Singularity’s Ring by Paul Melko arrived via Amazon yesterday. Now, I read it long ago, since I got the lucky chance to blurb it. So I’ll quote myself, “Singularity’s Ring is an elegantly written and constructed thriller, simultanously an exciting chase novel, a thought provoking tour of a future Third World, and a clear-eyed meditation on the limits of individuality and belonging. Apollo Papadopulos is a most unusual protagonist, brilliantly conceived, the kind of character whose adventures make the real world seem somehow less real. I loved this novel, and I was sorry to see it end.”

And, by the way, the cover and the book design are drop-dead gorgeous.

Paul’s writing reminds me of Vernor Vinge and Karl Schroeder, two of my favorite hard sf writers.

By the way, I have a little story about finishing my advance copy. We had a heckuva wind storm last winter, the kind of windstorm that actally has a name and that people still talk about, the Hannukah Eve Windstorm. It knocked out power to almost the whole community east of Seattle where we live (there were stars over Bellevue, WA…a strange thing to see for a city dweller). The night of the storm I was finishing this book up. Since I work for a city, I was busy in our emergency operation center through the height of the storm, wherin a tree feel on my car and cracked the windshield. Two Police Captains had to help me get the tree off. Anyway, I drove home, the car rocked by wind, the glass in front of me creaking, Singularity’s Ring tucked into my backpack. I got home around midnight, if I remember correctly. Well, I had promised my blurb to Tor. So I finished the last few pages huddled under blankets like a kid in bed with a flashlight, which turned out to be a great way to ignore being downright cold with no power in winter. Then I sent the blurb over my blackberry since there was no power for the computers.

I’m glad Tor got it. Now, go get the book. It’s quite good.