I just did a recount of the limited edition hardback oversells, and my count from Sunday was way off. I didn't oversell by 24, I only oversold by 6!
While this still sucks for six people, it sucks considerably less for eighteen people, who lived in an eigenstate of suck for the last 36 hours or so. Of course, those eighteen people won't know they were a cat in a box until they get their books, and see a number between 282 and 300.
Some of you will be getting shipping notices shortly, if PayPal can get its shit together. It's been infuriatingly wonky this morning. International customers won't get confirmations, because I have to process your orders manually, but your books are also shipping at the same time.
Speaking of The Happiest Days, it got a very nice review at Slashdot:
Where once it seemed as though Wil had something to prove in his writing - that he was over showbiz, that he was over Star Trek - Happiest Days is full of simple stories. The day he bought a Lando Calrissian action figure essentially by mistake, a simple outing for ice cream with his sons; they're everyday events but artfully told. In total he has about thirteen short tales in the chapbook-sized novel, ranging from just two pages long to a few dozen.
Some of his most evocative stories (and the reason this review is here) are all about Wil's growth as a nerdling. The most evocative for me was the chapter 'a portrait of the artist as a young geek', which details Wil's introduction to tabletop roleplaying. From his first brush with the infamous 'red box' D&D set at Christmas 1983, to his experience teaching his kids how to roll up characters under the 3.0 rulesset, the story reminds me (and may remind you) of a D6-laden past.
And really, that's what Wil makes this a book about. It's about his own past, his troubles, his triumphs, but in reality this is meant to be a book that reaches out to you as a reader. If you see something of yourself in the kid who agonized in the toy aisle, if you see something of yourself in the dad who argues with his kids over the radio station (and rocks out to 80s synth-pop), then the purpose of the Happiest Days has been fulfilled. Or at least, as I see it.
I've vowed that I won't play Rock Band until I get at least half the 300 processed, but now that Slashdot is sending people to Monolith Press, I have extra incentive to get them all processed, so we can start taking softcover orders again. PayPal is making that as difficult as possible, with the timeouts every goddamn two minutes, but if the server blots out the sun with arrows, I shall process orders in the shade!
Uh . . . yeah. if I may take a page from Lloyd Bridges in Airplane, I picked a bad day to sleep in.
