Day: May 6, 2010

The Final Calling: Progress Report Zero update

Regarding the various projects described a couple of weeks back in Progress Report Zero, here’s how they stand:

  • One-Eyed Jack is complete and has been delivered to my agent.
  • Realms of Light is complete and has been delivered to FoxAcre Press.
  • Vika’s Avenger has been shelved for the moment. No one seemed all that enthusiastic about it.
  • After some preliminary discussion, the gaming company has been quiet for a couple of weeks, so I’m not sure where we stand with that. Unless negotiations pick up again, I won’t let this get in the way of The Final Calling.
  • I’m about 20-25% of the way through the first draft of Tom Derringer and the Aluminum Airship, and intend to write the rest.
  • “The Warlock’s Refuge,” which will be Chapter One of The Final Calling, has been posted to the web. Unless something else comes up, I intend to start writing the novel as soon as I finish Tom Derringer and the Aluminum Airship, and I’ll start the serial once I have at least four, maybe five chapters written.

So there you go. The Final Calling is second in the queue at present.

Realms of Light: Progress Report Twenty-Nine

I’ve just sent the final (I think) version of Realms of Light to FoxAcre Press. I’m hoping it’ll see print, both on paper and as a Kindle edition, some time this summer.

I’m still $23 short of posting Chapter Fourteen of the first draft. There are twenty chapters in all.

At this point you may be thinking you’ll just wait and buy the finished book, which is perfectly reasonable — it’ll almost certainly cost less than $25. However, anyone in the U.S. who donates $25 or more to the serial will receive a copy of the finished book, and, if they want one, a copy of Nightside City — I have about a dozen copies of the Del Rey edition that will be sent out on a first-come, first-served basis to those donors who request them, and others will get the FoxAcre reprint, which includes an “Afterword” the Del Rey paperback lacks.

Also, donors will receive a copy of a chapbook, tentatively entitled Setting the Stage: The Eta Cassiopeia System, by Lawrence Watt-Evans & Sheridan Simon, describing the two stars and four rocky planets of the star system where the two novels are set. (The system might also have a few gas giants; we never bothered about them, as they don’t appear in the stories.) Some of this will be drawn from Dr. Simon’s original letters describing the planets I’d commissioned him to create; the rest I’ll write. It will include a lot of background information that never found its way into the novels, and will also explain references in the text that may have been somewhat mysterious.

This chapbook will only be available to donors and to Dr. Simon’s heirs; it will not be offered for sale, and if and when the serial is complete, that’s it, there won’t be any more copies printed or distributed.

Thanks for your support.