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May the first be what the fuck, where has the time gone

Posted on by Marko Kloos

Looks like I blew right through April without a blog post. Whoops. (How are we almost halfway through the year already?)

We’ve had a death in the family, so the regular routine was thoroughly derailed for obvious reasons. It wasn’t a surprise–the family member was 81 and in failing health–but these things are never easy no matter how prepared you think you are.

We just got back from a week-long trip south to attend the celebration of life, and now I am back in the office and working on finishing ECLIPSE, Palladium Wars #5. I had aimed to have it done by the end of April, but life happens, and sometimes schedules get upended. But I’ve heeded the wise words of Stephen King, who said (in ON WRITING, his excellent treatise on the craft), that life isn’t a support system for art–it’s the other way around. If I need to step away from the keyboard for a bit to address important real-life events, that’s just the way it goes.

I’ll need a few weeks to edit ECLIPSE and get it ship-shape before I release it on KDP (to what I hope will be an enthusiastic reception and EXTREME sales numbers so my publisher can have proper regrets for dropping the series after Book #4), so expect that one in late June if all goes well.

Next up after that will be a new stand-alone for 47North with the working title of COHORT. I’ll let you know more about that one as soon as I can. As this is a 47North book, it will have a 2027 release date. In the meantime, please to be looking forward to the December release of CYGNUS, the third and final book in the Frontlines: Evolution series, and the best one of the whole lot as far as I’m concerned.

(That doesn’t mean I am done with Frontlines or its spin-off. Stand by for news on that subject soon-ish.)

What, March already?

Posted on by Marko Kloos

It appears that I have managed to leave this spot without updates for over four months, which is a long time even for a sporadic blogger like me. I’ve been busy with various writing projects, life outside of writing has required frequent tending, and most of my brain bandwidth has gone to addressing those requirements. 

That said, I think I need to curtail my already limited social media presence even further and return my focus to updating just one spot instead of spreading my public presence across four or five different ones. To that end (and because I have bills to pay like everyone else), I am considering moving my updates to Patreon. I’d still keep the general blog updates free, of course, but I’d be posting more regularly, and I’d have an outlet to release short fiction as subscriber exclusives before I put them on the Kindle for general consumption. There could even be a tier where folks can get signed books every now and then with their subscriptions, which would be a good way for me to distribute the author copies I’m drowning in every time a new book comes out.

(Long-time readers will know that I usually do the free book giveaways, but those have started to become unsustainable for various reasons—shipping is getting more expensive, shipments keep getting returned to me unclaimed, and international readers have on occasion refused to pay customs duties and left me sitting on a $20 personalized book I can’t reuse and $25 international shipping costs I’ve spent out of my own pocket.)

Anyway—what’s the general consensus on an All Things Marko Kloos Patreon with a free updates tier and some nice perks for paid subscriptions? And what kind of content would you want to see other than the exclusive short fiction first reads I already mentioned? Looking forward to your comments below.

As far as work goes, I am back on Palladium Wars #5, and that one will be finished this month come hell or high water, to be available at some point in April once it’s been edited, formatted, and hammered into shape for Kindle and paperback formats. I’m having to do an indie release because 47North didn’t want to continue the series and let me finish it, and nobody else is going to commit to the fifth book in a series if they don’t already have the other four in their stable. But as I am not willing to keep the readers hanging and leave a five-year-plus project unfinished, the fifth book will be finished and released before I get started on the next thing.

Quote of the Day

Posted on by Marko Kloos

“Es gibt drei Dinge, die sich nicht vereinen lassen: Intelligenz, Anständigkeit und Nationalsozialismus. Man kann intelligent und Nazi sein. Dann ist man nicht anständig. Man kann anständig und Nazi sein. Dann ist man nicht intelligent. Und man kann anständig und intelligent sein. Dann ist man kein Nazi.”

“There are three things that can’t be combined: intelligence, decency, and Nazism. One can be intelligent and a Nazi. Then one isn’t decent. One can be decent and a Nazi. Then one isn’t intelligent. And one can be decent and intelligent. Then one isn’t a Nazi.”

–Gerhard Bronner, Austrian composer

Corrected paperback for ECHOES OF SILENCE

Posted on by Marko Kloos

I got my proofs for the reformatted paperbacks in today, and I’m happy to report that the new version is properly formatted, with larger type and correct chapter headings. Alas, the new format uses more paper than the old one, so the price went up by a dollar because I have to set a minimum price on the Amazon publishing tool that covers the printing costs.

My apologies to everyone who bought the older version and ended up with print that’s too small to read comfortably. I should have caught this earlier but I was too busy finishing the draft for CYGNUS, and when I am in deadline mode, I just don’t have any brain bandwidth to spare.

Bug fixes for ECHOES OF SILENCE

Posted on by Marko Kloos

I spent some time today uploading corrected Kindle and paperback files for ECHOES OF SILENCE. A frequent criticism of the paperback was the size of the print, which left too much white space on the page. On the Kindle version, there was no table of contents. Both of these issues are hopefully fixed now–owners of the Kindle edition should get the new version uploaded automatically. I’ll have them send me a proof print for the paperback version to make sure it looks correct now.

 

 

Scammers, scammers everywhere

Posted on by Marko Kloos

Since it has come up in comments:

I’ve recently been made aware that there are people out there pretending to be me and DM-ing or emailing readers with “hey, let’s talk” messages.

I don’t message or email people out of the blue, ever. If you get an unsolicited message from me you didn’t expect, it’s 100% a scam. Someone is trying to sell you VIP fan access, or editing or review services, or something else that’s shady and fraudulent.

I’ve also been told that people are trying to sell their editing services by using me as a reference, complete with fake endorsement email. I do not endorse any product or service for anyone. I will sometimes blurb a novel, but I am highly selective about that, and those blurbs are always a.) solicited by the author’s agent or publisher, and b.) done for free as a favor.

I have no time at all for running a developmental editing service on the side, I do not offer blurbs unasked, I don’t charge anyone for reviews or pay for them, and I do not have a fan club, whether with or without a VIP tier. My only public-facing web presence is this blog and my Instagram and Bluesky accounts. My only public email is marko.kloos@gmail.com. If you get an email from any other address or any direct message on social media purporting to be from me, it’s a scam.

CYGNUS draft is in the bag

Posted on by Marko Kloos

I haven’t updated this space in a while because I’ve been crazy busy and had nothing much of general interest to report. However, some of you may be happy to hear that I just finished the draft for CYGNUS, the third book in the Frontlines: Evolution series, and sent it to my editor this morning.

This will be the final book of the series with Alex as the point-of-view character. My publisher wanted me to cap the series as a trilogy, and I think I managed to accomplish what I had planned to do, which is to give Alex a great character arc and bring her story to a full circle. People really seem to like Corvus, and I think this one may be even better. But time will tell.

Now I’ll be in recovery mode for a little bit, and then it’s off to the races to finish Palladium Wars #5, ECLIPSE, before year’s end so you can all get your hands on it soon.

 

CORVUS is out today!

Posted on by Marko Kloos

 

Today is the release day for CORVUS, the second book in the Frontlines: Evolution series!

When colonial refugee-turned-soldier Alex Archer is stranded on a hostile planet with her unit, she has to draw on her experiences growing up on an occupied world to keep her little band of survivors alive.

CORVUS is available here in Kindle, paperback, and Audible formats.

Buy, read, enjoy, leave a review if you enjoyed, tell your friends, tell them to tell their friends. Heck, just approach people on the street and hold out the paperback. Say “Is good book. You read. You read now.”

Busy, busy, busy

Posted on by Marko Kloos

The draft for CYGNUS, third book in the Frontlines: Evolution series is due to my publisher this month, so I’ll be busy with that one until I turn it in. When I am in deadline mode, I don’t have much bandwidth for anything else, so if you have sent me an email in the last few weeks (or plan to do so in the next few weeks), remember that I am bad at quick replies on the best of days, so bear with me until this manuscript is on the way to my editor.

After that, I’ll be finishing ECLIPSE, the fifth and final book (for now) in the Palladium Wars series. Since 47North declined to continue the series, I’ll be publishing ECLIPSE myself through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For those of you waiting for the book (and I hope that’s a lot of folks), that means it will be available not too long after I’ve finished the draft and edited it with my partner in crime. I aimed to have it ready later this summer, but the way the calendar is progressing, it will be out in the fall instead. I’ll be sure to make it worth the wait–it’s shaping up to be a very good novel.

Now the world just needs to stop falling apart for a little while. I thought my cortisol levels were high in 2020 and 2021, but all of this 2025 business is making the pandemic stress feel trivial by comparison. When I write, I need to tune out the world so I can get into my zone, but this world keeps refusing to let itself get tuned out…

 

Echoes of Silence on Transfer Orbit

Posted on by Marko Kloos

Over at Transfer Orbit, Andrew Liptak is saying some nice things about Frontlines in general and ECHOES OF SILENCE, which is in his list of 14 books to check out in July.

I buy more books from Andrew’s excellent curated lists than any other source of reviews or recommendations. If you are looking for a good source of SF/F genre news and book reviews, Transfer Orbit is well worth a subscription.

The not-so-little novella is chugging right along in the Kindle store as more Frontlines fans are discovering its existence. Of course, I already got a one-star review from someone who didn’t know what was going on because they failed to read the author’s note in the product description. I mean, I just put it in there in prominent bold font instead of making it a singing, dancing, unkillable pop-up warning, so that’s probably on me.