It’s been a good news week.

I learned that THE DROWNED CITIES is a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize. I’m of course pleased. I’m particularly moved because the process of writing DC was so difficult, and the resulting book is the first one I’ve written that I’ve felt unreservedly proud of. In a lot of ways I feel like it’s my best book, and it still affects me when I read it on tours. So, yeah. It’s enormously satisfying to see it recognized on a list like this, and to feel like it’s had an impact on other readers as well. And frankly, it doesn’t hurt that authors like Matthew Quick, A.S. King and Elizabeth Wein are also on the list. It’s a thrill to see your work included with writers and work you respect.

I’m very pleased to announce that my short story collection PUMP SIX AND OTHER STORIES is included in the new Humble eBook Bundle, a project that allows you to decide your own price to buy DRM-free ebooks and also to donate to charity. In addition to my own stories, there are also books by Neil Gaiman, Lauren Beukes, John Scalzi, and Kelly Link, plus more.

Remember though, it only lasts for two weeks, so go ahead and check it out. Read. Support Authors. Do good deeds. Etc. http://www.humblebundle.com

UPDATE: THE HUMBLE EBOOK BUNDLE IS NOW CLOSED.

And here’s Humble Bundle’s press release, for more info:

The Humble eBook Bundle is a pay-what-you-want promotion featuring eight amazing literary works from a prodigious league of award-winning authors. For two weeks, fans can pay whatever price they want to support the following artists and receive:

• Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow, an intense story of youthful techno-defiance
• Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, a hard-hitting collection of 11 impactful stories
• Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, an alternate Earth mystical science fiction tale
• Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle by Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libby, Dennis Lee, and Cody Martin, a modern military superhero saga packed with bonus content
• Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link, a delightful fantasy collection of 11 stories
• Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link, the cross-genre follow-up to Stranger Things Happen

If a buyer decides to pay more than the average price for the bundle, they will also receive:

• Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, a science fiction war epic
• Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, an ethereal graphic novel of a man’s last days

All of the books are available completely DRM-free for a wide range of eBook readers, mobile devices, and desktop computers. We’ve also been working hard to make sure all the books are available in PDF, ePub (open ebook standard), and MOBI (Amazon Kindle) formats.

Customers can optionally allocate a part (or all) of their purchase to three fantastic charities:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (Internet freedom non-profit)
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (writers advocacy non-profit)
Child’s Play Charity (providing for kids in hospitals in the form of technology and games)

To date, we have sixteen successful promotions under our belt, and the generous and unparalleled contributions of bundle buyers have added up to more than $7,250,000 for charity! We’re immensely proud to watch as this amount continues to climb with each bundle.

2012 Tour Schedule

Tuesday, May 1st @ 7:00pm
Tattered Cover
9315 Dorchester Street
Highlands Ranch, CO 80129
http://www.tatteredcover.com/event/presentation-booksigning-paolo-bacigalupi-drowned-cities

Wednesday, May 2nd @ 6:30pm
Boulder Book Store
1107 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO 80302
http://www.boulderbookstore.net/

Thursday, May 3rd @ 7:00pm
Anderson’s Bookshop at Two Doors East
111 W. Jefferson Avenue
Naperville, IL 60540
http://andersons2.indiebound.com/events

Sunday, May 6th (two!)

1:00pm @ Books of Wonder
18 W. 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
http://www.booksofwonder.com

7:00pm @ WORD
126 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
http://www.wordbrooklyn.com/event/paolo-bacigalupi-and-nk-jemisin-conversation-k-tempest-bradford

Tuesday, May 8th @ 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
210 Commerce Blvd.
Fairless Hills, PA 19030
http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/76324

Thursday, May 10th @ 5:00pm
Politics and Prose @ Bethesda Library
7400 Arlington Road
Bethesda, MD 20814
http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/paolo-bacigalupi-drowned-cities

I’ll also be appearing at the Whole Earth Festival in Davis, California, on May 12, but I’m still getting some details for that. More updates as they come.

And here’s the teaser copy:

Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man–a bioengineered war beast named Tool–who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi’s highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.

And this is the full jacket, so you can see the whole package.

I’ve been invited to speak at Metropolitan State College of Denver, On Wednesday, April 4, 2012, from 11-12:15 in the Tivoli Turnhall. I’ll be reading from a couple of different works, and then also answering questions, and the event is free and open to the public, so if you’re free, come on down and heckle.

Later in the day, from 2:30-4 pm I’ll be participating in more intimate Q&A in the Auraria Library Jackson Enhanced Learning Center (first floor of the Auraria Library), with students, faculty, and those interested in writing and the environment.

If you have any questions, you can contact Dr. Craig Svonkin, co-chair of the Metro English Speakers Committee: csvonkin [at] mscd (dot) edu.

Hope to see you there!

“The Alchemist” originally started as a fun side project with my fellow author and friend, Tobias Buckell; we were both interested in writing something different from our normal work, and hadn’t tried writing fantasy before. We created the world together, and then each of us wrote a novella set in that shared world.

Here’s the synopsis for the world:

Magic has a price. But someone else will pay. Every time a spell is cast, a bit of bramble sprouts, sending up tangling vines, bloody thorns, and threatening a poisonous sleep. It sprouts in tilled fields and in neighbors’ roof beams, thrusts up from between street cobbles, and bursts forth from sacks of powdered spice. A bit of magic, and bramble follows. A little at first, and then more–until whole cities are dragged down under tangling vines and empires lie dead, ruins choked by bramble forest. Monuments to people who loved magic too much.

In paired novellas, award-winning authors Tobias Buckell and Paolo Bacigalupi explore a shared world where magic is forbidden and its use is rewarded with the axe. A world of glittering memories and a desperate present, where everyone uses a little magic, and someone else always pays the price.

For “The Alchemist,” I was interested in trying to use some classic fantasy tropes to come at sustainability questions in a different way than I can in my SF work. Here’s the flap copy:

In the beleaguered city of Khaim, a lone alchemist seeks a solution to a deadly threat. The bramble, a plant that feeds upon magic, now presses upon Khaim, nourished by the furtive spellcasting of its inhabitants and threatening to strangle the city under poisonous vines. Driven by desperation and genius, the alchemist constructs a device that transcends magic, unlocking the mysteries of bramble’s essential nature. But the power of his newly-built balanthast is even greater than he dreamed. Where he sought to save a city and its people, the balanthast has the potential to save the world entire–if it doesn’t destroy him and his family first.

“The Alchemist” is now available as a $2.99 DRM-free ebook from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Barnes & Noble Nook: The Alchemist

Amazon.com Kindle: The Alchemist

For more info about Toby’s story, “The Executioness,” read his blog post here.

You can purchase “The Executioness” from Toby, on his site store as a non-DRM ePub.

At Amazon.com for your Kindle.

At Barnes & Noble for your Nook.

Happy reading.

This is so unbelievably cool.

I had a ridiculously good time at the National Book Awards. Lots of readings and signings and fancy dinners and fabulous company. Alas, SHIP BREAKER did not win. But, you know, I’ve won a lot of awards this year, so I’m not complaining. When you’ve eaten as much cake with as much icing as I have, it’s hard to whine about not getting a third (or maybe fifth?) smearing. I’m fine with having been in the running. For real. I’m feeling just fine.

And that’s sort of an interesting feeling. As a science fiction writer, I’m delighted to have had a chance to represent the genre in an area of literature that doesn’t normally delight in stories of the future, but the National Book Award was never the award I grew up dreaming about. It was the Hugo. Always the Hugo. When fans chose THE WINDUP GIRL for the Hugo this year, that was the moment when I felt like my cup had more than run over. It felt like it was gushing and spilling and slopping all over the place. It was more than a little overwhelming, which also meant that even as I was feeling grateful, I was also feeling afraid.

“One hit wonder” has a certain terrifying ring to it.

So that’s what the NBA nomination did for me. It put me back on track. Gave me some perspective. It put some attention on SHIP BREAKER, a book that I have always been very proud of, but also felt like was being overshadowed by THE WINDUP GIRL’s phenomenal run. Now SHIP BREAKER has some bragging rights, too, and I’m glad. Not just for the book, but also because it reassured me that people seem to like it when I explore ideas that are interesting to me, and that’s cool, because I’ve got a few more ideas I’d like to explore. So I’m grateful for the reminder of why I write, and what pleases me about science fiction, and grateful to be back on track again, writing.

Which brings me to something I’ve been meaning to say for a long time. It started with the Nebula Award, and kept rolling along, getting bigger and bigger all through this year, to the point where it seems too small to say it, because it doesn’t represent enough of what I feel, but…

THANK YOU!

Thank you to readers and fans, for reading my stories and for passing them along and for voting for them. For seeing something in them that I sometimes can’t see myself. Thank you to all the booksellers who read the books and evangelized on their behalf. To the librarians who stocked the books and the reviewers who saw them first. I owe my editors Juliet Ulman and Jennifer Hunt, who made my books so much better than they were initially, and made sure that they got out into the world and got attention. And I owe my acquiring editor Joe Monti, now an agent extraordinaire, for seeing SHIP BREAKER sitting on Jen’s desk, stealing it, and then advocating for it with all his passion. I owe Night Shade for taking risks, and Little, Brown, for taking on a book that wasn’t automatically a seller, but had potential, and for taking the long view with it.

The list goes on and on, because even though I did a lot of work to write the books and get them out, I’m awed by the number of people who have helped me along the way. Authors like Robert J. Sawyer, who advised me and shared his expertise and experience. Writers like Tobias Buckell who gave me the idea for the SHIP BREAKER’s clipper ships. Writers like Sarah Prineas, who guided me when I wanted to tell a story for young adults, and shepharded me past more than a few pitfalls. I owe editors like Lou Anders, who didn’t just buy my short stories, but also went out of his way to find me an agent. I owe Gordon Van Gelder, who bought my first story “Pocketful of Dharma” years ago, and then reminded me that science fiction might be my best bet when he queried me a couple years later to see if I was working on anything new and because of that, I wrote “The Fluted Girl,” and then I owe him again because he introduced me to Lou Anders, and Juliet Ulman, years before I knew how big a role both of them would play in my life. Gordon also introduced me to Charles Coleman Finlay, aka C.C. Finlay, who started the Blue Heaven workshop, and who then invited me to join that group of professional dreamers, which then helped me figure out why my first draft of THE WINDUP GIRL was so incredibly broken.

I did the work of writing, but damn, there are a lot of people who stood along the road, and helped me. I can’t name them all, because it seems like they’re all around. People like Daniel Abraham, who took me in at my first convention, and asked me “What do you want to get out of your writing?” It took me two more years to figure that out and actually do something about it, but when it did, the light bulb glowed bright. Authors like Maureen McHugh who pushed me to work on the book that was big and scary, instead of the one that was easy and available. People like Bill Tuffin who combed over The Windup Girl for errors and invited me into his life on the far side of the world. People like Matt and Wang Fang Roberts, who, fifteen years ago in Beijing, let me sleep on their couch for far too long, when I was trying to figure out how to be an author and an adult and was failing at both, but who called me an author, anyway, and helped prod me into following through on my dream. Again and again, I see this pattern. At each stage of my writing career, I went a little further down the road, and then someone else showed up and helped me walk a little further.

I’m so grateful. Thank you, everyone.

Author panel and signing with NBA Young People’s Literature Finalists
Monday, Nov. 15th, 6-8pm
Books of Wonder
18 W. 18th Street, between 5th and 6th Ave.
New York, NY
212-989-3475