Category Archives: Bonus Content

Bonus Content for Predestination and Other Games of Chance

Dealing In, Episode 11


Download Subscribe

Welcome to the First of the Free Will/Next Ten Thousand Hours Feedback shows! This one is episode eleven of the Dealing In series of feedback shows, where I and several friends answer your emails and talk about whatever comes up. This time, I’m joined by Metamor City creator Chris Lester, my The Next Ten Thousand Hours cohost Kitty NicIaian, and composer Danny Schade. What do we talk about? An incomplete list, in roughly chronological order:
1) Introductions
2) Schadeys’ music
3) Physical types for Lantham and Joss Kyle
4) Meeting Caspar Van Dien
5) Heinlein’s politics
5) Where would you live on the moon?
6) What’s Earth like in the Antithesis Era, and what effect did the nuclear war have?
7) People living on the moon and its security implications
8) Silly Antithesis titles!
9) Eggs and food and the penises of birds
10) Feedback (finally!)
11) Computer Security in Antithesis
12) Quantum computing and cryptogrpahy
13) revolutionary cell networks and types of trust
14) codes vs cryptogrpahy
15) Alyssa Hartman, Catholicism, Suave Rob and Bi-Gendered Characters
16) Commercial availability of Free Will
17) Who are the best commercial audiobook companies?
18) The future of Metamor City
19) The NSA
20) Knitting needles as weapons

The Next Ten Thousand Hours, Ep 04

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we have an update on the Crudrat crowdfunding campaign, and talk about how to manage rapid expansion when projects get too big to keep in your head. Documentation, wikis, war boards, how they work in a collaborative environment–and how not having them can kill you.

Within you will find:

  1. A conversation on documentation and collaboration.
  2. Reading: A selection from Chicken Noodle Gravity
  3. Kitty’s Corner: I Don’t Watch Television, Really…

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Download Subscribe

The Next Ten Thousand Hours, Ep 03

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we have an update on the Crudrat crowdfunding campaign, and the unexpected consequences of having all your hard work pay off exactly as you hoped–and how to survive them.

Within you will find:

  1. A conversation on dealing with post-project letdown.
  2. Reading: A selection from Ideas, Inc.
  3. Kitty’s Corner: Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere…

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Download Subscribe

The Next Ten Thousand Hours, Ep 02

Better late than never, right?

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours, we lift the veil on the goings-on at AWP in the run-up to the Crudrat crowdfunding campaign. We talk about what it took to put the video feature together, how we survived it, and the methods we resorted to in order to preserve the last wisps of our sanity.

Oh, who do I think I’m kidding?

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours:

  1. Behind the scenes on the Crudrat video.
  2. Reading: A selection from Sunday Morning Giraffe, episode 3 of The Lombard Alchemist Tales
  3. Kitty’s Corner: Caffeine, Coffee, and SCIENCE!

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Download Subscribe

The Next Ten Thousand Hours, Ep 01

This week on the podcast, we unveil The Next Ten Thousand Hours.

Popular memetics would have you believe that it takes ten thousand hours to get really good at something–fortunately, there are all sorts of podcasts and video channels and books to help you through that difficult apprenticeship.

But what about once you get to the vaunted ten-thousand hour mark? What then?

In this show, Kitty NicIaian and I team up to explore (or, to be honest, mock and laugh through) this next phase as it unfolds. Every episode will feature segments where we talk about craft and business issues, a section where I share readings of new stories, and a section where Kitty (who, among other things, is a humorist) shares observations on the absurdities of our local version of the universe.

This week on The Next Ten Thousand Hours:

  1. Introduction to the show and the workings behind-the-scenes at AWP
  2. Reading: A selection from He Ain’t Heavy, the nearly-released book 5 of The Clarke Lantham Mysteries
  3. Kitty’s Corner: BART Encounters

We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Download Subscribe

Feeds Back Up, Release Announcement

Now that the feeds are working and I’m back on the air, I thought you’d all enjoy a sample of a new work that shares some of <i>Down From Ten’s</i> comedic horror vibe.

It is with great <img align=”right” src=”http://www.jdsawyer.net/blog_pics/ideas_inc_blog.jpg” /> pride that I announce the release of my short novel <i>Ideas, Inc.</i>, which Alasdair Stuart of…well, everywhere…called “Effortlessly funny, cheerfully dark, and tremendously strange” before he went on to say a <a href=”http://www.sfx.co.uk/2013/03/13/blog-ideas-inc-review/”>whole lot more in this amazing review in SFX</a>.

This is a story designed to give you a rip-roaring, white-knuckle adventure with plenty of laughs and scares in a single, breathless evening. Of course, you’re free to take longer reading it, but I warn you: Once you pick it up you won’t want to put it down.

Available now in <a href=”http://createspace.com/title/4118185″>paperback</a>
And in ebook through <a href=”https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/265947″>Smashwords</a>, <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Inc-ebook/dp/B00APBE4QK”>Amazon</a>, <a href=”http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Ideas-Inc/book-vKnlLbEmnkSh-28cz92m5A/page1.html”>Kobo</a>, <a href=”http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ideas-inc-j-daniel-sawyer/1113984731″>Barnes and Noble</a>, and a few other places as well.

<blockquote><i>The author of </i>Suave Rob’s Double-X Derring-Do<i> brings you a farce of the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams.

Best friends Caleb and Lenny hate each other. Stranded in the middle of upstate New York with two flat tires, one spare, no cell reception, and no idea what to do, they figure they’re pretty much screwed. Fortunately, they broke down right in front of a place that deals in ideas. For the special one-time fire-sale price of seventeen bucks, they can get a pack of seven completely original, brand-new, ultra-premium, never-before-used ideas. But will it get them out of trouble before they’re forced to talk to each other again?

Find out in this hilarious all-night adventure yarn that reveals the terrible truth behind the worldwide pigeon cabal!</blockquote></i>

Pick your poison, watch your back, and remember: the next bright idea just might get you killed.

Read the first chapter free here as a <a href=”http://www.jdsawyer.net/samples/ideas_inc-jdsawyer-sample.epub”>EPUB</a> or <a href=”http://www.jdsawyer.net/samples/ideas_inc-jdsawyer-sample.pdf”>PDF</a>.

Blogging Free Will–Ebook Giveaway

So, Free Will is in prep for release right now, with the typos and other nit-picky details being worked over, layout being done, etc. It’s a big step forward in the Antithesis Progression, and there are a lot of you out there who have been waiting patiently for the series to continue.

Some of you will get a sneak peak. You see, this is a big book. It ate up more pages, and more time, than I expected by an order of magnitude, and I’m eager to see it find a good home on the shelves and in the e-readers of all of you, including those of you who have drifted away in the meantime, intending to come back when the series continued.

To let people know Antithesis is back, we’re going to need publicity. Publicity means you! Some of you out there enjoy blogging, posting opinion pieces and reviews, etc., and you are the ones I need. Starting today, the first hundred of you that email me with the subject line “Free Will Ebook” will receive a free, pre-copyedits ebook version of Free Will (and a corrected version once the proofs are done).

In return for receiving this advance review copy, you promise to blog the book when you’ve finished reading it and, once the book is released to the general public in the next week or two, to post a copy or extract of your blog review in two of the following: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Goodreads, Kobo, Sony ebook store, Kobo, iBookstore. Those of you who feel enthusiastic enough about the book to post the review in all those places will be entered into a drawing. The four prizes in that drawing will be:

  • A copy of the signed-and-numbered collector’s edition of the Predestination poster
  • A signed paperback copy of Predestination
  • A signed paperback copy of Down From Ten
  • A Clarke Lantham Mysteries 2-pack: Paperbacks of And Then She Was Gone and A Ghostly Christmas Present
  • Spread the word!
    Also, watch this space. There will be more announcements in the coming days about casting calls, a new Death Threats contest, and other goodies.

    Dealing In, ep10 pt2


    Download Subscribe

    Welcome to the second of several Down From Ten Feedback shows. This one is episode ten, part two of the Dealing In series of feedback shows, where I and several friends answer your emails and talk about whatever comes up. This time, I’m joined by Metamor City and Down From Ten cast member Chris Lester, New York Times Bestseller Gail Carriger, and producer/actor/cartoonist Kitty Nic’Iaian. What do we talk about? An incomplete list, in no particular order:

    Food
    Pacing
    Screenplays
    Chekov
    Soulless
    Racism and bigotry in the Victorian world
    Douglas Adams
    Thomas Mann
    Cultural change throughout history
    The Death of the Author
    Focault
    Deride
    Shakespeare
    The Royal Shakespeare Company
    POV characters
    George R.R. Martin
    Neal Stephenson
    Shakespeare
    Employing Symbolism in writing
    Tee Morris

    Dealing In, ep10 pt1


    Download Subscribe

    Welcome to the first of several Down From Ten Feedback shows. This one is episode eleven of the Dealing In series of feedback shows, where I and several friends answer your emails and talk about whatever comes up. This time, I’m joined by Metamor City and Down From Ten cast member Chris Lester, New York Times Bestseller Gail Carriger, and producer/actor/cartoonist Kitty NicIaian. What do we talk about? An incomplete list, in no particular order:

    Poirot
    Stargate SG-1
    Sir Apropos of Nothing
    The Name of the Wind
    Stephen R. Donaldson
    The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
    The Gap Cycle
    Cozy Mysteries
    Agatha Christie
    Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
    Law vs. Morality
    Unconventional relationship structures
    Stranger in a Strange Land
    U.S. Regionalisms and prejudices
    Polyamory Weekly
    Free Will (announcement)