Daniel H. Wilson and I were both at San Diego Comic Con this past weekend, and we had the opportunity to giveaway about 160 copies of PRESS START TO PLAY to eager SDCC patrons. We did a big group signing as well, as several of the contributors to the anthology were in attendance.

It was really great to see how excited people were about the book. And hey, if you’re one of those lucky people who got a free signed copy, I hope you’ll consider telling a friend about it and/or posting a kind note on Goodreads or the like!

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Vintage made these sweet PRESS START TO PLAY bookmarks for distro at conventions and bookstores and the like.

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Now that Kotaku has made the big reveal for us, I’m free to also share the final cover, (not final) cover copy, and table of contents for PRESS START TO PLAY, a mostly-original anthology of stories about and inspired by video games I edited (with Daniel H. Wilson) for Vintage. It’s forthcoming in August 2015, but you can pre-order it now.

COVER:

COVER COPY (not final):

Achievement unlocked! In the spirit of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, here are twenty-six works of fiction that put video games—and the people who play them—in the spotlight. Whether these authors are tackling the humble pixelated coin-op arcade games of the 70s and 80s, or the vivid, immersive form of entertainment that abounds today, you’ll never look at phrases like “save point,” “first-person shooter,” “dungeon crawl,” “pwned,” or “kill screen,” in quite the same way again.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• Foreword—Ernest Cline
  author (Ready Player One)
• Introduction—John Joseph Adams
  editor (Wastelands)
• God Mode—Daniel H. Wilson
  author (Robopocalypse), video game writer/developer (Mayday! Deep Space)
• NPC—Charles Yu
  author (How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe)
• Respawn—Hiroshi Sakurazaka (translated by Nathan Collins)
  author (All You Need is Kill, basis for the film Edge of Tomorrow a.k.a. Live/Die/Repeat)
• Desert Walk—S.R. Mastrantone
  author (short stories)
• Rat Catcher’s Yellows—Charlie Jane Anders
  author (All the Birds in the Sky), editor (io9)
• 1Up—Holly Black
  author (The Spiderwick Chronicles)
• Survival Horror—Seanan McGuire
  author (InCryptid, October Daye series)
• REAL—Django Wexler
  author (The Thousand Names)
• Outliers—Nicole Feldringer
  author (short stories)
• <end game>—Chris Avellone
  video game writer/developer (Fallout: New Vegas)
• Save Me Plz—David Barr Kirtley (reprint)
  author (short stories), host (The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy)
• The Relive Box—T.C. Boyle (reprint)
  author (World’s End)
• Roguelike—Marc Laidlaw
  video game writer/developer (Half-Life), author (The 37th Mandala)
• All of the People in Your Party Have Died—Robin Wasserman
  author (The Waking Dark)
• RECOIL!—Micky Neilson
  video game writer/developer (World of Warcraft), comics writer (World of Warcraft: Ashbringer)
• Anda’s Game—Cory Doctorow (reprint)
  author (Little Brother), editor (Boing Boing)
• Coma Kings—Jessica Barber (reprint)
  author (short stories)
• Stats—Marguerite K. Bennett
  comics writer (X-Men, Batman)
• Please Continue—Chris Kluwe
  author (Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies)
• Creation Screen—Rhianna Pratchett
  video game writer/developer (Tomb Raider), comics writer (Mirror’s Edge)
• The Fresh Prince of Gamma World—Austin Grossman
  author (Soon I Will Be Invincible), video game writer/developer (Dishonored)
• Gamer’s End—Yoon Ha Lee
  author (Conservation of Shadows)
• The Clockwork Soldier—Ken Liu (reprint)
  author (Grace of Kings)
• Killswitch—Catherynne M. Valente (reprint)
  author (Deathless)
• Twarrior—Andy Weir
  author (The Martian)
• Select Character—Hugh Howey
  author (Wool)

PRE-ORDER:

• Amazon
• B&N
• Powell’s
• Books-a-Million
• IndieBound

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