Edie Investigates is up!

12/01/12

Angelmaker is coming to the UK on Feb 2nd – but until then, there’s Edie…

This is a quick taster, a meeting with Edie Banister before she comes to town in a major way in my new book. It’s eleven thousand odd words of sneakery, dirty deeds, and cake which I really enjoyed writing. It’s a standalone. It’s a species of prologue. It’s a murder mystery.

Oh, and they threw in Chapter 1 of Angelmaker. I’m not sure if that’s a sweetener to get you to buy Edie Investigates or if Edie Investigates is a sneaky way of persuading you to buy Angelmaker. Well, yes I am: both are true.

Anyway… you can get it on Amazon, the iBook Store, and Kobo. It’s priced around 99p, although on Amazon that mysteriously becomes £1.06 including delivery. Go figure.

I hope you like it…

Apple link: http://bit.ly/Aejedg

Amazon link: http://amzn.to/xgINDg

Kobo link: http://bit.ly/zHHdOr

Questions:

Are there spoilers?

What do I look like, a monster? No. You learn a very little about Edie, and it’s stuff which is already out there in the publicity materials. I worried about that, but actually it’s not a thing. As far as I can see, there are no secrets in Edie Investigates which affect the flow of how you perceive the narrative in Angelmaker. Just additional fun.

Why isn’t it free?

Essentially, because I lost that argument – and rightly. Here’s how it went:

The Guys: It would be cool if you would write a short about Edie.

Me: Yes! And we could totally put it out free. That would be awesome, because then I wouldn’t really have to quality control it so much and it would be kind of a nugget rather than a proper story.

The Guys: Uh, dude…

Me: And then I could invite people to participate! We could cloud-source the ending and I wouldn’t have to do any actual work at all!

The Guys: Uh, dude…

Me: I’m really tired. Can I please not do this?

The Guys: No.

Me: Waaaaaaaaaaah! [Exeunt toys from pram, pursued by bears]

The Guys: Dude, you will actually enjoy this. Go. Write something fun.

Me: I’m going to New York, I have no time, and I need a holiday. I want to hibernate until February. I want a massage and a glass of wine and some of those little chocolates which look like the Jungfrau. I want to go skiing. I want to ride an elephant. I do not want to do anything involving work. Also, the kids love the free stuffz. You peeples R lamerz.

The Guys: You need to do the thing you love. Go. Make it so. We will charge cash money, it will be an actual story worthy of publication. (Uh, nine or ten thousand words would be ideal, and you need to finish it kind of by yesterday.)

Me: I want a sweetie and a hug. Also a Tesla Roadster, a movie deal, and a secret volcano base.

The Guys: This is what you live for.

Me: Maybe just a nap?

The Guys: Go. Do. Act your age, man. You’re supposed to be a pro.

Me: Yes.

The Guys: We’ll charge a pound. It’s an app price. It’ll be fine.

Me: You don’t think free?

The Guys: No. Show some self-respect. This is work you are doing. It will be good work. Get a spine.

Me: Y’okay.

Can I get it in Belgium?

Yes. I am assured that you can. If you can’t, let me know, and I will beat the bad electronic elves of Belgium until they beg for mercy. (They love this.)

Can I get it in the United States of America?

Ummm… You’re not going to be happy about this. Yes, but not yet. For a while it was going to get released in the US today alongside the UK version. But, um, now it isn’t. That’s something which is beyond my control, and not in the creepy Valmont way but really. I believe you get it in mid-Feb. On the upside, there is a smokin’ hot US specific jacket for it which I believe will please you.

Can I get it in print?

No. It has no dead tree reality. It exists only as pure mind derived from a dimension of cognitive energy known only as FZADDOIINBLY! (No idea where that came from. I’m a bit jazzed right now. Think of it as excess energy from my recent regeneration.)

Will you be doing more Edie stories?

Maybe. There are a couple of minor characters in Angelmaker and in TGAW I’d like to play with some more. But then, there are other characters I haven’t written about yet who deserve and demand my time. It’s crowded in my thinky parts.

Where do you get your ideas?

Canada.

9 Comments to “Edie Investigates is up!”

Vaughn said on January 12th, 2012:

Nick,

The lack of access to “Edie Investigates” from Canada is one of the reasons I am opposed to e-books. With an old-fashioned, paper, book I could at least order from amazon.co.uk and get what I wanted (at a slightly higher cost due to shipping).

The silliness of these restrictions by publishers is vexing.
Adam Bridge said on January 13th, 2012:

I am VERY grumpy about not being able to purchase this in the U.S. and hope you will have a STERN word with the publishers with discussions about electronic media, the internet and the concept of being world wide.

Sigh.

Still, anticipation is a good thing. I’m waiting and waiting for my Sony NEX-7 camera if only the flood waters will recede. Not to mention the poor sods in Thailand who have been flooded out of homes and livelihood.
Nick Harkaway said on January 14th, 2012:

Vaughn –

While the situation is silly it’s not actually a case of publishers being silly. I do try to persuade everyone to launch at the same time, and to an extent, it works: Edie Investigates will be available in Canada in a few weeks, and Angelmaker – publishing in the UK in Feb – will be available in March. Last time around there was a six or seven month gap, this time it’s down to a month or so. There was even a moment – alas, it fell by the wayside – when the release was going to be simultaneous, but the differences between countries in terms of when they do and don’t buy things and what’s launching when moved them apart. It’s one of those instances where perfectly sensible actions lead to odd results, and the remedies are obvious but not without downsides of their own.

Everyone knows this is an issue and they’re getting better at it. The pace may seem glacial, but actually for the retooling of a whole global industry in a context where the final outcome is unclear and money and jobs are at stake it’s not bad. I spend a certain amount of time prodding my publishers with a sharp stick and demanding faster change, and in the last twelve months I’ve started to see some real progress.

As to being opposed to ebooks… well. I sympathise to some extent, but I think you might as well be opposed to the sky.
Tom Davies said on January 14th, 2012:

I love the haunting description of deep waters, the redoubtable intervention of an umbrella and its owner, and the tension created by the minute shuffling of feet in a back alley.
Cracking stuff.
hedge said on January 17th, 2012:

Tom Davies, you are a terrible person.
Love,
USA&Canada
Chris said on January 17th, 2012:

The tone and content of the string of info and comment above could almost persuade me to love the interblogweb. Cheered me right up. Oh, and thanks to Nick (the one which is my brother) for putting me onto it and thanks to Nick (the Harkaway one) for all his stuff. That’s it.
Weekly Update « Snippety Giblets said on January 19th, 2012:

[...] not as eagerly as I would a novel, but still. Lastly Nick Harkaway released a little E-book “Edie Investigates” which is like a little taster for “Angelmaker” and well worth a read. I believe [...]
Camilla said on January 20th, 2012:

It was a delightful read, but I have one major objection: I think the anticipation for Angelmaker was quite high enough. (I made sure to not read the first chapter; releasing that is just plain evil.)

But yes, lovely. Edie is wonderful.
Blackout « Necromancy Never Pays said on February 2nd, 2012:

[...] ones that people string up, hoping to make more money. And from what he says on his blog about the preview of Angelmaker, only available in the U.K., I’m pretty sure it’s not the author trying to make [...]