We are now seventy-five days from the release of One Salt Sea. Two and a half months, basically, before the fifth Toby book hits shelves and people can buy it and it's just out there. In the world. Where people will read it, and talk about it, and do all the things that people do with books, whether they like them or not.

This never gets any less frightening. In fact, right now, it comes with an extra bonus dose of frightening, because this is the last Toby book for a year—my March 2012 release with DAW is going to be the first book in the InCryptid series, Discount Armageddon. So this book has to be amazing enough to keep people from forgetting about me.

It's scary and exhilarating and a little "wait, what?" Because this was always the book I couldn't finish. Book five is where I ran out of steam, because these books were never going to come out, and five finished books was just too much for my heart to take. And now it's about to be on shelves. In seventy-five days.

Remember that I have an ARC giveaway going now, which you can enter through tomorrow afternoon. I'll open my second giveaway next week; it's going to involve photography, since we need to have something slightly less wash-and-wear.

Seventy-five days to high tide.

Wow.

The links. Oh sweet Great Pumpkin, the links. And now it's time for another review roundup, because I'd like to eventually be able to view my entire link soup on a single screen again. (Like that's ever going to happen.)

First up, an absolutely fucking amazing review of Deadline from Paul Goat Allen at the Barnes & Noble Book Club. Paul says:

"While I impatiently awaited the release of the second Newsflesh novel, Deadline, I knew that it probably wouldn’t be as jaw-droppingly extraordinary and satisfying as Feed—middle volumes are generally the least satisfying installments in trilogies, at least for me.

"I'm happy to report that I was wrong.

"Deadline cranks everything up to volume 11. The mythical conspiracy that Shaun and his team are striving to uncover expands to mind-boggling proportions. The pacing is breakneck, desperate, and the action is literally nonstop throughout—and that’s saying something for a 582-page book! Major characters die. Entire cities are wiped out. The end of the world approaches..."

I call this review a win, no?

With Regards has also posted a lovely Deadline review, and says, "That, my friends, is the trademark of a good novel. When a person will, quite literally, debate on whether or not having dinner is as important as reading the next chapter...Well, you know you've written a damned good story. Deadline is a fantastic novel that I cannot praise highly enough."

When I make people late for dinner, I call that an unquestionable win.

From an unexpected and awesome corner comes this joint review of Feed and Deadline from fellow Hugo nominee Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary. Howard says, "I loved Feed. The story isn't really about the zombies. It's about some bloggers who get hired to cover a presidential candidate. The zombies in this tale are more like wallpaper. That moves. And then tries to eat your face. Okay, the book IS about the zombies, but there's ever so much more to it than that. And Deadline? EVEN BETTER." Duuuuuuuuuuude.

For our LJ review of the day, have this short, sweet review from chaiya. No pull quotes, but some lovely sincerity, and a very nice review overall. Thank you!

Finally (for right now) here's The Word Zombie sounding out on Deadline. Quote: "With Feed, Mira Grant established herself as a major new voice in zombie fiction. With Deadline, she proves that 'zombie' is a superfluous addition to that accolade. Without the subtlety of her storytelling, the layers of conspiracy at the heart of this book would have ripped apart like so many sheets of rice paper. Instead, she parceled out the story with the literary timing of Stephen King at his best, while managing to do what King has suffered with so much in recent years—tying the story together in the end and leaving the reader with an emotional punch akin to being hit in the chest with a Taser."

...whoa. I'm, uh, just going to leave things there for right now.

And go call my Mom.