Reciprocal Paranoia and Rapturous Pejoration

Guys and Gals!

TLDR: Book 4 and book 5 should be out in October...

First, thank you so much for all the great feedback about the first three books in the Contact series – at this nascent stage of my career every bit of encouragement is wonderful and memorable and helps tremendously when burning the midnight oil.

Many people have sent me specific questions about the books, the series and what it will comprise, the characters, storytelling in general, me, whether I’m making a living at this (not yet, I am consuming my savings so thank you for your support thus far), doing it full time (yes, for now), what tools/ software I use, marketing, or movies, or graphic novels or a combination of all of the above. I love to get these notes (thank you!) though I’m giving fairly short answers as I focus on getting the books released. I’d love to do an interview type Q&A using the questions I’ve been sent and post them up but I figure for the moment the books are the thing people care about. Nevertheless, thanks for the mail and the interest (it’s a special thing) and for those who want to help, reviews on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Goodreads and so on are a wonderful boost.

To the crux of the matter: the next episodes of the Contact saga. I’m editing as you read this, with drafts of book four complete at 120k words (provisionally titled Reciprocal Paranoia) and book five complete at 140k words (provisionally titled Rapturous Pejoration). I plan to release these together (as they are more of a two-parter, or even a three-parter with book six, Rabid Penitence) before commencing on Rabid Penitence, which is partly done and so kick ass I am really looking forward to writing it. The sixth book should bring one major chapter of the series to a close (as another one opens) so if you’re looking for a chance to bail, it’s there!

I should have books four and five published in a couple of months (October) so look forward to about a quarter of a million words landing around then. The release is slightly complicated by having two operations under general anesthetic coming up and looking at some time in a sling (don’t go there!).

As an aside, and to show the difficulty of estimating the unknown, I originally conceived of this story as a series of five books. When I release book six, Rabid Penitence, I shall finally complete what I had planned to fill book one of the original five! I tried with book four and five to move the series to books of around eighty to ninety thousand words so I could release them more regularly but that hasn’t worked out on this occasion. If you have reached this far through this post (extra points for you!) I’d love to know what you think of shorter, more frequent books so you get the episodes more often. At the moment I’m thinking not for the Contact series but possibly for others – I have so many stories to tell I wish I could clone myself.

Thanks again for the positive reviews on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, goodreads and so on – they make a huge difference in raising the profile of the books and helping keep this little boat (with its aspirations to be a grand liner) afloat. I'm truly grateful.

I’d love to hear from you, please email me or use the comments on this blog.

Thanks again.

Until next time.
Mike.

Ps. if you’re reading this in December and the books aren’t out I can only apologize for dying on the operating table...

Buy Recidivist Paradox on Amazon!

Recidivist Paradox, the sequel to Remission Praxis, is now available on Amazon.com, and Amazon.co.uk.

Enjoy!

English

“England and America are two countries separated by a common language.”

 - George Bernard Shaw

When I first published Redemption Protocol, I felt confident that, in no time whatsoever, Amazon (other ePublishers are available) would enable the publishing of multiple editions of a book in different languages that, particularly in the case of American English and British English, would be differentiated by a specific language tag, thus no longer requiring the language to be inelegantly specified in the title, and furthermore, that these multiple editions would be accessible from the same sales page by simply selecting the preferred option (the reasoning being, of course, that there are Americans in the UK, and Brits in the US, and who was I to deny them the correct spelling of chromaticity?). This being the case, I reasoned, surely it made sense to release both a US and a UK English version of my book, in order to serve my (at this point, solely phantasmal) readers better.

I was wrong.

The only correspondence that I have received on the matter of my varying language editions were queries as to why I did it. That aside, those motivated to comment merely observed that it ‘looked a bit odd’.

I agree.

Thus I am removing the rather odd duplication of my titles and, by implication, the aesthetically distasteful suffix that details their language, by unifying the books around what is by far the more popular choice of my audience, to wit, American English.

This week, at some nebulous point, the UK English editions will vanish, the US English editions will drop their awkward suffix, the changes will ripple out across the known universe, and peace and joy will suffuse all humanity (in reality, perhaps two of these things will happen, and there is some prospect of a third within the next eight weeks, or at least, I hope there is).

If anyone fervently wishes for a UK English edition, then all I ask is that you buy five thousand copies and I shall address it forthwith. Joking aside, do let me know.

In the meantime, I shall indulge my anglophile tendencies with terribly British (and perhaps terrible) blog posts such as these.

Recidivist Paradox. Nearly... there...

I’m delighted to announce that after some great reviews by test readers, Recidivist Paradox, the third book in the Contact series, will be out soon. Hell, I might even tweet about it.

Thanks for the great feedback on the first two books, see if you can spot the mild retcon from book two to book three, and I hope everyone enjoys it!

On another note, I’ve had lots of emails with great questions about the series, and as well as replying to these in person, I’m going to post some on this blog. I'll start with the most popular question, which usually goes something like, ‘if I get on board with this series, does it have an ending so profound, so powerful, so personally transformative, that it will have been worth investing in it?’ Something like that, anyway.

Spoiler. Damn right I do.

Buy Remission Praxis on Amazon!

Remission Praxis, the sequel to Redemption Protocol, is now available on Amazon!

Enjoy!

Read the first 60 pages of Redemption Protocol!

Read a preview of Redemption Protocol.

You can buy it on Amazon.com by clicking on the cover image in the right hand sidebar.

Enjoy!

Cover for Redemption Protocol

New covers for my books with a little help from the Hubble telescope. 

Well, ok, a lot of help!

The source images are here:

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0619a/
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1012a/

These images are well worth checking out. They're spectacular!

The stunning image on the front cover is credited to: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble). The image has been edited to work in the cover format and has been recolored. 

The magnificent image that comprises the spine and rear cover of the print edition and a small section of front cover is credited to: NASA, ESA and Orsola De Marco (Macquarie University). The image has been edited to work in the cover format and has been recolored.