When the Sparrow Falls

Book Launch (Last one, I promise)

On 27 July 5 PM (Irish Time), Trilby Black, Daniel Bensen and I will be celebrating the birth of our book triplets! Join us for chat, readings and raffles! Entry is a mere $5 which will go towards your next purchase from Magers and Quinn! Link HERE.

About Interchange: A year ago, Anne Houlihan uncovered a wormhole to Junction, a patchwork planet of competing alien biomes. Now, she and Daisuke are going back to investigate “The Howling Mountain,” the possible location of a wormhole into space. Her mission headed by an eccentric millionaire, Anne believes she will have a chance to learn more about the origin of Junction and its varied ecosystems. The mission has purposes beyond what she knows, however, and so does the planet. As the expedition tears its way across the alien landscape, Anne must fight to protect its lifeforms, herself, and the Earth.

Daniel M. Bensen writes science fiction, alternate history, and fantasy. He is the author of Junction, its sequel Interchange, the comic book First Knife, and the Sidewise award-winning short story “Treasure Fleet.” He resides in Sofia, Bulgaria with his daughters, wife, and in-laws in the Balkan Tower of Matriarchy.

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About Finnegan’s Awake: Since birth, Rain Wooten has been trained by her secret-agent parents to hate and destroy the enemies of America. But when a pizza delivery turns into an armed kidnapping gone wrong, she is thrust into the world of normal people, where right and wrong are no longer so clear, and reality is even harder to determine.

Trilby Black is an academic science editor who previously worked in astronautics, blue-sky research, and academia, with stints between running a wooden passenger ferry, teaching math in the local youth prison, and raising two children. She has lived in Colorado, France, Texas, and the UK. Currently, she works and lives with her family in Suffolk, England. Finnegan’s Awake is her first novel.

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About When the Sparrow Falls:

My talk with Cory…

Last night I had a fascinating sitdown with author/journalist/activist/world’s most interesting man Cory Doctorow where we discussed the book, technology, society and not to brag but we basically solved everything. The whole shebang was recorded and you can watch it HERE.

CrimeReads Article, Chicago Review of Books Review and Cory Doctorow

Hi all! Here’s some more links (I swear I will be posting an actual movie review soon).

Here‘s an article I wrote for CrimeReads.com about George Smiley, a huge influence on my own character Nikolai South.

Here is a really nice, in-depth review from the Chicago Review of Books for When the Sparrow Falls.

And as a reminder, I’ll be having an in-depth conversation with author and journalist Cory Doctorow about the themes and world of the book on July 10th 2PM, Pacific Time. He’s a fascinating guy, it should be a fascinating talk and you can reserve your tickets HERE.

Book Launch Tonight!

The day is finally upon!

Join me and John Scalzi tonight at 6pm Eastern Time. Admission is free and you can book your tickets HERE.

Upcoming events!

Hey did you know I have a book coming out at the end of the month? (I know, I know, I need to be less shy and retiring about these things). Anyway, I have some really exciting virtual events lined up to launch this sucker.

29th June

Oh yes, THAT John Scalzi. We’ll be in discussion in an event hosted by Fountain Bookstore in Virginia. I wanted to call it “Gettin’ Palsy with Scalzi” but they said no and that’s fine.

Join us at 6pm Eastern Time, Thursday June 29th. Admission is free and you can book your tickets HERE.

10th July

Oh yes, THAT Cory Doctorow. Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego will be hosting this one at 2pm Pacific Time, Saturday 10th of July and you can reserve a place HERE.

27th July

And lastly but by no means leastly, my friends Trilby Black, Daniel M. Bensen and I all have books coming out at the same time so we’re having a joint launch hosted by Magers and Quinn bookstore in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Jul 27th at 5:00 PM IST and you can book tickets HERE. Tickets for this event will be $5 and attendees will receive virtual event access and a $5 off code for use at magersandquinn.com. Attendees also have a chance to win prizes during the event! Follow @magersandquinn or the authors on social media and share our posts about the event, and you’ll be entered to win fabulous prizes!

UPDATE: Book launch, audiobook news and more (now with 100% more John Scalzi)

Hey all, here’s a quick rundown of When the Sparrow Falls news and events for the rest of the month (honestly, this is as much a reminder for me as it is for you):

New Review

Dan Smith over at FanFIaddict gave Sparrow a very kind 10/10 review and you can read it HERE.

Audiobook News!

If, like me, you do most of your reading with your ears while doing the dishes that never stop coming no matter how many you wash, When the Sparrow Falls will be getting an audiobook read by Jake Fairbrother and produced by Penguin Audio.

23rd June: Read the Room

I’ll be taking part in a virtual panel for Tom Doherty Associates at 6pm ET on Wednesday, June 23rd.

Moderated by Ada Palmer (Perhaps the Stars), Django Wexler (Hard Reboot), Bethany C. Morrow (A Chorus Rises) Aggie Blum Thompson (I Don’t Forgive You) and myself will be discussing Surfing’ the Web: Techno-Summer Reads.

It should be a fun time and you can join in HERE.

27th June: Wrath of the Iotians Podcast Interview

I had a great chat with Ron and Jake over at the Wrath of the Iotians sci-fi podcast and that will be going up 27th June. In the meantime, you can check out the rest of their stuff HERE.

29th June: BOOK LAUNCH!

Fountain Bookstore in Virginia have very graciously agreed to host the online virtual launch of When the Sparrow Falls! Join me at 6pm Eastern Time as my 300 page baby finally takes its first steps into the real world. Admission is free and you can book your tickets HERE.

UPDATE: It has now been confirmed that the host of this event will be JOHN FRICKIN’ SCALZI. Y’know? Redshirts? Hugo Award Winner? Former President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America?

What even is life? This is crazy.

The Quill to Live Review

Huge thanks to the good people at The Quill to Live for an absolute beauty of a review for When the Sparrow Falls:

“When the Sparrow Falls, by Neil Sharpson, is a great novel. The writing is excellent, the plot is thrilling, it’s extremely emotional, the characters are great, and the themes provide smart and insightful commentary on our current political landscape. It does all of this in a relatively small package of about 300 pages. It is probably the best thing I have read this year so far and it is a shoo-in for our best-of list at the end of the year.”

Didn’t even have to pay them or nuffin’!

Watch me do the Instagram

We are 13 hours and counting away from when those mad fools at Tor actually give me control of their Instagram feed despite the fact that I still think MySpace is pretty fetch.

I’ll be in conversation with celebrated sci-fi author Max Gladstone, we will be going live at 7 pm and it will be an absolute car-crash.

You should so... totally... come. - GIF on Imgur

The link is here and I would love to see as many of you lovely folks there as can make it.

And the best part is, I didn’t have to get an Instagram account…

Hello peeps, if you happen to be on the internet at April 28th I’ll be taking over the Tor Books Instagram Account with fellow sci-fi author, the Nebula Award winning Max Gladstone (uh, the “fellow” part is us both being science fiction authors, not having Nebulas). Join us on Debuts After Dark where we’ll be talking about writing and science fiction and…I dunno…smooth jazz.

Then, we shall battle our evil anti-matter universe doubles for the fate of the universe.

The link is here and I would love to see as many of you lovely folks there as can make it.

From Tor:

“Join Neil Sharpson, author of When the Sparrow Falls, and Max Gladstone, author of Empress of Forever, as they take over the Tor Books Instagram account LIVE for Debuts After Dark! Who knows what shenanigans they’ll get up to…”