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Reprise is published!
Reprise is now available from your favourite online vendor, or right here at the BPPress store! June 19, 2023 — It has been, as the song says, a long and winding road, but Zilla Novikov‘s remarkable, and remarkably funny, debut novel, Reprise has been published.
Called “a breakneck journey, a loveletter to being a nerd, and a good time” by the Independent Book Review, Novikov’s post-modern gothic is the novel that might have resulted had Jane Austen and Douglas Adams managed to transcend time and space and produce a child.
To quote Cascade‘s Rachel A. Rosen, “If you like your pop culture nerdy, your queers messy, and your time travel criminally clever, this book is for you.”
Electronic versions of Reprise are available from The BumblePuppy Press Store now, and we expect paperback copies to arrive within the week. If you can’t wait, click here to buy from the online vendor of your choice!
Happy reading, and please remember: if you like this, or any of our books, leave a review! Especially for a small press, reviews are the best way convince a writer you like they should create another book!
One year for Cascade? (Actually, more than one … mea culpa)
Birthday graphic from First Birthday PNG Image Transparent Background. June 16, 2023 — It’s hard for me to believe, but it has been more than a year since we published Rachel Rosen’s brilliant debut novel, Cascade.
I am embarrassed to admit that I missed the actual anniversary (June 7, 2022), and while I’ll lean a little on my duties as a father, and of getting Zilla Novikov’s equally-brilliant Reprise ready for publication, neither explanation/excuse really lets me off the hook.
But here we are, with a belated celebratory offering.
First, Rachel’s book is on sale, 25% off each version, ebook or print. Please visit our store, if you have somehow not yet bought her book!
Second, if you haven’t read the book and still need convincing, I have collected a lot of reviews here — if these raves don’t convince you, I don’t know what will.
Reprise Kickstarter is off
June 19, 2023: UPDATE — Sadly, this Kickstarter was not a success. No one who backed it will be charged. However, Reprise has now been published, and is available from the usual online vendors as well as in our own store (we expect to have paper copies available by Sunday, June 25th, but ebooks can be had now).
She’s got a doctorate and nothing to lose
He’s got a time machine and a hot wife
Which is deadlier, love or science?May 21, 2023 — It’s been a long time coming, but the Kickstarter campaign for Zilla Novikov’s singular debut novel, Reprise: A Post-Modern Comedy of Manners, is here at last!
A caustically funny time-travel romance that blends dark academia with with timey-wimey complexity, D&D with S&M, and leaves the reader wondering if the protagonist is a murderer or victim — or both — Reprise is the novel that would have been written by the love-child of Jane Austen and the Marquis de Sade, had she been raised by Douglas Adams.
Reprise will make you laugh, gasp, and maybe, cheer.
Most people play ‘F**k, Marry, Kill’ as a game of hypotheticals, but Eddy Courant’s life takes an unconventional path when Dr. François Gagnon offers Eddy a postdoc position studying time loops. This unexpected chance to revive her career pulls Eddy from a deep depression. She loses herself to the thrill of science, and to the simpler pleasures in life – like flirting with her boss, seducing his wife, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with their son.
That is, until the men funding the research demand ever-more ground-breaking data to justify keeping her on board – after all, they have a war to start.
Eddy is plunged into ever darker and more violent acts to appease the funders. So long as she’s employed, she doesn’t have to face the consequences of replaying countless deaths – including her own. But keeping track of shifting timelines while her own mental state deteriorates means losing the ability to tell real life from its shadow.
If you like your pop culture nerdy, your queers messy, and your time travel criminally clever, this book is for you.
Please click here to support the campaign, and feel free to share the link with anyone you know who loves time-travel, romance, or any kinky combination of the two: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bppress/reprise-hardcover!
Geoffrey Dow, publisher
Vote early, vote late! But vote!
Rachel A. Rosen’s Cascade eligible for Aurora Award
Image courtesy of Rachel A. Rosen As is only right and proper, Rachel A. Rosen’s debut novel, Cascade, is eligible in the Best Novel category for Canada’s premiere English-language science fiction and fantasy awards, the Auroras (https://www.csffa.ca/members-home/nomination/).
To have a chance to be added to the final Aurora Awards ballot, a work must get at least five nominations, and only members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) are eligible to vote. The price of that franchise is a pretty affordable $10.00 for an annual membership, and you must be a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant in order to join.
If you loved Cascade, or even if you’re just a fan of Canadian SF&F, that seems a small price to pay to support the work creators you like. Membership information is here: https://www.csffa.ca/become-a-member/. CSFFA membership allows you to:
- nominate your favourite works in any or all of the categories;
- download e-versions of almost all of the finalist works for free with our voter package; and
- vote for the for the awards themselves.
To celebrate (and yes, to improve Rachel’s chances, I won’t lie), we’ve reduced the price on all versions of Cascade. DRM-free ebooks in all formats are now only $2.00, the paperback is marked down to $15.00, and the hardcover is only $26.00. A little self-serving, maybe, but a great deal for you if you have not yet had the pleasure of reading what I really do think was the best Canadian SF novel of 2022. You can buy all of our books here.
Besides the upcoming Aurora Awards, the BumblePuppy Press will have more news about Cascade (audiobook!), the upcoming novel Reprise, and a new version of A.A. Milne’s classic children’s book, which we will be calling The
InclusiveWoke Winnie-the-Pooh. So please come back soon or, better yet, subscribe to our newsletter!Geoff
Cover Reveal: Reprise, by Zilla Novikov
The wild imagination of Douglas Adams,
The acerbic wit of Jane Austen,
The surreal vision of Emily Brontë …Reprise
In a caustically funny post-modern Gothic, Dr. François Gagnon offers Eddy Courant a postdoc position studying time loops. The chance to revive her stalling research career pulls Eddy from a deep depression. She loses herself to the thrill of science, and to the simpler pleasures in life – like flirting with her boss and seducing his wife. Until the men funding the research demand more ground-breaking data to justify keeping her on board – after all, they have a war to start.
Eddy is plunged into ever darker and more violent acts to appease the funders. So long as she’s employed, she doesn’t have to face the consequences of replaying countless deaths – including her own. But keeping track of shifting timelines while her own mental state deteriorates means losing the ability to tell real life from its shadow.
Can Eddy find loves, stop the arms dealer, and save her sanity – or even one out of three?
Scroll down to see the cover (and find out more)!
Cover created by Rachel A. Rosen. Zilla Novikov’s Reprise, coming April 15, 2023
January 13, 2023 – I am excited and proud to present the cover of The BumblePuppy Press’ next book, Zilla Novikov’s singular time travel romance (and brilliant debut novel), Reprise.
Already available for pre-order as an ebook on Amazon, this coming week will see the launch of a Kickstarter campaign with all sorts of extra goodies available, but for now I just want to share the wonderful cover created by our own Rachel A. Rosen.
And don’t forget to subscribe our newsletter to keep abreast of Reprise news, and news of all of our upcoming books (because there is a lot more to come in 2023).
Rachel A. Rosen on Nalo Hopkinson
Rachel talks Brown Girl In the Ring and more with CM Lowry
January 13, 2023 – Cascade (and The Sad Bastard Cookbook) author Rachel A. Rosen was interviewed by C.M. Lowry on Beyond Cataclysm Books‘s podcast This Book I Read … The Podcast, which was uploaded yesterday.
It was a wide-ranging discussion that, while focused on SFWA Grandmaster Nalo Hopkinson’s first novel, Brown Girl In the Ring, covered topics including Canadian literature, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, Post-apocalyptic Toronto and Ontario, white flight and inner city decline (or otherwise), the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, and the challenges of predicting the future back in the 1990s.
It might sound like a lot to cover in not much more than 30 minutes, but I (admittedly, a biased listener) thought it was a fascinating discussion.
The full podcast is here: https://beyondcataclysm.co.uk/podcast/brown-girl-in-the-ring-with-rachel-a-rosen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Geoff
The joy of (sending) cash
Rachel A. Rosen’s Cascade earns out advance
Why yes, that is a hard-cover version of Cascade. Available exclusively in our shop for only $25.00! It’s not often one grins while pressing Send on an e-transfer, but this was one of those times. (Not often?!? Come to think of it, I can’t remember ever feeling delighted about paying money for anything.)
But it was with genuine pleasure that I found myself sending Rachel A. Rosen her first royalty payment for her debut novel, Cascade, amounting to more than 60% of her advance! (There was also a second, much smaller cheque, for sales of her related chapbook, So Human As I Am.)
Yes, I think the exclamation point is warranted. While not quite a bestseller, for the publisher behind a very small press, I consider this a real victory. And I’m confident it won’t be the last.* * *
Not only do we have four really good books currently available for sale now, but this year we have plans for at least another four books, two of them slated for the spring.
Next week we will formally launch a Kickstarter campaign for, and reveal the cover of, Zilla Novikov’s first novel, the very twisted, and very funny, science fiction romance, Reprise, and shortly after that, our Inclusive version of A.A. Milne’s children’s classic, Winnie-the-Pooh.
If you want to avoid the mysterious algorithms of social media, please join our mailing list (link below). We won’t sell your info to anyone else, and you’ll then be the first to know when we have actual news.
Our Director of Promotions and Publicity is as happy about the new year as I am. I think that’s it for the moment. I hope the new year is starting off as well for you as it is for us!
Geoff
The Sad Bastard Cookbook
The BumblePuppy Press’ own Rachel A. Rosen and Zilla Novikov (ably assisted by Marten Norr) struck out on their own between last summer’s publication of Rachel’s Cascade, and Zilla’s forthcoming debut, Reprise, by writing a cookbook that is both useful and funny.
It’s a cookbook, and one I’ve had on (virtual) hand for only a couple of days, so I would be lying if I told you I have read it from cover to cover. But I have spot-read it and can tell you three things.
First, it is a pragmatic cookbook, one that makes no pretence it will turn you into a master chef, but rather, that it will help you feed yourself on your worst, most stressed-out, days.
Second, it is a funny book. Aimed specifically at dealing with depression or other mental or physical illnesses, as well as people who are simply over-stressed by the demands of living in a brutal, late-capitalist world where “leisure time” is more often an aspiration than a reality, it is at once snarky, kind-hearted, and justifiably angry at the state of the world. (It is also rich with in-jokes to the authors’ own books, as well as some by their friends. You don’t have to have read Cascade or be looking forward to Reprise, but you’ll get more chuckles out of the SBCB if you have done.)
This cookbook is an old friend who keeps crashing on your couch, promising they’ve got something lined up and are gonna get their shit together. This cookbook is all the recipes you already make, when you’ve worked a 16-hour day, when you can’t stop crying and you don’t know why, when the eldritch abomination you woke at the bottom of the ocean won’t go back to sleep. And hopefully, this cookbook gives you some new meal ideas. Even Sad Bastards have to eat.
The recipes are chatty but concise, with vague but clear directions allowing the reader/cook the option of following the directions as written or working on variations, confident we won’t ruin a dinner we’re very nearly too tired to make in the first place.
And third, The Sad Bastard Cookbook includes enough of a variety of recipes not only to keep you alive in trying times, but to keep you and your taste-buds from getting bored.
You can buy the book in paper from what some call The Big A, but the authors have chosen to also publish the book under a Creative Commons License and are offering it as a free download from the Night Beats Extended Universe website – and you can also get it right here from The BumblePuppy Press’s store (preferably, but not necessarily, when you also buy one of our other excellent books, currently all 20% off!).
Ho-Ho-Holiday Sale!
The BumblePuppy Press is pleased to offer a full 20% discount on all of our books, from now until December 25th (though, y’know, if you want them in time to put under the tree for that beloved bookworm in your life, best to order them now)! Click here or on the image below to visit our store.
(And note that we are offering in-person delivery for those of you living within bicycle distance of downtown Ottawa for only $5.00, a considerable saving off of Canada Post’s price. Please email orders@bppress.ca to make arrangements.)
Cascade: The end of the beginning …
Backers and blurbs and videos – oh my!
Finally, something to make the hope-punks shut the fuck up.
— Peter Watts, author of BlindsightWell, our Cascade Kickstarter ended really successfully. 101 backers pledged 263% towards our modest $2,000 goal. If you are among those, please accept my thanks for your support one more time!
I am working hard to get the rewards out as soon as possible, which also means I am working hard to make Rachel A. Rosen‘s book available to everyone else, as well, so that those of you who prefer to buy their books in more traditional ways can do so soon.
* * *
Beyond the support of readers, we’ve also had some advance praise from other writers. For the record (and for my own pleasure, if I’m being fully honest — as why shouldn’t I be?), here are what they’ve had to say to date.
Finally, something to make the hope-punks shut the fuck up.
A near-perfect blend of implacable horror, gallows humor, and ecological apocalypse. It seems almost absurd that a novel about chaos magic and bureaucrat magicians (even if they are embedded in the sociopathic morass of Canadian politics) can somehow feel more viscerally relevant than all the earnest mainstream novels and Suzuki-Foundation bulletins you could stuff into a ballot box. Pay attention, people: all magic aside, we’re far closer to this future than any of our rulers will ever admit.
Rachel A. Rosen is some kind of twisted genius. I wish I had even half her moves.
— Peter Watts, author of BlindsightFinally, an urban fantasy that kills the cop—and the rest of the government—in your head. Relentlessly radical and often hilarious, Cascade will change the way you look at magic, and the state, forever.
— Nick Mamatas, author of The Second Shooter.Cascade is an excellent introduction to the imaginative prose of Rachel A. Rosen. Her debut novel takes us to a futuristic North America filled with vividly realized characters surrounded by magic and the possible end of the world. One of the few novels I’ve read recently in a single weekend. Sharp and thought-provoking, with thrilling moments and crackling with compelling ideas, I wouldn’t miss this one. I’m looking forward to her next instalment!
— Bryan Thao Worra, author of Before We Remember We DreamRachel A. Rosen’s Cascade is one of the best books I’ve read this year. She brings a unique blend of magic environmentalism, Canadian politcking, and indigenous and queer rights to the table. I never thought I would be so interested in the near-futuristic Canadian political process!
—Marsha Altman, author of The Darcys and the BingleysFull of magic and social commentary, Cascade is never so witty that it hides its anger or so angry that it sacrifices wit. This is a brilliant exciting debut by an author that will have a long and fruitful career if there’s any justice in the world.
— Tim Lieder, author of Sugarplum Zombie MotherfuckersAnd if all of those very perceptive comments don’t convince you that Cascade is a novel worth your time and money, the redoutable Rachel A. has created something else for you!
If you prefer to read electronically, Kindle-users can pre-order Cascade here. For the rest of you, you’ll be able to place pre-orders through our site soon, and through your usual online vendors soon after that.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list in order to stay informed about this book, and those we have waiting in the proverbial pipeline!
Thanks and looking forward,
Geoffrey Dow, Publisher
