Hello fellow readers and purveyors of all things nerdy and cool! Today, I wanted to talk about my next literary moves once the trilogy I am currently working on is finished. There are a few ideas I have in mind, but right now, my main focus is on a standalone novel that will serve as a transition between the current trilogy and the one I hope to write next.
This story will take place inside a generation ship that is making its way towards a neighboring 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.
Some good news on the publishing front. My latest novel, the Jovian Manifesto (the second installment in the Formist Series), is back from the editor and I’m now making corrections. Once that’s done, it’s back to the publisher for another run-through, and then it will be ready for publication. While I can’t give a precise date, a realistic estimate at this point places the release date early this summer. And I’ve already seen some sample artwork, and it looks awesome!
And while I don’t want to spoil anything, I can say that the second book has plenty of action scenes! One thing I worried about in book one was that it had a rather slow buildup. Of course, that’s a consequence of having a story with multiple settings and an intricate plot. Nevertheless, I wanted there to be more action scenes in the second and third books, and ensure that they occurred throughout.
Credit: NASA
Suffice it to say, there are a few combat scenes that involve powered exosuits, some exotic locations, and the aforementioned space combat. Writing these scenes was admittedly a bit of a challenge, since its kind of hard to predict what combat would look like where super-advanced technology is involved. In a society where anything can be synthesized and manufactured at the atomic level, what kinds of weapons, armor and ships would be possible?
In other news, The Cronian Incident is still getting reviews. At this moment, it has accrued 12 reviews on Amazon (with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars) and 16 on Goodreads – with an average rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars. Hopefully, the second book will do just as well.
Yes, after a good six months of planning, plotting, writing, rewriting, and worrying about deadlines, The Jovian Manifesto is finally done! And by that I mean I’ve finished writing the manuscript and the process of editing and polishing is about to begin. I’m also expecting some artwork in the coming weeks so there are plenty of surprises ahead!
In addition to being the sequel to The Cronian Incident (released in September of 2017), The Jovian Manifesto is the second book in the Formist Series. So based on the release date of the first book and assuming I can get all the edits done by the end of this month, that would make this the second books that I’ve written in the past six months. Would now be a good time to take a wee break? I hope so!
Here’s the preamble that I’ve been saving for the release:
“Months have passed since the incident on Titan. For Emile and the Formists, life is returning to normal now that their enemies have been dealt with. Or so they thought. On the Jovian world of Europa, a mysterious document has been released that threatens to reveal everything. The Jovian Manifesto, as it’s called, has the Outer Worlds up in arms and the Inner Worlds fearing a civil war. The Solar System is on the verge of ignition, and all that is needed is a spark.”
As I stated in a previous post, this sequel will feature a whole new bunch of characters and locations. In fact, all of the new leading characters in this novel are women, which surprised me even. I did want to move away from male primary characters since the first book was a little heavy on them. But even I was a bit surprised when someone pointed this out to me.
As with The Cronian Incident, my publisher will be the venerated UK-based company known as Castrum Press!
I’d also like to take this opportunity to say congrats to my friend and fellow writer, Rami Ungar! Rami recently signed a contract with Castrum Press to write horror and suspense (his specialty). Thanks to Castrum’s pro-active approach to recruitment, I was able to set up a meet between him and Rami, and the two hit it off! Good luck to the both of us, Rami! Busy times ahead 🙂
Hello again! Today I thought I’d take a break from talking about reviews, and focus on the progress I’ve been making with my second book. Basically, the manuscript for The Jovian Manifesto – the sequel to The Cronian Incident – now exceeds 78,000 words in length! To put that in perspective, the final draft is likely to be about 100,000 words, so I’m more than three-quarters there. While I had been hoping to get the manuscript finished in time for Christmas, it seems that no plan ever survives contact with reality.
But that’s okay. At this rate, the book is sure to be finished and released sometime in early 2018, and will feature new characters, new settings, and new challenges. And as I promised myself before I began writing it, it will also involve more action and a seat-of-the-pants narrative!
As for The Cronian Incident, the reviews keep coming in. At present, it has 10 reviews on Amazon (where it enjoys an average rating of 4.7 stars) and 11 reviews on Goodreads (where it averages 4.0 stars). But getting back to the sequel, here’s a quick rundown of what’s new:
Credit: US Geological Survey
New Characters:
Veronika Gallego: Cytherean by birth, intelligence-gatherer by training, engineer by choice, and amateur poet by inclination. Gallego is a jack of all trades, and more useful than she cares to be. Because when her old mentor comes calling and asks her to investigate an attack on the Jovian moon Ganymede, she can think of no one more qualified to do it.
Adelaide Cheboi: A specialist in combat and infiltration, Cheboi thought she had seen it all. But after being assigned to protect Gallego on her mission to Ganymede, Cheboi realizes there are some things that even she was not prepared for. And sometimes, the line between enemy and friend is not so clear.
Audhild Saana: An elite mercenary, Saana runs one of the toughest crews in known space. Soon enough, she and her crew will find themselves in the toughest fight of their lives. On the one side, they will face another band of skilled and hungry mercenaries. On the other, they face the people they have been contracted to kill, and they are more trouble than they initially appeared!
New Settings:
Venus: Much of the book is dedicated to establishing what life is like on Venus, where the population lives in floating cities above the planets incredibly dense and hot atmosphere. While this might sound a little space opera-esque, the concept of colonizing Venus with floating cities has actually been explored as a serious scientific matter. Up above Venus’ clouds, temperatures and air pressure are actually safe, providing you don’t mind living in pressurized cabins.
Credit: NASA
Ganymede: Much of the story also takes place on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, which is the core of the Jovian system. The story also begins here, specifically in the capitol city of Selket. Like most of Ganymede’s architecture, this settlement is built into one of the moon’s craters and was laid out in a honeycomb-configuration. Another setting of interest is the underwater settlement of Kur, a casino and resort that is only accessible by ocean liner. When in the Jovian system, its where the fancy people go to play!
Europa: Europa, another of Jupiter’s largest moons, is another major setting in the story. It is here that the Jovian Manifesto made it’s first appearance, and where our heroes must inevitably venture in order to find the authors themselves. Once again, the planet’s interior ocean plays a significant role in the moon’s geography and culture.
O’Neill’s Reach: This habitat (an O’Neill Cylinder) is where the story’s protagonist – Veronika Gallego – lives at the beginning of the story. Like all Gyro Habs, it is a massive cylinder in space that rotates to provide artificial gravity. And thanks to Gallego’s marvelous engineering skills, it can also simulate a sunrise… with spectacular results!
Credit: Lightfarm Studios
That’s the precis and the preview. Expect to hear more as it nears completion, which will hopefully be soon!
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!
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!
My first interview concerning the upcoming release of my new book (The Cronian Incident) just went live over at Highland Rogue. This is the personal website of historical fiction author R.A. McCandless. Check it out by following the link:
Expect to hear about more interviews as we get closer to the launch date. And, just so you know, that is still scheduled for mid-September (Sept. 15th, 2017). If all goes as planned, the sequel should following not far behind!
While you’re at Highland Rogue, be sure to check out some of McCandless own works of fiction too!
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:
The manuscript is complete!
Sent it to the publisher last week!
They’re about half-way through and said they like it!
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 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.
Stories by Williams 