We're Goin' to Hell!

So wrong. So funny.

She (and we) wuz robbed

For fun, I often read science fiction. There are so many new books out there, that it's hard to keep up with them all, so I'm in the habit of reading the review sites, especially SciFi.com's book review page. That's where I found out about a really terrific book, The Last Mortal Man, by Syne Mitchell. I wasn't familiar with the author, so I put the book on my "requesting it from the library" list back in July, rather than ordering it from Amazon.

Big mistake, as I'll get to in a moment.

The library just got the book into stock, and I picked it up and brought it with me on our Thanksgiving trip. I burned straight through it, and enjoyed every minute. I liked it even though by reading it I was breaking one of my rules: Thou Shalt Not Start Reading a Series Until the Series is Complete (because I hate waiting for years for the next segment to appear). The book is a near-future story of the effects of nanotechnology and biology, producing immortal humans, the Deathless. But there is a price, and society pays it. From the SciFi.com review:

Mitchell shows how the full flowering of nanotechnology will create a deeper divide between those eternal classes, the haves and the have-nots. Her have-nots are modified: They enjoy longer, richer, healthier lives than pre-nanotech humans. But her haves are no longer human. With their freedom from the need to eat and sleep, their shape-changing abilities, their near-invulnerability—their immortality—the Deathless are gods. But they're gods with humanity's unevolved emotional drives. Mitchell vividly demonstrates how wonderful and terrible such gods would be.

I very much enjoyed the book; it's a real page-turner. There's a lot to it, and Mitchell does cram a lot of action into the book's 426 pages. So much so, that she sometimes doesn't give her characters as much breathing room as they would need to fully come alive. But that's nitpicking; the book is good. Even though it is part of a series, most of the main plot points get tied up, which I also appreciated. So after finishing it, I wanted to find out when the next book would be available. I went searching for the author's blog, where I found out that there would not be further books in the series; the publisher, ROC, decided to pull the plug due to poor sales.

And I thought I worked in a brutal part of the publishing business. But I guess the computer book biz isn't as cutthroat as the SF novel market. The Last Mortal Man was released in June to good reviews, and by October, ROC told Mitchell that they were killing her baby. Ouch.

Syne Mitchell is currently without a publishing contract, which is a real shame. I'm going to be following her career, and I've learned my lesson: next time I see one of her books appear, I'm going to buy it right away. And I suggest that you don't make the same mistake I did, and run out and purchase The Last Mortal Man. It may be too late for the series, but the book will still be worth your time and money.