February was, being honest, an interesting month to live through, and as far as writing goes, I must confess somewhat frustrating. I had planned to release the first book in the 'Starcruiser Polaris' series near the middle of the month, but that had been based upon the idea that I had finished it – or even managed to complete a draft I liked. Which I didn't. I got half-way through books that were perfectly reasonable, maybe even pretty good, but not good enough. I'd half-expected that, to be honest – I went through something very similar with 'Starfighter', and to be honest, my failure was that I persisted too long, which has meant no book out in February.
I am happy, however, to report that this sad state of events will not persist for long, and that at some point within the next few days, the latest book in the Battlecruiser Alamo series, 'Vault of Eternity', will be out. You'll be even happier to know that this isn't a cliffhanger, not really – originally, I thought I was going to end up breaking the book in two, but in the completed work, it didn't go that way. (Which is as good for me as I suspect it is for you – I hate writing the second part of a two-parter; it's always a miserable task.)
I'll be taking a few days off to get over this one, and then taking another crack at Starcruiser Polaris, this time returning to an old idea that was inspired by – in all seriousness – the early life of Captain Von Trapp. Yes, the Sound of Music guy. No, I have not gone completely insane. In his first career, he was a submarine commander in the Austro-Hungarian Navy, and wrote a fantastic book about the final years of the First World War, 'To the Last Salute', that I can absolutely recommend. I won't go into more details than that, except that this will be rather more epic than my usual fare, and will hopefully go to four books – though we'll have to see how it plays out. If it works, then I'll be releasing it early in April; I already have a fantastic cover, and I really want to see it out there!
My failed drafts in February (so far this year, I've got considerably more unused material than published output, which is something I have to do something about) have thrown my schedule into total turmoil, to the point that I'm not going to give specific dates for a while; the next book should be out in about five weeks, I hope – unless it all falls apart again, in which case there will be an Alamo in about seven. At the latest, the next Alamo, continuing the current arc, will be out in May, probably towards the middle of the month, with, all being well, the second Polaris out in June.
As for the next project, that remains a trip to Ancient Rome – specifically, Roman Aegyptus of the late 1st Century AD, in the time of the Emperor Domitian. I'm at the very early stages on this one at the moment, but I will be posting more here and on a new sister blog I'm about to start – which will be advertised here, closer to the time. (This will remain for my Military SF; the new blog will cover Ancient World.) Military action/adventure, but in a completely different context, of course. It's something I've been wanting to do for years, and I'm finally going to be starting it soon. First two of these out this year, all being well – probably one month apart, meaning I intend to build up a little backlog prior to launch.
So, with luck, the next post on this blog will be the announcement of a new book...
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