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…

Ok people. I have been aiming for a book out every three months but with dividing book 5 into two and 2/3 of what I’d already written going into Book 6, I am running behind a bit with this series. On the other hand, I do have other things I could publish instead.

So the question for today is: what do you want me to publish next?

Choice 1 – you wait till I have finished writing Book 5, get it edited etc etc etc and finally get it published – On the normal timings that would not be till March perhaps Early April … depending

Choice 2 – Publish the first book of a different series – the one I have nearly ready is about a young fellow doing his PHD on the Mycenaean take over of Minoan Crete . When walking to get his car after leaving a Sci-Fi convention he stumbles over an old guy in strange clothes that he assumes is a geriatric cosplayer who’s been mugged. In the end he takes the fellow home (his parents are away) patches the guy up. The chap speaks something that sounds sort of like Greek.

The old guy starts speaking in broken English but then decides he can’t follow half of what is being said because he doesn’t understand what a lot of English word mean. Like cell phone… what is a phone and why does it need to be in a cell?

So he waves his hand at our brave lad and says he’s cast a spell on our lad so that he can understand languages and shortly after our hero is talking in the Greeky sort of language of the old guy who claims to be a sorcerer from a different Earth. Having recovered from his ordeal he gets our hero to help him get back to his Earth

Being able to understand languages makes his PHD much easier to finish and then later on our hero gains the ability to do magic as well. He gets paranoid about showing off his abilities for fear of Government action both his own and other governments and the possible threats to his family and friends that would ensue.

Of course things don’t go quite as easily as he expects and in the end he uses his abilities to save Los Angeles from nuclear bomb armed terrorists who are streaming the event live so they can harangue America while waiting for their bomb to explode…


Anyway there is a lot more stuff in there but you get the idea.
So what is the popular vote?

Wait for however long it is for Book 5 (Book 6 should not take so long to finish as it is nearly half written) or put out the Sorcerer book in say February and then the Book 5 in May giving me more time to edit it and smooth it out.

So – what is your vote?

Should have the final edit back tomorrow or Thursday so hopefully the final draft will be done and I’ll get the book out over the weekend. Yes!

In the meantime here is the cover

Still working on Book 4 – I have an editor so I am in their hands now – hopefully before the end of the month like I originally planned. Book 5 is progressing as well – over half way now.

Having a few real life dramas which are interfering with the writing but overall things are going OK. Have a new laptop which I am slowly setting up and which I will take on my holidays with me so I might even manage to write a bit when I’m away for the week we have booked at a lovely town called Yamba. No promises to any writing while I’m away but at least this year I’ll have a laptop to do it on if I feel the urge.

Have lined up a produce for an audio book version – On the Rocks audio version probably won’t be available till next year though. Right back to it….