Hi. David Trevor here, subbing for LB, who is packing for his crews. I’m in a rush so this may be poorly written but at least their won’t be any typos as I’m running Spell-Czech.

The point of the title is that the Eight Million Ways to Die graphic novel, John K. Snyder’s adaptation of LB’s classic novel (which some have called the lynch-pin of the Matthew Scudder series), after a long time on pre-order, is now shipping. If you’ve been weighting out the pre-order period because your like me and feel that instant gratification is too slow, well, order it now and get it in a hurry!

LB is crazy about the book and I can see why. The art is terrific and the storyline follows the book’s plot as closely as a mugger follows his victim. (That’s LB’s line, which he says he swiped from Marttin Cruz Smith, talking about the movie based on his novel, Gorky Park. Which I never read but I’m tolled its excellent.)

One other thing before I sign off. The flip side of instant gratification is delayed gratification, and LB was quoting somebody who said (or wrote, probably) that the ability to delay gratification is the truest test of human maturity.

So if your mature enough you’ll want to pre-order the fourth coming Matthew Scudder novella, A Time to Scatter Stones. In fact that may be the only weigh to get it, especially if you want the $45 signed-and-numbered limited addition. It’s selling out in a hurry.

And it’s a new Matthew Scudder story so what are you waiting for? Its set in present time, so Matt’s older than he was in the last novel, A Drop of the Hard Stuff. (Plus he’s a full forty-five years older than he was in the first book, The Sins of the Fathers.)

I think you’ll like it. I think Ill like it myself, because no, I haven’t got around to reading it yet. I’m mature enough to postpone gratification, but only for sew long. My plan is to reed a PDF of the book while LB is off on his crews.

Whew! That’s enough from me. Thank God for Spell-Czech!

David Trevor for