Today is release day for Blade, the fourth volume in my far-future series Inverted Frontier.

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

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

Blade is available at:
Amazon
Kobo
Apple
Barnes & Noble

A note on the print edition:
Right now, the print edition is only available via Amazon. I generally use a secondary printer to offer my books through other venues and I’m attempting to do that with Blade, but due to issues at the printing company, my account was thrown into limbo for a while. That put me behind schedule, but assuming no more fiascos, Blade should soon be available to order from other booksellers. My apologies for the delay!

If you enjoy Blade…

(And I hope you do!)

If you do — or if you enjoy any book by any author — do consider leaving a brief review or even just a star rating at your favorite online book vendor. Those ratings really do help with future sales, and sales are what keep writers in business.

That’s all for this time, except…

Thank you for your interest in my work, for your patience with my slow writing process, and for the encouragement so many of you have offered. You’re the reason I’m still writing.

For more information on Blade or to check out the opening pages, visit my website.

It’s been a long time coming, I know. But the fourth and penultimate Inverted Frontier novel is almost here. Its publication date is:

It’ll be available on that date in both print and ebook editions. (There may ultimately be an audiobook, though I don’t know yet.)

So without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to…

The starship Dragon, accompanied by its fleet of outriders, is faring ever deeper into that region known as the Hallowed Vasties. Here, at the shattered heart of ancient human civilization, once-living worlds were ripped apart by the dimensional intrusions of a Blade. Yet despite the apocalyptic-scale destruction, the fleet’s telescopes have picked out signs of life among the ruins and the ship’s company is eager to go on—but should they?

From his post on Dragon’s high bridge, Urban looks ahead to the smaller starship, Griffin, now far, far in front of the fleet. The mind that pilots that ship—a stern and colder version of his lover, Clemantine—has gone silent. The implication chills him. Like Dragon, Griffin was an alien warship, designed to destroy without mercy all living worlds, and it still has a mind of its own. The question that haunts Urban: Has that alien mind somehow reclaimed control of Griffin?

It’s a question he must answer, and soon. Every wonder that lies ahead—and every ambition hidden within his heart—is at risk while Griffin’s true nature remains unknown.

Are you a Kobo reader? If so, I want to let you know that the ebook will be available at Kobo, though I won’t be able to set up the preorder there until I have a final version of the manuscript, probably in late February. I’ll let you know!

Do you prefer the print edition? Once the manuscript has been proofread and corrected, I’ll be able to set up a preorder for the print edition. I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready.

About the Art
Sarah Anne Langton did a knock-out job with the first two book covers in the Inverted Frontier series. It was only after I finished those first two books that I decided to continue the series. At that point, I put together ideas for three more books, and I commissioned Sarah to create the covers for them long before they were written, and even before I had more than a seed of an idea for the last two. Sarah did an amazing job, and I’m so happy to finally be able to reveal her beautiful artwork for Blade. There’s only one more cover left to reveal—and I’m eager to write the book for it.

You can check out more of Sarah’s work at her website: SecretArcticBase.com.(Sarah has the coolest domain name.)

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!

This is just a quick note to let you know that preorders for Needle (Inverted Frontier #3) are at last available at Kobo. Click here for the US store.

Kobo-folk, thank you for your patience!

Needle publishes on July 12. For more information and links to other ebook vendors, please visit my website.

The print edition should be ready soon. I’ve submitted the files to the printer and looked over the resulting PDF proof. It all looks good, but I’m waiting to see a physical copy before I approve the book for preorder.

More soon…

I discovered just a few weeks ago that a lot of readers thought Inverted Frontier was a two-book series. No! Not at all! That said, the first two books did serve as a kind of market test. Together they make a complete story, and if the duo had sold poorly I could have stopped there. It’s not financially viable to undertake a longer series if only a handful of people are reading it (no matter how enthusiastic those readers are!).

But the first books did just well enough to convince me to try another. That’s book 3, Needle, and it’s available on preorder NOW. And then — maybe — two more volumes after that.

A five-book series? Yes, that’s what I’ve planned, and it’s what I’ve invested in. I already have finished cover art for books 4 and 5. I tell you that, so you know I’m serious. Two more books to go…

But that’s assuming the long tail works — that more readers try the series, and like it, and that Needle (book 3 – the new one) does well enough. We’ll see.

Needle is available for preorder now (ebook edition; print edition to come). Give me a reason to believe, LOL.

More on Needle here.

It’s been a long time coming, but Inverted Frontier #3 is real, it’s happening, and it now has a publication date of:

It’ll be available on that date in both print and ebook editions. (I’m hoping there will be an audiobook, but I don’t know yet.)

So without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to…

“Tanjiri is not for you. You are not ready to encounter what exists there.”

So Lezuri spoke in warning, long ago. Urban still possesses the strange gift—the impossible puzzle—Lezuri gave him that day. A needle, ultra-thin and twelve centimeters long, with a silvery surface that slices light into rainbow glints. All Lezuri’s knowledge lies locked within that needle. Urban has only to discover the trick of opening it, to gain that knowledge for himself—but the needle remains an enigma.

Now Dragon and its fleet of outriders has reached the periphery of Tanjiri system. The belt of ruins lies ahead: a chaos of remnant megastructures from a fallen civilization. Farther in, an Earthlike world orbits in the company of a miraculous living moon created less than 4,000 years ago. An entity—one greater even than Lezuri—must have made that moon. And yet the system is silent. No one, nothing, has answered Dragon’s hails.

Perhaps the entity is gone? But Urban doesn’t believe this. He is sure that when the fleet enters Tanjiri system, he will meet this maker of worlds—with the lives of everyone he loves at stake. Better, safer, to encounter this entity from a position of strength, armed with all the knowledge and power contained within the needle.

So he believes.

Are you a Kobo reader? If so, I want to let you know that the ebook will be available at Kobo, though I won’t be able to set up the preorder there until at least mid-June.

Do you prefer the print edition? Once I have the final, copyedited manuscript, I’ll be able to set up a preorder for the print edition. I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready.

I know it’s been a long time since book 2 came out. I hope you’ll continue with the series — and thank you for your patience!

In short: Expect the next Inverted Frontier novel this summer.

The long version:
Back in February, I sent the third volume of the Inverted Frontier series to my intrepid editor, Judith Tarr. She returned it to me, along with her comments, a couple of weeks ago. Much to my relief, her general assessment was very positive! In summary: “I loved this one.”

Whew!

There are revisions to do, of course. But nothing huge, nothing structural. And I’ve put many hours into them already. My goal is to be done by mid-May, at which point the manuscript will go off to the copy editor, and possibly to a small number of beta readers.

My next challenge is to pick a publication date — one far enough in the future to ensure I have time to both revise the manuscript and to do some pre-publication publicity. But I also want to get the novel out this summer, when people are hopefully taking time out of busy lives to read.

I was originally looking at June 23rd as a potential publication date, but that may not allow enough time. So I’m going to work on the manuscript for another couple of weeks, see where I am, and then decide.

I plan to announce a publication date and to do a cover reveal in my next newsletter. So if you’re not already subscribed, now’s the time. Click here to reach the newsletter signup form.