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.
Labels: writing news
posted by Peter Watts at
10:09 PM
15 Comments:
Gerbils and sunflowers? Should I be worried?
"Sunflowers" sounds awfully cheerful.
Where the fuck is Peter Watts and what have you done with him?
Cheerful flowers and cute little fluffy animals?
Did cuteoverload take over Peter while we weren't looking?
Seriously, guys, don't worry. The Sunflower is into snuff films and the gerbil is in an abusive relationship. ;-)
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?
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.
I once encompassed the fate of two universes. Just sayin'
It's not the number that chicks dig. It's the size.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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*!
You know, you'd get a lot more hits if you named it Sunflowerfield and then held a viral marketing campaign.
I'm in ur saccades, bein invisible
Yep, that's a good one alright.
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