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Month: January 2018

The night the minivan died

Posted on by Marko Kloos

So I accidentally killed a perfectly good Dodge Grand Caravan that was only three and a half years old and had 44,000 miles on the odometer. The details shall remain undisclosed, but there was no injury or body damage involved.

Luckily, the insurance covered the total loss, so I was able to go out and source a new ride. After having owned two minivans in a row, I had come to the conclusion that while the extra space was nice to have, we didn’t really need the hauling capacity because 99% of the time, I drove around by myself in that big, empty 4,500-pound box. So I downsized considerably:

It’s a Jeep Renegade Trailhawk, the off-road trim of the smallest crossover Jeep currently makes. Robin drives one of the new Jeep Cherokees, and we’ve both been very impressed with that car over the last two years, so I figured I’d get myself a Jeep too. This is their subcompact model, which shares a platform with the Fiat 500X (and like the Fiat, it’s made in Italy.) But unlike the 500X, the little Renegade has some serious off-road chops, especially in the Trailhawk trim. Their 4WD system is excellent, and this little thing is better in the snow than any car I’ve owned before, including the Subaru. And it’s an absolute hoot to bomb around town with this. The short wheelbase and high seating position makes it feel like driving a zippy little buggy.

Now to apply for the right vanity plate for this car. TONKA is already taken, alas. Maybe RUBRDUKY?

Analog manuscript

Posted on by Marko Kloos

Found these again while straightening out the office bookshelf:

That’s the handwritten manuscript for LINES OF DEPARTURE. The finished version filled two 192-page large (A4) sized Piccadilly notebooks. And because I am a pen nerd, I remember which pens I used (Pelikan 205 and Lamy 2000, both with EF nibs), and the ink (Noodler’s Bulletproof Black).

The first drafts of TERMS OF ENLISTMENT and LINES OF DEPARTURE were written by hand and then typed into Scrivener. I like doing that because what ends up on the computer is a word-for-word revision that has been edited on the fly. And because I am a pen nerd, I like the tactile feeling of nib on paper. It’s also immensely satisfying to have an original handwritten manuscript on the shelf when you’re done.

These days, I still use longhand for world-building, notes, and shorter fiction, but the novels are going straight into the computer (still via Scrivener) because it saves time and doesn’t hold up the schedule. I’ll go back to longhand-first for the military fantasy novel I am planning to write later this year because it seems appropriate (it’s the Ink and Blood world from my short story in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, only rolled out onto a much larger canvas).

If you want to keep your handwritten stuff around, don’t skimp on the notebook. The Piccadillys I used were Moleskine knock-offs (bought at Borders on the cheap at the time because I was poor), and their binding and cover lamination didn’t hold up well over the years. Then again, those went with me everywhere for over a year, so maybe the Moleskine wouldn’t have fared any better.

 

Continuity errors in POINTS OF IMPACT

Posted on by Marko Kloos

POINTS OF IMPACT is out and doing well. As always, some oopsies made it through the entire editorial process past a dozen sets of eyeballs. And as always, I started getting Tweets and emails about continuity bloopers not 24 hours after the book hit the virtual shelves. Thanks to all to took the time to write and point them out. I shall now address them so they’re all in one spot for easy future reference.

MINOR SPOILERS FOR “POINTS OF IMPACT” FOLLOW:

Continue reading “Continuity errors in POINTS OF IMPACT”

Points of Impact is out TO-DAY.

Posted on by Marko Kloos

It’s January 9th today, which means that POINTS OF IMPACT is now out on Kindle, in paperback, and in Audible audiobook format (read once again by the amazing Luke Daniels). If you pre-ordered the book, it should show up on your Kindle or in your Audible library AT THIS VERY MOMENT AS IF BY MAGIC, or in your physical mailbox whenever your delivery guy comes around.

I hope you enjoy the sixth installment of Andrew Grayson’s story. POINTS OF IMPACT picks up two years after the events of FIELDS OF FIRE, and Andrew is still fighting the long fight, trying to pry the Lankies loose from what’s left of Mars, where troops and equipment get ground down at an alarming rate because neither people nor machines were designed for years of constant combat deployments under harsh conditions. (If that sounds familiar somehow, it’s probably a total coincidence.)

Enjoy your preorder, or pick up a fresh copy, and don’t mind me while I sit in a corner over here today and engage in the traditional ritual of anxiously refreshing the Amazon page every thirty seconds…

Low Chicago

Posted on by Marko Kloos

So I have something pretty wicked to show you today.

Remember how I mentioned that my first Wild Cards novella in the U.S. will be out in June as part of a novel called LOW CHICAGO?

Well, the final cover of LOW CHICAGO is in, and it’s freaking glorious. Not just because it’s cool by itself, which it definitely is…but because the cover character is mine. He’s called Khan, and he’s the protagonist of the novella “Stripes”, which is part of that book. This is the first Wild Cards character I got to create, and he’s probably the most fun to write of all the fictional people who sit around in the fiction casting office in my brain. He’s a joker-ace, which means that his Wild Cards mutation makes him look inhuman but also gives him great powers. What kind of mutation, you ask? Well, let me show you the cover:

That is a pretty beastly cover, I think. (Pun intended.) The artwork was done by Michael Komarck.

LOW CHICAGO will be out on July 16th, and the other stories in the volume were written by John Jos. Miller, Saladin Ahmed, Paul Cornell, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Christopher Rowe, and Melinda M. Snodgrass. It’s part of what we call the American Triad, but it’s a stand-alone volume, so you don’t have to have read the entire series to know what’s going on in this one. 

Six days to Points of Impact, and a Frontlines Kindle sale

Posted on by Marko Kloos

POINTS OF IMPACT was picked by the Amazon Books editors to be a featured “Best Books of the Month” selection for January. It will be released officially on January 9, which is in…uh, six days already. Yikes.

But that’s not all, friends and neighbors. Over at Crazy Jeff’s Electronic Book Emporium (a.k.a. the Kindle store), the other five books of the Frontlines series are on sale for $1.99 each for the entire month of January. That’s five books for ten bucks total, which means that if someone wanted to buy the whole series on Kindle, they’d be out only $14.94 this month.

Tell your friends and family, tell your car mechanic, tell that weird guy on the street corner who yells at passing bikes. THEY’RE GOOD BOOKS, BRENT.