Oops - this didn't send on the 15th as planned due to an error on my part. Sorry that it's late!
Welcome, new folks!
Hi, there. I want to make sure everybody gets their free Frosthelm book, Traitors Unseen. If you haven't gotten it, you can get it free from many sources here.
Mark your calendars: Kenai will be free soon
My newsletter subscribers always get to know first when I'm running a promotion, and I have one coming up. My award-winning space opera, Kenai, will be free as an ebook from October 20th to 24th, so grab a copy and enjoy a twisty, action-packed military sci-fi book starring a damaged heroine on a planet full of secrets.
The book is available on audio too if you prefer to read that way.
The 5th annual SPSFC is complete, and we have a winner!
The 5th annual Self-Published Science Fiction competition wrapped up in early October. There were 124 entries in total, and I led one of the five judging teams in reading at least some of all of them. Each team elevated two books to the semifinals, and then we chose six finalists from those ten, and now one champion. Here's our team page if you want to see all our reviews and posts.
I've entered the contest twice as a contestant, once for Daros in the first competition (it was a semifinalist) and once for Kenai in the third one. Kenai narrowly won the competition that year, which was really cool for me, in terms of supporting evidence that I might actually not be terrible at this author thing, and for the book, which went on to sell a lot of copies that year.
But enough about me. This year's winner and finalists are described here by the competition head, Rogers. I read and reviewed all but one of these (I didn't read Generations because it was covered by other members of our team in the semifinals), and I'd recommend any of them as good sci fi. But there were two in particular that I think were just great: the winner, Our Simulated Selves, and the runner up, ab initio. My reviews are linked to the titles above and the images below, and the reviews link to the books on Amazon if you want to check them out.
Writing update
After SPSFC wrapped up, and after I got my taxes done, I started writing again on my latest book, a sci-fi novel set in the same far-future universe as Daros and Kenai, but with different characters and a different setting. It takes place on a pair of deep-space vessels investigating worlds that used to be human settlements but went quiet after a war two and a half centuries prior. I don't have a title yet (my current folder for the book is called New Space Book 2024), but I do have cover art from Jesus Da Silva which I really like, shown here.
I'm at just under 86,000 words, and I'm still hoping to get the first draft finished by the end of October, although I'll likely have to pick up the pace to get that accomplished. I'm realizing as I write that unlike my other sci fi books, which were about people going through one singular series of events in their lives, this one feels more episodic, with a bunch of smaller but connected adventures strung together. It has an overarching plot and many threads running through it, for sure, and you always follow one junior engineering officer through the whole thing, but it feels a little more like a limited TV series than a single movie, if that makes any sense. Or maybe I'm just too close to it and way over-analyzing. I'm sure you'll tell me later.
The audiobook for The Glorious and Epic Tale of Lady Isovar is moving along and may be ready as early as the end of November. I had a funny moment this week when the studio who's producing it wrote me to ask about character voicing and about pronunciations. They sent me 95 fantasy names and terms they want to know how to pronounce. The thing is, I made most of them up off the top of my head and gave little thought to how they'd be said. I now have a three-minute audio file of me saying utter nonsense very slowly and seriously. Every day in this writing gig is a new adventure.
The staged reading for my play, A Light Reign, is cast with eight characters and a reader for the stage directions. About half of them are my close friends from the comedy club where I do improv, and the other half are people who are active in local community theater, many of whom I've performed with. The reading is being directed by my good friend Matthew Cravey, and I sent out scripts at the beginning of the week (see below, with my pinball machine for scale, plus two crowns I bought for the queen and the prince to wear).
The event will be recorded and may even be livestreamed. As it develops, I'll let you know where and when you can watch if you like.
Some stories to try
I don't have my usual set of books from fellow authors to shill, because nobody asked to do a promo swap this month, and I was too busy writing to seek out or join any others. However, I do have one book I want to share, a book that I've been wanting to read for a long time but had to put off until my SPSFC duties were done. The book is Partner Pursuit by Kathy Strobos.
I'm about 80% of the way through it and enjoying it very much. It's a romantic comedy about a lawyer struggling to make partner at her firm and also to find love at the same time, something that's all too difficult. There's a great collection of villains and allies and romantic interests, and the main character Audrey is refreshingly super-competent (though constantly stressed out). She has a really fun voice and internal monologue to follow. I'm learning a lot about big law, too. Kathy is a lawyer and also a college classmate who I had the pleasure of meeting in real life at our class reunion this summer, although we've been in touch on Facebook for a few years now. She's been doing the mid-life author thing like I have, and we've had a lot of similar experiences. This is the first of many romance novels she's written, and if you like it, she has many more, all perusable on her site, KathyStrobosBooks.com.
Thanks
Thanks so much for being a part of my newsletter. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for upcoming books! I love hearing from people. As always, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or book ideas, I'm all ears, especially if you want to talk about one of mine that you've read.
May the Bloodmother watch over you -
Dave
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