Category: frontlines.

family. frontlines. frontlines: evolution the palladium wars.

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

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.)

bullets & links. frontlines. shameless self-promotion.

Echoes of Silence on Transfer Orbit

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.

books. frontlines. shameless self-promotion.

Echoes of Silence is out today

Listen up, Frontlines fans: Echoes of Silence, a Frontlines novella, is now available in Kindle and paperback formats.

(Edited to add: the paperback version is currently under review but should show up as available for purchase on the product page at some point today.)

When special operations Major Andrew Grayson and NACS Washington disappear without a trace during a clandestine mission to the Capella system, his wife, Lieutenant Colonel Halley, is left reeling. With Andrew’s whereabouts unknown, she settles in for a long and agonizing wait as their lives together are put on hold.

This is Halley’s personal journal, started shortly after Andrew’s disappearance. It chronicles the highs and lows of her life without him as the silence of his absence stretches out over months and then years. The journal that begins as a reluctantly obeyed order from her military therapist becomes Halley’s sounding board for her joys and fears, a record of all the big and small events that shape her life as she waits for Andrew to come home.

Author’s Note: Echoes of Silence is told in epistolary format. This is a collection of Halley’s diary entries that cover the timespan of the Frontlines novels Orders of Battle and Centers of Gravity. To understand the references in this novella and to avoid spoilers, it’s recommended to have read Orders of Battle (Frontlines #7) and Centers of Gravity (Frontlines #8) first.

This one was in the works for quite a while, and it ended up one humdinger of a novella at almost 40,000 words. Halley’s thoughts and musings during Andrew’s long absence include a fair bit of new information about the Lankies that expands on some of Andrew and Elin Vandenberg’s discoveries in Orders of Battle and Centers of Gravity. In the reading order, that makes Echoes of Silence Frontlines 8.5.

If that sounds like your cup of favorite hot breakfast beverage, you can pick up your very own copy right now, for less than the price of half an hour of city parking!

frontlines.

Echoes of Silence progress

If you’ve paid attention to the progress bars on the right, you may have noticed that the projected goal for Echoes of Silence, the Halley novella, keeps getting revised as I update the word count. That’s because it’s turning out a lot longer and more detailed than I had anticipated. (I know, your hearts are BROKEN at the thought.)

We should have it in the bag some time this month, though, unless it decides to get a mind of its own and grow into novel status.

This is a new thing for me in both format and execution–it’s a novella in epistolary format, told from Halley’s perspective during Andrew’s long absence in ORDERS OF BATTLE and CENTERS OF GRAVITY, and I have a co-author this time around. I hope you’ll give it a spin once it’s finished because it fills in a lot of the events that happened off-camera while Andrew and the crew of NACS Washington were gallivanting about the dark system around the rogue planet somewhere in the Corvus constellation.

frontlines. writing.

Super-not-so-secret project in the works

I’m waiting for the first round of edits to come back for DESCENT, so I’ve decided to start a new project that should take just a few weeks to finish. See if you can spot a hint:

 

I’ve reset the progress bar for the new project, so you can follow my progress if you want. I hope to get it done before I get my edits back in the second week of November, and I’ll put it out there as soon as it’s finished and cleaned up, probably in the second half of November.

books. frontlines. shameless self-promotion.

SCORPIO release date and cover reveal

 

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I updated the “The Next Book” countdown widget in the sidebar a little while ago.

Today I can announce that SCORPIO, the first novel in a new series called Frontlines: Evolution, has an official release date: November 14, 2023.

You can pre-order the Kindle version here. I don’t know when they’ll add the paperback and audio versions to the pre-order page, but the release date ought to be the same for those once they appear as pre-order options on the product page.

Frontlines: Evolution will take the series to new places and introduce new characters…but that doesn’t mean you won’t meet some of the ones you already know along the way.

 

books. frontlines. writing.

Terms of Enlistment is 10

 

Put on your party hats, because we have a birthday to celebrate. TERMS OF ENLISTMENT is ten years old this month. I brought it out in March 2013, and 47North bought it (and the second Frontlines novel, LINES OF DEPARTURE) in May of that year. Thanks to everyone who has ever bought this book and its sequels, but special thanks go out to those of you who took a chance on a self-published work from an unknown name when I put this novel out on Kindle Direct with the hopes of maybe selling a few hundred copies. It sold rather a lot more than that, which is why I had an agent and a publishing contract less than two months later.

Whenever I read through it these days, I can very much tell that it’s a first novel, but I am also positively surprised by how well it has managed to hold up, so I must have gotten that one mostly right. It certainly changed everything for me–I became a full-time writer that year, and the royalties for my books have been paying the bills since then.

Ten years…. don’t they go by in the blink of an eye. Now let’s see what the next ten years will bring.

 

 

books. frontlines. writing.

My two favorite words to write

This is the part of the novel that the reader hates to read and the writer loves to write. Whenever I type those two words, it’s like a permission slip for my brain to let go of something that has occupied it every day for the better part of a year.

I just turned in the completed draft for SCORPIO, the first novel in a new Frontlines spin-off series. I don’t have an exact release date yet, but it will most likely be toward the end of this year.

Now I’m going to engage in my usual post-draft brain rinse where I work through a backlog of shows and play games for a week or two, and then I’ll reset the office for the new project and get back to work. Next on the docket is Palladium Wars #4, which will be called DESCENT.

2022 wasn’t a great year for me as far as output goes. Starting a new series always takes more time and energy than continuing in an existing world with established characters, and I underestimated how long it would take my brain to turn the idea I had into a cohesive whole. But I think I managed it, and you’ll be able to judge for yourselves when the book comes out later this year.

books. frontlines. shameless self-promotion.

Centers of Gravity is out today

Today’s the day: CENTERS OF GRAVITY, book 8 in the Frontlines series, is out and available for purchase today.

If you pre-ordered the book, you should find it in your mailbox, Audible library, or on your Kindle (or maybe all three, in which case GO YOU.)

This is (for now) the final of the Andrew Grayson books. Note that I am not saying it’s the final Frontlines book. There are more stories to be told in that universe, and you will find out more about that very soon. It’s almost certainly not the last time you get to come across Andrew and Halley.

Thank you for sticking with me and Andrew through nine years and eight books, and I hope you’ll stick around for what comes next. I promise to make it worth your while.

contests and giveaways. frontlines.

Centers of Gravity giveaway winners

All right, folks! The Centers of Gravity giveaway is now officially closed. With 298 eligible comments by the deadline, you all had roughly a 1-in-30 chance to win one of the signed copies.

I had the random number generator pick the ten winners, going by the order of comments on my WordPress control panel. They are:

 

Christopher Sheehy

Steven L. Cowan

Galen Brinn

Laura Taylor

hoggiesan

Alessandro Lorenzetto

Hannah Harris

Andreas Weinberger

Michelle Hartline

Chris Maka

 

Congratulations to the winners! Stand by for email instructions how to redeem your signed copy. (Hope you left a valid email address with your comment!)

Thank you all for playing, and I hope that you still pick up a Kindle copy even if you didn’t win the signed freebie.