Tomorrow, Saturday, 1 p.m. at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, I am reading from Blood Engines and signing things. Please do come! And around 7 that night I'm reading there again as part of LitCrawl. It'll be a busy day!

I am happy, because my editor loves Dead Reign. She doesn't just like it, she doesn't just think it's good enough, she loves it. She doesn't want any substantive changes, just line edit stuff. I should be able to finish that this weekend. My wife said I should frame the editorial letter, it's that great. Blood Engines was similarly painless, while Poison Sleep needed a lot of work, so I was holding my breath to see which one of those was the fluke. I'm glad it worked out this way!

In the Not Counting Chickens department: The [redacted] deal may not happen. We seem to have hit a couple of sticky sticking points in the negotiation, terms I'm not willing to bend on, and that they're apparently equally unwilling to bend on, so. That's why I never really believe anything will happen until the ink is dry on a contract. (Negotiations are actually still ongoing, but if you never hear me mention this again, that's why.) I'm not that bummed. It would've been cool, but it's not like I've lost anything. It just means I don't get to buy a big-screen TV this winter. Which is sad, but not life-shattering. And, who knows, maybe we'll be able to reach a compromise after all. It's nice to have enough things happening in my career that I don't sweat walking away from one potential payday, you know?