What’s Next for Me and My Writing?

Hello all! As you may remember from my last post, I just finished work on my latest novel, the Frost Line Fracture. This book is the third installment in a trilogy known as the Formist Series, which began with the publication of The Cronian Incident in 2017 (followed by The Jovian Manifesto in 2018).

If all goes as planned, the book should be available for purchase by November. And with the series complete, the three books could also be available together as a box set sometime next year. Granted, this is all great, but it leaves me with the question…

What’s Next?

As it turns out, I have a couple of ideas on the burner right now and need to prioritize one or more of them. In addition to more work sets in the same universe as the Formist Series (but in a different time and from the point of view of a different faction), there are also some unrelated ideas I’ve been tinkering with.

Whereas all books written in the Formist universe represent my attempt at writing genuine hard sci-fi, these other ideas are more current and focus more on geopolitics and issues relevant to the here and now.

After much thought and talking it over with some friends, loved ones, and my publisher, I have decided to work on two ideas simultaneously. When I started pondering what I would work on after the Formist Series was finished, it really came down to these two ideas.

If I am able to complete them both in a timely manner, I won’t have to choose between taking readers back to the familiar territory or introducing them to something brand new. So here they are, my next projects!

Tranverse: This is a standalone story set in the same universe as the Formist series. It takes place aboard a generation ship that is on its way to 82 G. Eridani – a Sun-like star located 19.7 light-years from Earth that at least one potentially habitable planet in it.

The journey will take them roughly 200 years, travelling at 0.1 c (or 10% the speed of light). By the time they get there, a series of Von Neumann machines that were sent on ahead (Seed pods) will have already converted the planet’s environment into something livable.

The story involves all the scenarios that can (and do) go wrong, and wraps up with them arriving to find that the worst-case scenario has happened! This will tie in with the next trilogy, which involves some pretty big things going down closer to home!

Reciprocity: This story is a near-future post-cyberpunk kind of deal that I began working on in 2009. Unfortunately, it needed to mature (or rather, I did, as a writer), but I felt it had potential. This is why I came back to it a few years ago with an updated plot and some fresher ideas.

It is set in the 2030s, in a world characterized by rapidly-advancing technology, climate change, and all the crises that come with them. The story centers on a series of people who become wrapped up in a plot to change the course of history, led by people who are tired of being left behind.

At the heart of it all is a brilliant but damaged cyberterrorist, a group of Chinese expats who once were part of PLA Unit 61398 (China’s cyber force), the son of a major tech entrepreneur, and a young climate refugee, and a whole lot of counter-terrorism agents, revolutionaries, insurgents, and people frightened of the future.

The name “Reciprocity” refers to the Chinese philosophical concept of Bao ying. Similar to the concept of karma, this philosophy essentially states that what a person does will come back on them. That ought to provide some insight into the plot, I think.

So that’s my writing list for the next few years (I plan for two, but we shall see). And very soon, I will have a home office from which to do it all. As for my reading list, that’s a lot longer and deserves it’s own post. I’ve always got a stack of books on my bedside table, but lately, it’s been reaching -like proportions!

Let’s just say I owe some friends – who have been VERY supportive with reads and feedback – some reads of their own! You know who you are 😉 I had some other books in my stack that I had to get through, but it’s smooth sailing from here on out and I promise I will get them done!