Category: writing.

books. capitalism. family. friends. new hampshah. shameless self-promotion. writing.

obligatory 2014 recap.

I really like it when I type up an end-of-year retrospective blog post and find that I really didn’t have a damn thing to complain about in the past twelve months.

2013 was great. 2014 was even better by every measurable metric except for the fact that I didn’t get to see my family in person again this past year. Other than that, things have continued to go swimmingly here at the Castle Frostbite Magic Daycare & Novel Factory. I had a novel published in January (Lines of Departure), and both Frontlines novels have continued to sell exceedingly well all year. Robin quit her job in the spring to stay at home and be my support staff full-time, and we find that we both really enjoy this arrangement, because MY GOD WHO WOULDN’T. I am keenly aware just how damn lucky I am that my writing can support a family of four when most writers I know have day jobs and often spouses with day jobs. THANK YOU, old and new readers, for buying all these books, because it means I don’t have to do anything else to fill the pantry, and I’ll get to crank out more books more often.

I got to do a writing retreat with friends for a week down in North Carolina, which was a booze-soaked week of fun and a nice tribal gathering of sorts. I went to Boskone in February and Readercon in August, both local cons where I get to hang out with friends and recharge the social capacitors. Then I got to do my first ComicCon in October in NYC, which was a lot of fun and also a little overwhelming, but mostly awesome. I signed books, met new fans, and connected with old and new friends.

(Side note: sipping cocktails on your publisher’s dime while chatting with your writer pals at midnight just a few blocks away from Times Square will definitely serve to make you feel like a REEL WRITUR for a little while.)

Also in October, I got to hold a little talk at the Army Chief of Staff’s Strategic Studies Group down in Washington, D.C., and that was certainly a novel experience. It went very well, the SSG fellows seemed to enjoy my stay, and I found that a.) I’m not bad at talking to a room full of people for a few hours, and b.) I want to do this sort of stuff more often. Like a reading or a signing, it’s a public performance of sorts, and even though I am an introvert, I enjoy having to switch on the performing persona for a limited and predictable amount of time. My convention dance card isn’t full yet for 2015, but I am leaving myself room on the schedule for a BEEG EEMPORTANT RESEARCH TREEP sometime in the second half of 2015. I will, however, be at Readercon in Burlington, MA in July just like every year, and I’ll be an adjunct instructor at the Paradise Lost workshop in San Antonio in April.

So, yeah–2014 was all sorts of sweet, especially on the professional front. I hope 2015 continues the trend. I’ll have another novel out on April 21, and there’s enough stuff in the works right now that it’s possible you may see another novel from me in 2015. Let’s see how it goes.

I hope your 2014 was a good one, and if it wasn’t, may 2015 crank the Awesome to 11 for you. Happy New Year to all of you.

books. capitalism. shameless self-promotion. writing.

invasion! der! sterne!

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There’s a cover for the German-language edition of Terms of Enlistment! And a release date: June 15, 2015, from Heyne. Here’s the link to the German Amazon page.)

They shortened Andrew’s name to “Andy” and took some creative license with the title. (“Invasion of the Stars”, presumably to sound Star Wars-y. The German name for the Star Wars franchise is “Krieg der Sterne”.) The blurb for the book is also a little fuzzy on some of the plot details unless the translator did some major surgery on the story. But hey–German translation, from one of the major names in German publishing. This is sort of a big deal for me.

(In other news, I still really dig Marc Simonetti’s capital ship design on the cover of Terms of Enlistment. It’s not quite the way I had pictured any of the ships in my head, but it’s so cool that I find this design popping up in my head when I write about the NAC warships now.)

art. books. capitalism. friends. writing.

you should totally support this anthology.

I’m a big fan of crowd-funded fiction anthologies. In fact, my second professional fiction sale ever was to a crowd-funded anthology, Alex Shvartsman’s “Unidentified Funny Objects”. (That was the short story “Cake Whores From Mars”, written on a dare from Chuck Wendig, and a crowd favorite at readings.) The UFO sale was a major motivation boost for me at the time, so I’ll always have a warm and fuzzy feeling when it comes to SF/F anthologies.

Allow me therefore to draw your attention to just such a crowd-funded SF/F anthology. This one is called “Athena’s Daughters: Women in Sci-Fi & Fantasy Vol.2”. My good friend and fellow Viable Paradise XII alum Tiffani Angus has a short story in there, and if the anthology has writers of Tiff’s caliber in it, I can assure you that it will be worth the money. Go check it out and see if it’s something you may want to drop some coin on, and support some great up-and-coming writing talent.

Athenas Daughters 2

books. capitalism. shameless self-promotion. writing.

“angles of attack” has an official cover.

Hey, you! Yes, you!

Wanna see the cover for Frontlines #3, “Angles of Attack”? OF COURSE YOU DO.

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I am biased, of course, but I think it’s a pretty bad-ass cover, and probably my favorite Frontlines cover yet.

“Angles of Attack” will be out on April 21st in Kindle, paperback, and audio formats.

books. capitalism. shameless self-promotion. writing.

audiobook review: “terms of enlistment”.

There’s a pretty sweet review of the audio version of Terms of Enlistment over at Audio Book Reviewer. You should go check it out.

The audio version of the third Frontlines book is currently in production, from what I hear. I am really happy with the work of Luke Daniels, who read the first two books for Audible, and I hope they managed to rope him in for the third book as well.

(I’ve also seen some of the preliminary cover images for Angles of Attack, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that they look pretty frickin’ sweet. I think this cover may turn out to be the coolest in the series yet. I’ll share as soon as I am allowed.)

I’m always happy when I turn in a finished book, but it’s also kind of a sucky phase–I’ve done all the work, and now I have to wait for everyone else to do their magic, and things are out of my hands and no longer in my control until the book is released. Luckily, I can keep myself busy by going full speed ahead on the next book.

gadgetry. Uncategorized writing.

it printed in cuneiform.

brother_wp1b

That monstrosity is a Brother WP-1 word processor. I recently found this picture online, and boy, did it trigger some memories.

I got one of those babies in the late 1980s, when I was just out of high school. I kept it throughout my four years of military service, and it got dragged to every duty station where I spent more than a few weeks. And “dragged” is the right word here–it was an all-in-one unit with an amber-and-black CRT, a floppy drive, and a daisy wheel printer, and it weighed probably close to forty pounds. (It did have a convenient carry handle, so it was somewhat portable, but let me tell you that this thing was no MacBook Air. It tested your commitment. You really had to want to write if you chose to take your word processor the weight of a car battery with you.)

I filled up many a 3.5″ disk with my early attempts at Fictional Noveling, let me tell you. And I only got rid of the trusty Brother when I got my first PC, a 486 DX2-50, which had Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Word on it.

Man, I’ve been at this writing thing for a while. I already had dreams of making this writing thing a profession when I was still in high school. And it only took 25 years of pounding away at the keyboard!

books. shameless self-promotion. writing.

“lines of departure”, the goodreads choice awards, and you.

Last year, TERMS OF ENLISTMENT made the SF shortlist in the 2013 Goodreads Choice Awards. This year, LINES OF DEPARTURE has managed the same trick in the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards, which is nice.

If you read the book and liked it enough (if you in fact LIKED IT BETTER THAN THE OTHERS), then by all means please head over to Goodreads and vote for it. But even if you vote for someone else on the shortlist, that’s quite all right, because I am in pretty good company this year.

It’s nice to be recognized, but it’s nicer still when the recognition comes from reader-driven awards. Let’s hope I can keep the streak going with ANGLES OF ATTACK.

books. capitalism. shameless self-promotion. writing.

angles of attack release date.

It appears that Frontlines #3, ANGLES OF ATTACK, has an official release date: April 28. Here is the Amazon product page, where you can pre-order the book if you are so inclined. There’s no cover art yet, but I’m sure 47North will update the product page as soon as there’s an official cover.

In the meantime, I can promise you a new novella in the Frontlines universe before the end of the year. I’m also officially at work on Frontlines novel #4, which doesn’t have a firm title yet. 

It’s a cruel and inconvenient fact that it takes months or years to write what takes days or weeks to read…

photography. travel. writing.

noo yawk city.

I’m in New York City at the moment, attending NY Comic Con, meeting up with friends, and doing a little bit of Big City Stuff. I haven’t been back in the city since maybe 2000, so it’s interesting to see how much has changed around here.

It’s kind of trendy to talk smack about NYC, especially among my conservative and libertarian friends, but I’ll risk being uncool by admitting that I do love this city. It’s the first place I visited when I first came to the United States as a tourist, back in 1990, the days before the Internet or cell phones. I had six weeks of leave saved up and $6,000 worth of AmEx travelers checks in my pocket. For a lot of Europeans, NYC is kind of the epitome of the picture of America they have in their heads. And as far as national business cards go, NYC is a pretty cool one. It’s full of energy and history, cool Art Deco buildings, lots of stuff to do and see, and everything else that comes with being in a place that is one of the world’s cultural and financial hubs. On a global scale, only London, Paris, and Tokyo can lay claim to the same sort of impact and influence. 

Now I’m off to the Javits for some more writerly business, and a slice or two of NY pizza along the way. Because I didn’t come here to sit in a hotel room and dick around on the Internet, even if it is a nice hotel room and a fast Internet connection. In the meantime, have a few snapshots from NYC.

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