The Aquaria Incident, aka Death’s Handmaiden 5, aka The Beach Episode, is now out. And in time for the weekend!
Art dump sometime this weekend. I understand that you’ll probably want it sooner, rather than later…
News, views, Thaumatology, and Aneka Jansen
Witches and Ray-Guns 
Hurry up, Amazon, I have a lunch break I could be reading this in…
Sorry, at time of writing, there’s not even an ASIN assigned.
Arghhh hate Amazon and their slow ways.
ASIN is NOW available. Listed above, so some of you MIGHT be able to buy it…
Thanks but still can’t find it. This is worse than a Christmas eve at 8pm.
Should be out in all territories now.
Just an FYI, the title blends in to the background a lot on my black and white kindle display.
Probably, but I don’t usually worry about that too much. The cover is mostly there for the colour thumbnails.
Thanks NT, the new book is on my monster iPad Pro and will probably be read twice by eleven am. However NT this is a new technique I’ve picked up from my Women, it’s a “pre-nag”. Where is number Six ? Have you got number seven started ?.
According to my Women this always works but they normally only ask for minor repair tasks.
In all seriousness Thanks for the continued excellence and entertainment.
Deimos.
Number six is in the works. I *think* it’ll be the next book out.
I have not started number seven. I have a bunch of plot schemes lined up, but writing three in one go is asking a bit much. There’ll be something else out between six and seven for sure.
Thanks NT I have read, reviewed and proceeding with reading it again.
Sorry to be a nag but I’m an addict and need regular fixes.
BTW I would also like to say a huge thanks for The Empresses Mage, a very good stand alone work in a setting that was brilliantly realised.
First Class Wordsmithing NT.
My pleasure.
FYI, when I get all the plot worked out, there’ll be another Empress’ Mage book, probably called The Eternal Mage. That assumes I get all the details worked out, of course.
Got it! Thanks! The ASIN number and link were required this time for some reason.
Love the cover btw!
Amazon US is still saying “This title is not available for purchase :((
I bought it from Amazon US this morning…. Could you be on the wrong link? Maybe try searching it?
Good Evening Niall. I have spent some hours with amazon support trying to buy handmaiden 5. it appears there is a regionalisation issue with the book that wont allow me to purchase as I dont have a US address. I live in New Zealand. This has never been an issue before purchasing any of your books.
I left this message as feedback from the book page on amazon as well
————-
partial transcript from chat session with amazon support
————–
Sneha | Customer Service
Do you have any valid US address added in your account?
S20:13
NO, I live in New Zealand
I have never needed to have a US address to buy books before
I have purchased somewhere over 700 books from US site
20:14
Sneha | Customer Service
As checked with my resources it is giving error due to your current location not reflecting in US.
This is only with few books that have location issue.
S20:15
so how do you fix that
Sneha | Customer Service
And if there is no address linked to US then it might not show available for other location members.
We cannot change any thing in this case as it is system generated.
One more reason to avoid buying from Amazon whenever possible. Did you notice the Smashwords link in Nial’s post?
I really like your scientific fantasy stories, both this series and the Thaumatology ones, but occasionally you have a minor scientific inaccuracy that knocks me out of the story.
I just spend 15 minutes trying to figure out if there was any conceivable way to get a moon with a negligible escape velocity and a surface gravity 5% of earth’s. Short answer is it’s not possible and making it an ice moon makes it even worse – you can get escape velocity down to ~278m/s (1000kph) if the moon’s density is 4 times that of Earth’s, which isn’t possible if the moon was made of pure osmium.
Yes, incredibly minor nitpick that no one actually cares about, and doesn’t change the fact it’s a great book so far, but I needed to share my annoyance with that. Back to reading the book.
Hi Mickey
Yes I saw the smashwords link but I have about 2000 books in my amazon account and I travel a lot so I can have my books all in one place
Plenty of other cloud storage, moving all your books from Amazon to your own storage is a bit of a hassle but given Amazon’s policies I’d decided to do that while I could several years back.
Well, I’d say I’ll recheck my math(s) on the moon, but I don’t suppose I’ll be correcting it now.
I do follow a set of rules for generating planets that usually give reasonable results (though the more exoplanets we find, the more my rules look conservative). That moon has a density of 0.4, diameter of 0.13 (13% of Earth), and G=0.052. I could’ve got the escape velocity calculation wrong, I guess, but it shouldn’t be far off.
Yah, it’s a really minor nitpick, don’t waste time fixing it.
Given those numbers I get gravity of ~0.5m/s^2 and an escape velocity of ~918m/s (3300kph). I used 6400km for Earth’s radius so the escape velocity would actually be a little higher than that.
Yup, you’re right. I dun screwed up. I think I estimated it. badly.
I make the escape velocity ~46 km/s if I plug the numbers I have into an online calculator.
The Amazon link above appears to be working now. They may have messed up previously and fixed it while I was sleeping (yes, I do have to sleep). Hopefully, no problems going forward.
What an eye-catching cover, nice work on the water…and the rear look at Nava looks pretty good too.
I take no credit. It’s the 3D equivalent of a stock photo. The trick is utilising HDRI to make the lighting match, which is easy.
I thought about putting all three of the girls in, but I think it would make the book seem a lot more lewd than it is (especially given Mel’s chest).
Thanks for writing this great story NT, I don’t leave comments often on books (I’m both shy and lazy), but you have become my favorite author to read. I got introduced to your books with Ugly, 5hen moved to Thumatology and Misfits. I loved Empress and DH has quickly moved to my second favorite story (my first is still Cygnus’s story (please write more!)). I noticed how this series started out as a twist on The Irregular at the Magic High School, but have loved how it has spun out into its own thing. I look forward to reading more of the great stories that you weave.
Huh, I don’t comment much on books either, because I’m shy and lazy. I do do Goodreads reviews. When I get the chance to read anything anyway.