What is coming up?

A little news post.

Sand & Storm went live on 24 June and the sequel, Sea & Sky, is set to release on 20 September. I’ve actually just received the final files today, but will probably stick to the schedule because the audiobook of Ambassador 1 should be dropping in August!

I’m writing the final volume of the Moonfire Trilogy, Moon & Earth, and should finish the first draft within a few weeks. I mean–I’ve “only” got 25k to write, and of course All The Freaking Plot Threads to be tied up.

When that is done (or, I should say, when I boot that one off to the editors) I will start on Ambassador 6: The Enemy Within. This will involve an ever-increasing party of varied people travelling to Earth for a trial. They will take two toddlers who get up to all sorts of mischief (no, none of them are Cory’s–yet). There will be spies (Klaus Messner), there will be shooting and there will be some very big ethical questions asked.

Tag line:

In order to save the earth, he has to betray it

There may or may not be New Zealand, and camels (you know I have thing for camels in books), but those things may also be moved to book 7, for which I lack a title. If I’m on a roll, I might write book 7 as well (providing I can come up with a title).

Anyway, I’ll start bugging Tom for a cover soon.

After that (and we’re talking 2017 now), I’m thinking to start the first set in my Ilk Urban Fantasy series. The book will be called The Hunter. There will be a Sydney setting, local councils, developers, corruption, murders and a guy who may or may not resemble Eddie Obeid 😛 There will also be “Ilk”: were-possums, were-ibises, were-frogmouths, were-fruitbats, were-kookaburras (basically, insert all obnoxiously loud local wildlife). And a journalist from Adelaide called Bindi Winslow who is looking for her slippery brother.

I’d like to start one totally new project every year.

Meanwhile, I’m taking part in some cross promotions, so don’t forget to sign up for the Ebookaroo newsletter.

Advertisement

Moonfire Trilogy: snippet

Because I can. Book 1 is finished. I’ve had a talk with a content editor today, will be making a few tweaks. Like the Icefire Trilogy, the series will have multiple point-of-view characters, and one of them is meteorology student Javes (Javesius). As part of their education in their final year, the students have all been sent on field placement, and he was sent to a very small town in northern Chevakia at the very edge of the desert.

This is one of the things that happens to him:

---

Within moments, Javes was surrounded by dusty, dark people. They were all yelling at the same time.

“Where has the dust devil gone?” a man screamed. “Where are all my horses?”

“Is it coming back?” another man wanted to know.

“The devils are meant to stay in the desert,” a woman said, her voice indignant. “They don’t come as far south as this. Pashtan said so.”

“Pashtan said nothing about that this could happen.”

“I don’t know why you ever believed him. He’s not even from here and knows nothing about our land.”

“Pashtan is dead!” Javes called out over the din.

A good number of people fell quiet. They stared at him.

“Dead?” a woman said.

“Yes, dead. You know, not alive. Same as the other cart donkey. Had the flesh tripped from its bones. The cart was turned over and everything covered in dust.” He wiped his face. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more exhausted in his life.

More people fell quiet.

“And you survived?” a man said, his voice incredulous. “The city kid? What sort of magic is that?”

“It’s not magic. It’s only because—”

“You survived! That’s a sign. You should have Pashtan’s position.”

“You could not possibly do any worse than call dust devils into town!”

“He did that because you cheated him out of two bottles of cider—”

“Quiet!” Javes called.

People stopped yelling.

“I will contact the meteorology department for a replacement meteorologist—”

“What are you talking about? There has been a sign. He died while you were here. You survived and he died. That’s a sign. We have a new meteorologist.”

Several people nodded their agreement. “It’s a sign.”

No, no. Javes was overcome with a feeling of total horror. “I can’t stay because I’m not finished with my education yet.” That was the only thing he could think of saying, and it came out really lame. But his mouth was dry and his mind blank. He shuddered at the thought of spending his entire life in Pashtan’s simple square house with its two rooms, of trudging past all the weather stations in a donkey cart every day, and doing this day in day out, and sitting at the plain wooden desk every night to work out the curves and trends and traipse to the telegraph office every few days to send the results to Tiverius.

The life of a regional meteorologist.

That was not what he had signed up for, was it?