Category Archives: News

What’s going on, book schedules, that kind of thing.

Too Hot

It’s too hot.

I realise that, for many of you, having to put up with 28C (82F) in my office is cool, but I live in the UK! We can’t cope with hot weather. Or cold weather. We get temperate weather and we like it!

All I want to do is sleep, but it’s too hot to sleep! Getting work done is hard. Luckily, I got the Atlantis book finished a couple of weeks ago. You should be seeing that early next month. And things are supposed to cool down at the end of this week, so I’m hoping my progress on the next Unobtainium book will pick up then. I’ll go back to struggling to concentrate now.

(This ramble was brought to you by Niall’s overcooked brain.)

Change of Plan

Plan Z? re we up to Z yet? Probably.

Anyway, ran into a problem with Sign of the Dragon and I’ve put it aside for later. Next month you’ll be getting the first Age of Atlantis book which I’ve been working on since something like 2015 and suddenly I figured out how to finish it. Still not happy with the title I have for it, so I’ll keep that for later. It’s got semi-naked amazons and mermaids. The art dumps are going to be very NSFW.

After that there’s a fairly high chance that I’ll be doing the second Unobtainium book. Finally. Sign of the Dragon isn’t going away either, it’s just on hold until I’m feeling my cyberpunk again, which shouldn’t take too long.

Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions

book3-cover1

The new Death’s Handmaiden is out. Hope you enjoy it.

Stuff and Things

Okay, here’s a few things I thought I should mention. In no particular order:

The third Death’s Handmaiden book will be out soon (next day or two). It’s called Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions.

I’m currently working on Sign of the Dragon (though I’m having a little fun with it and I’ve taken it back to the drawing board). It should be out in a couple of months. This is going to be a replacement for the Fox books because…

There are going to be two more Fox Meridian books, and then I’ll be bringing that series to a conclusion. I hope to wrap up all the loose threads in those two books. Why am I ending the series? Well, two reasons. First, I’m running out of ideas. I think I’ve gone as far as I can with the overall plot, and I’d rather handle any other ideas I have for that genre with new characters. Two, my mother liked reading the Fox books. I wouldn’t say I wrote them for her, but she liked them. It’s going to be hard writing those characters knowing that she won’t be reading the results. I was aiming to wrap up the series before my mother died, but now it’s become more of a necessity.

Anyway, more about the new Death’s Handmaiden book in the next day or two. I’ll be posting the cover soon, as usual. I’ve also been posting a few random images (of Tatsu from Sign of the Dragon) on ArtStation; you can see them here.

Stay safe, and don’t break your keyboard hitting F5: I’ll post as soon as it’s ready.

Watching Rockets, Writing Cyberpunk

group-1

So, I have NASA TV on in the background in the hope of seeing a rocket fly (safely) and I’m writing cyberpunk. The guys in the picture above are the main characters and I’m not going to say much about them right now. The image was inspired by part of the opening credit sequence of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, 2nd Gig, though this kind of ‘identification lineup’ image is pretty common, especially in anime, though also in one famous live action movie I can think of.

Also, I’ve been reading some of the Thaumatology books recently, so here’s a little something I put together recently…

ceri-1

(No, I’m not going to do another Thaumatology book right now. But I am sort of feeling it a little more… Don’t get your hopes up.)

Meanwhile, good luck to SpaceX and NASA. Let’s hope it’s a go this time.

Update

It occurred to me today that it’s been a while since I told you guys I might have been exposed to the coronavirus. I know I vanish for long periods normally, but I haven’t normally told you I might have a fatal disease before doing so. An update feels like it’s in order, even if it’s just to point out I’m still alive.

It turned out that we were clear of COVID-19, so that turned out to be a non-problem. Thank you for all your well-wishes for my mother. Unfortunately, there was really no way short of an actual miracle that she was going to get better and she passed away in her sleep on Easter Monday. I’m staying with my father at the moment to help him through the aftermath, but I am still doing some work because it keeps my mind busy.

Out in the world, things are a bit crazy. I’m actually fairly worried about you guys. A lot of you live in America and the virus has really clobbered the US. I don’t know how many of you are in New York City, but that place has seen almost as much death as the entirety of the UK! So, basically: yes, I’ve had a bad month or so over here, but I really do hope that all of you are staying safe and having a better time than I am. I will be back with a new book as soon as I can manage it, possibly around mid-June. Frankly, I could use the positive feeling of getting some good writing done at the moment.

Also, just because I got a little time to render some stuff last night, please enjoy a pin-up of Nava in a corset.

nava-156

COVID-19 Update

I never intended to write a post like this, because it sounds like a cry for sympathy. I am not asking for sympathy, but I do feel like you guys should know why I’m a bit slow with the next book and possibly a bit quiet.

So…

This week I had to rush off to support my father who is looking after my mother, who is basically confined to a bed now. Today, someone has decided that, since my mother has a fever and is short of breath, the house is now in 14-day quarantine in case she has COVID-19. I got told this just after I’d put Bitter Wind out for sale, which is why I went a bit quiet after doing so. The annoying thing is that something other than that virus is probably responsible for my mother’s symptoms, but no one is taking any chances. And I can’t really blame them.

While I can work from here, more or less, it’s far from ideal. I’ll try to get an art dump up in the next day or so. I keep my reference art on OneDrive, so that should be okay. What I can’t do is produce new reference art for anything new. Just the fact that I’m helping with my mother’s care is going to make things difficult, but I’ll be doing my best to keep working.

That said, most of the chaos today has been caused by our need to suddenly source food which can be delivered to the house. Yes, we’re really being required to stay indoors; we can’t go out for anything. This should be really exciting. It’s possible I just might decide to do a post-apocalyptic story after all this dies down.

Bitter Wind

book2-cover1

Bitter Wind, the second Death’s Handmaiden book, is now available.

Bitter Wind Cover

book2-cover1

The next Death’s Handmaiden novel, Bitter Wind, is due to come out around the first weekend in April and, once again, I’ve come up with a cover for it pretty quickly. So, here it is.

In other news, I may be rather quiet for a while. Some stuff is happening with my family which is occupying my thoughts a lot. This may cause a delay in the book after Bitter Wind, I just don’t know at this point. I’m sure you’re used to me going quiet for long periods by now, so it should almost be business as usual. I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but today I have something nice to offset the not so nice. Now that you’ve read the bad news, go back to the top and revel in those legs!

Death’s Handmaiden

book1-cover5

Death’s Handmaiden is available.