Castrum Press has just released the Press Kit for The Cronian Incident. Basically, its a rundown of who I am and the book they just published (which bears my name, of course!) For those interested in doing an interview with your’s truly, there are suggested questions and all the relevant info you would need.
Follow the link below to see my interview with It’s Write Now, a book-sharing site that is committed to sharing Kindle ebooks to promote new authors. It was the single-longest interview I’ve ever done, but that was no problem. Lots of interesting questions that really made me ponder and dig deep!
Incidentally, they are also giving away free copies of The Cronian Incident for a limited time. If you’re looking for a hard SF read, get your free copy while you can!
https://itswritenow.com/78050/author-interview-with-matthew-williams-of-the-cronian-incident/
In preparation for the release of The Cronian Incident, my publisher sent out Advanced Reading Copies (ARC) to a number of influential people that I just happen to know. The first one came in not that long ago from Professor Abraham (Avi) Loeb. Over the years I’ve had the privilege of speaking to him a few times as part of my job with Universe Today. So when the opportunity arose to get some professional opinions on my book, I naturally thought of him.“An exciting science fiction adventure into the technological future. An exhilarating read for scientists and fiction lovers alike.”
Just to let people know, the release date for The Cronian Incident is no longer September 15th. The book will now be available to the public (paperback and ebook) on Saturday, September 2nd. That’s this Saturday, so in just two more days!
For reasons which will be become clear in a moment, I am not feeling very wordy today. So I shall keep this plain and put it into a series of bullet points, all with exclamation marks:
Hmmm. Okay, maybe I need to go with the wordier version!
After 18 months, I have finally finished the manuscript to The Cronian Incident. And after about a week, they wrote to me to tell me that they were half done and they were enjoying it. Naturally, they were sure to note that there were some flaws and some things that needed fixing, but nothing major. In other words, it will need polishing, but they see no reason NOT to publish it at this time! 🙂
This moment has certainly been a long time in coming! And in all honesty, I felt kind of deflated once I had written the last sentence to the last chapter. I was happy and knew that the significance of being done would probably hit me soon enough. But at the time, it was like climbing a steep hill and getting to the top, only to realize how tired I was and how far I still needed to walk to get back to the car!
Ah well. Like I said, I am sure I will hit me it eventually. And in the meantime, I’ve been encouraged and relieved to know that the publisher didn’t think it was pure crap! Because believe me, when you’re heavily invested in the creation of something, you really worry that others might not like it! And that is perhaps what made completing the manuscript so very difficult and time-consuming. It was not just me feeling like, “man, I need to finish this!” There was also the feeling of, “but what if this doesn’t work out? What if this is no good? Have I wasted all this time? Will I have to start over?”
In the meantime, all I can do is wait and stay cautiously optimistic. The publisher has told me that they anticipate finishing the book by sometime next week; at which point, I imagine we’ll start talking about edits and contracts, etc. Getting close, people! Fingers crossed!
Hey all! I have more in the way of novel-writing news. For starters, The Cronian Incident is now just a few chapters short of completion. After over a year of writing, editing, and back and forth with my prospective-publisher, the novel is just about finished. All told, it is now 31 chapters long and just over 85,000 words in length. I anticipate it will be about 100,000 by the time its finished, though I have been known to exceed estimates in the past!
And as per my agreement with my publisher, I have begun working on its sequel. Apparently, publishers like to know the people they sign have more books in them. And they prefer to release sequels within a few months of the first book, to ensure that any buzz they generate with the first release can be capitalized on. Lucky for me I had plans for a second and third novel before my publisher and I started talking, not to mention some spin offs.
So here’s the commercial description for the proposed sequel (i.e. what you’d read on the back of the dust jacket), as well as a rundown on some other ideas I’m working on:
The Solar System is in the midst of a crisis. In the Jovian and Cronian systems, the populations are up in arms, thanks to an inflammatory document that has appeared on the local nets. Known as “The Jovian Manifesto”, this document details how a powerful faction in the Inner Solar System conspired to seize control over the moons of Callisto and Titan and forcibly alter them. Behind the leak is a mysterious personality known only as Clio, who is threatening to release all the details unless the guilty parties come forward.
Back on Venus, a former analyst named Valéria Gallego is called before the Solar Assembly to investigate the Manifesto and its author. In this, she is assisted by Kadera, an infiltration specialist who can get in and out of any location in the Solar System. If they can determine its authenticity, perhaps they can prevent open conflict. But if not, the Inner Worlds may have no choice but to send armed forces to the Outer Worlds to ensure peace and stability.
Meanwhile, a string of violent acts has threatened to bring things ever closer to the brink. For Gallego and all those who are seeking the truth, time is running out…
Now this is a book that doesn’t come with a commercial description, just a general one. But it is set in the same universe as The Cronian Incident and The Jovian Manifesto. Here’s what I am thinking. Basically, I wanted to do a story set on the Moon, ca. the 22nd century, when the Moon is now effectively colonized,,,
Between the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, the Russians (Roscosmos), India (the ISRO), and China (CNSA), the lunar surface now has multiple permanent settlements. Whereas the ESA and NASA have established themselves at the southern polar region – in a domed settlement in the Shackleton Crater – and the Chinese have established a colony in the northern polar region, the Russians and Indians have claimed the mid-latitudes, where stable lava tubes have allowed for the creation of underground cities.
And on the “Dark Side” of the Moon – that is to say, the side looking away from Earth – are a series of installations known as the Unrestricted Zones. It is here that all kinds of weird research, development and experiments take place. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum computing, and man-machine interface – anything goes in these places! Ever since the explosion in learning that took place during the previous century, places all over Earth and the Moon have become dedicated to pursuing technological progress and integration without restriction.
And it is here that a young man named Frankling Houte is seeking to go. Years ago, his sister – named Constant Houte – chose to undergo a procedure where her organic brain would be augmented by merging it with quantum components. But after all contact ceased, he is determined to find her and return her home. But whereas Franklin fancies himself a brave rescuer, it is his sister who will come to save him.
This story will take place entirely in a generation ship that is making its way towards the nearby star system. Within the confines of this self-contained world, thousands of humans have committed to waiting and working for generations as their massive ship – the Traverse Velocity, which in astronomical terms refers to the speed at which a star moves perpendicular to our line of sight – transports them to an Earth-like world outside of our Solar System.
The location of that world is up for grabs at the moment, mainly because new discoveries are being made all the time. Did you hear about the latest exoplanet discovery, located about 39 light years away and already said to be the “best place to look for signs of life beyond the Solar System”? Between that and new findings that claims how previous discoveries are not likely to be habitable after all, I’ve decided to leave the destination blank until I actually start writing it!
But of course, no story would be complete without some intrigue and big ol’ inciting event! And the way I see it, things begin to go awry when the Captain and crew get notification that one of the passengers has awakened from cryosleep prematurely and disappeared into the ship. Shortly thereafter, one of the crew is found dead in what appears to be a sabotage attempt gone wrong. A ship-wide search begins to find the culprit while the atmosphere quickly devolves into one of paranoia and suspicion.
To make matter worse, the crew becomes aware of another ship that is threatening to catch up and overtake them. It seems that another faction from the Solar System, which was also intent on settling (insert exoplanet here) is now trying to get their ahead of them. What began as a journey to a new world, characterized by hopes and dreams, has become a race to lay claim to a planet. And it appears that the planet may have inhabitants of its own, ones which are not interested in welcoming the intruders.
First off, let me apologize for not announcing this sooner. But as with all good things, I didn’t want to announce anything prematurely or risk jinxing it. To put it simply, I have been approached by a publisher about my current work in progress – The Cronian Incident. And while nothing has been put in writing just yet, if all goes well, it will be part of Space Dock’s 2017 publishing catalog – which is the sci-fi subsidiary for a UK publisher.
To start at the beginning, back in October, this publisher sent me a message via Facebook. It seemed that we were part of the same writer’s group, and he had heard me going on about The Cronian Incident and all the ideas I was exploring to create it. Apparently, this is something lots of publishers do these days, which is rely on social media to look for aspiring authors.
Anyhoo, I replied to him that I would be interested, and that the manuscript (though not yet complete) was coming along nicely. Over the course of the next few weeks, we did the usual back and forth. He explained what they were looking for and asked me about my long-term plans, I told him about the overall story and how I hoped to write sequels to it.
He then asked me to send the first four chapters to see if it had promise. Here too, I learned something valuable. These days, its the first four chapters (not five, not three) that make-or-break many online sales. You see, people using Amazon are able to download these as a sample and will base their decision to buy the whole book depending on whether or not it’s grabbed their interest.
So the first notes the publisher gave me was that he liked the idea, but also stressed that the beginning needed “a hook”. There was little in the first four chapters of my original draft to introduce the overall plot, they said, and things kind of built slowly. So I revised it, added a prologue that contains the “inciting event” of the story (a kidnapping) and sent it back. This met with his approval, and he sent it on to one of his editors for a second look.
And just a few days ago, they got back to me again. Once again, I got some kudos on the story, but more concerns that things take too long to develop. However, this time around, it was more in the form of a suggestion. I took this to be a good sign, but of course I took the suggestion seriously. These people know what readers are likely to buy, so I’m not about to disregard their recommendations.
So I’m doing a second round of edits now, and working to complete the novel so its ready for the 2017 publishing season. At this point, I’m over 70,000 words into the story, and I imagine there’s about ten more chapters to go. At this rate, I can estimate that the final product will be probably be about 100,000 words (though that is likely to come down after all the editing is finished).
And like I said, nothing has been signed yet so nothing is written in stone. But so far, I’m pretty enthused about how things are going. It’s taken me over ten years to actually get to the point where a publisher was interested in my work and contacted me. In the meantime, feel free to join me in being cautiously optimistic!
Hey folks! With every passing week, I am making (meager) progress towards the conclusion of The Cronian Incident. And in addition to designing a cover, formatting the interior, I’ve decided to create a trailer for its upcoming release. Here is the rough-cut, which features images of the planets involved, and a basic description.
I’m thinking of sexing it up with some colored script, some additional images or animations, and any other features I can think of before the book’s release. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Okay, so I finally finished work on a few possible covers for The Cronian Incident. I recently got my CreateSpace account reactivated and used the lovely cover creator feature to get some visuals going. The problem is, I’ve been having trouble deciding which one I want t use. On the one hand, I can’t choose to between two themes – one that put text boxes over a full cover image, and another that uses a solid background on the front page, a shadow on the back, and puts the main image and title in boxes.
Then, I found that I couldn’t decide which image I wanted to use after all. Initially, I was all set on the green image of Titan that you can see in the first two options. But there’s also the Cassini image of Titan that shows its hazy atmosphere being illuminated from behind, giving it an eerie, yellow glow. I thought this one worked pretty well too in the mockups. So in the end, I made four covers, using both themes and both images, and figured I’d entertain some outside opinions.
Which one do you think works best? Be sure to vote below…
Green Titan – Whole Cover:
Green Titan – Box Cover:
Yellow Titan – Whole Cover:
Yellow Titan – Box Cover:
Vote here and thanks for the input:
Good day, all! I have some more good news on the whole “novel development” front. First, I must acknowledge that I started this book many many moons ago, and it has been of a slow and tedious process lately. In the past few months, I’ve experienced several mental and inspirational log jams and been hounded by the tyranny of the uncompleted manuscript. But I’ve managed to persevere and keep going.
And a few days ago, I decided to tackle a task which I’ve been putting off until now – which is designing the cover. This is unusual for me, since cover-creation is one of my favorite aspects of story-writing. In fact, sometimes I’ve been known to create a cover even before I’ve written any of the story itself! It’s kind of an inspirational tool, being able to see what the book would look like completed. It doesn’t always pan out, but I do enjoy it!
Anyway, here is the image I thought would adorn the cover. This false-color mosaic was created by NASA using images from the Cassini space probe. It’s colorful, relevant to the story, and should fit onto a dust jacket nicely. And best of all, it’s public domain!
Next, there’s the matter of the blurb for the back of the dust-jacket. These are where I usually have trouble. It is pretty demanding, trying to create a clear, concise and gripping description for your story. Getting just the right combination of words without being too wordy – it’s hard! But I eventually came up with the following description, which I think does a pretty good of painting a picture:
Jeremiah Ward was just another convict. A disgraced investigator who once worked the Martian beat, but is now serving out his sentence in a mining colony on Mercury. But when a member of a powerful faction goes missing on Saturn’s moon Titan, Ward is given an opportunity he cannot pass up. In exchange for investigating the disappearance of this man, he will be given a shot at a new life. But the deeper Ward digs, the more he sees that this is not just a missing person’s case. What he finds is a conspiracy that was centuries in the making, and a shot a redemption that could end up costing him his life.
And of course, there’s the bio information that will need accompany the blurb at the bottom of the rear of the dust jacket. That is something that I’ve had at the ready for awhile now, and this is how it will read:
Matt Williams is a professional writer and the curator of the Guide to Space at Universe Today. He is also a regular contributor to HeroX, a science fiction author, and a Taekwon-Do instructor. He lives with his wife on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
I’ve only tested it a bit so far, but from what I’ve been told, the description made the book seem interesting. One person told me that he’d buy the book based on the blurb alone. However, he’s a friend so his opinion is a bit suspect :). Any thoughts or criticisms are welcome, since this is going to be the first thing people see once it is available.
Stories by Williams 