Happy Chanukah for all my patient Shock: customers!

Shocking speedo

Finally.

Finally, I have copies of Shock: to ship. Thank you all for your extraordinary patience while I dealt with stupid, horrible printer issues. I’m writing up the full story, but suffice to say, I won’t be using RPI or Alphagraphics any more. I’ve gotten some very encouraging quotes from other printers who I’ll start with as soon as I recover a bit from the hit Alphagraphics dealt me.

I’ll be shipping out copies this weekend.

Truly, this is worth some gay disco.

(Unfortunately, I’m enjoying Arular by M.I.A. to really gay disco it up. But maybe I’ll listen to some Blondie later.)

The Least Fun Part of Publishing

Alphagraphics Fucks Up

A couple of months ago, Alphagraphics purchased RPI, my printer for Shock: Social Science Fiction. I’ve been hoping that the takeover would mean little to me.

Instead, it’s meant a lot. My rep retired at the same time, leaving my ass in the breeze. They’d lost my previous order, so I had to send them the very receipt they’d sent me so they could know what to reprint.

My shipment of Shock: just showed up with multiple screweups on their part. It’s a week later than the week they told me it would be late. The text block stock is all wrong: thin and translucent, it makes the spine too thin and the illustrations show through to the opposite page. The cover laminate is high gloss. It’s a mess.

If they make this right fast then I’ll keep using them. Mistakes happen. But I’m out of stock and was expecting to be able to do shipping two weeks ago.

All of this is sort of passing the buck to soften this apology: if you’ve ordered a copy of Shock: from me in the last month, I haven’t sent it. I know Brennan’s almost out, too. This would normally be very good news; it means that I’ve sold 200 copies of Shock: to my fellow enthusiasts of science fiction creation.

But it also means that the people who want to get a copy, can’t, at least from me. You can probably get a copy at IPR for a little while, at least.

So, I’m sorry. I’ll let you know as soon as this is sorted. Right now, this is making for a supercrappy week (what with my cat getting hit by a car and lots of money not coming through for work I’ve done on top of this. “Dear Livejournal…”).

So, lessons to learn:

1: Alphagraphics has so far been a pure poochscrewer. We’ll see if they make good.

2: Cats are expensive to put back together again. Not like Legos at all.

3: Be clear with your clients about what they’re paying for.

Shock: a Hit with both Albino Emperors and Intergalactic Beefcake

Vin Diesel

A fellow I don’t know (who is probably Paul Alexander Williams, whom I still don’t know) has written an excellent review of Shock: over on his Livejournal. He uses The Chronicles of Riddick as a running example, which is great. I thought I was the only person who liked it.

Be Boba Fett. Don’t Be Dengar.

Boba Fett Pwning Dengar

You know how cool Boba Fett is? And while we’re at it, Bossk? And, well, maybe IG-88 and Zuckuss? And you know how not cool Dengar and Greedo are?

Well, in the interest of my fans being the awesomest (and not the shot-in-the-cantinaest), I’m offering a bounty. Some, like Thor and Eric, have already turned in some heads and will be suitably rewarded.

Here’s what you can do.

Find me errors in Shock: that no one’s found before. You can track the found errors in the Shock: Errata thread on Xenoglyph and over on the glyphpress forum on The Forge. You have to own the book to gain your bounty hunter certification.

If I use your error report in the next version of Shock: you will be sent a copy of the next version of the game signed with thanks for the valuable service you have provided.

Errors that are valid for hunting and execution:

  • Typos (good lord, I don’t think there are any)
  • Rules inconsistencies and artifacts from early drafts
  • Inclarity
  • Incorrect references

These are all subject to my judgement, particularly the “rules inconsistencies” bit. But you’ll get gold for your head if it’s what I’m after.

No disintegrations.

Getting What You Want

1937 Stamp

Hooray! I’ve finally gotten to the bottom of my Shock: shipments! That means that you should have your game in the next couple of days at the longest if you live in the US, or in a week or so if you live in Europe. If you live in rural Scandinavia or Australia, it may take a bit longer.

Enjoy your games, everyone. I look forward to feedback.

Oh, and please check the Errata before playing. There’s a really important rule that I can’t find in the book for the life of me.

The Road Up

Elevator

After getting Burt Rutan to finally get his spacecraft flying after dropping hints for a decade, the X-Prize organization is turning its all-enabling gaze to the Space Elevator. What’s interesting about this is not just the ambient interest in the Space Elevator and its nature as a bridge to the rest of the universe; this is citizen space exploration. “Space is a place, not a program,” as they say.

Imagine a world where these things are all over the place. Where taking an elevator to space is like a cruise, where manufacturing is done in orbit and you can just go up there and check out the facilities, where the Moon is a matter of time, not billions of dollars, away.

This is the universe next door.

Sharing Soapboxes

Soapbox cars

Hooray! My new forum is up and running! It serves several functions:

1: It’s a place where I can provide support for my games in a different way than my Forge Forum does.

2: It’s a place to discuss book design for game designers. I want your book to look good. I want you to make a thing of beauty, and I want you to be able to charge what you need to charge to do it. Let’s discuss. Joshua Bishop-Roby, Luke Crane, Matts Wilson and Snyder, I greatly appreciate your input.

3: This is a big one for me: it’s a place to share science fiction you’ve written for critique, analysis, and enjoyment. Some of it will be directly inspired by Shock: and some of it won’t. But as long as your fiction’s concerned with the social, human aspects of science fiction, it will fit there nicely. Ben Lehman’s agreed to help me with moderation and he’s put up some rules there for submissions.

I’m really excited about #3 there. I got no less than three inquiries about publishing an anthology of Shock: based stories in the last day, and now I’m holding you responsible for your interest. This is the world of independent media; you want something, you make it. Rob, Justin, and Mike, when you put up an idea like this, you own it. I’m holding you responsible. Write something and make this be.

There’s a place over there for putting up works in progress for critique, and another for discussion of the ideas in your fiction.

To some extent, this is a lead-in to a possible anthology of stories. I make absolutely no promises as to whether I’m going to actually make that project fly, and I’m certainly not promising that I’ll put your fiction in the eventual and purely hypothetical anthology. But I also make no claims to your work’s ownership. You own it; it’s just my server it’s living on. Should I want your piece in the volume, we’ll negotiate whatever we can when it’s time for that.

In the meantime, consider it a zine in the punk rock sense; make something with me that’s good. Trade cassettes here for a while until you create Wax Trax, and I’ll provide the mixing board in the loft.

By the way: I’m new to Vanilla, the software this forum’s running on. If you can help me out here and there, that would be awesome. Kitkowski, I’m looking in your direction. Nixon, my wall-eye is looking in yours.

Preparing to Tile My Bathroom

Joshua A.C. Newman signs and numbers the pre-ordered copies of Shock: Social Science Fiction

Those of you who requested so in the last post are getting your copies of Shock: mailed tomorrow morning before I leave for GenCon. Pictured above is me signing and numbering the pre-orders (and, given the look on my face, trying to figure out who I missed). A lot of people I expect to see at GenCon, so I’m bringing your pre-signed copies along. Don’t pester Brennan, though, if you’ve pre-ordered a copy; only I know which Michael the books go to, for instance. I mean, pester him if you want to buy another copy, but not for your signed and numbered pre-ordered copy.

In other news, I saw Vincent’s Mechaton books today. I love its tone. The instructions are all questions and answers. He’ll be selling the rules for $7 and a kit with a bunch of mecha for like $45 (I don’t remember exactly).

I built a new mecha just for GenCon. It’s badass. It gets Yellows from its command flags. I’m pleased about that. You wanna see it, you better come play with us.

70 lbs. of Orange Squares

Shock spines

70 lbs. of orange squares just showed up on my doorstep. I’m really frickin’ happy with them. Really happy. If you’d like your copy sent out before GenCon, drop me a line. I may be able to send some out on Monday! Otherwise, you’ll have to wait a week to get them from me or through IPR. Also, if you want to order one from me now for shipping on Monday, even if you didn’t pre-order, order away!