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….

Work on editing Book 4 is progressing – I’m still on track for release next month some time – I hope.
The cover design is nearly down as well.
I’m also busily writing the new book 5 – the division of the old book 5 into two books put most of what written into book 6 but I’m up to over 40k words in book 5 and making steady progress.
All three released books now have a paperback version available for those of you wanting a dead tree copy – they’re that American size 6″ x 9″ format so pretty big.

Make a good gift idea.. 🙂

Nothing much else to report at the moment.

Peter

I am sure you will all be heartbroken to learn that I was having too much trouble fitting everything I wanted to fit in into Book 5 and have decided to split it into 2 books so the series will now run to 6 titles.
I am about 1/3 of the way through the 2nd proof of Book 4 so progress is being made in lots of areas.

Yes – Book 4 is coming … slowly – I was going to publish my other drafted book next but have decided that would delay book 4 far too long – it will be next. Doing the 2nd edit at present (4-6 weeks+) then leave it month and do final read through – so hopefully late November but definitely before Xmas!
In other news – there will now be 6 books in the series – so far.
I felt the Book 5 I’ve been working on was just getting to episodic so have broken it in two. Which will mean more Arturo to fill them up. I’m sure you will all be terribly disappointed by that.

The contemporary sorcerer book will definitely be published before book 5 given it is the only other book I have completed a 1st draft of. So publishing order is currently Arturo Book 4, Sorcerer and then either Arturo book 5 which is only partly written or the space opera book I did the snippet of earlier