Kaja's birthday, AGATHA HETERODYNE AND THE AIRSHIP CITY, and nattering about books.: seanan

Kaja's birthday, AGATHA HETERODYNE AND THE AIRSHIP CITY, and nattering about books.

Today is Kaja Foglio's birthday! If you don't know Kaja, she's one-half of the creative team behind Girl Genius, along with her husband, the interminable Phil Foglio. Together, they won the 2010 Hugo for Best Graphic Novel. Also, they fight crime.

I'm just saying.

This month, the Foglios unleashed their unspeakable powers on a new arena: the novel. While Phil has written book-length prose before (most specifically Illegal Aliens, co-written with the awesome Nick Pollotta), this is Kaja's first foray into this particular medium. Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is a novelization of the first two volumes of the Girl Genius graphic novel. Meaning what? Meaning that if you already read the comic, this isn't new story, per se, but it's deeper story, more intricate story. It enriches and expands on what you already know. And if you haven't read the comic, well, why not? It's available for free online. Yes, all of it. Yes, the Foglios make a living giving away their product. Why? Because it's that good.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it's Kaja's birthday, and what she asked for this year was, well, that we talk about her book. If you were considering picking up Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], why not do it today? Give Kaja a book sale for her birthday, and help the Foglios ring the bells on Amazon (or at your local independent bookseller—I note that Borderlands Books has the book in stock, as, I'm sure, do many others).

The Foglios are great people, and Agatha Heterodyne is a great book. If you like steampunk, gaslamp fantasy, wacky science, mad science, cute blonde girls in corsets, and making my friends happy, give Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] a look! Statistically speaking, if you're reading my journal, you'll probably be glad that you did.

Ebook

ossiander

January 12 2011, 17:31:50 UTC 6 years ago

New comment

You can get it as an ebook from Baen.

Re: Ebook

argonel

January 12 2011, 17:49:25 UTC 6 years ago

http://www.webscription.net/p-1344-agatha-h-and-the-airship-city.aspx

Here is the link and I will second the comment. Buy the ebook.

aliciaaudrey

January 12 2011, 18:45:03 UTC 6 years ago

But it doesn't have Nook support. :(

January 12 2011, 19:02:58 UTC 6 years ago

The epub files have no DRM and I can confirm that they work fine in the android nook app. Not sure if there is a super simple way to get the file on your nook. If the nook has a web browser it should be able to download it. Otherwise I suspect that plugging the nook into your computer and copying the file over should work.

January 12 2011, 19:07:04 UTC 6 years ago

I looked into Baen's FAQ on supported devices a few weeks ago when this "Buy Agatha H on Jan 12" first came to my attention, and they explicitly stated they don't have Nook support for the actual Nook device, which is unfortunate. Perhaps that's changed since I looked, though.

January 12 2011, 19:12:15 UTC 6 years ago

I don't have an actual nook device to test with so I can just note that unsupported doesn't necessarily mean doesn't work. You could try one of the books from the Baen free library to test at no cost.

catsittingstill

January 12 2011, 21:55:01 UTC 6 years ago

I second this.

You can't ask them questions about e-book devices and have them answer; that's kind of out of their league.

But it's a big selling point of the Nook that ePub works on it. Go ahead and test it with one of the books from the Baen Free Library</i> at no charge.

My personal recommendations would be _Earthweb_ (I thought the worldbuilding was very interesting) or _Rats Bats and Vats_ (weird name, fun characters.) But anything would work since you're just testing the principle.

seanan_mcguire

January 12 2011, 22:04:19 UTC 6 years ago

See, I really like the physical book, which is gorgeous and can be used to kill spiders.

January 13 2011, 12:30:10 UTC 6 years ago

That is a pretty convincing argument. My only counter is that the eBook also has all the artwork and I have a SFBC edition of the lord of the rings that is adequate for all my spider killing needs. And lets face it if the lord of the rings isn't adequate for spider killing you need to start charging rent, or bring out a shotgun.

I really like eBooks because I can put them on my phone and have all of them handy wherever I go. I just wish your publisher hadn't insisted on DRM, it's a little annoying having one program for most of my e-books and a different one for Feed.

January 13 2011, 15:32:34 UTC 6 years ago

Sadly, that's something I have absolutely zero influence on, since I don't control the formatting or availability of the ebooks. I'd recommend writing to Orbit, and letting them know that hey, you love (and pay for) your ebooks, and you'd really appreciate them not being locked down like that.