The previous few months have been a whirlwind of sorts for me. After taking the slow road in serializing INTERGALACTIC BASTARD, I went through, did some serious edits and collected it into a proper novel, releasing it at the end of March. All of that while I was working on Smashed Hopes, the fifth book in the Trystero series. As most of you with a keen eye can see, Cracked Palace, the sixth book in the Trystero series is up for pre-order with a placeholder date of Dec. 31st, 2022.
My plan is to have it released for some point in the late summer, early fall. That means I need to start it, but I currently have another book I’m finishing up right now, which I want to get through my first draft of before putting it aside again. This one is very different and probably won’t see any sort of release for a very long time. That’ll be my second completed novel that I let sit for a while because they’re very different. Not space opera or space adventure like the rest of my fare, that’s for sure.
Anyway, those releases happened, then the BookBub happened last month and things went into overdrive. Just yesterday was my kids’ last day of kindergarten, which is really something. It’s hard to imagine we’ve now got a pair of first graders on our hands, but here we are. We’re very proud of them, considering this year wasn’t just kindergarten, but kindergarten during COVID and the first year officially back after schools being shut down. There were a lot of complications and stumbling blocks involved. Overall, though, they did great and I’m so very proud of them. They’ve made some great friends, and I softened to letting them play in the park after school, to where I’ll probably miss hanging out for an hour or two after they got out.
Oh well, on to summer stuff now. And, of course, both kids got sick the last few days of school and now I’m here on the first day of their summer break with sick kiddos. That’s how it goes, huh?
There’s a ton of new SF shows out right now from all the established franchises and I’m having a difficult time mustering up much enthusiasm for them. I went back to Star Trek: Discovery after stopping at the end of season two and while I like season three more, I still can’t quite get into it. Then I gave up on The Book of Boba Fett after an episode or two. I won’t be watching Picard because… season one was very bad. So a new Star Trek based on Pike and yet another Star Wars series banking on nostalgia is deeply unappealing to me at the moment. Sorry, Obi Wan.
The other night, in fact, the night Obi Wan came out, I on a whim started watching Mortal Kombat: Conquest on HBO Max. An old, very dated series based on a series of games I’ve never cared about in the least. It has that really fun, cornball feel of a Xena or Hercules from the 90s, along with the cheap-looking sets, lighting, the overacting and the costume design that looks ripped from the era. Yet, it’s totally fun to watch as background noise and features some really great fight sequences.
Maybe I’ll activate an Apple TV trial and finally watch Foundation or something? My reading has been all over the place, sort of. I’ve been enjoying Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills books, Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility was really great and The Hacienda by Isabel Canas started off pretty meh but finished very strong.
Oh! And!
Some of my author friends and I have banded together to form a collective called Bright Future. We’ve released our first anthology, aptly titled Bright Future, which you can pick up here. My addition to this collection is Endigo, which is a story some of you are familiar with. You can pick that up here. I’m also taking part in a number of giveaways that you can check out below.
June Contest!
I hope you’ve been enjoying these as much as I have. Anyway, for this month, I’m gonna head back to my other series, the Andlios books. If you’ve been following me for long enough, you know that originally Terminus Cycle was book one of that series and Cydonia Rising book two. When I wrote Cydonia Rising I wasn’t feeling great about Terminus Cycle (which has since had me do some revisions to), and I wrote it to be a “new” book one. It’s now very much the beginning of the series, while Terminus Cycle serves as some fun backstory to this whole galaxy.
I still have a bunch of copies of Cydonia Rising that are marked as “book two” that I don’t feel comfortable selling. So yes, I’m going to be offloading those onto you, my dearest readers. The same deal as before. Readers within the US can enter for a hard copy to be shipped to them. For my dear international readers, I can offer you free ebook copies instead.
Leave a comment or reply to this to enter, remember there are two separate contests here, one for US residents and one for non-US residents.
I’ll announce the winners on June 14th, so you’ll need to reply to me if you’re chosen to get your book.
Until then! Thanks!
—D