So far, July has been a highly productive month for me. On June 30, I reported on this blog that I’d finished a first draft of Silver, the sequel to Edges. Today I finished my first revision. There’s a lot left to do! But at this point, I feel like I’ve got a solid, coherent story.

There are two characters who need a few more scenes, and I’ve got a list of notes to consider, but Silver feels like a real book to me now. My plan going forward is to create the scenes I still need and address the notes. After that I’ll send it off to my freelance editor with fingers crossed!

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Once again, thank you to everyone who’s purchased a copy of Edges (or any of my books!), or borrowed copies from a library. I couldn’t (and I wouldn’t) do it without you. 😉

More soon…

If you’ve read my newest novel, Edges, you know there’s a sequel on the way. Silver is the title of Book #2 in the Inverted Frontier series.

I’m pleased to announce that today I finished the first draft of Silver. It’s a rough draft. There’s a lot of work still to do, but right now I’m telling myself the hard parts are done. Figuring out how to convey things that are not remotely part of our general human experience got to be seriously challenging. Figuring out the particulars of the plot was no easy thing either. But now that the structure exists, I can start filling in the holes and addressing all the notes I’ve left myself. This is my usual procedure for putting a novel together.

Once I’ve got a solid second draft, the manuscript goes off to my freelance editor. A few weeks ago, I told her to expect it around the end of July. As I write this tonight, that deadline feels absurdly short, but maybe it’ll happen.

Oddly enough, I’m feeling a bit dejected over this whole project — not because of any deficiency in the books. Honestly, they’ve turned out better than I’d hoped. Rather, because it’s taken me so long to get to this point.

No doubt I’ll feel better tomorrow.

THANK YOU, to everyone who’s purchased a copy of Edges, or borrowed it from a library (assuming it can be found in any libraries…?) THANK YOU as well to all of you who’ve been inspired to check out my earlier books. I really appreciate it. There’s no point in doing any of this without readers… or listeners. For those of you waiting for an audiobook version of Edges, I’m hoping to have news very soon.

The publication of Edges has inspired many readers to check out the earlier Nanotech Succession novels, and this in turn inspired me to pull together an updated edition of The Nanotech Succession Omnibus Edition.

The omnibus has been available in ebook form since 2012, but now I’ve put a new cover on it, refreshed the back-matter, and added a clarifying subtitle: 4 Classic Novels in a Box Set

“Omnibus” used to be the standard term describing a series of novels collected into one volume. In the modern world of ebook publishing, “omnibus” has generally been replaced by the term “box set.” Personally, “box set” makes my grammatical brain twitch, given that there is no box, and if there was, it should be “boxed set.” But the culture has moved past me, and to please the search engines, I’ve conformed.

The omnibus includes the novels Tech-Heaven, The Bohr Maker, Deception Well, and Vast.

Previously, the omnibus was available only at very limited outlets. It’s still not at Amazon due to their pricing model, but you can find it at Apple Books, Kobo Books, Barnes & Noble, and Book View Café.

If you know anyone new to my work, who might enjoy the full Nanotech Succession ride, I hope you’ll suggest this “box set.”

The detail page is here.

Thank you!

I haven’t posted much on the blog lately. I’m guessing most of you would prefer that I work on the next novel, instead of the next blog post — and that’s what I’ve been doing.

My focus has been on completing a rough-draft of Silver, the sequel to Edges. Yesterday the manuscript finally reached the 100,000-word mark. A novel-sized novel! The draft isn’t quite done yet, but I’m hoping (desperately) that it won’t be much longer.

Once I have a complete draft, I’ll go back to the beginning, fill in the holes, address the notes I made along the way, do the continuity checks, and re-read the whole thing. At that point, it should be ready to send to my freelance editor. (Cue ominous music.)

More soon…

Introducing

Edges

Inverted Frontier, book 1

Edges cover for Linda Nagata’s Inverted Frontier Book 1 by artist Sarah Anne Langton

Here’s the cover copy:

From the Edge of Apocalypse:
Deception Well is a world on the edge, home to an isolated remnant surviving at the farthest reach of human expansion. All across the frontier, other worlds have succumbed to the relentless attacks of robotic alien warships, while hundreds of light years away, the core of human civilization—those star systems closest to Earth, known as the Hallowed Vasties—have all fallen to ruins. Powerful telescopes can see only dust and debris where once there were orbital mega-structures so huge they eclipsed the light of their parent stars.

No one knows for sure what caused the Hallowed Vasties to fail, but a hardened adventurer named Urban intends to find out. He has the resources to do it. He commands a captive alien starship fully capable of facing the dangers that lie beyond Deception Well.

With a ship’s company of explorers and scientists, Urban is embarking on a voyage of re-discovery. They will be the first in centuries to confront the hazards of an inverted frontier as they venture back along the path of human migration. Their goal: to unravel the mystery of the Hallowed Vasties and to discover what monstrous life might have grown up among the ruins.

Edges is a new entry point into the classic story world of Linda Nagata’s The Nanotech Succession.

Click here to read the opening chapters on my website.

Release date: April 2, 2019.

The ebook is now available for preorder at:
Amazon US — Amazon UK — Amazon AU — Amazon DE

Barnes & Noble

iBooks

Print preorders to follow, probably sometime in midMarch.

Preorders at Kobo should be available around midMarch. Email me at linda at mythicisland dot com if you’d like me to email you when Kobo preorders are ready.

~~~

Sarah Anne Langton is the artist who created this beautiful cover. The cover was ready long before the book. The framed print of it I have on my desk served as an important source of inspiration during the long rewrite. Thank you, Sarah!

I also have to mention that Sarah has the COOLEST domain name. 🙂

Just a quick notice for those of you in the USA: Amazon has put the ebook of The Last Good Man on sale for only $2.99.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ve probably already read it — but if you know anyone who hasn’t and who might enjoy, please spread the word!
Thank you!

Find it on Amazon.

I’ve been focused on finishing the revision of my newest novel. Nearly there! I’ve revised from beginning to end, and am now going over notes, dumping what I don’t need anymore, and adding in the bits that I’d still like to include.

Adding in small sections — sometimes just a line or two — sounds easy. Sometimes it actually is! But other times, no way! It requires finding exactly the right spot to fit the idea/phrase/description into the flow of the story which can be challenging all on its own, and then presenting it in a way that feels natural to the story.

Some concepts and some terms need to appear throughout the story so as to give the impression that these are really and truly elements of the story world. For example, I might introduce an idea very early in a novel, and I might need it again at the climax. But if I don’t mention it again between beginning and end, readers like you are going to go “Huh? Where’d that come from?” because, you know, it’s hard to remember all the details from a hundred thousand words earlier.

So for me anyway, there is always a lot of detail work. This is why I am so perplexed when writers say they produce four, five, six, novels a year. I guess they just get all the details down the first time through.

Anyway, I’m hoping to fully finish this draft by the end of the week, and then dive into the sequel, which I would love to have drafted by summer.

More soon!

I’ve been talking about it for months, and now The Last Good Man has launched. Print and ebook editions are available now. An Audible audio edition is on the way; I suspect it will be out around the end of the month or the first week of July. I’ll let you know!

Thank you to everyone who has helped spread the word.

If you read and enjoy The Last Good Man, I hope you’ll consider posting a review at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and at Goodreads if you’re active there. It really does help!

Here’s the back-cover description:

Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies. Robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire. But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties, and when True makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She’s left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.

And here are some blurbs to help persuade you:

“A new novel by Linda Nagata is always an event. The Last Good Man pulls us into next month’s headlines with a conviction and energy that makes for an extraordinary tale.” —Hugo and Nebula award-winner Greg Bear, author of War Dogs and Darwin’s Radio.

“…a thrilling novel that lays bare the imminent future of warfare.” —Publishers Weekly starred review

“…if you want a novel with pulse-pounding action, in which soldiers square off against the futuristic machines — a novel that you won’t be able to put down once the action heats up — [The Last Good Man] delivers with the precision and firepower of a tactical missile…not only a cracking good read, it is a novel driving first, and fast, down the road we are seemingly already set upon.” —Paul Weimer, Barnes & Noble SFF blog

“The Last Good Man is a compelling and subversive novel, told by unique characters, especially True Brighton: sympathetic, prickly, determined, all too human. Linda Nagata has impressive insights into technological advances and their potential effects. Not to mention some very cool invented AI critters…. It was a privilege to read TLGM before its publication.” —Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre, author of Dreamsnake, Starfarers, and The Moon and the Sun.

And vendor links:

☆ Amazon

☆ iBooks

☆ Barnes & Noble

☆ Kobo Books

You can also ask your local bookstore or library to order the print edition. Here’s the ISBN: 978-1-937197-22-3.

Well, I guess I should get back to work on the next book.

Or should I say, “Read the opening chapter and preorder!”

Yes, yes, I’m pushing this book AND I’m pushing preorders. I’ll be blunt and say that I’ve come to see this as a do-or-die novel for me. (See my “On Promotion” post.) Either New York publishing was right in deciding that my work cannot earn a reasonable return on the investment, or they made a big mistake when they gave me the opportunity to publish The Last Good Man on my own. All of you, the readers (the potential readers), get to decide which it is.

Do you want to talk numbers? We can. So far — five days after preorder links went up — I’ve pre-sold thirty-one ebook copies. Thank you, THANK YOU, to everyone who has preordered.

Can I persuade more of you to do so?

Visit this page to see what early readers have said about the story and then scroll down to read the opening chapter.

Does The Last Good Man strike you as a story that would appeal to you? If so, please consider a preorder. And please mention The Last Good Man to your reading friends.

Thank you.

I needed InDesign to layout the print edition of The Last Good Man, so I’m renting the use of it on a month-to-month basis. And since I’m paying for it anyway I decided to go ahead and create a print edition of my recent short story collection Light and Shadow.

So if you prefer print to ebook, go get it!

It’s a slim volume, just 156 pages, but I like to think it’s a solid group of stories. Find all the details here on my website.