Firefall

A WELCOME AND A WARNING

Actually, this could be a warning or an apology. It really depends on you.

If you’re just browsing—flipping through pages, scrolling down screens prior to purchase—I’ve caught you in time. Be warned that there isn’t one book between these covers, but two: Blindsight and Echopraxia, bundled into an omnibus Collector’s Edition to commemorate their first appearance from a UK publisher.

It’s actually a nice change to be able to deliver this kind of message. The last time I found myself in this position I was telling people not that their purchase contained two novels, but half of one—and that they’d have to pay the price of a second hardcover if they wanted to see how the story ended. (My US publisher has an unfortunate habit of splitting novels into multiple volumes, dropping each bleeding body part onto an unsuspecting public without telling them it’s not a complete product.) This is definitely the better option. Still, Blindsight has been out for a while now—it was first released in 2006—so if you’ve already read it, half this ticket price will be for words you’ve already seen. You might reasonably bristle at the prospect of having to pay for something you’ve already read, just to get your hands on something you haven’t.

If that’s the case, never fear; a standalone edition of Echopraxia will be hitting the stands in a few months. Of course, waiting that long means you won’t be the first on your block to read it (unless this omnibus tanks, in which case maybe you will), but at least you’ll have that much more opportunity to read the reviews and decide if you even want to. The upside of delayed gratification is reduced risk.

So that’s the deal, and that’s the choice. But only if you haven’t bought this yet. If you have—if you’re sitting in your favorite reading chair, having just torn open your freshly-bought copy of this new Firefall novel that you’d somehow never heard of until you spied it in the local bookstore, only to realize Wait a second, I’ve fucking read this already—all I can say is, sorry. I tried to warn you. But you do have both novels now, in a spiffy omnibus format for the ages, adorned with cool new art that I myself had a hand in constructing. Those spaceships? I made them myself.

Hopefully that might count for something.