Firefly novel from Brust: free for the reading

[netmouse]

skzbrust has released as fanfic his Firefly novel, My Own Kind Of Freedom, under a creative commons license.

I had the unique experience of copyediting an early draft of the novel with Steve, unique in that we sat on the phone, he in Nevada, I in Michigan, and discussed how to best fix all the errors and problems spots I identified (we were using collaborative software, both viewing a document as I was changing it). Usually a copyeditor only gets to highlight and query, not knowing how the author will respond to each point. I got to sit there and get confirmation of my corrections and also see the process when the author said, "You know, that whole section doesn't make sense, and it's because I left out this part I meant to put in the last chapter. Let's go back and do that."

It was a joy to work with Brust on that project, and I hope everyone enjoys the book as much as he clearly enjoyed writing it and I enjoyed editing it. Actually, I'm sure you will-- Steve's special delight during our collaboration was in hearing me chuckle and finding out where what he wrote worked. And it does. :)

Comments

[encorecrazay.livejournal.com]

What was the collaborative software?

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I am looking forward to reading it. At the time he read from it at ConFusion I hadn't even -seen- Firefly, and I think it was listening to him read the chapter or so he read that actually got me interested in checking it out for the first time.

Now that I've seen it all, I'm really excited to read the whole novel.

txt version

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

Hey, will this be of any help? I made a txt version and stripped the pretty stuff off.

http://devon.intranet.org/my%20own%20kind%20of%20freedom.txt
or http://devon.intranet.org/freedom.txt if the first link does not work correctly.

Palm version

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

also this:
http://devon.intranet.org/My_Own_Kind_of_Freedom_-_Brust.pdb
made with TealDoc's converter.

[urban-exotic.livejournal.com]

Is the novel set before or after Serenity?

PS- You KNOW Steven Brust???!!! OMG, squeeing vicariously.

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

The novel is set before Serenity.

*smile* yes, I do know him. And he's coming near here this May as the Toastmaster for Marcon (http://www.marcon.org), so if you'd like to meet him, head over there for Memorial Day Weekend.

He's quite er, approachable. ;)

[urban-exotic.livejournal.com]

Set before Serenity, you say? Fabulous. I wouldn't be all that into reading Firefly fiction with Wash and the Shepherd gone.

*giggles about your comment about "approachable"*

[rbradakis.livejournal.com]

I love that he's done that.

Also that sounds like a fantastic way to copyedit.