Enter the dark and dismal dimensions of Sean Patrick Hazlett
So I just spent a few days in the Eastern Sierras in a town called Lone Pine for a Top Secret writing project. I took a bunch of photos of the area to get a good feel for it and am posting them here to share with folks and to consolidate my research in one easy place.
Enjoy!
My story, “The Demon Piper of Holy Hill“, is featured in the Summer issue of MYTHIC: A Quarterly Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine.
The story is a dark retelling of the Piped Piper of Hamelin. And it takes place in my wife’s hometown of Harvard, Massachusetts!
Check it out!
The November / December issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine contains a nice little review of Weird World War III. You can check it out here.
“The stories go off in all directions. Torgersen’s ‘All Quiet on the Phantom Front’ involves NATO forces who cast a magic spell that goes wrong; John Langan’s ‘Second Front’ brings World War III to the Moon; Shoemaker’s ‘The Ouroboros Arrangement’ provides a quantum physics explanation for why the Cold War didn’t turn Hot. The other stories are all equally interesting, ranging from hard SF to magical fantasy to dark horror-adjacent tales.”
— Don Sakers in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine
Last week, BookScan reported 110 Weird World War III US retail print sales in the first week. I suggested this data didn’t tell the full story because of several mitigating factors ranging from shipping delays to data lags to a cyberattack on the US’s largest book retailer. Based on these factors, I concluded that the book was doing a lot better than this initial report and that the data would point to this view in the second week.
With all that in mind, what does the data say?
Below are the BookScan US trade paperback sales as reported by Amazon for the period of October 12th through October 18th by geography. As a reminder, BookScan compiles point-of-sales data from ~10,000 retailers throughout the US, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Target, and Buy.Com. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club do not participate. As such, BookScan estimates that this point-of-sales data represent about 75% of all brick-and-mortar and online retail print book sales in the US. It does not include ebook sales, sales outside the US, sales to libraries, or used book sales.
According to Bookscan, Weird World War III sold 49 copies last week. So the book did worse in the second week than it did in the first–which doesn’t seem to foot with Amazon’s rankings. Between Books‘ total sales last week were 41, which implies that Amazon and all other bookstores in the US sold only 8 copies, which is extremely unlikely. If you look even more closely at sales by geography, the data implies that Between Books sold 0 copies last week because the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania geography (which includes Delaware in BookScan) registered 0 sales. In other words, the data is just plain wrong. It’s hard to tell how the book will ultimately do, but I hope these data issues are settled soon. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next week.
Stay tuned!
On a positive note, Amazon reviews for Weird World War III are slowly trickling in, so at least the book is at least making steady progress there.
Also, if you’re reading this and still haven’t purchased a copy yet, please do. All you need do is click one of the links below. If you have purchased a copy, thank you so much. If you don’t mind doing a quick Amazon review, I would be even more grateful.
Onward!
Here’s a cumulative summary of all the promotional activity I’ve compiled as of October 22, 2020. So far, Weird World War III has garnered media appearances in the following formats:
More specifically, Weird World War III has been mentioned or appeared in the below formats and venues:
Through A Glass Darkly 