First things first. Stay calm.

By official proclamation I have declared this week Raw Shark Week as we count down to Thursday’s big event: Baby Got Books Reading Series, Vol. 3, featuring Steven Hall author of The Raw Shark Texts with musical guests Blue Screen Love Scene. I can not describe how excited I am about this reading, and I hope that you’ll come down and join us if you’re in the area. Hell, you should travel down here if you’re not in the area. It’s going to be excellent.

To kick off the week, I thought that it would be fitting to share some of the back story between Steven Hall and BGB. It all began with this post in which I wrote:

…Steven Hall, the author of The Raw Shark Texts is guest blogging at Powells this week. The book has been getting good reviews, and the author is being compared to Mark Z. Danielewski (MZD is one of the Hall’s friends on his MySpace page). “Moby Dick meets the Matrix” is what they’re saying. Which is all very nice, however, the author begins his first guest post with this:

“Ahhh blogging, that fantastic digital mash-up of random thoughts, half-baked product placement, free stuff and alcohol-induced slander.”

I’m four beers into my evening, so I should point out that I have it on good authority The Raw Shark Texts was written with the blood of kittens that the author strangled in his back yard - with his bare hands - in his underpants - on the dope. Free books. I once had to change a flat in the rain.

Zing. I was young. Naive, even. Never did I think that the author would read my post, much less comment upon it. But he did. The very next day on the Powells blog, Steven Hall replied:

— I was talking about how I approach my own blog writing (or, more accurately, how my own blogs always seem to turn out!), I was speaking about myself, not passing judgement on anyone else! …
So sorry for any confusion, and a special sorry to the nice folks at babygotbooks.com who despite taking those comments to heart a little bit, still gave my book a very decent plug. Thanks guys, I have a kitten blood special edition here on my desk waiting for you if you want it. Give me a shout :)

Oops. If you’re going to take umbrage, you should have your facts straight. I took the author up on his offer, and a few weeks later a package arrived from England with a “kitten blood special edition”, which was the UK edition with this title page:

The author had also arranged for the US publisher to send me a copy. Somewhere in there, the Canadian publisher also sent me a copy that was famously almost stolen from my front porch. My bookshelf looked like this:

Raw Shark Texts UK cover Raw Shark Texts - Canadian Cover

That’s awesome time three. It worked out great. I read the Canadian edition, and Mrs. Got Books read the US edition at the same time. We were able to talk about the book while we both reading it. Definitely buy two copies if you haven’t read it yet and hand one off to a friend.

In addition to all of that coolness, the book is simply amazing. After reading the book, I contacted the author, and he agreed to be the very first author interviewed here.  When this book tour was announced, Steven Hall actively lobbied his publisher to come to Atlanta to read for us.  We were not on the original tour schedule.  Here’s the relevant text from the author’s MySpace page:

The exact dates and locations aren’t set yet (I’ll post them up here as soon as I have them) but it’ll looking like it’ll be the second or third week in April with possible events in - Long Beach, CA., San Diego, CA, Sacramento CA, Boston and Portland, Maine. And Atlanta hopefully (I’m really pushing for this one BGB folks, I really am!).

The book has won the 2007 Borders Original Voices Award, and it is short listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Be sure to join us tomorrow for Day 2 of Raw Shark Week.