happy book birthday to me
His Majesty's Dragon
US Paperback (384 pages, Del Rey)
Cover art by Dominic Harman
Released: March 28, 2006
ETA: It is in stores! I have seen it! *eeeeeeeeee*
It is at last the frabjous day. It will still not be real until I actually see the book in a store, but I have already had the great pleasure of reloading the Amazon page this morning to see the button labels change from "preorder" to "order now", and also to see that they are already almost out of copies; it went from six copies left down to one between when Charles woke up and when I did -- and while I was typing this, they ran out. I am at once delighted and yet frustrated that people who go to the page now will see they have to wait a week, but I hope that at least the pre-orders all got taken care of.
Reviews there much appreciated, by the way, especially but not only if you enjoyed it. *g*
I will be sending out my very first message to the Temeraire mailing list later today, which will include a random giveaway of some books and other fun things, including I hope (depending on how many copies I get to pick up later today) a special early copy of Throne of Jade, which my editor called yesterday to tell me has just come in off the presses. So, you know, hop on if that sounds like a good time; I guarantee it will be low volume.
In other news: Oblivion is like some kind of squid-shaped creature that settles itself happily on your head and eats your brain, and you don't mind. The NPC AI is so good it is kind of creepy, actually, in the vein of the Uncanny Valley principle; they are not real people, but every once in a while their reactions are not obviously mechanical, and you start to feel as though you are in a world of real people who just all suffer from some Memento-like brain damage where things don't move from short-term to long-term memory.