the other cool thing at Balticon: eSpec launch party!

I forgot to mention one thing I did at Virtual Balticon 54: the eSpec Books launch party! One of the highlights of Balticon these last years has been the launch parties run by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and every since she, her husband Mike McPhail, and Between Books owner Greg Schauer formed eSpec in 2015, it’s been an eSpec launch party specifically.

This year, the launch was virtual, and since part of any launch party is the ability to buy books, eSpec set up a “virtual launch” section on their online bookstore.

The launched books included:

• To Hell and Regroup by David Sherman & Keith R.A. DeCandido (that’s me!)
• The Literary Handyman: Build-a-Book Workshop by Danielle Ackley-McPhail
• Arachne’s Crime by Christopher L. Bennett
• In a Flash 2020 by Christopher J. Burke
• Stellar Science Fiction by Jeff Young
• Death’s Embrace by Michelle D. Sonnier
• new editions of Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s Eternal Cycle books, James Chambers’s Corpse Fauna books, Megan Mackie’s Lucky Devil books, and Ackley-McPhail & Day Al-Mohamed’s Baba Ali & the Clockwork Djinn

Several of us did readings from our stuff, including me from To Hell and Regroup, Megan from Finder of the Lucky Devil, Christopher from Arachne’s Crime, Danielle from Baba Ali, and James and Jeff from their work (I forget from which now *hangs head in shame*).

Not as raucous as the usual eSpec party, and no food, obviously, but we still had a grand old time.