Well well well, I have a house full of sick people so this post is both late and brief, and the planned essay will be coming next week instead.
In lieu of plans and all that good stuff, here’s the cover for Libertatia, which is coming out on Thursday.
No one would accuse me of doing a good job marketing my own books and so this announcement should have reached you already, but here we are!
Libertatia is the finale of Season One of The Shattered Stars.
The Shattered Stars
The Burning Apollo arrives on the galactic frontier with a mission: to reunite the shattered fragments of humanity three hundred years after the Collapse. Crewed by an uneasy band of outcasts, criminals, and former pirates, on each planet they encounter former colonists rendered alien by genetic engineering and the passage of time.
For those who don’t feel like clicking over, here’s what you need to know about Libertatia:
Episode Four: Libertatia; or, the Onion King
The distress signal seems innocuous—until three crew members are taken hostage, along with a whole ship supposedly allied with the Federated Colonies. The pirates are brutal and clever, but strangest of all, the masked man who leads them claims to be a hero—and some of the bridge crew agree. A brutal game ensues as Captain Harken and the Onion King face off, but, somehow, the Burning Apollo is always one move behind.
Don’t that sound fun!
While we’ve been describing The Shattered Stars as inspired by Star Trek: The Next Generation and Firefly, this is the most Firefly episode.
Full disclosure: it’s also my favorite. Both to write and to read.
I cannot wait for you all to read it.
Because I’m behind schedule on all kinds of things due to holidays and sicknesses and work and general life hullabaloo, I didn’t get the preorder figured out, but expect it to go live on Thursday morning.
I always like to remind all you fine people that this is an episodic series and it’s not necessary to read every single episode. Think of it like watching Star Trek: TNG as it was coming out in the 90s. Sometimes you’d miss an episode but that didn’t mean you had to skip the next one too.
I mean, I recommend reading all of them!
Here’s the rest of the series, in episode order:
Colony Collapse - A Le Guinian style planetary romance
The Blood Dancers - A high octane action adventure in space
Sleeping Giants - Political intrigue on a theocratic planet
Libertatia; or, The Onion King is, perhaps, best described as a bottle episode. Also, you know, there’s a hostage situation and violence and comedy and mind games and all that.
More on this on Thursday.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.
Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers
Broken Katana - Sequel to Iron Wolf.
Hell yeah. Is that a Blue Jay? Hope everyone’s feeling better soon.