We've had a few issues formatting the paperback version of the new "Man of War" book, For Honor We Stand for publication as a paperback. It should be available in three or four days. We apologize for the delay to all the folks out there who don't use e-readers.
In other news, the new book is succeeding beyond our wildest expectations. It is the Number 2 Amazon Hot New Release in two categories and #5 in another and is a top ten bestseller in three categories. As of this writing, it is #4 in Kindle Military Science Fiction. The new book's visibility has resulted in a boom of sales in the first book, To Honor You Call Us,, which is now a top ten bestseller in two categories and is in the next ten on the other.
Further, based on customer ratings, To Honor You Call Us is now the #12 top rated Kindle Military Science Fiction book and is #11 in Kindle War Fiction, right behind Uncle Tom's Cabin and four slots above Monsarrat's classic, The Cruel Sea, and several places above the H. G. Wells genre foundation book, War of the Worlds.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not suffering from the grandiose delusion that this means my first effort at writing fiction is actually better than these books in any kind of serious, critical, literary sense. I'm sure people will be reading Uncle Tom and The Cruel Sea long after everything written by H. Paul Honsinger has faded to obscurity, but this rating does say that the book generates a great deal of enthusiasm and approval from readers, which is what I am aiming for, anyway. I'm not trying to write anything like a "Classic of Modern Literature." Good thing, too, because I'd fall flat on my ass if I tried. What we are trying to do is write books that are entertaining. We want the reader to be engaged, to feel the anxiety and anger and relief and triumphs of our characters. These ratings say that we are succeeding in that regard. We will work very hard to get better and better at the craft of novel writing so that we can deliver a progressively better product to our readers.
This has been an exciting journey for us. We hope to entice a great many readers to come along, and that they will feel like they are sitting at the Commodore's Station as Max unleashes his next dazzling ploy against the Krag.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
It Has a Great Beat and You Can Dance to It; I give it a Ten!
We're still new at this and there is a lot about being a novelists that we don't know. One of the biggest of those is that we really have no idea whether the projects into which we are pouring our hearts and souls and intellects are any good or whether they are total crap. Our wives tell us they are good, but then again they also tell us that we are handsome, a conclusion about which we are extremely skeptical.
So, it is with great pleasure and no small measure of relief that we see that there are already eight reviews of the new book on Amazon.com and that they are all five stars. Not only that, they are universally complimentary. Now, there are a few reviews that say that they have small quibbles here and there, and we certainly look at all of those things very seriously (actually, we were already conscious of every one and had planned to do certain things a little different as we go along--mainly as the situations will be different and the characters more mature in their relationships), but certainly nothing major. In fact, the reviews are better than the first wave of reviews were on the first book, and they weren't bad at all.
And, of course, based on our experience with the first book, we know that good reviews sell books. Particularly, when people give good reviews on book number two or book number three of a series encourages people to start a series of which they might otherwise be skeptical. No one wants to invest the time to read the first book in a series and find out that the series fizzles.
Series die more often than you might think. I've seen it several times. Sometimes the writer simply has no new stories of any interest to tell about these characters. Or, more often, the characters go through exciting and meaningful experiences and emerge from them completely unchanged--they learn nothing, they don't grow, they don't develop, they don't mature.
Anyway, when people see that the second book is as good as or better than the first, then they have reason to believe that the writer can sustain the series over time.
So, now that there is a second book out and people can see that it is as good as, if not better than the first, we are hoping not only that everyone who read the first book will read the second, but also that people who might have passed on the first will give it a second look now that we have proved we are capable of producing more than one book that is worth reading. Frankly, this was something about which we, ourselves, were worried. After all, we didn't know we had the ability to produce ONE good book, much less two.
There is, of course, another dimension to reviews. They are an emotional pay off. Sure, if a book is good and if it catches on with an audience, it makes money for trivial stuff such as food and health insurance and car payments. We like those things. We like them very much. But, after working twelve and sixteen hour days, seven days a week for three months to produce a novel, it is very gratifying to read good things that people might have to say about it. We put an extraordinary amount of effort and work very, very hard to develop the battle scenes and tactics, conceive of the maneuvers and the weapons and the back stories, and to get all of the little details just right. We spend many, many hours sweating the small stuff, and there is lots and lots of small stuff. These reviews are a reward for those efforts, and it does feel very, very good.
So, to the people who write the reviews, thank you. They do mean a great deal to us.
So, it is with great pleasure and no small measure of relief that we see that there are already eight reviews of the new book on Amazon.com and that they are all five stars. Not only that, they are universally complimentary. Now, there are a few reviews that say that they have small quibbles here and there, and we certainly look at all of those things very seriously (actually, we were already conscious of every one and had planned to do certain things a little different as we go along--mainly as the situations will be different and the characters more mature in their relationships), but certainly nothing major. In fact, the reviews are better than the first wave of reviews were on the first book, and they weren't bad at all.
And, of course, based on our experience with the first book, we know that good reviews sell books. Particularly, when people give good reviews on book number two or book number three of a series encourages people to start a series of which they might otherwise be skeptical. No one wants to invest the time to read the first book in a series and find out that the series fizzles.
Series die more often than you might think. I've seen it several times. Sometimes the writer simply has no new stories of any interest to tell about these characters. Or, more often, the characters go through exciting and meaningful experiences and emerge from them completely unchanged--they learn nothing, they don't grow, they don't develop, they don't mature.
Anyway, when people see that the second book is as good as or better than the first, then they have reason to believe that the writer can sustain the series over time.
So, now that there is a second book out and people can see that it is as good as, if not better than the first, we are hoping not only that everyone who read the first book will read the second, but also that people who might have passed on the first will give it a second look now that we have proved we are capable of producing more than one book that is worth reading. Frankly, this was something about which we, ourselves, were worried. After all, we didn't know we had the ability to produce ONE good book, much less two.
There is, of course, another dimension to reviews. They are an emotional pay off. Sure, if a book is good and if it catches on with an audience, it makes money for trivial stuff such as food and health insurance and car payments. We like those things. We like them very much. But, after working twelve and sixteen hour days, seven days a week for three months to produce a novel, it is very gratifying to read good things that people might have to say about it. We put an extraordinary amount of effort and work very, very hard to develop the battle scenes and tactics, conceive of the maneuvers and the weapons and the back stories, and to get all of the little details just right. We spend many, many hours sweating the small stuff, and there is lots and lots of small stuff. These reviews are a reward for those efforts, and it does feel very, very good.
So, to the people who write the reviews, thank you. They do mean a great deal to us.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Error! Error! Ster . . i . . . lize!!
I am not NOMAD. I am not perfect.
Of course, neither was NOMAD. That's why it blew itself up and got some of its parts recycled into the Romulan Cloaking Device from "The Enterprise Incident."
A reader just pointed out a rather embarrassing time/distance error in For Honor We Came. At the Cumberland's stated speed of 10 c, the distance between Radhid IV and Rashid V B, approximately 4 AU, would take just over 3 minutes to cross, not "just over half an hour" as I the book originally said (this is just before the Battle of Rashid V B). I can see what I did. I went through the steps to compute the time to cross at the speed of light (1 AU = about 8.1 light minutes, then multiply 8.1 minutes times 4 AU) meaning then to divide the result by 10 because the ship is traveling at 10 c, and then forgot to divide by 10. Duh.
Well, one of the great things about e-publishing is that we have already corrected the error and uploaded it to Amazon and B & N. Anyone who buys the book from a few hours from now on will get the corrected version. If you have already purchased, you should be able to delete the book from your reader (but not, please, from your account!) and then download it again, which should give you the corrected version.
No telling yet whether we will be able able get it fixed in the print version, which is in process but not yet final.
This stuff just makes me buggy. Time/distance errors are one of the things that annoys me the most in science fiction, especially in movies. Remember in Star Trek V when the Enterprise goes to "the center of the Galaxy," in about one and a half reels? Well, given that it is about 27,000 light years to the center of the galaxy, and even if we assume that the ship can go 1000 times the speed of light (Warp 8 in the Original Series was 512 c) that's a 27 year trip. I practically banged my head on the seat in front of me about that one (that and the business about a Klingon ship being picked up on sensors but going unnoticed because no one happened to be looking at the right screen at the right time--as though Spock didn't have something like the "Back Room" on my ships where other people are looking at the sensor data to back him up).
So, anyway, it's fixed. Thanks to reader RxScram for pointing out the error.
Of course, neither was NOMAD. That's why it blew itself up and got some of its parts recycled into the Romulan Cloaking Device from "The Enterprise Incident."
A reader just pointed out a rather embarrassing time/distance error in For Honor We Came. At the Cumberland's stated speed of 10 c, the distance between Radhid IV and Rashid V B, approximately 4 AU, would take just over 3 minutes to cross, not "just over half an hour" as I the book originally said (this is just before the Battle of Rashid V B). I can see what I did. I went through the steps to compute the time to cross at the speed of light (1 AU = about 8.1 light minutes, then multiply 8.1 minutes times 4 AU) meaning then to divide the result by 10 because the ship is traveling at 10 c, and then forgot to divide by 10. Duh.
Well, one of the great things about e-publishing is that we have already corrected the error and uploaded it to Amazon and B & N. Anyone who buys the book from a few hours from now on will get the corrected version. If you have already purchased, you should be able to delete the book from your reader (but not, please, from your account!) and then download it again, which should give you the corrected version.
No telling yet whether we will be able able get it fixed in the print version, which is in process but not yet final.
This stuff just makes me buggy. Time/distance errors are one of the things that annoys me the most in science fiction, especially in movies. Remember in Star Trek V when the Enterprise goes to "the center of the Galaxy," in about one and a half reels? Well, given that it is about 27,000 light years to the center of the galaxy, and even if we assume that the ship can go 1000 times the speed of light (Warp 8 in the Original Series was 512 c) that's a 27 year trip. I practically banged my head on the seat in front of me about that one (that and the business about a Klingon ship being picked up on sensors but going unnoticed because no one happened to be looking at the right screen at the right time--as though Spock didn't have something like the "Back Room" on my ships where other people are looking at the sensor data to back him up).
So, anyway, it's fixed. Thanks to reader RxScram for pointing out the error.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
It's HERE!!!
No kidding. This is not a teaser. The second volume of the Man of War Trilogy, For Honor We Stand is now available as an Amazon Kindle e book. The Nook edition on Barnes & Noble and the paperback edition will be along shortly. It was a good pregnancy, but a difficult birth. We really like the way the baby looks. We hope you do, too.
Here is the link to the book on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/For-Honor-Stand-Man-ebook/dp/B00BFE6IOC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360786484&sr=1-1&keywords=for+honor+we+stand
And here's a look at the cover. It should look pretty familiar.
Here is the link to the book on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/For-Honor-Stand-Man-ebook/dp/B00BFE6IOC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360786484&sr=1-1&keywords=for+honor+we+stand
And here's a look at the cover. It should look pretty familiar.
Monday, February 11, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
It's Still Coming
Well, gang, the new novel is still coming--it may just be a few more days than I planned. Essentially, I made a big mistake in formatting the manuscript that is requiring literally thousands of individual corrections before it can be uploaded for publication. I won't go into the details, mainly because it makes me look rather stupid.
Anyway, the book is written. We are just dealing with the manuscript issues and with inputting editorial corrections. It is looking as though it is not going to be ready before the end of the month, but early February is a good bet. I apologize for the delay--it is my own damn fault.
I am truly eager to get this one out. Once I get the book written, I sort of mentally move on to the next one. So, I really want this novel out of the way so I can start working on Brothers in Valor. I have very little patience for this part of the process. It is no fun at all.
But, I am working literally 12-16 hours a day to get the book out and it will be in your hands as fast as it can humanly be done. I think it's going to be worth the wait.
Anyway, the book is written. We are just dealing with the manuscript issues and with inputting editorial corrections. It is looking as though it is not going to be ready before the end of the month, but early February is a good bet. I apologize for the delay--it is my own damn fault.
I am truly eager to get this one out. Once I get the book written, I sort of mentally move on to the next one. So, I really want this novel out of the way so I can start working on Brothers in Valor. I have very little patience for this part of the process. It is no fun at all.
But, I am working literally 12-16 hours a day to get the book out and it will be in your hands as fast as it can humanly be done. I think it's going to be worth the wait.
Monday, January 21, 2013
"For Honor We Stand" to be Released this Week
Sorry for the lack of updates, folks, but I figured people would be more interested in reading a new novel than in reading a bunch of blog posts. We've been pushing hard to complete the next novel in the Man of War Trilogy, For Honor We Stand. The book is in final editing right now and should be issued this week. We did not make our original goal of having it out on January 21, but that date did keep our noses to the grindstone and we won't be missing it by more than a few days.
This has been a fun novel to write. It has somewhat more "action" than the first book, and the diplomatic intrigue as well as the overall conduct of the war story are told on a higher level, so to speak. There are major developments in terms of alliances and events that will dramatically shape the future course of the war against the Krag.
It did turn out longer than the first book. Book Two came out about 146,000 words, in comparison to Book One which was about 130,000.
The ending is very dramatic, if we say so our selves. And we do!
It will be out in just a few days. I will post an announcement here and on the Facebook page when it is about to go up.
This has been a fun novel to write. It has somewhat more "action" than the first book, and the diplomatic intrigue as well as the overall conduct of the war story are told on a higher level, so to speak. There are major developments in terms of alliances and events that will dramatically shape the future course of the war against the Krag.
It did turn out longer than the first book. Book Two came out about 146,000 words, in comparison to Book One which was about 130,000.
The ending is very dramatic, if we say so our selves. And we do!
It will be out in just a few days. I will post an announcement here and on the Facebook page when it is about to go up.
Monday, December 31, 2012
What's (Space) Opera, Doc?
When we we first had the idea for writing a series of books set on a warship in outer space, the words "Space Opera" were absolutely no part of our thinking process. In fact, we were really not focused on "genre issues" at all. Instead, we started talking about writing a series of novels (series novels being a really good market these days). What to write? Well, we really, liked Science Fiction, and we both know a lot about space, spacecraft, and astronomy, so that might be good. And we are both military buffs, so, maybe some kind of military story set in space. But we had not been happy with the way the military aspect of Science Fiction as it was generally handled: the ships, the combat, the tactics, the depiction of life on board ship, the traditions and courtesies of the military, the satisfactions and rewards of a naval life, etc.
We also really, really liked the Aubry/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian which we thought did an absolutely splendid job of depicting all of those things in the British Royal Navy during the early 19th Century. Wouldn't a series of Aubry/Maturin books in space be grand? Or Alexander Kent. Or C.S. Forrester. Well, not exactly, of course, our characters and situations would have to be unique creations from our own heads and hearts, but if we could take a careful look at what makes these books such enduring tales to which people come back again and again and translate them into tales set in outer space we thought we might have something.
So, that was the starting point, a series of Napoleonic War British Navy Sea Tales, but set in the year 2315. We looked at a few other literary successes. We love Tom Clancy and from him we learned that readers really do care about the nuts and bolts of how weapons systems and sensors and communications apparatus works. They want gritty details about what what makes these systems tick and what they do. The reader doesn't just want to be in the CIC and in the Wardroom, but in Fire Control and the Missile Room and even in the warhead when it goes off. We also really like Patrick Robinson and his strong naval characters and detailed discussion of strategy and tactics. In fact, we discerned a common thread between O'Brian and Kent and Forrester and Clancy and Robinson: detail. How people live. What they eat. Where they sleep. What they do for enjoyment. What songs they sing. How and with what do they kill their enemies? What are their traditions? So, we decided to throw out a lot of the common wisdom about how to write Science Fiction--don't bore your reader with too much detail; don't turn them off with too much technical stuff. Now, we didn't and won't turn these books into fictional technical treatises, but we will continue to show readers how this stuff works, and how the people make it work. It exists in our minds at that level of detail and we aren't afraid to share that detail with readers in a content-appropriate way.
We didn't know or care whether this approach made what we write Military Science Fiction, or Space Opera, or Space Navy Tales. You could call this stuff "Banana Pudding" for all we care. What we knew was this: we wanted to tell exciting tales about fighting men at war in outer space. We wanted the discussion of their ships, weapons, technology, strategy, and tactics to be detailed and within the realm of reason. We wanted the people to be recognizable military personalities with recognizable military motivations, operating within a recognizable military system of rank, hierarchy, organization, and method, and--for the most part--exemplifying what we regard to be the defining military/naval virtues: honor, courage, loyalty, toughness, competence, sacrifice, resourcefulness, humor, and resilience.
And, none of this nihilistic, pessimistic, "people are lousy and nothing you do matters" crap. So, maybe we borrowed from Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and even George Lucas as well. We wanted to tell stories in which individuals act with honor and courage and in which their laudable moral choices bring about good results. In our stories, individual human beings and their moral choices, for good or evil, to be loyal or disloyal, to face danger or to flee, all matter. No, perfect justice is not meted out in the end and all endings are not ideally happy, but in our stories the wages of courage and resourcefulness and resolve are not despair and dishonor. Overall, these books are and always will be upbeat and optimistic. Virtue is never pointless. Resistance is not futile. We, and our choices, matter. Every hour of every day, we engage in acts and make decisions that have consequences, and we are responsible for both the decisions and the consequences.
There are people who say that books written along these lines are not "serious literature." So what? If readers enjoy them, have fun reading them, and are uplifted and strengthened by the experience, then we are happy. That and, of course, we would like these books to find a large audience. We've made a good start with To Honor You Call Us, finding readers in the thousands when we thought we would be lucky to find them in the dozens. All we know to do is to keep writing what we set out to write in the first place, and to hope that readers continue to find these stories, to enjoy them, and to want us to write more.
Look for the next book in the Man of War trilogy, For Honor We Stand in three weeks or so. We hope you like it. We've certainly had fun writing it so far.
We also really, really liked the Aubry/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian which we thought did an absolutely splendid job of depicting all of those things in the British Royal Navy during the early 19th Century. Wouldn't a series of Aubry/Maturin books in space be grand? Or Alexander Kent. Or C.S. Forrester. Well, not exactly, of course, our characters and situations would have to be unique creations from our own heads and hearts, but if we could take a careful look at what makes these books such enduring tales to which people come back again and again and translate them into tales set in outer space we thought we might have something.
So, that was the starting point, a series of Napoleonic War British Navy Sea Tales, but set in the year 2315. We looked at a few other literary successes. We love Tom Clancy and from him we learned that readers really do care about the nuts and bolts of how weapons systems and sensors and communications apparatus works. They want gritty details about what what makes these systems tick and what they do. The reader doesn't just want to be in the CIC and in the Wardroom, but in Fire Control and the Missile Room and even in the warhead when it goes off. We also really like Patrick Robinson and his strong naval characters and detailed discussion of strategy and tactics. In fact, we discerned a common thread between O'Brian and Kent and Forrester and Clancy and Robinson: detail. How people live. What they eat. Where they sleep. What they do for enjoyment. What songs they sing. How and with what do they kill their enemies? What are their traditions? So, we decided to throw out a lot of the common wisdom about how to write Science Fiction--don't bore your reader with too much detail; don't turn them off with too much technical stuff. Now, we didn't and won't turn these books into fictional technical treatises, but we will continue to show readers how this stuff works, and how the people make it work. It exists in our minds at that level of detail and we aren't afraid to share that detail with readers in a content-appropriate way.
We didn't know or care whether this approach made what we write Military Science Fiction, or Space Opera, or Space Navy Tales. You could call this stuff "Banana Pudding" for all we care. What we knew was this: we wanted to tell exciting tales about fighting men at war in outer space. We wanted the discussion of their ships, weapons, technology, strategy, and tactics to be detailed and within the realm of reason. We wanted the people to be recognizable military personalities with recognizable military motivations, operating within a recognizable military system of rank, hierarchy, organization, and method, and--for the most part--exemplifying what we regard to be the defining military/naval virtues: honor, courage, loyalty, toughness, competence, sacrifice, resourcefulness, humor, and resilience.
And, none of this nihilistic, pessimistic, "people are lousy and nothing you do matters" crap. So, maybe we borrowed from Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and even George Lucas as well. We wanted to tell stories in which individuals act with honor and courage and in which their laudable moral choices bring about good results. In our stories, individual human beings and their moral choices, for good or evil, to be loyal or disloyal, to face danger or to flee, all matter. No, perfect justice is not meted out in the end and all endings are not ideally happy, but in our stories the wages of courage and resourcefulness and resolve are not despair and dishonor. Overall, these books are and always will be upbeat and optimistic. Virtue is never pointless. Resistance is not futile. We, and our choices, matter. Every hour of every day, we engage in acts and make decisions that have consequences, and we are responsible for both the decisions and the consequences.
There are people who say that books written along these lines are not "serious literature." So what? If readers enjoy them, have fun reading them, and are uplifted and strengthened by the experience, then we are happy. That and, of course, we would like these books to find a large audience. We've made a good start with To Honor You Call Us, finding readers in the thousands when we thought we would be lucky to find them in the dozens. All we know to do is to keep writing what we set out to write in the first place, and to hope that readers continue to find these stories, to enjoy them, and to want us to write more.
Look for the next book in the Man of War trilogy, For Honor We Stand in three weeks or so. We hope you like it. We've certainly had fun writing it so far.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Can You Say "Ninety Thousand Words?" Sure, I Knew You Could
Hard work over Christmas when everyone else was hanging mistletoe and drinking egg nog has gotten the rough draft of For Honor We Stand to a few hundred words shy of the 90,000 mark. Things are coming nicely and we have a clear idea about where we are going with the rest of the book, so it's not like you or we have to worry that we're going to hit some huge dry spell for a month where we don't know what to do next.
So, we still expect to release around January 21. If it is ready sooner, we will release sooner.
As we continue to write and read correspondence from fans (that's really, really cool by the way) and watch the development of this story line and these characters on the page and in our minds, we think that this project is looking more and more like a series of trilogies. Our storytelling style seems to lend itself to detailed narratives of fairly brief periods of time, so we are thinking that each trilogy will cover a fairly short period--a few months or so--but be separated from one another by longer periods so that we can advance the larger story arc of the progress of the war against the Krag by reasonable increments.
But, this is still sort of fuzzy right now. We tend to make these people and their ship and their situation very real in our minds and then let the story and the people go where they "want" to go. We think that this is where they are going to take us, but we aren't quite sure yet.
I will keep you up to date in this space as we get closer to publication.
I can let you in on a little secret. Until now, you have never met a commissioned officer in the Union Navy whom you are likely to actively dislike. You are about to.
I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Please accept my best wishes for a happy new year. Hang in there, people.
Per laboram ad victoriam.
Paul
So, we still expect to release around January 21. If it is ready sooner, we will release sooner.
As we continue to write and read correspondence from fans (that's really, really cool by the way) and watch the development of this story line and these characters on the page and in our minds, we think that this project is looking more and more like a series of trilogies. Our storytelling style seems to lend itself to detailed narratives of fairly brief periods of time, so we are thinking that each trilogy will cover a fairly short period--a few months or so--but be separated from one another by longer periods so that we can advance the larger story arc of the progress of the war against the Krag by reasonable increments.
But, this is still sort of fuzzy right now. We tend to make these people and their ship and their situation very real in our minds and then let the story and the people go where they "want" to go. We think that this is where they are going to take us, but we aren't quite sure yet.
I will keep you up to date in this space as we get closer to publication.
I can let you in on a little secret. Until now, you have never met a commissioned officer in the Union Navy whom you are likely to actively dislike. You are about to.
I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Please accept my best wishes for a happy new year. Hang in there, people.
Per laboram ad victoriam.
Paul
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Amazing Reviews!
Today, Christmas Day, To Honor You Call Us got its 31st positive review from an Amazon.com customer, which was also its 23rd five-star review (there are 7 four star and one three--and even the three star is extremely complimentary). There is only one word to describe my reaction (speaking only for myself here, not for Harvey), to the customer reviews we have been getting on Amazon: stunned. A few people have a few quibbles, but other than that, the reviewers have been very positive and almost all say they are eager to read further books in the series.
What particularly surprises me is the number of people who say that this is one of the best books of this kind they have ever read. Remember, we have not published so much as a short story. Between us, we've published a Law Review Note, some judicial opinions, lots of legal briefs, editorials for a college newspaper, and some movie reviews. Not one word of fiction. Not. One. Word. Making a decision to spend a few months writing a novel with such a profusion of inexperience behind us was a tremendous leap of faith (not to mention a rational acquiescence to our wives who were adamant that we had the talent to do this and that we sit down and start to write that very minute).
So, with this novel we chose to boldly go where these men had never gone before. Hmmm. Something about that has a familiar ring. Hmmmm. The reviews have been creating the sales and the sales have been good. There is nothing to do but keep writing and to try to make the second novel better than the first.
What particularly surprises me is the number of people who say that this is one of the best books of this kind they have ever read. Remember, we have not published so much as a short story. Between us, we've published a Law Review Note, some judicial opinions, lots of legal briefs, editorials for a college newspaper, and some movie reviews. Not one word of fiction. Not. One. Word. Making a decision to spend a few months writing a novel with such a profusion of inexperience behind us was a tremendous leap of faith (not to mention a rational acquiescence to our wives who were adamant that we had the talent to do this and that we sit down and start to write that very minute).
So, with this novel we chose to boldly go where these men had never gone before. Hmmm. Something about that has a familiar ring. Hmmmm. The reviews have been creating the sales and the sales have been good. There is nothing to do but keep writing and to try to make the second novel better than the first.
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