(This is cross-posted from my newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, follow this link to sign up.)

The big event for me this fall was my visit to the United States Air Force Academy. As you may remember, a special compilation of my military-themed short stories—the collection titled Attitude and Other Stories—was chosen for the annual program known as “One Book, One USAFA.” The idea is that the entire freshman class is assigned to read this one book together. Copies were issued during the tough initial summer training period. One cadet told me, “Your book was the best part of boot!” Given the general misery of boot camp training, I’m not sure I had a lot of competition for “best,” but I enjoyed hearing it.

I visited the campus as part of the 64th Academy Assembly, a two-day event involving workshops and lectures on space, the Space Force, future conflict (and avoiding future conflict) in space. It was all incredibly fascinating and I was hugely impressed with the cadets, all of whom struck me as very bright, knowledgeable, capable, and composed—far more so than I ever was at that age.

My own role was to conduct a writing workshop on “Future Conflict in Science Fiction.” This was an interesting challenge, because I don’t teach or attend workshops. But I put some notes together, asked the participants to do a little preparatory work, and things went remarkably well. It was also a lot of fun.

I feel deeply honored that I was able to participate and that my work was deemed worthy. If you’re interested, Attitude is available in print and ebook editions from Amazon.

(This is cross-posted from my newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, follow this link to sign up.)

I had a lovely Thanksgiving planned. My daughter, son-in-law, and my 14-month-old grandson were flying over from Honolulu to visit for several days. And then last Monday I came down with a nasty cold and on Tuesday, I tested positive for Covid-19. I advised the kids to change their plans.

I never had Covid before. I’ve been vaccinated and boosted, and I still mask when I’m out in public, but I caught it anyway. So be careful out there!

This was the first time I’ve been sick since December 2019. I’m recovering now, but still taking it easy.

When the waltz of the absurd began between Twitter’s Board of Directors and Elon Musk, I blithely assured myself it would lead to nothing—so you can see how skilled I am at predicting the future. My own Twitter experience hasn’t really changed, except I’m trying to break the habit and so I’m hardly there anymore. I have been spending time scrolling on Mastodon, though not posting much. It’s a quiet time for me. I don’t feel like I have a lot to say right now—the lateness of this post being evidence of that.

As I come to understand Mastodon, I find the way it works quite interesting. The biggest factor in its favor is that no single person or Board of Directors can ever control it, which is awesome. The confusing bit is that you have to select a server—or be admitted to one—that will be your home base.

A cool thing is that any person or organization willing to take the trouble and spend the money can set up their own Mastodon server, aka “instance.” Why would you want to do this? Probably because you’re a curious techie willing to take on extra work! But the advantage is you can invite only who you like and who you can get along with to be on that server. Why is this good? Well, because Mastodon offers multiple timelines. One of these is “local” and the local timeline lets you follow posts and boosts (similar to retweets) only from those who “live” on your server.

But, whatever. I’ve been looking only at the “home” timeline which shows me posts and boosts by those I follow. This is the same way I interacted with Twitter and it worked for me. So it doesn’t really matter what server I’m on. I think, from my few weeks of observation, that small servers are subject to the same hazard as small towns—content moderation might become overly strict as in “we don’t want to talk about that here.” In contrast, big servers might enjoy the anonymity of big cities and only the most egregious behavior will be called out. But that’s just speculation.

I’m on a big server run by the founders of Mastodon which seemed like a safe and available choice at the time I signed up (though I think it’s closed for new signups now).

If you’re on Mastodon or decide to give it a try, find me here:
https://mastodon.online/@LindaNagata

Or in the Mastodon search box:
@LindaNagata@mastodon.online

I’ve made a start on book 4 of my Inverted Frontier series, but right now I find I’m spending a lot of “writing” time doing calculations, like “How far apart are these starships?” and “How long does it take to get a message from one end of the fleet to the other?” It’s frustrating, but I need to block out events on the stage before I get down to the actual writing. In large part, this is because I have no innate sense of the vast distances I’m dealing with. So I force myself to gauge things comparatively — i.e. radius of Earth’s orbit and Saturn’s orbit — and in multiple units: kilometers, astronomical units, light minutes. That helps me to work with the immense scale of space…and then I try to leave most of those numbers out of the actual story. 🙂

On a tangentially related topic…
I have no regrets about being an independent writer/publisher. Seriously, none. But of course there are drawbacks. For example, very few outlets of scale are willing to consider indie titles for review — a problem compounded when the title is third in an ongoing and little known series. So I am deeply grateful to reviewers who do take the time. The latest is booktuber Michael Everts, who has included my latest, NEEDLE in his top 3 books of the year so far! Thank you, Michael!
Click here to see his review (and subscribe to his channel).

The United States Air Force Academy has an annual program known as “One Book, One USAFA.” The idea is that the entire freshman class is assigned a book to read together. Much to my astonishment I was asked to provide this year’s title.

Attitude and Other Stories is a special compilation of some of my military-themed short stories, along with an excerpt from my novel, The Last Good Man.

Attitude and Other Stories is available to buy in print and ebook editions, but since it’s meant for a limited market, it’s presently only available from Amazon. If you’re interested in a copy, follow this link. Be aware that four of the included stories also appear in my earlier collection, Light and Shadow.

Did you know that long before Inverted Frontier, I wrote another series of novels in the same story world? That series is the Nanotech Succession. It’s a collection of four stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology — beginning tomorrow and reaching far into time.

All four novels are available separately in ebook and print editions, with Bruce Jensen’s lovely cover art.

But you can also get all four novels in an omnibus ebook edition — with cover art by yours-truly 🙂 — at less than the cost of purchasing the ebooks separately.

The included novels are Tech-Heaven, a near-future thriller based on the science of cryonics, The Bohr Maker, winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel, Deception Well, a far-future adventure set on an alien world, and Vast, a far-future, space-faring epic.

Unfortunately, the omnibus is not available at Amazon because of their pricing policies. But you can find it at:

Follow this link to my website to learn more about the four Nanotech Succession novels.

My newest novel, Needle (Inverted Frontier #3), is out today.

I know many of you preordered Needle. Thank you so much for that!!

But if you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can now purchase the ebook edition, or order the print version.

Wait, what? What is this new book?

If you’re not subscribed to my email newsletter and if your visits to this blog are rare you might be surprised to learn I have a new novel just out. But yes, it’s true!

Follow this link to my website to learn more about Needle and to read the opening chapter.

I like to describe the Inverted Frontier series as “sense-of-wonder” fiction — far-future, space-faring adventures unfolding in a very big galaxy (no faster-than-light travel here).

If you haven’t tried the series yet, I hope you will. Edges is the first book. Click here to learn more about it and to read the opening.

Thank you for stopping by, and thank you for your interest in my work!

This is just a quick note to let you know that Needle’s print edition is finally available for preorder — one whole week ahead of release date. 😕

Thank you for your patience!

The print edition of Needle is delayed.

Here’s the background: My print books are all print-on-demand, meaning there are no large print runs. Books are printed as readers order them, though Amazon will often stock a small inventory to speed up delivery. Anyway, I use two different printing companies. One fulfills Amazon orders and the other fulfills everything else. To create a print book, I have to upload two PDF files, one for the interior pages and one for the cover.

For the non-Amazon company, I uploaded those files on June 14. The company soon provided me with an electronic proof, meaning a PDF file of the book. It looked great, but I requested a printed proof, as I always do, because it’s easier to locate errors that way. The proof should have been printed within five business days, but as of this morning and despite several emails (they don’t allow customers to call in anymore), it still hasn’t been printed.

I uploaded files to the other company on the same day, June 14. This time the proof was printed quickly and out for shipping by the next day–but not fast shipping. I saw no option for fast shipping. The proof was supposed to arrive here on Maui by June 25 at the latest. It did not arrive. It reached Honolulu on June 19, over a week ago, and hasn’t been seen since. The third-party company handling the initial shipping says they handed it off to USPS. USPS says they haven’t received it (and their help form errored out when I tried that). I ordered a new copy of the proof today. This time I found a way to pay for extra-fast shipping. (If there are any errors, I’ll need time to fix them!)

Anyway, this is all hugely frustrating. And this is why there probably won’t be a preorder for Needle’s print edition. But there will eventually be a print edition. I promise!

Needle is book 3 of the Inverted Frontier series. It’ll be out in less than a month.

But maybe you’re not familiar with the Inverted Frontier story world?

If that’s the case, please let me fill you in…

This is a story world in which radically advanced nano- and bio-technologies have long since become an accepted part of everyday life. Indeterminate lifespans are taken for granted. Innate repair mechanisms clean up damage due to cosmic radiation. Materials can be grown at need or dissolved back into raw substrate. People can exist as physical or virtual beings. And over time, starships can evolve. People can too, though most are culturally inclined to hold on tightly to their humanity.

But molecular technologies cannot collapse the vast distances between stars or open mythical gates or wormholes to shorten the journey, and they cannot speed the flow of information, which remains limited by the speed of light.

Over the past several millennia, human civilization spread from stellar system to stellar system — and then collapsed for reasons unknown to those few surviving settlements at the far reaches of the human frontier.

Inverted Frontier is the story of the recovery. It’s told through a ship’s company of explorers and scientists who leave the frontier, undertaking a voyage of re-discovery. These adventurers are the first in centuries to confront the hazards of an inverted frontier as they venture back along the path of human migration.

If that sounds like your kind of story, I hope you’ll give the series a try. Start with book 1, Edges. Read the opening chapters on my website, and decide if it’s for you.

Thank you!