If I missed you at WorldCon in Denver, you can find me this Labor Day weekend at DragonCon in Atlanta.

I’ll be “reading,” ie., talking about the upcoming books in the Jason Wander series and beyond with whoever drops in, August 30, Saturday, at 5:30 p.m. (Williams).  I’ll be signing September 1, Labor Day, Monday, at 10:00 a.m. at Marriott M301-304.  Stop in!  I’ll also be stopping by the Heinlein Society’s Blood Drive, which runs throughout the Con, to donate a pint, and urge you to do the same. 

If you’re unfmiliar with DragonCon, it’s “the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US,” attracting about 25,000 fans, all in costume, and most of F/SF’s cult celebs (Batman, Bobba Fett…the list goes on), none in costume.

What else is new?  Devi Pillai at Orbit sent me a peek at Calvin Chu’s early rendering of the cover for Jason Wander Book 5, Orphan’s Triumph, which Orbit will release in Spring, 2009.  It’s great.  I’ll modestly call it spectacular.  I’ll post a final version.

For those of you who waited in line to get your Jason Wander books signed, thanks.  For those of you who waited in line thinking you were in the adjacent line to get your Connie Willis books signed, thanks for making me look more popular.  For those of you who got to the head of the line and couldn’t tell you weren’t in Connie’s line, dude, get that prescription checked!

Denvention boasted spacious, modern, albeit far flung venues.  Probably the least costumed Con I’ve attended.  That may have been a function of those far flung venues, coupled with hot summer days.

In my Con-going experience, every panel has an audience member or panelist who just loves to hear themself talk, though eventually no one else in the room does.  EXCEPT every panel I was on at Denvention, which were genuinely balanced, vigorous and terrific.

The Heinlein Society blood donation drive drew like the Con was full of ersatz vampires - which it was.

Neatest thing, for me:  A video of Heinlein’s WorldCon 1976 speech, in his hometown of Kansas City.  All I had seen of Heinlein “in person” before that was a sterile interview snippet with Walter Cronkite during the first moon landing.  This one was particularly revealing because Heinlein had to ad lib due to a death in his family that robbed his usual extensive preparation.  The speech was as crisp as Heinlein’s characteristic white dinner jacket and as trimmed as his Boston Blackie moustache.

New and Noteworthy about WorldCon:

My Thursday, 2:30 p.m. Reading/visit is in Hyatt Agate C

Orbit is very kindly providing free, signed copies of Orphan’s Journey to Heinlein Society Blood Drive donors, “while they last.”  The books, that is.  Donating blood isn’t that tough.  And one lucky donor will take home one full set of the Jason Wander books.  Be there to donate Friday, 10:00 a.m. - 3 p.m., Sheraton Tower D.

Saturday’s 10:00 a.m. panel, Digging up SF - Paleontology in SF,  in CCC 502, gets two thumbs way up.  Eric Flint, Michael Swanwick and Robert Sawyer.  Also, to round out the group with a mere mortal, me.  I’ve done panels in the past with Mike and Bob.  Both are terrific, and I’m looking forward to meeting Eric Flint.

Sunday’s 1:00 p.m. panel, Heinlein - The Hugo Years, in Con Center 505, will be terrific for two groups: those who know Heinlein already, and those who don’t.  Joining me will be the Heinlein Society’s Heinlein Scholar, and author of the upcoming, definitve bio of Heinlein, Bill Patterson; Baen Books’ publisher Toni Weisskopf (Baen has published several Heinlein titles) and Heinlein scholars Tom Trumpinski and Brad Lyau.

Here’s a complete list of times and places to find me at WorldCon:

Thursday, 8/7/08:

2:30 p.m. Hyatt Agate C - Reading

5:30 p.m. CCC 505: - Panel - Space Law.

Friday, 8/8/08:

!0:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. (in and out), Sheraton Tower D: Heinlein Society Blood Drive

Saturday, 8/9/08:

10:00 a.m., CCC 503: Panel - Digging up SF - Paleontology in SF

11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m., CCC Hall D: Signing

Sunday, 8/10/08:

1:00 p.m., CCC 503:  Panel - Heinlein- The Hugo Years.

If you’re bound for the World Science Fiction Convention, aka Denvention3, in Denver, August 6-10, let’s get together and talk about the upcoming Jason Wander books and beyond.  What I’ll be doing (no word yet on what rooms I’ll be in, or with whom I’ll share the platforms;  I’ll post those details as I get them):

August 7, Thursday: 2:30 p.m. Reading; Actually, I seldom actually sit there and read.  It sounds too much like Ben Stein reciting,  “Bueller?  Bueller?”  I talk about whatever attending fans want to talk about.

August 7, Thursday: 5:30 p.m. Panel - Space Law  Busman’s holiday after three decades practicing law, none of it in space.

August 8, Friday:  !0:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Heinlein Society Blood Drive, Sheraton Tower D  This is where the FREE STUFF comes in.  At a minimum, your donated pint will earn you juice, cookies and a closionne donor pin designed by the Con’s Ghost of Honor, Robert A. Heinlein.  Orbit and I are working on an arrangement so donors can score Jason Wander books, too.  Details to follow.  I’ll be in and out during the day, to donate and to sign books.

August 9, Saturday:  10:00 a.m. Panel - Paleontology in SF.  Another busman’s holiday, though my interest in the bones has been pure hobby since graduate school.

August 10, Sunday:  1:00 p.m. Panel - Heinlein, the Hugo Years.  Flattering to be included on this grand finale for WorldCon’s Ghost of Honor.

Today brought a new review of Book 3 in the Jason Wander series, from north of the (U.S.) border, at Canada’s  Book Reviews and More.  http://bookreviewsandmore.ca/2008/07/orphans-journey-by-robert-buettner.html     How can I not mention a review that calls Orphan’s Journey “a great work of science fiction and a commentary on war and the burdens of leadership.”

The review follows on the heels of SFF World’s review, http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/462.html, which calls Orphan’s Journey  ”an exciting, action-packed page turner.”

According to my email, many of you who enjoy the Jason Wander books either now serve, or have served, America in uniform.  A couple of you have even written that you chose that service because of the books.  

Now, if you’re celebrating this Fourth in service abroad, you may be hearing that, as the comic strip Doonesbury chooses to report in so many words today, on America’s birthday, the country you’re defending has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Let me put that view in perspective for you.  The Atlanta Journal Constitution ran the strip one day after its front-page news story exposing the terrifying depth and shocking breadth of the handbasket in which America has careened to hell.  The story - I am not making this up - was about Starbucks closing some locations because they were cannibalizing business from other Starbucks locations.  The Journal Constitution’s investigative reporting included an interview with a couple at a Starbucks who had cut back to sharing one $5 latte (vanilla, two straws), not their usual one apiece, because things had gotten so bad for them.

Don’t get me wrong.  America has problems.  Big ones.  Always has.  Often worse than today’s crop.  But most nations on this planet and, one presumes, others would still love to stick a straw in our latte.

Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government ever invented, except for every other one that’s been tried.

That’s as true today as it was in 1776, and on this Fourth of July, 2008, most of us here thank you for helping to keep it that way.

Jason Wander Book 4, Orphan’s Alliance, is as done as I can make it, and will reach store shelves October 28, 2008.  Book 5, Orphan’s Triumph, is sliding down the ways to an August 1, 2008 turn-in date with my lovely, talented and overworked editor, Devi Pillai.  If that sounds like more authorial sucking up than usual, it’s because Devi graciously extended my turn-in date due to circumstances beyond my control, in the form of a tornado that visited us here in North Atlanta in late May.

The wind didn’t amount to much compared to our years in Kansas, where the distinction between an abnormally windy day and a tornado was whether, when you came up out of the basement, the house was still there or gone.  Seriously.  This itty bitty wind provided enough distraction to get a few square miles around us declared a disaster area, but, happily, no injuries to anyone.  Long story short, Orphan’s Triumph should still arrive in stores as scheduled, in Spring, 2009.

In other developments, the also lovely, talented, and overworked editor of the Jason Wander books in the UK, Little Brown Orbit’s Bella Pagan, advises that the first three Jason Wander books will be released in their very own UK-specific skins in August, 2008, with future volumes tracking US releases.

If you have the good fortune to find yourself on Kloof St. in Capetown, South Africa in August or September, 2008, stop in at Reader’s Paradise Bookstore for the Second Annual Fantasy Feast.  Among other things, you will be able to score autographed copies of the first three Jason Wander books.

If you have the good fortune to find yourself on the 16th Street Mall in Denver August 7-10, 2008, duck over a couple blocks to Denvention 3, the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention.  I’ll be there, holding forth about Robert Heinlein, Paleontology in Science Fiction, and Space Law.  I’ll also be signing books and meeting folks at Kaffeklatches.  Details to follow.    

Lots of you read my May 14 post about completing a “New York published” novel. One reason you did seems to be that you write, or hope to write, fiction of your own. So, I’ll expand on the topic.To paraphrase the Red Queen, things on my ‘blog mean exactly what I want them to mean. First, my definitions of selected aspects of U.S. fiction publishing.

“New York published” means published by one of the remaining six major US publishing houses, all of which office in Manhattan, as opposed to published by a Legitimate Independent.

“Legitimate Independent” means a publisher, often outside Manhattan, run by people as passionate about books as any “Big Six” editor, many of whom cut their publishing teeth at the major houses. Legitimate Independents lack the distribution avoirdupois and vast resources available to the Big Six, but can offer writers marvelous opportunities. A Legitimate Independent is NOT a Vanity Press.

“Vanity Press” means an outfit that, no matter how creatively it disguises its “assistance” to aspiring writers, is paid by the writer to print whatever the author has written. Vanity Presses are at best Kinko’s-by-mail and at worst confidence schemes as vile as stealing a blind widow’s wooden leg. That’s not to say that a legitimate author can’t be Self-published.

“Self-published” means doing, or subcontracting, it all yourself, from writing to editing to printing to arm-twisting booksellers to stock your books to putting up all the money to keeping all the profits. I know a few (very few) authors who operate in the black doing so, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Within this heirarchy, I’ll confine my remarks to the little slice within which I have a little experience, which is an author’s-eye view of major-house fiction publishing.

What many of you who write me seek is a “silver bullet” that will get your debut novel published. I know of no such. On the contrary, I do know of a very smart and personable aspiring novelist who was closely personally connected to an influential New York editor, which sure sounds like a silver bullet. But the editor’s house rejected the person’s manuscript, nevertheless, because it just wasn’t good enough.

Four steps worked for me. The first three steps are:

1. Learn to write well, then write lots;

2. Rewrite;

3. When you think you have created a masterpiece realize that you haven’t, and reinvent. I reinvented by more or less completing seven novels that never saw the light of day before Orphanage. Your mileage may vary.

Fourth step, after you have completed those first three steps: Follow the suggestions for querying and getting an agent and so on that you can find in any number of “how to” books. If anybody expresses interest, I might expand on these suggestions in a future post(s).

Steel yourself to persevere despite rejections. Virtually no New York editors have time any longer to read material that has not been vetted by an agent they trust, and editors have to reject most of even the agented material they do read. That said, a legitimate agent today receives on the order of 25,000 queries per year from non-celebrity debut novelists, and rarely chooses to represent more than one of them. However, if you find the road rocky at first, remember that if I got New-York published, it can’t be that hard.

If any of the foregoing sparks your interest, let me know, and I’ll try in future posts to expand on these and other aspects of my experience writing novel-length commercial fiction.

For all of you who have been clamoring (Don’t take that wrong-Orbit and I are flattered) for information about the next (fourth) book in the Jason Wander series, Orphan’s Alliance, here’s the cover.  The “November, 2008″ release date has been moved up, minutely, to October 28, 2008. 

Orphan’s Alliance can be pre-ordered from Amazon, now, for delivery when it’s released.  Meantime, the first chapter of Orphan’s Alliance actually is included at the back of Orphan’s Journey, in case you hadn’t noticed. 

One of my favorite people, famous Hollywood agent turned famous novelist Maggie Marr told me, when we were both unpublished and she went by Margaret, “There’s published, and there’s New York published.  We want to be New York published.”  And, only a few million words and a few zillion rejections later, we are.

A fan who was doing an English paper about Orphan’s Journey asked me how long it would take to “complete” the next Jason Wander book, Orphan’s Alliance, which Orbit will release in November, 2008.  My answer may be of interest to someone who also wants to be New-York-published.  Here it is: