A week sooner than planned, for once, I am pleased to announce the release of all three books of the Crusades of Faustina Hartmann. It is available in both the virgin ebook format and chad paperbacks (Princess, Empress, Goddess). Thanks to everyone for your support over this past year as I got these stories written, edited, and covered.
*The ending of “Goddess’ Crusade” surprised all of us. There is another story there…
Didn’t plan to go dark again, but had many things happening at once. In meatspace, I was fighting some GI-tract infection while still going to DayJob, as the main pharmacy tech for oncology was out with a heart attack. As I’m one of the few trained for that, it meant me going to work, no matter what my condition. Ugh.
Better now. And, even better, I received the copyedit of “Goddess’ Crusade” back. Better still is I just moments ago implemented those changes into the MS. The cover art is complete, so I am hoping to upload all this tomorrow and request a proof copy. Then, I’ll be done with this trilogy. A trilogy whose epilogue lends itself to at least one more book… if not more. I’m such a terrible writer. Or, at least, person.
This puts me two weeks behind here I wanted to be recording audiobooks. That is now slated for next weekend. My current thought is to record the raw of the entire book, “Friend & Ally,” if my voice holds out, and then do the editing. We’ll see. In other news, I’m also re-covering “Crosses & Doublecrosses.” The current cover is… lacking. Cheerio!
I am very pleased to announce that the second book of the American Imperium trilogy is now available: Empress’ Crusade. I think Faustina’s scars from the Princess’ Crusade healed up well. The final of this trilogy should be out in less than a month. Cheers!
My tiny handful of regular readers know that since I became a writer, one salutary fact has been rammed down my throat: there are no such things as coincidences. As a young godless materialist I would shrug and call an event a “statistical outlier.” Once I was a Catholic Christian, I fell back on “we cannot see God’s ways.”
In my second year as a writer, when I was 49 years old, I realized: fuck me.
Time and time and time again, I would see something and it would show up first in my writing and later in meatspace. God, obviously, is trying to make a point to me. One, admittedly, I am still learning. Saying all that to say this…
Four hours ago, see the post, I completed the raw manuscript of “Goddess’ Crusade.” The core battle of that novel is how Faustina recognizes her opponent has an overwhelming advantage of armor and considers what she can do to neutralize it and win. Being her military father’s daughter, she plucks an example from history and plans accordingly.
Five hours later, tired and just wanting to relax, I retire to my basement to watch a few videos before going to sleep. Ah! A new video from Kings & Generals… it’s about… about…
Fuck me. Pharsalus. There are no such things as coincidences.
Where an army or units of it would go once campaigning season was over. Often for the purpose of making sure a subdued people stayed subdued. Faustina needs to make a tour of her dispositions before riding back to Knoxville to play politics* and I realized I was unsure where her legions and auxiliary units are. So… another map! Cannot talk history without a map and that includes future history!
*Besides general opposition to what she has done, there is specific opposition to her recruiting Legion Six.
I call Machine Civilization a future history for a reason. All parts of every story connect in hundreds of ways, some I do not see, to every other story. I first met Karl in The Fourth Law; one of the orphans seen to by Lily Barrett. A tendency toward fat but also one of her karate students. He makes another appearance in “Empire’s Agent,” the long short story which lends its name to the book’s title. There, he meets Arpad Rigó from the newly remade Habsburg Empire. “I have to get this boy into the army!” Rigó thought. In trying to make an end of Goddess’ Crusade, I find, years later, he did.
Continue reading “Deep history”Didn’t mean to go dark again. “Princess’ Crusade” is, God willing, about 48 hours from release. The front cover of “Empress’ Crusade” is being hammered out. I am 9000 words further on in the MS of “Goddess’ Crusade” from my last post. One major change: Holo just never sounded right; Faustina’s copy – her very active, independent copy – is renamed Helena.
And the repercussions of that new version of herself begin to manifest in Faustina Hartmann almost immediately. I am getting a little concerned about what comes next.
Continue reading “Making an end”In which I sneak in two references to Herbert’s Dune in less than 2k words. After showing up at Owens CP, there’s a chapter where Gen’l Hartmann makes her way – with the proper escort – onto Fort Benning to seize her so-called sister, demi-human Alexandra Hood. It’s technical and time consuming and was a pain to write, literally, with my diseased eyelids. Below the fold is an interesting exchange as all of us, including me, are older as to the copy Reina made of Faustina.
PS Hands and eyes are slowly less bad. Had an IM shot of Kenalog-60 into my butt and am applying hydrocortisone cream to all my leprose bits.
PPS Not politics but common sense: for any of my readers in the US, make sure you have full fuel tanks in your vehicles and seven days of food in your home in case of “supply chain disruptions” following the election. This is not the 21st century I was expecting.
Continue reading “Two-in-one”Finally got off my ass (arse for those of you in the Commonwealth) and signed a contract with Labelschmeide for all three cover of the American Imperium trilogy. She has done fantastic work for me before and I highly recommend her.
The mixed news is that the first, “Princess’ Crusade,” will not be out on Halloween. Sometimes, irrational deadlines are just that: irrational. I’ve the copyedited version of it and book two (with thanks to SZ Services), but as I just said, the cover is still under development. And, I’ll need to add an extended stemma of Faustina’s family as well as non-copyrighted maps to aid in understanding her campaign against Savannah. A delay, but not a long delay.
I also had an idea last week, after being at a standstill for five days, as I mentioned. That idea blossomed into the two chapters I wrote over the weekend; having two main characters now is a great amount of work for me to keep track of things. Nonetheless, the Battle of Opelika is nearly over. With a chapter to mop up, it will take 1-2 chapters to evacuate the feral population of Atlanta. Or kill them.
Below the fold is General Hartmann getting back into the fight after nearly dying from the 105mm artillery.
Continue reading “Progress on two fronts”No, no, not like one of those emotionally disturbed who should be looked after and prayed for rather than being pumped full of chemicals and abused by surgeons who were the second-to-last in medical school (last being abortionists, of course).
This transition is having had my moment of clarity mentioned in the last post and moving from the second day of the Battle of Opelika to its immediate aftermath. Rather than recapitulate the entire chapter, below the fold is the last third of it, featuring acting legate Chesney – Faustina’s ‘court jester’ – seguing into… a dream? A vision? Or is it real?
Continue reading “Transitioning”
