First of all, apologies to “a_random_me” for not approving your post for over a month. I missed the moderation request.
Dark Blue Eyes asked about the future plans. They are now more or less set, although the start date depends on a medical situation. Let me start by discussing the plans.
I don’t have time to do my own audio editing, since I already have two full time jobs. :) That said, Carolyn and I had a nice discussion at dinner the other week and we worked out a great deal for me paying her to continue doing what she did so well in Death by Cliche. Essentially, she’ll do the work, she’ll get paid, but we’ve worked it out so that if she feels like getting fancy with something she can without feeling guilty. Anyway, it’s a great deal all around.
So, when it’s fiscally possible, we will start recording and producing in earnest. I’ll keep you apprised as we go, but my goal is to have about a month in the can before we post the first one, in case we have another vacation situation like last time. :)
First thing you’ll see: Probably an ad for The Echoes of Heaven to get people aware of the setting and to set you up a little for what is to come.
Second thing you’ll see: The Series of Short Stories about a Witch-Hunter name Shorvan Leonedovich (in The Echoes of Heaven setting). The first story is called Ulcer. I intend to aim for 20-30 minute episodes, to keep the work flowing and the money manageable, so I’m GUESSING, that we’re looking at about two episodes per story. I think they take 40-60 minutes each to read aloud. That means that will be between 6 and 12 weeks of content. I still need a title for the series as a whole. Maybe something like The Fall of the Witch-Hunter. I don’t know. I’m drawing a blank on a good one.
My goal is not to have another pause. That means right after this I’ll probably want to lighten the mood. I’ll probably do this with the masterful, and deeply meaningful and insightful story, The Great Midwestern Squirrel Conspiracy of 2010. That’s 1-2 episodes. It will bring world peace. Apologies to everyone for not releasing it sooner.
After that, I’ll launch into a novel. At this point I’m thinking the first novel will be Interference Patterns.
Interference Patterns is essentially a near future Hard SF murder mystery about Quantum Physics. That’s 12 longish chapters, so I’m guessing 24 episodes.
This point is really a little up in the air. I have a hard military sf novel, about the same length, called Xenos’ Paradigm. About a diplomat trying to figure out why his actions in a friendly diplomatic meeting caused the only aliens Earth has ever met to start a bloody, brutal war. I don’t know if that book will be available for this slot, however. I’m hoping this book is at BAEN by then, and if that’s the case I wouldn’t want to do anything that would effect it’s rights.
Around this point we’re getting a little blurry, so I’ll just list some things you might see and
what issues I have releasing them (if any):
The War of Wars Part 1: Point of Contact: This is the book I want to do the most, but it’s currently at BAEN. It’s been there for almost 5 years, so I don’t know if it’s freeing up anytime soon. This is the first Spacemaster novel I’ve written (Spacemaster is a roleplaying game I revised for Iron Crown Enterprises). It’s about a DSA (this is a future version of the NSA) analyst who finds herself in the middle of the opening days of a vast, interstellar war. Though she’s safely behind lines, the machinations of the sides and the intelligence her troops need to survive all fall on her shoulders. One of my critquers described it as “What Clancy would write if he wrote science fiction.“ I don’t think the real story can live up to that praise. :) I have the rights to produce this myself, via a license from Iron Crown.
Global Conditioning: A short story about one man’s crusade to end global warning. Available but too tied to the former administration to sell.
Echoes of the Big Bang: The story of a NSA cryptographer trying to figure out how the Chinese have cracked our “unbreakable” one time pad encryptions.
Smart Bombs, Dumb People: Like Catch 22, but more low-brow and with poorer execution. :) My first comedy short story.
A Measure of Misery: In my opinion, the best novel I’ve ever written. It’s been at Tor for about two and a half years. I don’t know if it’s going to become free for me to do as an audiobook. It’s about a burned-out healer in a world where all magic must be fueled directly by one’s personal pain. The more personal the pain, the more powerful the magic. This burned-out, possibly drug addicted man is pulled into a plot to save the world.
The Siege of Heaven: The first Echoes of Heaven novel. This one will probably come fairly soon, I just need to finish writing it. It’s the story of an autistic man who’s given the spark of a dying angel as well as the angel’s quest to foil and unstoppable force of evil before he can enslave the world.
That’s a taste of things to come, now the hitch:
I’ve been in a great deal of physical pain for more than seven years now. Two almost identical accidents have reduced my back to twitching agony. With my new job, I can now afford to do something about it, but weekly visits to the chiropractor have never done much good. I’ve found a chiropractor whose helped alot through aggressive treatments, but aggressive means expensive. I’ve been going three times a week and I can walk stairs again, which is a good sign, but I’m starting to suspect that two months treatment isn’t going to do it. I might be more like 3 or 4, if my current progress is any indication.
So I plan to start recordings as soon as the visits stop (or slow to a more financially manageable rate.) I just don’t know if that’s one month away or three.
I’ll try to keep you posted better going forward, but once I start this again, it will be a goal to release something every week for the foreseeable future, and I want to be sure I can sustain that.
Enjoy your week.
Bob.
