Dan Moren

I would say “what a week” if I had any idea what week it actually was. Launching a book in the middle of a pandemic is on the one hand, weird, but on another, surprisingly not unlike launching a book not in the middle of a pandemic. And if you can follow that sentence, then I am exactly as amazing a writer as I purport to be.

As is traditional, I’ve spent the week of my book’s release traveling around the Internet like an itinerant performer, doing podcasts and writing guest posts on blogs and partaking in interviews. Friday seems like a good opportunity to round up some of these week-one appearances, just in case you are either a) trying to catch them all or b) need to know where you can avoid me.

Guest Posts
* Wondering what theme really drives the story of The Aleph Extraction? Over at John Scalzi’s blog, I wrote a Big Idea post about truth, our perception of it, and why that matters so much to all the characters in the book.
* As I’ve said elsewhere, I. Love. Heists. So naturally, my favorite bit of Aleph is the adrenaline-fueled heist that takes place in the middle, and Mary Robinette Kowal gave me the opportunity to discuss the challenges of planning, executing, and writing it on her site.
* They say you learn something every day, but it definitely took me more than five days to write The Aleph Extraction, so I probably should have learned more than the five things I talk about on Chuck Wendig’s blog.

Podcasts
* In what’s become one of my favorite traditions, Jason Snell and I sat down on an episode of The Incomparable to not only chat about The Aleph Extraction, but also to answer questions from listeners!1
* I also made my second appearance on Rocket, where Brianna Wu and Simone de Rochefort peppered me with questions about the writing process and how my career has progressed.
* Scott McNulty had me back on Random Trek, in which the luck of the draw presented us with the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-part premiere, “Encounter at Farpoint.”
* And I had a delightful conversation with Scott Ullery on the Narrated podcast, where he also got a chance to turn the tables and ask me some Inconceivable-style quiz questions.

Interview
* In an interview with Paul Semel, I recall some of the inspirations for Aleph, including an episode of Star Trek: TNG and a trailer for a TV series that never got made.

That’s it for the first week of Aleph‘s release. I really appreciate all the support, the pictures from readers, and the tweets about the book, and I hope you’re all enjoying the read. If I may entreat one more thing from you, it would be to share the love, whether that means posting on social media or writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads or your blog, or wherever. It’s a small thing that can have a big impact, and it would mean a lot to me. Stay well, have a good weekend, and remember to watch out for the space bees.