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Legitimacy went up for sale on Amazon yesterday, and if that's not an excuse to celebrate, I don't know what is. M.H. has been thinking and talking about this book for at least eight years and actively writing it, on and off, for seven—dating from before we moved to Montana so that he could write full time. (It's basically the reason we moved to Montana so that he could write full time.) He's been working on Legitimacy for so long that he wrote two and a half other books between the time he started it and the time he finished it.
I've read Legitimacy at least six times. I've taken several hundred walks that were dominated by a discussion of its plot. I have near my desk a ream of paper with a 500,000-word first draft of Legitimacy printed on one side; I've been using it for years now to print Paleo recipes and my other nonsense on the blank side. I've even got my fingerprints in the book a little—a couple of nice phrases were my editing suggestions, and I came up with the name of the fictional company Zubotix™.
Oh, and of course there was the marriage- and sanity-testing blurb we collaborated on for the back cover, which might have been more trouble than the whole rest of the book combined.
When I started this post, I was planning to bring it around to some sort of "Legitimacy made me eat a ton of pizza last night and now I feel horrible" type thing, but you know what? All things considered, I'm feeling pretty darn good.
I bought it yesterday but have only read the first two chapters. It is good! But what I wanted to say is that the blurb was so good. I read that first and my initial reaction was that it was 1,000 times better than the draft MH shared a while ago. Well done. And glad the marriage is intact. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to hear someone say that. The funny thing is, neither of us is 100% satisfied with it still, but it really was the best we could do.
DeleteI didn't get to read a draft so I have nothing to compare it to. I did buy it yesterday too (I'm a Prime member and I could have borrowed it for free, but I wanted to own it.) I started reading it this morning waiting for my dental appointment, but they were ready for me early. I'll get back to it soon.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read the blurb, but I guess I'll need to.
Congratulations to the Van Keuren family! When I'm done I'll write a review.
PS, I might want some hard copies (signed?) for gifts around Christmas.
I'll let M.H. know to set some copies aside for you. I think he's going to order a boatload. Very much looking forward to your review!
DeleteI know that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I can't help but judge this one as being amazing! The blurb and the art and the intrigue of this being part of a larger "Vanilla Cycle" all make me think that this is a slam-dunk winner. It already *looks* like a classic. I'll have to order the hardcover!
ReplyDeleteM.H. having written it is simply a given that it's gonna be good. But the bells and whistles make it a very nicely frosted cake indeed.
Kudos and congratulations!
Yay, thanks! There won't be a hardcover per se, but the actual book on actual paper with the awesome soft cover should be available via Amazon next week sometime. Or an autographed one via us a few days after that.
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