IMPORTANT: My friend and part-time literary mentor Mark Pritchard has just published another book and you should read it. It's called How They Scored, and it's about "how straight men think and talk to each other about sex."
From the book's website:
Set among a group of friends as they meet at the remote vacation lodge of a software tycoon to talk about a new business idea, the book also explores issues of privacy and surveillance in the 21st century.
Hap, who works in the periphery of the software industry as a technical writer, has a gorgeous girlfriend and a great apartment in San Francisco, but he's just learned that the owner of the building plans to sell, and it's unlikely he would be able to afford another apartment in the city. He's afraid that moving out of the city will mean the end of his love affair.
Called to a gathering of friends he's known from college and from jobs in Silicon Valley, he has to decide whether saving his apartment and his love affair is worth mortgaging his soul as the newest employee of Dreedle, a fiendish corporation devoted to selling out the privacy of every individual to the highest bidder. In the meantime, the seven men who convene in a posh mountain retreat fill the days trying to outdo each other's stories of sexual adventure.
How They Scored mixes speculation about the loss of privacy in the 21st century with a journey through the beds of the bohemians of San Francisco and Austin, Serbian fashion models, Las Vegas wheeler-dealers, and a "landscape artist" whose life work is a hole in the ground in the middle of the desert.
As Mark says, it's funny, it's sexy and you're probably in it. I might be in it. A couple of these people might be in it. Just read it.
Know what else is really awesome? My pal Robin is writing a book right now, with the help of his friends and collaborative blog readers. Check out the link below to get the gist of Robin's book and how he's funding the project with KickStarter.
From Robin's website:
The basic setup is: Imagine a Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century. All the really good cases are on the internet. And Holmes is a woman, and Watson is an A.I., and San Francisco... oh, poor San Francisco...
To get a feel for the style and setting, check out a short story I published recently, Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store. Basically, if you enjoy it, and think "hmm, yes, I'd read more like this," this project is the way to make it happen.
Now, the goal of this project is to put a book in your hands. And the cool thing about books is that they enjoy tremendous economies of scale. So here's the opportunity: as more people reserve books, everybody's book gets better, because a bigger print run means everything is cheaper.
If I can get 300 backers, the book will be really nice: perfect-bound with a crisp color cover. If I can get 600 backers, suddenly we're talking better materials, more colors... maybe even hardcover?
And more than 600...? Why, it'll be made of PURE GOLD.
Very, very cool. (I mean, I realize the "pure gold" part is probably a slight exaggeration, but still-- how cool would that be?)
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