The Triplanetary Map...

What with the new year, and the new run of Alamo-verse novels that I've been planning, the need has arisen for me to concoct a new map of the Triplanetary setting. Not only is there a new star on the map, but the major powers have expanded quite a bit over the course of the last four books - the Triplanetary Confederation now has interstellar colonies, as does the Lunar Republic, and zones of conflict are beginning to appear - as each prepares to jump off even further into the unknown.

This is always a fun and interesting process, and actually serves to generate stories. By working on the maps, you can see where the different areas of conflict are, where the borders are, what stars are critical, where the battles will be fought, and that is always inspiring. I'm rating the spacefaring powers as on the verge of another big expansion - the knowledge that there is another player out there in the form of the mysterious Cabal is going to have an impact.

(I'm afraid the map doesn't look that good shrunk; click on it to get a much better idea.)

As for a more general status report, the editing on Swords of the Damned is pretty near complete, and I expect to be out in a week or so, fingers crossed - a little later than scheduled, but hopefully it'll make for a better book. Work on Not One Step Back is going well also, and I expect to have that book available by the end of this month...