changes here and there. No longer set in San Cibola, but in Recondito, California, most of the plot will be the same, but there's be some significant differences.
Since I won't be printing this version of the story again, and there's still people who are interested in reading it, even after the last copies have been sold, I've decided to do a little experiment. Bill Williams of Lone Star Press has been working with e-book vendor Wowio for a while now, and raving about the experience. And in the past months, a lot of old CWSB titles have appeared in the Wowio offerings.
Now, Cybermancy Incorporated is added to the list. All of the titles on Wowio are ad-supported PDFs available for free download, so you need only create an account to download it, gratis. If you've ever had any interest in checking out the book, or are curious to find out more about the Carmody and Bonaventure families featured in Here, There & Everywhere, Paragaea: A Planetary Romance, Set the Seas on Fire, and the forthcoming End of the Century, here's your chance.
Sooner or later, I'm sure, I'll succeed in tricking some publisher into reprinting the thing, but even then, it wouldn't be this same text. The Bonaventure-Carmody characters started out as part of the shared world of San Cibola in the Clockwork Storybook days, but as they made the transition for the webzine to the novels published by Pyr and Solaris, they got tweaked a bit, moving away from the urban fantasy environment of San Cibola and into a more science fictional world (though admittedly a pulpish one). So the version of this novel that eventually gets reprinted will be one that takes place in some other alternate universe out in the Myriad, with revisions and changes here and there. No longer set in San Cibola, but in Recondito, California, most of the plot will be the same, but there's be some significant differences.
Since I won't be printing this version of the story again, and there's still people who are interested in reading it, even after the last copies have been sold, I've decided to do a little experiment. Bill Williams of Lone Star Press has been working with e-book vendor Wowio for a while now, and raving about the experience. And in the past months, a lot of old CWSB titles have appeared in the Wowio offerings.
Now, Cybermancy Incorporated is added to the list. All of the titles on Wowio are ad-supported PDFs available for free download, so you need only create an account to download it, gratis. If you've ever had any interest in checking out the book, or are curious to find out more about the Carmody and Bonaventure families featured in Here, There & Everywhere, Paragaea: A Planetary Romance, Set the Seas on Fire, and the forthcoming End of the Century, here's your chance.
# posted by Chris Roberson @
9:20 AM
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Glad I was able to get a copy from you at last year's Fencon....it was a cool read.
I really hope you get it reprinted sometime too
I really hope you get it reprinted sometime too
Blue, so far as I know, Wowio is still only US. If you need a copy and can't lay hands on one, though, email me at roberson@texas.net and I'll see what I can work out.
Hey, I've got my vintage copy on the shelf. I'd be curious about what you'd change in any repackage and reissue by a mainstream publisher.
# posted by 
:
3/3/08 3:48 PM
:
3/3/08 3:48 PM
Any rewrite is still in the notional stages, Stu, but more than likely what would change wouldn't be the plot, as such, but the context. The original version took place in a world that was fairly high magic, with all sorts of gods and supernatural beings running around. The Carmody-Bonaventure universe as it's developed in the other books tends to have a science fictional rationale for all that kind of wackiness. So that the Lovecraftian monsters from Other Space from the first novella would definitely still be in play, but there'd be some sfnal handwaving about the Aztec apocalypse from the concluding novella. Most of the interstitial short stories, for what it's worth, would probably remain the same, though there might be some minor changes even there.
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