Hiya,
First off: thank you.
I had a big print-book giveaway on Goodreads last week and had a bunch of people sign up for a copy of Auberon. At the same time, pre-orders for Queen of the Pirates have gone kinda through the roof right now, and the book won’t drop until Tuesday morning (I think Seattle time, but I’m not sure. It will be in your hands electronically by the time you get out of bed, anyway.)
Planning to do a Goodreads giveaway for Queen the week after I get back from World Con, so in about eight days. Like the others, it will be set up for readers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Because things have gone so well this week, both from a business standpoint as well as a creative one, figured I’d give everybody a sneak peek on what’s coming.
Y’all are familiar with Auberon by now (I hope.) Queen of the Pirates picks up after Jessica gets home, as she is getting ready for her next mission. This mission takes her even further into the back of beyond, and the First Lord and the Premier want her to learn diplomacy so she can be more than just a Fighting commander, going forward.
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So after all that craziness, I ended Queen on a cliffhanger note and set up Gotterdammerung with Emmerich Wachturm, the so-called Red Admiral. The third book in the first trilogy is Last of the Immortals. For those of you that have read The Science Officer, (that’s all of you, right?), the actual being who is the Last of the Immortals is Suvi, making her appearance in Immortals some twelve hundred years after the events covered in The Librarian.
As of this morning, I’m just shy of 60,000 words on Immortals. I had planned it to be 60k, but I’m still deep in the middle of three different simultaneous final battles. Feels like it might be 70-75k at this point, once I round off everything and tack in several epilogues. So I need to put my head down and write more.
I think y’all’ll be pleased with the results. Queen was a fun novel for me to write, extending everything that we had in Auberon and taking Jessica places I never expected. But that’s the fun of writing into semi-darkness. (I call it darkened hallways. You know where it heads, roughly, but you don’t see the details until you’re on top of them.) Immortals brings it all to a place of rest, where we can recover and figure out where we go next.
There is a second Jessica Keller trilogy planned. Dunno when, because I have other things I want to write, and I still can’t afford to quit the day-job yet (planning. trust me, planning for that day). As an extra teaser, book four is entitled Goddess of War. That will make much more sense once you complete Queen of the Pirates, by the way. (There is also a third trilogy planned, but I won’t get to it for a couple of years, most likely, as I need to write a half dozen other novels before I can get to what will be Jessica’s Book Seven. I also have that title, but I’m not sharing it yet. More suspense that way.)
Schedule reminder, for those of you keeping score at home.
World Con, Aug 21-23 in Spokane, WA
Ory Con 37, Nov 20-22 in Portland, OR
I have also been invited to the big book signing event Powell’s books does, the Sunday night after Ory Con. I will have copies of Auberon, Imposters, and Queen of the Pirates with me in paper form. More importantly, Last of the Immortals will be out that Tuesday prior, and you can get your copy and get it signed if you happen to be northwest enough to make the trip. I’ll include links when we get close. This is more to drum up business for Ory Con, which is a lovely, writer-centric con (as opposed to a gaming con or media con) that deserves lots of traffic.
As always, please let me know if you have questions or ideas. If any of you know makers, I would love to work with someone to get Science Officer mugs made (see The Mind Field for more details.) The University of Ballard will also need t-shirts and maybe mugs at some point, based on how Last of the Immortals is shaping up. If anybody wants to cosplay, lemme know and I can give you better details about Jessica’s uniform. Haven’t committed it to print yet, because it wasn’t necessary, but you never know. Seeing someone in a Republic of Aquitaine Command Centurion uniform at a con would totally rock. 🙂
That’s about all the silliness I have this week.
shade and sweet water,
bd