Visiting with writer Nisi Shawl a couple weeks ago, I asked her what she was working on. Among other projects, she mentioned she was working on a review of Neal Stephenson’s forthcoming novel, Anathem. That got my wild up, as I’m a big fan, so she let me peruse her advance copy. Tucked in was the usual PR stuff from the publisher, in this case a letter from Stephenson’s publicist, Jack Womack.
“The Jack Womack?” I asked. “Yes,” said Nisi. “He’s Gibson’s publicist, too.”
I devoured Womack’s novels in the ’90s as they were published. I’ve been waiting for a new one for quite a while now. Nisi said she was afraid I might have to wait quite a while longer as, for some reason, his novels didn’t sell, so he wasn’t publishing. He’s publicizing. WTF? Read the rest of this entry »