Chapter Ten is posted; I’m actually still a few dollars short, but it’s close enough.
Chapter Thirteen is written, and has been sent to donors who signed up to receive chapters as they’re written.
Chapter Fourteen is only about two paragraphs along, as yet.
In case anyone hasn’t already seen me say this, I have every intention of finishing this novel whether any more money comes in or not, but (a) money will make it go faster, and (b) there may not be a publicly-available edition if I don’t get enough to finish the serial; I may instead do it as a privately-printed limited edition exclusively for the donors. This would royally tick off the publisher at FoxAcre Press, who would really like to publish it, so keep Roger happy — send me money!
In other news, I regret to say that the mass-market paperback of The Vondish Ambassador is not happening any time in the foreseeable future; due to cash-flow problems at the distributor’s end, the Cosmos paperback line has been suspended indefinitely. I believe all the existing titles will stay available, but they aren’t adding new ones.
If that changes, I’ll let you know.
Oh, and if Realms of Light flops as a serial, this will not mean no further serials.
One donor asked me some interesting questions about the mechanics of picking up a story after a twenty-year hiatus, and I think that’s something I do want to write about, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to it, and whether it’ll be here or in one of my other blogs.
I think that’s everything.
I check in with your webpage every few months out of interest in what’s going on with your writing, but I have to confess that I can’t bring myself to care about ‘Realms of Light’. I think it’s a setting issue. Everything is steeped in cliche megacorporations straight out of 80’s cyberpunk, and it all feels so irrelevant to the world as it is today.
I know to some extent you were stuck with the setting you established in the first book in the series (barring some updating of computer tech, I assume), but conceptually it seems so stale. Nightside City and the creeping sunrise itself is pretty cool, but…. ah, I dunno. On the societal side, there’s nothing making me go “gee whiz”, and on the mystery side, I don’t really care who tried to kill the old dude.
Sorry to be so negative. I really like a lot of your writing, but I can’t seem to get into this one.
The world isn’t still dominated by megacorporations? News to me.
But yeah, the setting is a product of the 1980s, I can’t argue with that. If it doesn’t work for you, not much I can do about it.
So, how long until Ethshar serial?
Don’t know. I have two novels in progress, plus I’m doing some critiquing work, and Tor has a proposal in hand that they may or may not go for. When both novels are done and I’m caught up on the critiques and housework, if Tor hasn’t made an offer on the proposal, I’ll start an Ethshar serial.
I don’t know how long that’ll be. One novel’s about half-written, the other only a fourth.
Just curious: are you counting Realms of Light as one of the two in progress? I’m looking forward to more Ethshar, but have been enjoying Realms of Light also.
Yup; that’s the one that’s half-written.