Monday, January 14, 2008

A Farewell to "Gerbils"

Three bits of news today. The smallest item is that "Repeating the Past", the short-short that appeared in Nature last December, has been recruited for David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's annual Year's Best anthology. The medium item is that, after months of negotiation, I have reached an agreement with Fleuve Noir in France to produce a French translation of Blindsight. (The fact that the lady on the other side of the negotiating table has cats named after Aliens characters had no undue influence on my decision to go with these people).

The Big News is ― wait for it ―

I have renamed Gerbils, a novel I'm currently working up the outline for. It is now called Sunflowers, and the reason for the change is that I've finally figured out the punchline for the damn thing. It is epic. Seriously. It encompasses the fate of the entire universe.

I dare anyone to get more epic than that.

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15 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Gerbils and sunflowers? Should I be worried?

January 14, 2008 at 10:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Sunflowers" sounds awfully cheerful.

Where the fuck is Peter Watts and what have you done with him?

January 15, 2008 at 1:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cheerful flowers and cute little fluffy animals?

Did cuteoverload take over Peter while we weren't looking?

January 15, 2008 at 8:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Seriously, guys, don't worry. The Sunflower is into snuff films and the gerbil is in an abusive relationship. ;-)

January 15, 2008 at 11:29 AM  
Blogger Peter Watts said...

Guys, guys... give me some credit. Destruction of the whole universe, okay? Not cheerful.

As for the original working title, I only chose "Gerbils" because I had Richard Gere in mind for the movie adaptation.

Julie: this is a long shot, but I don't suppose that "k" stands for "Knight", does it?

January 15, 2008 at 3:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Guys, guys... give me some credit. Destruction of the whole universe, okay? Not cheerful.

Well, I feel better now. It sounds lovely and something that I really need to read. That whole 'will to live' thing has been causing me some trouble lately.

But we did have to check just to make sure some sort of Anthony Flew situation wasn't happening...

Julie: this is a long shot, but I don't suppose that "k" stands for "Knight", does it?

Nope, 'fraid not.

January 15, 2008 at 8:39 PM  
Blogger Jeremy Ruhland said...

I once encompassed the fate of two universes. Just sayin'

January 15, 2008 at 11:27 PM  
Blogger Peter Watts said...

It's not the number that chicks dig. It's the size.

January 16, 2008 at 11:17 PM  
Blogger Mac said...

You may consider it a "small" item, but I think your being chosen for the Year's Best collection is worthy of some celebration. I'll be picking up a copy.

January 17, 2008 at 12:49 AM  
Blogger Patrick said...

Always GREAT news when you say you have another book in you, Peter. I hope you have loads of success, but mostly for the selfish reason that I want to be entertained.

And congrats on the Year's Best - may not be HUGE, but it beats hell out of NOT being selected, doesn't it?

I don't know about cuteoverload, but you have demonstrated your ability to pluck a LOLcat from obscurity and LOLcatapult it to the front page of icanhascheezburger...

What more power could a person want?

I predict LOLscramblers are the next big thing:

I no can has conchuss?

Or, maybe:

Chinese room, I has it!

Or:

I'm in ur saccades, bein invisible

Sunflower sounded immediately ominous to me. But maybe that was just context. I admit they are not ominous in my garden.

January 17, 2008 at 2:28 AM  
Blogger David B. Ellis said...


But we did have to check just to make sure some sort of Anthony Flew situation wasn't happening...


Or worse yet, a John C. Wright situation.

January 17, 2008 at 12:28 PM  
Blogger personalmathgenius said...

Hot damn, Watts is getting down to physical eschatology again! So this'll be what, the THIRD coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald?

If it hasn't been already done, someone should curate a end-of-the-world anthology one day.

January 17, 2008 at 12:35 PM  
Blogger Mac said...

I predict LOLscramblers are the next big thing:

I no can has conchuss?

Or, maybe:

Chinese room, I has it!

Or:

I'm in ur saccades, bein invisible


*snort*!

January 17, 2008 at 6:36 PM  
Blogger Nicholas said...

You know, you'd get a lot more hits if you named it Sunflowerfield and then held a viral marketing campaign.

January 17, 2008 at 6:56 PM  
Blogger razorsmile said...

I'm in ur saccades, bein invisible

Yep, that's a good one alright.

January 19, 2008 at 1:13 AM  

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