As a writer, I plead guilty to genre-hopping. I’ve written near-future, far-future, and military science fiction, as well as science fiction thrillers and grim-dark sword & sorcery. And with The Wild Trilogy, I can include epic fantasy too.

Book 1, The Snow Chanter is available now.

Book 2 releases on March 26, and Book 3 on April 9.

(links to Amazon are affiliate links)

So what’s The Wild Trilogy about?
Here’s the teaser:

Three young warriors risk death to find the fabled Snow Chanter—a nature spirit who might aid them in their quest to restore balance to the world. As they venture north into a wild and forbidden land, they chance to meet a strange young woman—a sorceress, with ambitions even greater than their own.

Click through to Amazon to read more about book 1.

So where did this trilogy come from?
Well, it’s been years in the making. Last December I wrote about The Wild Trilogy, its long history, and what the project means to me. Follow this link to read that post.

I suspect most of you who visit this blog are predominantly science fiction readers, but if you like epic fantasy too, I hope you’ll give The Wild Trilogy a try. It begins with book 1, The Snow Chanter.

The Long War will be out next week, and two weeks after that, the concluding volume, Days of Storm.

Three short novels that took me years to write! I hope you enjoy them.

On Facebook, a reader asked why more of my books haven’t been translated into Polish. The question applies to other languages too, of course.

Here is the answer I gave:

I wish it were different. I’d love to see more of my books translated into other languages, but that requires a publisher willing and able to take on the project.

Locus Magazine is a long-time publication that covers the science fiction field. In the December issue, Russell Letson reviewed Pacific Storm, describing it as “a propulsive intrigue-thriller-disaster format, detailed and textured and specific enough that its progress can be mapped onto contemporary Honolulu, a real garden with imaginary monsters in it.”

That review is now online. Click here to read it in full.

By the way — Russell also selected Pacific Storm as his “Holiday Countdown Staff Pick.” 🙂

I’m all about self-publishing. I started in traditional publishing and briefly returned to it with the Red trilogy. And it’s possible that with the right book I might roll the dice and try it again. But overall I’m happier to be self-publishing, handling my own books, and taking a much bigger cut of the list price.

But do I advise other traditionally published writers to take this route? Not necessarily. Everyone’s situation is different, and (assuming the choice exists) everyone needs to make up their own mind.

Not long ago, a friend asked for my thoughts on whether to self-publish a novella or accept a smallish advance. I sketched out what it would take to self-pub, and we both realized that self-publishing works best as a system. After discussing it, the odds of a one-shot venture being worth the necessary investment of time & money seemed pretty low.

To publish even a single work, you’d have to set up an account at Amazon, and at other vendors if you want to “go wide.” You’d need to hire a cover artist and maybe an editor and/or copyeditor. You would need to convert the manuscript into an ebook, and logically, into a print edition — both of which can be done with software if you’re not too fussy, though the software costs a couple hundred dollars (I think). And you’d still have to do all the promotion a traditional publisher would ask you to do. Beyond this minimal investment, you’d eventually need to set up a business and/or a business account, and acquire your own ISBNs.

That’s a lot to pull together for a one-off experiment — and maybe not worth it when measured against the offer of an okay advance?

On the other hand, if the experiment is a first run at a possible career path, then it would be worthwhile to consider upping the bet by writing two or three novels or novellas in a series, and then publishing them in quick succession with lots of publicity. At least I keep hearing that’s the way to make a splash!

Conclusion: There is no best path in the fiction business, but keep in mind that your best option today may not be the best option for your next project.

This post was originally published in my November 19th newsletter. It’s re-posted here with minor changes. If you haven’t yet signed up for my newsletter, you really, really should. It’s fun, it’s once every four weeks (with an occasional special issue), and it’s the best way to stay in touch. Sign up here.

Novelists sometimes talk about a “book of the heart,” by which they mean a novel they needed to write, one that’s especially close to their heart, one they keep returning to, even though the marketplace doesn’t care.

The Wild is my book of the heart. It’s a secondary-world, aka epic, fantasy that has nothing at all to do with my other work. It’s also “noble bright” (as opposed to my grimdark fantasy Stories of the Puzzle Lands).

I wrote the original version of The Wild in the early 2000s. It never sold to the traditional market, but I never forgot about it. Eventually I published it myself as an ebook available only from my website. But when I took down my website store, I also took The Wild off the market.

The book had issues. There were problems with the way it was written. Last summer, when I took a fresh look at the manuscript, those issues became clear to me–but I felt I now had the knowledge and experience that would let me address them. So while waiting for beta-reader and editorial comments on Pacific Storm, I commenced on what proved to be an extensive rewrite of The Wild.

After publishing Pacific Storm, I returned to The Wild, and in late November I finished what I hope will be my final pass through the manuscript. It’s in the hands of a proofreader now, and I think it’s a much better story.

Since it’s a long book, I’m going to divide it into a trilogy of short novels. You can see the original cover above. I love this illustration, but the feedback I’ve received indicates it doesn’t communicate that the book is epic fantasy. So I’ve commissioned a set of new book covers that will hopefully do a better job. Sign up for my newsletter, for a preview of the new artwork!

A brief update while we wait for final election results…

The Stories of the Puzzle Lands Duology is now available in a print edition. The duology includes two novels, The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher, along with a prequel short story.

I just received my copy and I have to say it’s quite lovely (all praise to the cover artist!).

For reasons of cost and distribution, the book is only available at Amazon (affiliate link).

Visit my website for more information on Stories of the Puzzle Lands.

(poor photo, lovely cover)

The ebook edition of my newest novel Pacific Storm is out today. If you preordered, you should have it already. But if not, go get it!

Unfortunately, the print edition is suffering a pandemic delay, but if all goes well, print copies should be available to order by Monday. Fingers crossed! I’ll post here on the blog when it happens.

Belated update: The print edition is now available!

Update October 9, 6am HST:
The print edition is now available to order at Barnes & Noble.

9am: Amazon now has the print edition listed too. Find it here. (paid link)

Pacific Storm is a fast-paced, near-future thriller set in Honolulu. You can read more about it here, and also read the opening chapters. See what you think…

Or go ahead and grab a copy!

I’ve been rethinking how to present a list of my books at the end of each ebook, and it seemed to me the list would be more helpful to new readers if I sort by subgenre. This is what I came up with:

More Books by Linda Nagata

Near-Future Science Fiction

Pacific Storm
The Last Good Man
Limit of Vision
Tech-Heaven
The Red Trilogy:

The Red: First Light
The Trials
Going Dark

Far-Future Science Fiction

Inverted Frontier Series

Edges
Silver

The Nanotech Succession

Tech-Heaven (prequel)
The Bohr Maker
Deception Well
Vast

Memory
Skye-Object 3270a (young adult/middle grade)

Fantasy Novels

The Wild

Stories of the Puzzle Lands Duology

The Dread Hammer
Hepen the Watcher

Short Fiction Collections

Light and Shadow

Goddesses & Other Stories

This list will appear only in recently updated ebooks. So what do you think?

PACIFIC STORM
(click to see a large version of the cover image)

Politics, terrorism, and heavy weather collide over Honolulu in a vividly imagined near-future thriller from the author of The Last Good Man.

Ava Arnett is a Honolulu cop, captain of the night shift in the autonomous Waikiki District. Nine years ago a massive hurricane hit the island. Ava remains haunted by the mistakes she made and the lives she failed to save during that disaster. Since then, she relies on HADAFA, an AI designed to observe, analyze, and predict human behavior. HADAFA monitors her actions, and its assessments guide her decisions.

Now, another Category 5 hurricane is approaching Honolulu…

In the hectic hours before landfall, Ava stumbles into a terrorist conspiracy – and HADAFA begins to glitch. She can no longer rely on the AI. She must decide on her own whether or not to trust a mysterious federal agent named Lyric Jones — knowing the wrong choice could lead to greater devastation…and a war no one will win.

Pacific Storm is now available to preorder as an ebook. (The print edition will take a little longer.)

Pacific Storm will publish on October 8th.

READ THE OPENING CHAPTERS HERE

I’m going to be launching a new novel amid the political storms of October. It’s not a great time to bring out a book, but I don’t want to wait until next year. I hope you’ll subscribe to my newsletter, for info and a first look!⚡️🌴