Earlier in another post, I mentioned this year was going to be lighter on the blog, and I've more or less kept that promise. Real life is a bit of a pain these days, but gears are still grinding, ever so slowly. In many ways this has the feel of a transitional year. I don't know what's coming down the road, but it's going to be something unexpected.
Let us start with the big news that you might have already heard about. This is not particularly good. I need to properly address it here before we can discus anything else. After a rough time through the pandemic, like most other things have had, my publisher Silver Empire has closed. As a result, all rights to the books published my them since they started have returned to the original authors, including mine. They are now no longer with Silver Empire.
For those unaware, because it has been some time since it first started, I was writing a series for Silver Empire called Gemini Man. It was my attempt to write in their superhero universe, Heroes Unleashed, which was quite a bit different from everything else I'd done before. Even still, for those who read it, you know it wasn't quite a superhero book. The first entry released almost three years ago now, and much has changed for me since then. I wrote three books in the series, with the possibility of more, but now that will have to wait.
The three books were written at different stages of my writing career, with the first being the third book I ever completed. It was written before most of Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures was put down, for an idea of how old it is. The second entry was written during a flurry of activity, including when my stories for the Planetary Anthologies were written, as well as my first story for StoryHack. The third one was done around the time of Brutal Dreams and my most recent flurry of short story writing, which makes it the strongest of the three. It was quite a journey, and I do have a lot attached to their development. The series gets wilder as it goes, with the third book being a personal favorite for me in having everything really click into place. It is a shame that it was never properly released for you all despite how much was put into them.
As you might have already realized, only the first book in the Gemini Man series ever came out via Silver Empire, but the first two of them were completely done. The third book, Gemini Outsider, is currently being edited, and will be returned to me when it is finished. After that, I will have three books without a home to deal with. As you can imagine, I'm not going to just sit on completed books when my readers could be enjoying them.
So here is my plan for the three.
Whenever I managed to get that third book back and edited, I will be putting up my first crowdfunding campaign for Gemini Man. Yes, all of it. It will be an omnibus release for those three books, including Gemini Warrior, Gemini Drifter, and Gemini Outsider, all in one release. I'm also going to commission a new cover specifically for this release and put it all out in a bundle for you, the readers. There will probably be paperback and hardcover options, as long as I figure out how exactly shipping works through these things by then. Of course there will be a normal ebook version for digital readers, too. Since the books are already written and edited, all this will need will be some formatting and it will be done in no time at all.
As for an estimate on when the campaign will be, I do not know. Until I receive book three back, it's all up in the air. Hopefully that will happen sooner than later.
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| The only entry ever officially released. |
For those who wish to know more generally about the state of Heroes Unleashed you can ask any of the authors yourselves as to what they plan on doing with their works, but most are planning to re-release their books themselves. How that will be done is still being decided among each of them. This post is mainly about my plans.
Now for the elephant in the room: the future of Heroes Unleashed itself. This is something a few of us have already thought about and discussed behind the scenes. Will it be continuing without Silver Empire, or is it over?
The long and short of it is that authors can still write in the universe as they wish, and if new writers want to write in it they simply need to let the writers, including creator Morgon Newquist, know about it without stepping on anyone's toes. It is, after all, her pet project. Beyond that, it works just the same as any other series one might write in. You write the story you want to tell. Heroes Unleashed will still go on, publisher or not.
When we speak of Gemini Man's future specifically, well, that is a whole other kettle of fish. Mostly because I only had one book come out without any sequels I have no idea what the demand for the series is. The fact that I no longer have a publishing house behind me to edit, construct and design covers and interiors, and promote the books, mainly mean it's 100% up to me at this point to decide whether to continue down this road, or instead work on my own stuff that isn't tied up in the wires. To borrow a tired phrase: it's complicated.
This is why I chose to make a crowdfunding campaign around the books. If the demand is high enough, I will continue to write in the series and give it a definitive ending (though book 3 does feature a satisfying enough one should it come down to it) to please the readers. If not, well, it will go on indefinite hiatus and I will work on things my readers will hopefully have more interest in and that I can more reasonably afford to produce myself as an independent NewPub writer. Basically, the future of it will be up to the readers, as it should be.
Regardless of any of that, you will get the three written books out when I finally receive the edits back for book 3. That is coming no matter what.
Because of the above, the next series I was planning on beginning (book 1 written and in the last pass of self-editing before being handed off to the editor) will have to be pushed back in line. Starting a new series while another hangs in the air would be uncomfortable to deal with as it is, and doing it this way allows me more time to edit and get started on book 2 behind the scenes. Should this book come out this year, it won't be until near the end of 2022.
It wasn't expected to be that way, but that's life.
The next work I'm planning on putting out is the complete version of Y Signal, the first part of which you can read above on the blog for free. Believe me, if you have read it you haven't even experienced a third of the whole story. It's going to be the most bizarre thing I've ever put out, and that's saying something. It's not quite the action-fest most of my stories are, but it is off-kilter enough to make up for that with weird horror. This is a story about a '90s kid having his whole world turned upside down and learning the truth of the reality of his surroundings. As I said, the first section is up on the blog if you want to know what to expect, but it gets even stranger than that. The complete story is quite an experience.
Y Signal will also probably be my last traditionally published (as far as the NewPub definition of the term goes) book, in that it is the last one I will simply just put up on amazon when it is done and ready to go. The foreseeable future beyond that will most likely consist of crowdfunding campaigns to get it out to readers easier and help more on the back end. NewPub is always changing, and so will I have to do the same.
Beyond that my book releases will mostly consist of the new series I'm working on, plus collections of shorter stories I'm also cobbling together. It will be a good while before another standalone novel is written.
That is basically the long and short of everything!
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| The first part is free! |
As for short stories, novellas, etc. those are still in the works. Those are the pieces I have the most fun writing. I have at least 3-4 short stories waiting for a publication to open up submissions, and a couple others in production I'm probably going to rewrite to make even better before releasing them. Aside from those, I have many others on the way. I'm making my way down the list, writing them as inspiration strikes me to write them out.
For those who know, most of my short stories, novellas, and novelettes, are usually connected to each other, sometimes in loose ways. Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures was the first time I did this, and it remains one of my favorite releases I've done to this day. There is something about standalone stories that can be connected to a bigger whole to get more out of them that I quite enjoy doing. Two different levels of enjoyment. That book was the first time I ever attempted doing it, and it won't be the last.
Other ones done in this mold might be fairly obvious by now. I have written three stories starring the band Three Wolves as they travel across the land stumbling into pockets of weirdness wherever they go. Each were published in StoryHack, Pulp Rock, and Sidearm & Sorcery. The official name for this series is Night Rhythms. Weirdness and music combined together with hotblooded action. There are definitely others on the way, and my goal is to make them all as off-kilter as those ones were. They've got more stories to tell.
My two stories put out in the planetary anthology series (which is going out of print, so grab them as soon as you can!) about the unnamed traveling swordsman drifting from planet to planet in an attempt to save them from death is another one I'm still working on. There are four planned, one centered on each season as a theme, climaxing in the last one being most likely around novella length. We'll see when we get there. For now, I have an unpublished one I am going to rewrite after a strike of inspiration hit me.
The top series of these and the one getting the most focus from me, is one you might have realized by now. This one involves Galactic Enforcer Ronan Renfield, an intergalactic space cop who finds himself in situations where mad science combines with the Weird as humanity rebels against reality. Renfield navigates the vast chasm of space, drifting from planet to planet and civilization to civilization where man attempts to throw away its humanity for a shot at becoming their own God and remake existence in their image. He's a no nonsense Enforcer, an anachronism in a time when progress is made through corpses and baser urges, someone who frequently finds himself over his head with nothing to aid him accept his ancient revolver, his faith, and his instincts for Justice.
You'll be learning more about him as the stories go on as he travels the dead worlds--and what lies between them. Believe me, I've got more than a few lined up for the poor sap. He is a fun character to write and his stories are some of the weirdest I've written. So I won't be stopping them anytime soon! They're too much fun to write.
The next entry of these Galactic Enforcer stories, Dead Planet Drifter, will be in the next issue of Cirsova, coming out this summer! You can read the first entry, Golden Echoes, in StoryHack #7. More are definitely on the way. Please read and enjoy!
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| Out this June! Preorder now! |
In other words, gears are definitely turning, just more slowly than I'd prefer. 2022 has been offbeat, to say the least. Nonetheless, there is a lot still on the way.
I had seen some comments wondering if I was going to publish my Fandom series in book form, and I'm considering it. Considering how much is pulled from other sources and is basically commentary on said sources I'm not sure how it would work out in that medium. Regardless, I will consider it. Until then, you can always get this free book I edited on Gen Y. Co-written with authors Brian Niemeier and David V Stewart, it is quite the journey into the heart of a nearly lost group of people. At the other side there is always my most popular work, The Pulp Mindset.
I've also been looking into other ways to branch out into writing more things, but that probably won't be bearing fruit for quite a while. Either way, I'm not going to be stopping writing anytime soon, God willing, so look forward to the future.
Anyway, that was the update I've been meaning to get to for awhile. Hopefully I'll have more tangible things to show you, my dear readers, in the near future. Until then, I should be getting back to work. Stories can't write themselves, after all.
Have a good week and I'll see you next time!
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