haven’t posted anything in a while so a quick update:
Taroniah at School is over 120k words and getting close to the end.
Arturo 7: Foreign Travels is still on target but it might be the 2nd week in January as I am re-writing part of it.
Kyron the Bowman will follow Taroniah – same fantasy world but at the opposite end of it
Arturo 8 still lacks a main plot but I have started writing some of the side stories

New Federation 1 is now over 30k
I have received permission to write a story set in Pam Uphoff’s Wine of the Gods multiverse – aiming to publish it next year sometime. if you haven’t read any of that series I can very much recommend it. Don’t be put off by the book numbers – many are short – start at 1 and go for it.
No word from Baen
Looking forward to taking a week off on the 27th…. 🙂

I have started writing Princess 4 – 10k or so but only in a “put ideas down while they are fresh in my head” mode.
For those of you who are interested in when book 4 will come out – I have no idea – my original plot idea has problems that I am waiting for my muse to fix. Plus I need to finish Arturo 8 before I can put out Princess 4
Arturo 8 – still waiting on a major plot to materialize. Got stuff I can write about side characters but the main plot is still missing.
Taroniah at School – over 90k now and still going – should be one of the longest when I finally get it done.
Kyron the Bowman – I actually have a fair part of this written (30+k) due to scenes popping into my head.
The Wizard – haven’t heard back from Baen yet… don’t really expect to hear from them till sometime towards the middle of next year- maybe not even then.

Arturo 7 – Foreign Travels is still on track for a January release but as I will be on holidays from Dec 27 to Jan 5 it might not come out till the 6th or so.
No one has hazarded a guess at the movies the last two Princess books were derived from which is either really good in that I could pinch their story idea without it being obvious or really bad because my writing is so ordinary no one can tell which classic movies the two stories were derived from….
Interesting though.

Right. The Princess & The Corsair and The Princess & The Rebels are both very loosely based on classic movies. Perhaps derived is a better term. Can any of you faithful readers pick which movies?

in other news, Arturo 7 – Foreign Travels is on track for a January release.

for March I will releasing the full Taroniah book – Taroniah at School – she is the heroine in the short story in Fantastic Schools vol III – the short story was extracted form the book which I am working on while Foreign Travels gets edited.

Taroniah’s first book will probably be followed by the first book about her contemporary, Kyron and beyond that I am not sure. I have no story for Arturo 8 although I have an epilogue….go figure

Princess Gizel’s latest frolic is now live!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQQ4F2P/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=The+Princess+%26+The+Rebels&qid=1635714978&qsid=142-5678435-4516768&s=digital-text&sr=1-2&sres=B015YVOSPW%2CB09KQQ4F2P%2CB08SJ7C7XK%2CB002EBDP96%2CB07MLF7PMD%2CB08966QS4T%2CB00KVPHTLC%2CB091SM49TZ%2CB07CWBQRBJ%2CB07FZ4HNYH%2CB00C9MIKQS%2CB00M9B9022%2CB088K28QY1%2CB086SGVG82%2CB09CQB2RMR%2CB08KYLR8F8

One of pet hates are producers and script writes who think they know better than multi award winning writers whose books fall in the ALL TIME CLASSIC category.
WTF is wrong with these arrogant f##kwits?
I can understand changes sometimes have to be made – dropping Tom Bombadil from LOTR for instance and other ways that story was cut shorter. I can understand the changes that are made to fit the story into a specific time frame that require things to be a little different to the novel yet still maintain the “feel” of the original – Hunt for the Red October falls into this category I think.
But too many directors, producers and script writers are too arrogant and opinionated. Sometimes the result is so unlike the original you wouldn’t even know the movie was based on a book – looking at you Starship Troopers

Foundation – FFS what is wrong with people. Yes the books need some … elaboration… minor tweaks and so to make good TV but why bring in all the crap they have? Change the lead from male to female… Why? I’m not the least bit sexist as you can probably tell from the Arturo books but the change makes no sense…..
Then there’s the crap with the emperor and I could go on….

I am not saying the result is not watchable but sheesh Why can’t they just LEAVE THINGS ALONE!

All I can say is that the next time I’m updating my will I am going to put in a clause to prevent media people from ruining my works with the arrogance and idiotic visions they seem prone to.

I finally got the The Princess & The Corsair formatted for paperback format and published. Sorry for the delay folks, a combination of being busy in real life and laziness… 🙂

I just read a long article about why Dune appears to be going to do well at the box office and Blade Runner re-make didn’t do well. The whole thing was about the better advertising, PG instead of R rating (hasn’t anyone learned the Deadpool lesson yet?) – the Dune film’s “stellar ensemble cast”. WTF – I would have said Blade Runner 2049 had a pretty stellar cast too, leading off with Harrison Ford….
Of course, probably the most important factor was not even mentioned by the movie “guru”. Blade Runner is a classic whereas that can’t be said about either the 1984 version Dune or the later mini-series – which was better but ….
This is an important aspect of the poor performance of many remakes – Conan, Total Recall, etc
Total Recall also highlights another reason why re-makes flop – like Robocop as well, for instance.

They weren’t great stories, really, but the lead actor or the left field quirkiness or the originality of the idea just happened to grab something at the time so that even though the tech they were made with was dated – re-making them with you-beaut 21st century tech misses what made them popular in the first place. Blade Runner falls into this category as well…

leaving Doctor Who out, about the only series where I would have to say the new version is better than the old would be Battlestar Galactica.. but that is as much about not having Lorne Green in a major role as technical advances….
They’re going to re-do Babylon 5 apparently – it will be interesting see if it works….
The Star Trek movies suffered from this problem as well. The new Khan movie might be technically better but the old Khan movie had Shatner and Ricardo Montalbarn…
I could go on and on but I won’t – do you agree with my analysis? Thoughts?

The Princess & The Rebels is being edited and is on target to be released in November.

Arturo 7: Foreign Travels is over 80k and going well.
At this stage I think there will be a book 8 at some point next year but as happened with book 7 – I have a couple of small sub-story ideas floating around but no main story as yet so don’t get excited.
Foreign Travels is on target to be published in January

Taroniah goes to school – the book the short story in Fantastic Schools Vol 3 was pulled from is growing slowly as I keep adding to it now and then. It is up to over 30k words already.

I am tossing up between Taroniah and Princess book 4 as to which is then next book published after Foreign Travels.

On Brython, Princess Gizel and her almost fiancé, Karvon Alistair are being bored to tears by the political tedium that their impending engagement has inflicted upon them. That is until Ilsa, a school friend of Gizel’s, turns up with tales of horror from Ilsa’s home system of Rathage. A formerly strong Kimerian ally, the government has fallen to a revolution, and the new masters are wielding a harsh whip. Isla’s boyfriend is conducting a one-ship war against the oppressors of the new Commonality government, and Ilsa hopes to persuade her friend, the Imperial Princess, to come out publicly and support Kimerian intervention. Or, at the least, urge her father, the Emperor, to provide material support for the rebels.
Gizel and Karvon think this sounds like a job for the Kormorant, Karvon’s rather unusual cargo ship. They happily leave the politics on Brython behind and intend on paying a personal scouting visit to the good old Rathage system and its new Commonality masters.

Things are not going to go well for somebody…

Princess 2: The Princess & The Corsair is still on target to be released at the beginning of September.

I have finished the first draft of Princess 3: The Princess & The Rebels – just need to clean up a few bits and pieces then it will be off to the editor – aiming for a November release

Arturo 7 – yes! Arturo 7! I have started to write – don’t get excited as I have only just started – it is scheduled for a January release. At this stage I think there will need to be an eighth book as I don’t think I can cram everything into book 7 – I finally got a story idea and I don’t think it will leave a lot of room for gradual scientific updates etc. But then it might – as I said I have only just started and – just so you know – if I do need an eighth book – I have no idea what a story line for that would be.

I have send my contemporary Magic/Sci-Fi/Adventure/Romance/Alternate history book: A Sorcerer Arrives, off to Baen to see if they are interested as I have so many other things queued up – Princess 4 for March 2022 – Possible Arturo 8 would be May 2022 – Taroniah 1 (From Schooled In Magic 3) following that or maybe instead of Princess 4 – which then moves to July 2022 – Kyron the Bowman (contemporary to Taroniah on the far side of her planet) should follow Taroniah 1: Taroniah Learns ….
Baen quote 12-15 months to just look at submitted manuscripts!!!! But as you can see it would late next year before I would get to that book anyway.

What else? Raising Steam audio is still happening …. slowly

I have had a few family dramas the ;last 15 months – Mum died in March last year – then my sister in December and my father 2 weeks ago… it hasn’t been easy.
Trying to put an optimistic spin on things I can only say that my dad makes three so we should be good for some time now.