Apparently the links to the Summerworld and The Four-Day Weekend samplers were out of whack due to me moving some directories around. It should be fixed now.
Summerworld: "Here, all things are as anew..."
In the blink of an eye, the world is made new ... How will you live?
It had to be a prank. A letter to Dr. Hirofumi, from a patient of his who’d died three years ago—now inviting him to come out to the country and spend some time there!
Then he followed the letter to its source, and realized all too late that he’d slid into a new world—one shaped by the fears and desires of all those who were lucky enough to survive the journey.
In that “changed place,” as those who live there call it, he discovered the new powers to be awakened within himself and others. He found friends and loved ones, both new and old—and he came to understand his new world far better than he had ever dreamed.
Summerworld is a fantasy novel—the label “magical realism” might also apply—set in a world where both fantasy and reality have freely interpenetrated—not always in good ways—to create a new realm. Its main character, a psychoanalyst, is abruptly stranded there when he tries to track down the source of a letter that appears to have been written to him by a former patient who died three years ago.
In this “changed world”, as its denizens refer to it, he will learn to survive—sometimes despite his better judgment—and to learn the real meaning of his existence there.
You can read the first four chapters of Summerworld free. It is available as an Adobe Acrobat .PDF document:
- Summerworld [sample chapters], 385 KB
Note: if the above link doesn’t open correctly in your browser, right-click on the link and select Save As to save the .PDF to your computer. You can then open it from there.
The full version of Summerworld is available right now through Lulu.com (click the link to go there and buy it).
The price is $14.99, plus Lulu.com's shipping and handling and possibly sales tax depending on your state of residence. Lulu accepts credit and debit cards, as well as PayPal.
If you want to buy copies directly from me, which are signed by the author and include freebies, the easiest way to do that is PayPal:
The total cost is $20.00 + $3 S&H for the continental U.S. The higher price is reflective of the fact that I need to purchase a signed copy for myself to send it back out again.
Other regions may be higher; contact me for details.
As time goes by I'll be expanding the variety of editions, and will eventually offer it for sale with an ISBN number through several major retail online merchants.
Note: To all those who replied, thank you -- I haven't forgotten about you. I've just been dealing with a horrid case of the flu for the past two days. I'm hoping to have all the pending orders fulfilled by this weekend. Thanks for being patient -- I'll have some extra goodies in it for you!
ATTENTION: ANIMEFEST 2008 COUPON CODE HOLDERS!
If you came by the Genji Press table at AnimeFest 2008, some of you got a coupon code -- a six-character code redeemable for a signed copy of either Summerworld or The Four-Day Weekend at the convention price of $15 (instead of the usual price of $25 for a signed copy).
Here's what you need to do to redeem your code:
- Reply to this post using the comment form below. (Or, click the "comments" link if you're reading this from the homepage.)
- Provide a valid email address in the email field that you use for PayPal.
- In the comment body, type the six-digit code I gave you.
- Wait for a reply from me. You should hear back from me in email before long.
All comments will be screened here and will not be published, so don't worry about leaving additional personal information. If want to leave me a note about another subject -- a thank you, etc. -- reply to this post instead.
Call me absentminded, just don't call me late for dinner! A (positive) review of Summerworld went up at Gloria Oliver's blog a ways back and I totally freakin' forgot to link to it. Silly me.
The Lulu Book Review Blog has an enthusiastic and spot-on review of Summerworld:
Serdar was one of the very first authors to query his book to us here at LLBR when we were getting started, and we almost passed on it. I’m so glad we didn’t. It’s philosophical journey, mixed with fantasy and realism and set in a world created somewhere between our own and whatever else is out there, is one I am now happy to have taken.
Thanks so much to Shannon Yarbrough for the great review!
The None May Say blog, by a fellow who "[spends his] free time searching out POD ("Personal Outlay Developed" or, more traditionally, "Publish On Demand") books, movies and music", has just published a rave review of Summerworld.
With no nudging from me at all, he really nails what I wanted to bring across with the book.
Summerworld ... takes place in the world of magic, warriors and dreams that emerges after our modern society has been pushed aside. But the novel also is grounded in reality. On a literal level, remnants of our present world linger. More importantly, many of the characters carry the baggage of their prior lives. As a result, Summerworld's characters feel completely genuine and of this world, notwithstanding their larger-than-life fantasy trappings. On the outside they may be heroes, but on the inside they're people.
Thank you, Devon. Thank you, man.
[Footnote: Apparently the sidebar link to the .PDF sample was not working. It should be fixed now, or you can go right here to read it.]
Just so people don't think I've dropped dead (I haven't). I'm in the process of merging all the blogs I've been managing into one single site, with this being the first of the bunch. Don't expect anything to change immediately, but you may notice over time the format and the contents changing, sometimes explosively. The books will still be available, of course, since they're handled offsite.
I hope everyone's 2007 holidays were terrific, and that you're all looking forward to even better things in 2008. Mine were, and I am!
I've posted over at the New Golden Age blog about what's happening with that, my new and current project after Summerworld. Go check it out if you haven't already.
Also, all the in-stock copies of Summerworld itself are gone, so if you want to order for now, use the main ordering link for Lulu.com. My next step is to set up the book for barcoded distribution in a couple of months, after I do a little bit more tweaking to the layout and internal design. (For one, I'm thinking about ditching the ugly "Glinebooks" logo and coming up with some better branding.)
And at some point in 2008, I'm going to launch some kind of unified website for everything I'm working on -- all the book projects in one handy space, instead of being scattered across a whole series of blogs. For now everything is staying where it is, but expect some fairly major reworking of design before too much longer.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone who bought the book, who enjoyed the book, and who looks forward to everything else I've got coming in the future!
My loss is your gain! I'm selling at a discount all my remaining in-house copies of Summerworld, signed by me, for $15 -- that's $5 off the usual price for a signed copy! I needed to do some winter cleaning anyway, and the next edition of the book will most likely sport a bar code and be available through major distributors -- so it's time to sweep the decks!
Go ahead and pick up a copy as a gift for that special someone (or for yourself)! It sure beats yet another dreary entry in the latest overblown fantasy mega-epic-cycle -- and you're supporting the author directly!
Simply use this PayPal button to order the book for $15 including shipping:
That's it! I try to fulfill all orders within 1-2 days. If you want me to supply a special gift note or other goodie to go with the package, simply let me know in the "Notes" section of the order.
Like many of you, I've signed up for NaNoWriMo 2007, and I'm already a bit fidgety about what's going to happen. And a lot of that is due to the fact that the story I'm planning, Vajra, is in some ways a successor to Summerworld.
Note that I didn't say "sequel"! I don't do sequels -- or, rather, I try not to. Vajra will not have any of the same characters or situations, so don't expect to see Gô, Tomoe, Utsumaru or Terashima (or Yoichi or any of the others). But it does have many of the same themes and concepts, just explored in an entirely different way.
What I'll probably be doing is creating a blog for that book later, and I'll have links back to it from here once it's up and running. (Eventually each of these separate book blogs will be consolidated into something more central, but for now I'm doing everything one book at a time.)
If you've signed up for NaNo as well, drop a line, and we can compare notes!
I spent last Saturday at WickedFaire Labyrinth, where I had a nice time selling my book and getting to know the folks in the adjoining booths. I ought to be back next year (come February) if my budget can manage it -- we'll see how that goes!
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