Right. I finished the first draft of Book 6 on the weekend. Only the 1st draft s a long way to go. Editing Book 5: Sailing East continues ….
Not much else to report I’m afraid. The graphic design work I also do is picking up a little at the moment which is interrupting my writing but I’ve doing these people’s work for years so I am not heartless enough to just say “on ya bike.” Besides, the way the sales are dropping off this month I’ll need the money/ 🙂

Editing of Book 5 continues – writing of book 6 continues – not sure about book 7 – lack of plot ideas at present but that might change at any time of course!
nearly finished the cover of Book 5 – nearly
Still aiming for last week of this month release but it might drag over into the fist week of March
6 is tentatively scheduled for the last week of May – but don’t hold your breath 🙂

Peter

It is looking increasingly likely that the series will go to a seventh book.
Unfortunately to get Arturo back into space in a reasonable book length given how long it would take to develop the technology it will mean having do a book that consists of a series of time jumps forward – like say (And this is just an example of what I mean – not written stuff yet)

a chapter 4 years from the end of book 6 where they get their first transistor working

a few chapters a few years later again where something important happens

a few more years and a chapter where they get their first object into orbit

a chapter a few years after that where they get the antigrav machine from Arturo’s shuttle rebuilt and they get their first person into space – with difficulty

a year or two later and we get the first solid state microchip made – computers used for orbit calculations and so on

some time later they get a copy of the fusion engine in the shuttle built. Which had problems…

a couple more years and the get their first steam propelled, antigrav capable, fusion powered space ship into orbit.

and so on – there’s about twenty years just there and I was rushing it. Probably take longer in practice but you see what I mean by a series of short jumps.
eventually Arturo will get his rebuilt and repaired shuttle to the jump point and try and reverse his travel to Earth.

Is a book of what will be essentially time separated short stories and acceptable way to finish the series?
Or at least Arturo’s part in the New Roman Empire?

(I may have a few ideas about stories involving other characters and their adventures for publication at some point in the future)

Thoughts welcome.

this is an unpaid political comment and is completely my own opinion from across the Pacific

The Democrats need to just forget about Impeaching Trump – it is a stupidly bad tactical mistake.
Here are my reasons:

1: A third of the country distrusts the Democrats already and will see any Impeachment – regardless of evidence simply as a case political sour grapes, grandstanding, petty vindictiveness and witch hunting.

2: The third of the population that support neither Democrats nor Republicans will see as probably politically driven sour grapes further eroding any belief the Democrats as being moderates and reasonable people – regardless of the evidence presented.

3: the third of the population who support Trump are just going to get angrier with the Democrats which only further inflame the situation and further deepen the cracks in US society.

4: Impeaching him will turn him from a buffoon into a martyr – regardless of the evidence. I can’t think of anything more likely to help the next Republican President get elected than an Impeachment Witch Hunt.

It would be far better tactically and for the long term benefits of the US for the Democrats to simply clench their fists and keep their mouths shut and let President Trump disappear into ignominy take the wind out of the right’s sails. Simply ignoring him from now on is a much better choice of action. Sure – if there are genuine criminal things that he or any of his administration can be charged with that’s okay but Impeachment is just too political to be of any benefit whatsoever.

Unfortunately I think the Democrat members of Congress will let their ego’s and pride get in the way of what is best for the United States.

Finally! I am sorry it took so long all you “real” book readers out there.

Same $17.95 US price as the previous 2 titles

I have started doing my own edit of book 5 and then will feed that to the proper editor as I go: looking at a late February release – maybe
Book 6 is progressing – I may extend things to a seventh book – I am not sure yet. If I do it will be a bit sporadic with jumps forward in time as Arturo works to build a new spaceship – we’ll see – I don’t really have enough storyline for a whole book yet… but we’ll see
Hopefully this year will better for all of you than last year!
Peter

I have had frequent requests for maps. this is the one I use – it is pretty good for Roman stuff:

https://imperium.ahlfeldt.se

I have deliberately chosen to largely use the Roman names for places – sometimes simplified as I feel that is something Arturo would do, as well as change the endless repetitious names – Caesereas, Castras, Iscas, etc etc etc plus the ludicrous long titles of some places – Arturo would definitely go for simple and individual names.

While Sailing East (Book 5) sits and I cogitate over it, just so you don’t think I’m doing nothing, I’ve thrown 10k words into book 6 – given that it got the lion’s share of what I’d written before splitting book 5 into 5 and 6, it means that it is half way or more written already… maybe… I’m finding the section I planned to add to the beginning to replace what became Sailing East (book 5) is growing in length, indeed it becoming much longer than I originally planned.

Hmmm… we’ll see how it goes in next few weeks.

On another note – Happy Xmas to all of you. I am not a Christian but I don’t subscribe to this Happy Holiday crap. Sorry. Stupid, irrational rubbish. The holidays set for the period around the 25th of December are an inheritance from Christianity. No other faith celebrates then. It is ridiculous to change it to Happy Holidays when the only reason for the holiday is the Christian celebration of this day. The holiday is Christmas… sorry that’s where it comes from and that is what it is. I don’t believe in the Christian Mythos myself but that is irrelevant.

You can imagine what what happy if they tried to change Ramadan to Happy Fasting Month…….

Same thing – moronic. Sorry but it is.

So happy Xmas. 🙂

For those of you who like your Alternate History here is a collection of short stories that includes a story by yours truly… don’t know what the other stories are like yet – going to read it tomorrow but my story is ok – wish I could have had twice the space though. I might come back to it in the future.

You will be pleased to know that I have finished the 1st draft of book 5 – Sailing East. And yes it will be the next book published. The vote was overwhelming for that to be next.

I am not happy with a couple of sections but I am letting it sit for a few weeks before I go back and look at the sections I am not happy with. Hopefully it can go to the editor late January or early February.

I should have the paperback version of Rolling South available early next week.

Okay – I have officially written a best seller!!!

All right – it is a very small market but all the same!

Thank you everybody who bought a copy.

I took a screen shot for posterity but here is the link to the Amazon page as of this moment (5:50 am Aus Eastern Standard Time)

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Alternate-History-Science-Fiction/zgbs/books/16275/ref=zg_bs_pg_1?_encoding=UTF8&pg=1

and my permanent record…