It's Still Coming . . . Still . . . Coming . . . Really!

First the news that people care about:  the new book should be out by the end of the week.  Cover:  done.  Blurb:  done.  Reformatting:  done.  Three edits by authors:  done.  Kathy is on her second edit now.  When that is finished, we will upload it.  It could be as early as Wednesday, but having dashed people's hopes before I'm not going to say we expect it then.  I can't see how, though, it would not be sometime this week, and almost certainly before the weekend.

This book has been a lot harder than the first.  First, it's longer by almost 20,000 words.  That may not seem like much, but it is a big jump in the complexity of the book.  Second, speaking of complexity, the battles, especially the first one, are much more intricate than anything in the first book.  The second battle is no slouch, either.  This stuff has to be checked carefully.  Bearings, ranges, times, distances, weapons deployments, sensor displays all have to be correct and consistent.  This is hard, tedious work and is one of the reasons that there are very few authors in this genre who write battles the way we write them.  Third, there is an inherent issue with sequels.  The first book need only be consistent with itself (and with what is plausible).  The second book must not only be internally consistent, but also must be consistent with the first book.  What deck are the Mids' classrooms on?  What is the order of the maneuvering stations from right to left.  How many status lights are there on the weapons console and what are they?  What's Chief LeBlanc's first name?  If we mess up stuff like that, readers catch it.  All this stuff has to be obsessively checked.

But, we're past that.  The third book should be easier, if only because we are learning from our mistakes.  We're going to compile a "Bible" of names, positions, control configurations, specifications, etc., to use as a reference in future books to keep it all consistent.  The formatting error that took more than a week to root out of the manuscript won't happen again, etc.  Anyway, we are hoping that For Honor We Stand turns out to be worth the wait.  It has been a labor of love.  It's our baby and we don't want it born prematurely or with any birth defects.