Conspiracy of Silence Reviewed by Steampunk Traveler

The Traveler's Steampunk Blog  reviewed Conspiracy of Silence (the first book in the second series of Space:1889 And Beyond ebooks from Untreed Reads, and co-authored by Andy Frankham-Allen and Yours Truely) last October, but for some reason it slipped by me. It's a very nice review, giving us ten out of ten Zeppelins and the Badge of Honor (editor's pick), which is about as good as it gets.

The reviewer believes it's the strongest of the Space: 1889 and Beyond books to date. I wouldn't want to compare it to other folks' work, but I think it's the strongest of the three books I worked on. Check it out. Here's the link to the review.

Conspiracy of Silence is Live!

Conspiracy of Silence, the first book in the second season of Space: 1889 and Beyond, is now live. I just got this email from Jay Hartman, Editor-in-Chief of Untreed Reads Publishing:



Conspiracy of Silence has officially gone live! It's available for immediate purchase and download from:

The Untreed Reads Store (http://bit.ly/Pqrzz3)

Amazon.com (6 countries) (http://amzn.to/PmlSRe)

Apple's iBookstore (32 countries)

Barnes and Noble (worldwide)

DriveThruFiction.com

DriveThruRPG.com (new retailer for Space: 1889 & Beyond!)

Lightning Source (North American distributor)

OmniLit.com

Scribd.com

We are in the process of sending out the coupon code for all of the people who purchased the Season Two Pass.

Space 1889 and Beyond Season 2 Preview

Season two of Space: 1889 and beyond is just about here, and Untred Reads is offering another season pass. More about that soon. But in the mean time here is the press release from Untreed Reads followed by a preview of Conspiracy of Silence, co-authored by Andy Frankham-Allen and myself.

Coming mid-August 2012

The second exciting series of steampunk adventures!

Everything H.G. Wells could have written.

Everything Arthur Conan Doyle thought of,

but never published – because it was too fantastic!

Following on from the success of the first series, Untreed Reads Publishing is proud to present the second series of six books based on the world-renowned Role Playing Game, fully licensed from creator, Frank Chadwick, and headed by best-selling author Andy Frankham-Allen.

The series begins mid-August, and will be released bi-monthly, thus running for a whole year. Once again we’ve brought together some of the best names in fantasy fiction as well as some relatively new names to bring you a series that will continue to re-shape the popular steampunk universe first created almost twenty years ago.

This series our heroes, “Professor” Nathanial Stone and Annabelle Somerset are joined by two others on their journey through the aether. Captain Jacob Folkard, the commander of HMAS Sovereign, and another familiar face. There is much turbulence and change ahead, as secrets are unveiled, mysteries revealed, with the fate of the British Empire hanging in the balance. Think you’ve seen it all? Think again. Join Nathanial, Annabelle, Folkard and guest as they travel from one corner of the Space: 1889 universe to another, from the conspiracies that eat away at the heart of the British Empire to the underworld of Ceres, watch them as they encounter pterodactyls in the clouds above Venus, join them on their longest journey between worlds where it seems their darkest fears follow them all the way to Phobos and the mysteries contained inside that moon… Where will their journey end? Nothing is certain, except that by the end of series two the 1889-verse will be shaken to its very core!

Previously On…

At the end of the last series, Nathanial and Annabelle found themselves in something of a tight spot. Annabelle lost one of her legs due to the machinations of the manipulative French man, Le Boeuf, on an experimental heliograph station, and Nathanial found himself placed under arrest for the destruction of said station. It seemed things were looking up for them after they helped rescue Annabelle’s increasingly mad uncle, inventor Cyrus Grant, and foiled a Russian plan to secure the moon and the alien Heart at its centre. But as series one closed, Annabelle was disheartened by her uncle’s deterioration, despite the support of Lieutenant George Bedford, first officer of the Royal Navy’s flagship HMAS Sovereign, and Nathanial was left to ponder his own future. He hopes that his actions on Luna will give his innocence some credence, but is concerned about the reception awaiting him on Earth… No one but he and Annabelle survived the destruction of Peregrine station, so who is behind the charges levied against him?

Series two begins mere hours from where series one left off, with the series creator, Frank Chadwick, joining forces with series editor, Andy Frankham-Allen, to bring you a tour-de-force in Space: 1889 adventure!

The Stories

1.      Conspiracy of Silence by Andy Frankham-Allen & Frank Chadwick
2.      To Ceres by Steam by Paul Ebbs
3.      Leviathans of the Clouds by Steven Savile & David Parish-Whittaker
4.      The Forever Journey by Oli Smith
5.      A Fistful of Dust by Sharon Bidwell
6.      Horizons of Deceit by Jonathan Cooper

The Team

Andy Frankham-Allen (left, series editor and co-author, Conspiracy of Silence) is a Welsh-born author of many short stories, both for Untreed Reads and the Big Finish’s official range of Doctor Who anthologies. In 2005 he co-authored the last in Noise Monster Productions range of Space 1889 audio dramas, and in early 2011 Untreed Reads published the first novel in his new real world dark fantasy series, The Garden, which was nominated for the Rainbow Award, Best Full-Length Supernatural Novel 2011. He continues to write short stories and novels, with upcoming projects including a novel in Crossroads Press’ Scattered Earth series, and non-fiction Doctor Who book for Candy Jar Publishing, as well the second book in The Garden series. On top of all that, he’s also the series editor for Space: 1889 & Beyond.

Frank Chadwick (right, series creator and co-author, Conspiracy of Silence) is no stranger to the Victorian science fiction field. He is the creator of the Space: 1889 universe, with the first in a series of role-playing adventures, board games, and miniatures rules appearing over twenty years ago. He is known throughout the gaming industry as one of its most prolific designers, with over a hundred published games. He is also well-known in the history and military affairs field, with over two hundred books, articles, and columns. His 1991 Desert Shield Fact Book reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, but he still lists steampunk as one of his first and greatest loves. As well writing one and a half novels in the first series of Space: 1889 & Beyond, his forthcoming works include two novels with Baen Books, How Dark the World Becomes and The Forever Engine which is set in the Space: 1889 universe.

Paul Ebbs (left, author To Ceres by Steam) has written various Doctor Who related things for the BBC, Big Finish Productions and BBV, and as a TV writer he’s written for such notable shows as EastEnders, Casualty, The Bill and Dead Ringers.

Steven Savile (right, co-author, Leviathan of the Clouds) has written for Doctor Who, Primeval, Stargate, Warhammer, Slaine, Fireborn, Pathfinder and other popular game and comic worlds. His novels have been published in eight languages to date, including the Italian bestseller L’eridita. He won the International Media Association of Tie-In Writers award for his Primeval novel, Shadow of the Jaguar, published by Titan, in 2010, and has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award on multiple occasions. Silver, his debut thriller reached #2 in the Amazon UK e-charts in the summer of 2011 selling over forty thousand copies in the process. He wrote the story for the huge international bestselling computer game Battlefield 3, which sold over five million copies in its week of release, and he served as head writer on the popular online children’s game SPINEWORLD which have over one million players. His latest books include Tau Ceti (co-authored with International Bestselling novelist Kevin J. Anderson), Each Ember’s Ghost and the novelisation of the computer game Risen 2: Dark Waters.

David Parish-Whittaker (left, co-author. Leviathan of the Clouds) was a winner of the Writers of the Future contest for emerging talent in speculative fiction for his short story A Warbird in the Belly of the Mouse. He’s previously written tie-in fiction for the Rezolution miniatures ruleset by Aberrant Games, to be published in an upcoming anthology. His short fiction has also appeared in Every Day Fiction. He currently writes videogame analysis and reviews for Geekosophy and Bag of Games. When he’s not writing, David works as a captain for a national airline. In previous incarnations, he has been a naval flight officer, traffic watch pilot, glider tow pilot and aerobatic instructor. He is a rated commercial glider pilot, and holds an H-2 hang glider rating. In his off hours, he plays a replica medieval harp for the Goliards, an early music group specializing in 13th – 15th century music, mostly to cement his geek street cred.

Oli Smith (right, author, The Forever Journey) spent two years as a freelance writer working on novels, audio books, comic strips and video games for the BBC series Doctor Who. Now he works as a creative producer for London-based video games company Mediatonic and spends his evenings playing board games. He still likes writing, retro sci-fi and RPGs so it looks like Space: 1889 has got him covered.

Sharon Bidwell (left, author, A Fistful of Death) was born in London on New Year’s Eve. The first short story she submitted — Silver Apples of the Moon— was accepted by Roadworks Magazine. The editor announced her as ‘a writer who is going places’ and described the story as having ‘both a Sci-fi and horror element,’ and being ‘strong on characterisation, and quite literary, in terms of style.’ With a repertoire of twisted tales and a love of cross-genre writing, it surprised everyone (including herself) when she branched out into erotic romance. These works have been critically acclaimed and often described as ‘deeply passionate’. Sharon’s worlds are vivid, unexpected and sometimes intensely magical. She is the author of the best-selling gay romances ‘Snow Angel‘ and the sequel ‘Angel Heart’. Sharon writes whatever her warped mind can come up with. Although her longer works to date mostly involve a variety of wonderful men finding true love…or at least some loving, she’s quite capable of writing something darker, grittier, and even outright twisted.

Jonathan Cooper (right, author, Horizons of Deceit) was born in Wolverhampton in 1981. He started his career in theatre, writing plays from the Birmingham REP and the King’s Head in Islington. He has written extensively on the web on film, TV, video games and other assorted geekery, including a stint producing reviews and opinion for Mirror.co.uk. He has written and produced two short films with another two in production and has had short stories published internationally – he is also, according to the BBC – one of the top 200 comedy writers in the UK. Horizons of Deceit is his first full-length science fiction piece, and he remains bizarrely proud of the day Steven Moffat threatened to set his eagles on him.

Adam Burn (left, cover designer) has been drawing from an early age, and has been working with digital art for at least seven of them. He is a freelance artist who has worked for Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games. He was, most recently, the Senior 2D Artist for Taitale Studios on their forthcoming MMORTS game, Novus Aeterno. Steampunk is a new genre for him, but one he’s finding his way around quickly, and he is responsible for the covers of series two, as well as the revamp of the Space: 1889 & Beyondlogo.

Exclusive: Conspiracy of Silence (prologue)

1.

“AETHER PROPELLOR SECURED and ventral mast shipped, sir.”

“Very good, Mister Barry.” Lieutenant George Bedford, acting captain of HMAS Sovereign, the most modern aether battleship in the Royal Navy, took a quick scan of the bridge instruments and engine room repeaters before turning back to the young sub-lieutenant. “At what would you estimate our drop, Mister Barry?”

Barry had only worn the single thick stripe of a sub-lieutenant for eight months and Bedford hadn’t known him as a midshipman. The youngster had a good level head on his shoulders, Bedford had learned that much about him several weeks earlier when the two of them had dropped half a dozen Saltators—giant lunar red ants—with revolver fire when the monsters had boiled unexpectedly out of the hatch of a cutter on the docking bay. His technical skills were another matter, but they were coming along.

Barry squinted through the lens of the horizontal inclinometer, aimed out the bridge’s starboard observation blister, consulted his pocket watch, waited ten seconds and took a second reading through the lens. He paused, doing the calculation in his head.

“I make the drop fifty-five fathoms per second, sir.”

Bedford nodded; he made it nearly the same. Fifty-five fathoms a second, a descent rate of almost four miles a minute, was a bit steep and on this trajectory would put them down in the North Atlantic instead of the English Channel, as well as scorch the lower hull. “Trimsman, let’s have fifteen percent buoyancy on the lifters.”

“Fifteen percent buoyancy, aye, sir,” the petty officer answered and went to work on his forest of levers, each controlling the angle of one of the liftwood louvers which covered much of Sovereign’s lower hull.

“Mister Barry, my compliments to Lieutenant Boswell and he may light the coal boilers at his discretion.”

“Sir.”

They wouldn’t have enough atmospheric oxygen for the boilers for another ten minutes or so, but Boswell, the chief engineer, knew that well enough. The sun was still visible above the curvature of the Earth and would remain so all the way down through cloud-free skies. Although it was not yet day in Southern England, the eastern sky would already be pink and the sun would rise full up in the hour their descent from orbit would take, racing as they were toward the dawn. The solar boilers would do until Boswell put the black gang to work, would probably suffice until the last ten minutes of the flight, when they would penetrate the near-permanent cloud and smoke cover over Greater London. No solar boiler yet made would work down under that grey-brown shroud.

Bedford took another look at the bridge, its gleaming brass instruments and polished mahogany panelling, and he sighed. In an hour, a bit more, Sovereign would be down and secure at Chatham Dockyard and his temporary command would end. There was no chance for a simple lieutenant with eight years seniority to land a permanent command such as this—the choicest command in the fleet, coveted by officers with two more stripes on their cuffs and with the all-important political backing and social standing he lacked. No, he would be reassigned. In the past he had always looked forward to a new assignment, but not this time. After commanding Sovereign, however briefly, no other assignment had the capacity to stir his blood. Damn, she was a fine ship!

More than that, she held memories. Were it not for his assignment to HMAS Sovereign, he would never have met and befriended Nathanial Stone, and would not now be delivering him to the police for trial as a traitor and saboteur. He would never have met Cyrus Grant, one of the greatest scientific minds of the age, now reduced to confusion and madness by their experiences on Luna. Most importantly, he would never have met Grant’s niece, Annabelle Somerset.

Annabelle…

2.

NATHANIAL WATCHED AS the line of Russian former captives was led to the steam omnibus waiting at dockside. The irony of their situation and his washed over him like a cold wave. Former enemies of Britain, they, along with British personnel, had been captured by the alien Drobates on Luna, and all had been rescued by Bedford’s daring raid, leading fewer than a dozen Royal marines and naval ratings. Now the Russians would be released, amidst much public fanfare, to the custody of the Russian ambassador, who would in turn express the heartfelt gratitude of the Tsar.

In the subsequent fighting which had nearly cost all of them their lives, the Russians had done nothing to help while Nathanial, with a captured Drobate electric rifle, had held a long, dim tunnel against an alien horde, and had done so nearly alone and with little expectation he would escape with his life. Now British soldiers helped the Russians into the steam omnibus, showed them every courtesy, while a quartet of hard-eyed constables marched purposely toward Nathanial, obviously intent on taking custody of him from the two Royal Marines who guarded him.

Nathanial had at least expected to be met by some sort of government official, have the charges explained. Instead a black police four-wheeler loomed behind the constables. Were they really simply going to pack him up and cart him off to prison with no further ado?

Nathanial looked for any sign of his friends. Captain Folkard, who had relieved himself of command of Sovereign after the disastrous events on Luna had played themselves out, was nowhere to be seen on the dock, but Nathanial spied Annabelle making her way to him on the arm of Lieutenant Bedford, both of them limping. Bedford had suffered a nasty sprain of his ankle on Luna and Annabelle… Months earlier Annabelle had lost her right leg above the knee and now wore a mechanical limb designed by Nathanial and built using Drobate technology over the course of the last few weeks. It seemed to serve her well, the only bright spot in this uniformly bleak scene.

“Is this Stone?” the leading constable asked.

“Of course it is,” Private Jones answered, bristling slightly. “And what of it, then?”

“It’s all right, Private,” Nathanial said. “It is clear enough they are here for me. If you gentlemen would be so good as to give me a moment to take my leave of my friends, I would appreciate it.” He addressed this last to the leading constable.

Instead the man gestured to his assistants. “Seize him and put him in the van.”

“No! Just a moment, please!” Nathanial entreated but to no avail.

Two constables pinned his arms to his side and pulled him toward the black carriage. A few yards away Annabelle cried out and broke free of Bedford, reached out to him. The leading constable made as if to stop her but Jones’s rifle was suddenly in his hands at high port.

“Touch the lady, friend, and you’ll be chokin’ on your teeth,” Jones growled and the constable took a step back.

“Nathanial,” Annabelle said and thrust something round, flat, and metallic into his hand, “take this and remember—never lose hope.”

The constables pulled him away and he saw George Bedford comforting Annabelle as the doors on the back of the van closed and plunged him into darkness. He looked at his hand and saw a small gold watch, gleaming dully in the faint light which entered through the overhead ventilator. He recognised it as the pocket watch her father had given her—which contained on its inside a daguerreotype of her deceased parents; the only thing she retained from that former life.

Never lose hope.

Conspiracy of Silence Almost Here

I'm just back from Fredericksburg, VA and the HMGS Historicon show where we had some great fun with Mars Needs Steam -- and more about that soon. But also waiting for me when I returned was the final cover for Conspiracy of Silence as well as the promotional blurb. This is the seventh e-novel from Untreed Reads in the Space 1889 and Beyond series, or the first one in the second series, depending on how you look at it. Andy Frankham-Allen, the series editor, and I co-authored it. Of course, the very first thing which should jump out at you is that our new cover artist is shit-hot. This is a low-res version of the cover, but I'm sure I'll have a better one when it actually launches, which should be within days.

Here is the promotional description:

For Nathanial Stone and Annabelle Somerset, the most harrowing journey has only just begun!

At long last, Nathanial and Annabelle are back on Earth, but the reception is hardly what they hoped for – Nathanial locked up in Chatham Convict Prison, Annabelle and her uncle Cyrus Grant held in the Tower of London: the charge – treason!

Someone high up in the British government is putting pressure on them for mysterious reasons. But when the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Britain is assassinated in a gunpowder plot which would have made Guy Fawkes smile, events spin out of everyone’s control.

The clock is ticking down on the arrival of the new Austrian ambassador, and on an assassination plot which aims to cut the heart out of the British monarchy and government. The race to thwart the conspirators will take Nathanial, Annabelle and George Bedford through the heart of Whitechapel at night, to gunpowder barges anchored in the Thames, to seedy boarding houses attacked by infernal clockwork devices and finally to the dizzy heights of a zeppelin docking gantry packed with explosives, and where a single spark will mean extinction for all.

Why Are E-Books Such A Big Deal? Part 2

Well, I knew I'd come back to this topic, and so I have. What prompts my return is the announcement that for the first time eBook sales revenues in the US have topped hardcover revenues. Ebooks surpassed hardcovers in units sold some time ago, but unit prices are much lower. Now gross revenues have surpassed them as well, according to a new report from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and reported in TechCrunch.com (link to article here).

The study looks at revenue-to-date in calender 2012, in which time ebooks generated $282.3 million in sales and hard-covers generated $229.8 million. The article then goes on to look at comparative sales data from the same period last year and claims (incorrectly), "Almost exactly a year ago the tables were turned with ebooks hitting $220 million and hardcovers brushing $335 million." They included the statistical table from the AAP report which shows that the authors of the TechCrunch article had a hard time reading the table correctly, since the $335 million sales number was in fact for adult paperbacks, not adult hardcovers. Adult hardcover numbers were actually only 223.5 million last year, which means ebook sales passed hardcover, but not going in opposite directions; both grew, but ebooks grew more.

The big losers were adult paperback (down from $335 million to $299.8 million) and adult mass market paperback (down from $124.8 million to $98.9 million) which sort of confirms my earlier suspicion that ebooks were supplanting paperbacks more than hardcovers due to their lower price point and greater portability.

At about the same time Bowkers released a ten-country study (link to study here) on percentage of the population which had purchased and downloaded an ebook. Since only ten countries were studied, this is obviously not exhaustive, but it's still interesting. Here are the rankings for those ten countries:

India                     24%
Australia              21%
United Kingdom  21%
United States       20%
Brazil                   18%
South Korea         14%
Germany              13%
Spain                    13%
Japan                      8%
France                    5%

A couple observations on these numbers.

The India and Brazil numbers are striking. The parts of the third world which are in the process of breaking into the first world -- and India and Brazil are in the forfront of the --, have enjoyed explosive growth in digital connectivity in part because of infrastructure issues. Cell phones have become the communication device of choice because cell phone service requires modest infrastructure increases compared with laying land lines everywhere, so lots of folks have cell phones instead of land lines. Digital literacy has followedat a pretty healthy clip and that's pointed to as a partial explanation of the enthusiastic embrace of ebooks in those countries.

France's low adoption rate is striking but may have something to do with its traditional love affair with the printed word. A more tangible reason has to do with France and Germany both having regulations in effect which protect small bookstores and so encourage consumers to frequent them.
Here's a link to Paris-based blogger Frederic Filloux, who discusses this. The impact of the ebook revolution on bookstores in our country has been profound (although it's certainly not the only thing which put a squeeze on them). In the 1950s, New York City boasted over 330 bookstores. Now it is down to 30 (according to Andre Schiffrin, former head of Pantheon Books).

Why Are E-Books Such A Big Deal? Part 1

I've said before here that everyone (including me) has an opinion about where e-publishing is going, but nobody (including me) really knows. The reason is the landscape is changing so fast. One element of human psychology is "presentism," (although I don't think that's exactly the term generally used) but what it means is that only the present is real and so we psychologically assign enormous weight to it -- correctly, for the most part. But it also means we have an easy time believing in gradual change but a very hard time believing in the possibility of sudden and very dramatic change. Hardly anyone foresees catastrophes, and those who do are branded crackpots, although to be fair, they are vastly outnumbered by the genuine crackpots who predict catastrophes all the time and are always wrong. What does that have to do with the future of e-publishing?

E-readership is expanding at a rate which, were it a disease or a climatic shift, would clearly be catastrophic. A study from Bowkers (one of the big names in publishing) which came out this last week drives that home. The study was of e-readership in the United Kingdom. Here are some of the remarkable changes it identified.

Effectively one third of all Brits are now or will soon be e-readers. 31% self-identified themselves as likely to purchase an e-book in the next six months. That's a big number, but what sort of a trend does it represent? The number of adults in the UK who have purchased an e-book has nearly tripled in the seven months from February of 2011 to the information cut-off of the study.

Tablets have become the reader of choice, with Kindle dominating the tablet market, with consumers purchasing well over one million of the eReaders per week from the fourth quarter of last year on. . I suspect the iPad is coming on strong, even though it is not a dedicated eReader.

So where this is going is anybody's guess. One effect has been the explosion of self-publishing. For the first time in history, authors have a nearly unrestricted access to the global marketplace, for better or worse. (One of the gatekeepers standing between authors and readers in the past was the editor, and lots of self-published eBooks would have benefitted from that particular gatekeeper having remained in place.)

Lots of folks will guess wrong about what this means for the future, but the one guess you can be certain is wrong is that this is all just a passing fad and won't have much long-term effect on publishing.

I labeled this entry "Part 1," because I'm sure I'll end up revisiting this subject again.

Dark Side of Luna -- Coming This Week

Book six, and the finale to the first season of Space 1889 and Beyond stories, will be out from Untreed Reads by the end of this week. The finished cover is above and it has a suitably menacing look to it. I co-authored this piece and I think you'll really like it. Dark Side of Luna has lots of action, including a sort of "small war" military campaign (if you can conduct an extended campaign with one section of Royal Marine Light Infantry -- and it seems you can if you are a sufficiently determined and resourceful chap).

So those of you who have purchased A Prince of Mars but not yet read it might want to, so as to be primed for this new epic adventure. Those of you who have not purchased it . . . well, I hardly know what to offer you other than a revolver and some privacy.

Andy Frankham-Allen , the series editor, and I are co-authoring the lead book in the second series, Conspiracy of Silence, which picks up where Dark Side of Luna leaves off. In fact, I've got to finish up the last chapter, so back to it.

Book Cover For "A Prince of Mars"

Here is the final book cover for A Prince of Mars. I think it may be the best of the covers so far in the Space 1889 And Beyond series. The book should be live very shortly -- hopefully in a day or so. I have a nearly overpowerful urge to write more about the book right now, but I am resisting that urge. The book needs to speak for itself, and soon enough it will.

Space: 1889 And Beyond News

Just recovering from Winter War down in Champaign, IL (almost next door) which was this past weekend. Tom Harris and I ran a very big Mars Needs Steam game -- a little too big, actually. It was exhausting to run, but looked very cool. Tom's camera broke over the weekend but a couple attendees took some pictures and I'll post them along with a report, as soon as I get them.

In the mean time, here are three news items on Space: 1889 and Beyond.

Item One: Big Sale at BooksOnBoard
All of the Untreed Reads titles -- including Space: 1889 & Beyond --are currently on sale at the BooksOnBoard site. Prices are 1/3 off list if you enter the coupon code EZMATH at checkout. The good thing about this sale is the authors still get full royalties, so it's a good way to support their work. If you haven't picked up the line yet, or you've got a friend considering it, here's a good opportunity. This link will take you directly to the Untreed Reads section.

Item Two: A Prince of Mars Coming Soon
A Prince of Mars, the fifth installment in Series One of Space: 1889 & Beyond and the first book in the series authored by Yours Truley, is in final proofreading, so should release soon -- sometime in February. I am very excited.

Item Three: Co-Authorship of The Dark Side of Luna
As you may remember, I'm co-authoring the first book in Series Two of Space: 1889 & Beyond, Conspiracy of Silence. I did some rewriting on J. T. Wilson's draft of Dark Side of Luna, the sixth and final book in Series One.  The rewrite ended up so extensive J.T. suggested I should be brought on board as a co-author, and so that's where we are. Why the extensive rewrite? Two reasons. First, Since I wrote book five and will write book one of Series Two, I probably have the best handle on where the characters are coming from and going to in this volume. Second, there is a lot of military action in this book and I have, it seems, a knack for writing about the military. Who knew?

So if you are anxious to see my fiction (and why wouldn't you be?) you now have three books coming in a row with my hand heavy on the oars.

Item Four: Baen Update
I know I said three items, but this one does not relate to the Untreed Reads series. Baen Books has accepted all my rewrites on How Dark The World Becomes and we're now forging forward at the somewhat more deliberate pace characterized by the traditional publishing world. Probably release date will be spring of 2013. It seems very odd that Conspiracy of Silence, which I haven't yet finished my half of, will be out before How Dark The World Becomes. Odd but understandable. I used to be in the publishing business and I know from first-hand experience how substantial an investment there is behind a new print product launch. If you just crank it out and throw it out the door, you don't stay around very long. Baen actually sent me a nice Powerpoint presentation tracking everything that will go on over the next twelve months with the book. It's different than the game industry, but only in detail, not essence.

So lots of stuff happening. Stay tuned.

Abattoir in the Aether Coming Soon

We have a final cover for Abattoir in the Aether, by L. Joseph Shosty, and so the book itself should follow soon. Abattoir takes place on an orbital heliogragh station, but not one in planetary orbit. Instead Peregrine station is in solar orbit between the orbits of Mars and Earth so it can relay messages between the two planets when they are in orbital opposition, or close enough to it the worlds are not visible in the night sky. Of course, there's more to the station than simply that . . .

Abattoir in the Aether is Book 4 in the first season of Space: 1889 and Beyond stories. Book 5, of course, is my own A Prince of Mars, and no little kid anticipates his Christmas presents more than I wait for that one to appear. Oh boy!

November Bestsellers Announced by Untreed Reads

I just received the November sales data from Untreed Reads through their online store. All three "Space 1889 & Beyond" books made the list!

Mark Michalowski's "Ghosts of Mercury," which wasn't released until almost mid-month, debuted at the number one spot. Congatulations Mark! (That cool video trailer you did must have something to do with it.)

Andy Frankham-Allen's "Journey to the Heart of Luna," the first release in the series, is still hanging in there at number 4.

K. G. McAbee's "Vandals on Venus" is not far behind at number 6.

Big congratulations to everyone. My own "A Prince of Mars" will hit the e-street later this month, along with L. Joseph Shosty's "Abattoir in the Aether." I've got some big sales numbers to live up to, but you folks are all going to buy a copy and recommend it to all your friends so I'm not going to be embarassed, right?

Right?

New Space: 1889 Villain Announced

This just in from Andy Frankham-Allen, series editor of the Space 1889 and Beyond series.

"And it’s all over. Our first Space: 1889 & Beyond competition closed yesterday. A big thank you to all who took part and sent your answers in. The question we asked was simple enough; “which world bookends series one?” and the answer was, of course, Luna (featured in both the opening and closing stories of series one)! We had many responses, some wrong and some right. But, as is the way of things, there could only be one winner. And with the help of Mark Michalowski, author of this month’s The Ghosts of Mercury, we picked out three names at random.

"The 1st Prize was a chance to be immortalised in literature by becoming a villain in the second series of Space: 1889 & Beyond, and receive a free copy of the new book, The Ghost of Mercury. And the winner of that first prize is… LISBETH LARIVIERE!

"The two runner-up prizes were free copies of The Ghosts of Mercury, and the winners of those are… GASPAR QUELHAS LIMA TAMEERIS and JASON HILTON.

"Well done and congratulations to all three winners, and a final big thank you (again!) to all who took part."

I'll add my own congratulations, as well as a greeting more appropriate to a villain.

HISSSSSSS!!!! HISSSSSSS!!!!

Your Chance To Enter Literature as a Villain!

I sometimes joke that one of my resume entries should read, "was an important supporting character in a work of alternate historical fiction." My friends Mike Dobson and Doug Niles, in their alternate history book of an invasion of Japan at the end of World War Two,  MacArthur's War, include the character Captain (later Rear Admiral) Frank Chadwick. The fact that there really was a Captain Frank Chadwick on Nimitz's staff had something to do with it as well. :^)

Well, here's your chance to become a villain in a work of steampunk fiction.

Untreed Reads is running a contest from now until November 14th. Simply answer the following question: "Which world bookends series one of Space: 1889 & Beyond"? Send your answer to:

frankhamallen@untreedreads.com

One entry per contestand, please. On November 15th the winner will be drawn at random from the correct entries.

1st Prize: One c opy of The Ghosts of Mercury (book 3) in the digital format of your choice AND you will be featured in series two of Spacee 1889 & Beyond as a villain!

Two runners up will each receive a copy of The Ghosts of Mercury in the digital format of their choice.

One Day Only Deal on EBooks

If you have been putting off getting the eBooks for Space: 1889, there's a great one-day deal going on over at Books on Board. They are running a one-day-only 30%-off sale of non-agency publishers (which includes Untreed Reads). Here's the link for their site.

Once you're there, search the site for Untreed Reads and all their titles will come up. Buy as many as you like, of course, but the two of particular interest will be Journey to the Heart of Luna and Vandals on Venus. The great thing about this sale is that although you pay the discounted price, Books on Board is paying the full price to the publishers, so the authors get their full royalty. Nice way to show the authors some support and still save yourself a couple bucks.

On the same subject, Untreed Reads just released their in-site bestseller list for October, and both Space: 1889 and Beyond books made the top five. Andy's Journey to the Heart of Luna came in at number five, its second month on the list, and Vandals on Venus debuted at number one! Not bad, and thanks to all of you who bought it.

Ghosts of Mercury should be out very soon. It was going to release on Halloween, but there was a technical glitch with the ISBN number which temporarily held it up, but it should be out soon.

Late this month (probably the last week) we'll see the release of both Abattoir in the Aether (book 4) by L. Joseph Shosty, and A Prince of Mars (book 5) by (ahem) me.

I ran a game of Mars Needs Steam! out at Fall-In in Pennsylvania last week and should have pictures for you very soon. My pal Glenn Kidd did some kick-ass Martian terrain you'll really like, but that will have to wait for next time.

Ghosts of Mercury Almost Here

We hoped to release Ghosts of Mercury by Mark Michalowski today but a technical gremlin decided otherwise. That's what comes of trying to release something on Haloween, I suppose. It should be out in a couple days, however. In the meant time, the cover art is shown above and here is a video trailer for your enjoyment.



Also, here is an exclusive exerpt from the book. Enjoy.



He was there. Again. Standing silently in the corner of the room. There but not quite there.

When Corporal Heath looked directly at him, he seemed to jump, as if instantly whisked to some other part of the room that was now at the edge of his vision. Heath couldn’t help but still try to catch it out, hoping that, just once, the ghost might forget to jump.

Heath ached—not only with the pain in his leg and ankle and chest, but with frustration. He had lost count of the number of times the ghost had vanished completely, and he’d found himself staring down at his white hands, balled up into fists, clutching the hospital sheets. He sensed something not altogether right, not happy about the ghost. There was a darkness there that he didn’t like at all. Realising how tense he was, Heath consciously relaxed and let his chin drop to his chest, triggering a jolt of pain from the torn muscles around his collarbone—before looking up suddenly, another bolt of pain shooting down his left arm from his shoulder. There was something going on in the corridor; he recognised Doctor Schell’s voice. The door to the ward was flung open and in swept the doctor, in his wake a slim, striking woman with black hair and the most hypnotic eyes Heath had seen for a long time. She had a healthy tan which immediately marked her out as a newcomer to Mercury. In her arms, she carried a large, buff folder, holding it close like it was the most important thing in the world. Behind them, hands flapping and a look of intense annoyance on her face was Nurse Lopez. She shot a glance at Heath as if to apologise for letting Schell and this new woman in.

“Heath!” beamed Schell coming to a sudden stop at the side of the bed and folding his arms. “How the devil are you, man?”

“Can’t complain sir,” Heath replied, knowing that an angel must surely have been looking out for him all those weeks ago.

“Good man,” Schell said. “Good man. Been through the wars, haven’t you? Good to see you on the mend, though. Bearing up, hmm?”

Schell turned to Nurse Lopez who stood there, glowering at him. By all accounts, Nurse Lopez’ parents—and in particular her mother—were possessed of fiery Latin temperaments that their daughter had clearly inherited.

“This man is sick, Doctor Schell. I do not think you really need me to tell you that, do you? You are a doctor after all. He needs rest and time to recover, not being interrupted during dinner.” Her English was impeccable with barely a hint of a Spanish accent. Doctor Schell looked up and down the bed and at the side-table. There was no sign of any meal, either fresh or half-eaten.

“Not hungry, Heath?”

“Not really, sir, no. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise for not being hungry, you know,” interjected the dark-haired young woman who sounded, from her accent, like an American. She smiled at him and gave him a wink.

“Well that just won’t do,” said Schell with a firm shake of his head. “You need to get something inside your belly. No man ever got better from not eating, now did he? And many have gotten much, much worse.”

“Maybe later, sir.”

Schell raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Nurse Lopez. “Well make sure you do—and if he doesn’t, Lopez, I’ll be wanting to know why.”

“Corporal Heath is doing very well, doctor. He’ll eat when he wants to.”

The doctor nodded as if he’d just won that round and turned to the woman he’d arrived with. “Corporal Heath, this is Miss Annabelle Somerset. She arrived on Mercury today. She’s a close family friend of the colonel, so make sure you show her some respect. She’s here…” He paused and looked at Nurse Lopez. “That’ll be all, thank you, Lopez. I’ll shout for you if I need you.”

Nurse Lopez pulled a sour face, looked Miss Somerset up and down as if appraising her as a potential rival—as women, in Heath’s opinion, were wont to do—and then turned on her heel and left, letting the door bang behind her as a final gesture.

“Sorry about that,” Schell apologised to Miss Somerset. “She gets very protective about poor Heath here. Good thing, I suppose, considering she’s a nurse. But still… Anyway, the colonel says that Miss Somerset here would like to talk to you, if you feel up to it.”

“What about, sir?”

“About your accident,” said Miss Somerset. “And…and what’s been happening to you since then.”

Copyright 2011 by Mark Michalowski

Space: 1889 © & ™ Frank Chadwick 1988, 2011

All Rights Reserved.

The Ghosts of Mercury by Mark Michalowski, soon to be available from Untreed Reads Publishing.

Space 1889 and Beyond Video Trailer

Mark Michalowski has done a really great Space 1889 and Beyond video trailer for the first season of eBook releases. I am impressed. Love the music, too. Check it out. Here's the link.

Lots of EBook News!

A lot has happened in the last week in the EPublishing field for us, so in no particular order of importance, here goes:


ITEM ONE
Vandals on Venus by K. G. McAbee, Book 2 in the Space: 1889 and Beyond EBook series from Untreed Reads, is live as of Tuesday, 5 October. Huzzah! Huzzah! Those of you with a series pass should already have it. If not, go immediately to the Untreed Reads store and buy it. Here's the link.

When Nathanial Stone gets an emergency message from an old friend on Venus begging for his help, his duty is clear: he must go at once.

His ward, Miss Annabelle Somerset, instead of agreeing to stay safely on Earth as he begs, insists on accompanying him to the dangerous tropical planet, home of huge reptiles.

Soon, Nathanial and Annabelle find themselves in the middle of a plot concerning a nefarious German officer, a brilliant English inventor, an Irish guide no better than he should be, a heavily-armed lizard-man and a clever American newspaperman.

Can even they prevail against such odds?

Here is an exerpt from the book to whet your appetites:

“Might you be Mister Stone, sir?” he called when Nathanial was still some yards away. “A message came in for you, sir, from Venus.”

“Venus, did you say?” Nathanial took the flimsy paper, gummed in half for privacy. Who on Earth—he shook his head and smiled—who on Venus, rather, could the message be from?

He tossed the messenger a shilling. The boy touched one finger to his round blue cap, turned and dashed away towards a three-wheeled steam velocipede. The boy settled himself in the harness between the two huge front wheels and, assisted by the bubbling engine, sped away at quite seven miles an hour, Stone calculated.

Nathanial walked slowly back towards his host, the bit of paper still unfolded in his hand. The address on the front told him little. Fort Collingwood, Her Majesty’s Royal Colony, Venus.

“Something urgent, my dear Stone?” asked White when Nathanial had settled back in his chair.

“I am not quite sure. If you will forgive me, I suppose I should read it.”

White waved his hand. “Naturally. Duty waits for no man.”

Mrs White rose. “I think I’ll just walk down and see if Miss Annabelle and her admirers have worked up a thirst. Do touch the bell for more hot water, William.” She drifted politely away, her long white skirts trailing behind her.

“Well, go on, Professor!” White sat up straight in his chair, all signs of sleepiness gone. “Let us see what is important enough to send a message all the way across the void from Venus!” He sighed. “I have always wanted to visit the colonies there. Imagine the place. Steamy jungles full of huge carnivorous reptiles, while the colonists huddle inside their palisades as the beasts roar for their blood.”

“You have been reading penny dreadfuls, my dear William!” Nathanial laughed.

“I confess it, Professor.” White had the grace to look abashed. “Do not tell my wife, I pray. I already have to hide them in my desk drawers. Oh, not that she disapproves! I have to hide them to keep her from spiriting them away before I have done with them.”

Nathanial threw his head back and laughed at his friend and, at last, ripped open the bit of flimsy and began to read:

21 April 1889, Fort Collingwood, Her Majesty’s colony on Venus

My Dear Stone,

I am sure you have not forgotten our glorious school days together. I excelling in cricket and squash, whilst you swotted away at your books. What is it, ten years since we met? No, longer than that, surely. I shall forego the usual adage re flying time and simply say how immensely proud I am of your great accomplishments in the years since I’ve seen you. Co-inventor of the aether propeller governor! Even on Venus, we have heard of its wonders! Yes, Venus, my dear chap. I passed—we shall not discuss precise rankings, if you please!—my civil service examinations and have been assigned to this damply dangerous—dangerously damp?—planet. At first, one must admit, I simply pushed a pen, but now I’ve managed to get my hands on a rather plush position, a sort of attaché without portfolio, if you will.

I am first assistant—well, let me be quite honest, my dear chap; I am the only assistant—to Geoffrey Forbes-Hamilton, esquire, if you please. I know you recognise the name; all you brilliant engineering johnnies belong to the same clubs and speak the same lingo. I confess, my talents, such as they are, are not the reason I received this particular assignment. It is more along the lines of no one else can stand the bounder. Not one of nature’s gentlemen, shall we say? In fact, I have heard it rumoured that his grandpapa was in trade! But be that as it may: the man is brilliant and H.M.’s government wants him coddled, which is, for my sins, my current job.

You are no doubt wondering, in that perspicacious way which is yours alone, precisely why I am rambling on this way—not to mention, why I’ve dared get in touch with you after all these years. I realise we did not part as the best of chums. Water under London Bridge and all that is how I feel about our little contretemps, and I can only pray you feel the same.

For I need your kind assistance, and in the worst possible way. Allow me to explain in more detail. Forbes-Hamilton has a passion for airships, don’t you see, which is the reason he’s on Venus in the first place. He says he’s untrammeled by inquisitive interlopers here. He is determined to build a new kind of airship which will surpass in every way those the dear old Kaiser’s people have designed. Naturally, our own chaps wish to see that happen as fiercely as does F-H Esquire.

And therein lies the rub, and the reason for this endless scrawl of mine—one of the benefits of working for H.M.’s service, don’t you know: I have no need to be stingy with my words when I can drop a missive into the governor-general’s official pouch!

Forbes-Hamilton has built—and lost—one prototype airship already; he called it the Aeronaut I. “Lost” as in “went down in flames,” don’t you know. Really, it was a most impressive sight, I do assure you! Aeronaut II ended up floating in a local lake and, though we both escaped from the wreckage with no more than scratches, by the time we managed to drag the remnants of the airship onto shore, the local aquatic fauna had chewed it about rather badly. It ended up resembling nothing so much as a badly mangled dog’s toy.

Now Aeronaut III is under construction upon the very bones of II. Dear old F-H refuses to discuss the “inadequacies” of I and II; he simply keeps repeating “she’ll be much better this time.” So much eye wash, in my opinion.

Well, to my point. (“At last!” I hear you exclaim across the aether.) If you could possibly see your way clear to barge off to Fort Collingwood here on Venus and offer your vast expertise to dear old F-H, you would not only be helping out a fellow brilliant engineer, but you would also be offering inestimable services to the government of that regal lady we are both so proud to serve—not to mention, saving the bacon of an old school chum. For, and I tell you this strictly sub rosa, my position as aide-cum-nanny for surly old F-H may will be my best—and last—shot at a decentish career.

Do say you’ll come, old chap. Quite honestly, I suspect some serious problems re III. Life or death, in fact. Do come!

Best regards, Giles Percival Jericho

Nathanial looked up to find White’s eyes locked onto him.

“Well, Professor? You look a bit surprised. Something wrong?”

“Are you familiar, William, with,” Nathanial glanced back at the flimsy bit of paper, “a fellow called Geoffrey Forbes-Hamilton?”

White tented his fingers together; Nathanial could almost see the wheels turning in his friend’s brilliant mind.

“Ah, yes, now I remember the fellow.” White sat forward in his chair, his eyes bright, looking like an eager boy—though Nathanial was sadly aware of the lines of care and the many new white hairs visible in his beard. “Some rather striking new ideas in airship design. Went off to Venus to experiment ‘without a lot of official botherment,’ I believe he told someone. Thinks he can beat Herr Zeppelin at his own game, and bypass the use of liftwood at the same time. More power to him, I must say. Is that the chap you mean?”

Nathanial nodded and tossed him the letter. As White read it, Nathanial watched Mrs White coming towards them across the lawn, Annabelle beside her and the young men following respectfully behind, looking in their uniforms like a cadre of blue jays protecting two swans.

(Aeronaut III, as rendered by artist David Burson.)

White rose and handed the message back to Nathanial. “I see. This is an opportunity not to be missed, Professor. If you can indeed assist Forbes-Hamilton, and his ideas are bearing fruit, it would be a definite coup for Her Majesty’s Navy. We shall have to see what we can do to get you passage to Fort Collingwood at once.

ITEM TWO
Untreed Reads just announced that Andy Frankham-Allan's Journey to the Heart of Luna was the number two bestselling title for Untreed Reads in September. Congratulations, Andy! That's nothing to sneeze at. Untreed Reads has broader distribution than any other pure EBook publisher in the business, and it's about to get bigger. Of course Untreed Read products have been available for the iPhone and iPad through Apple's US iBookstore. Now they will be available through 32 additional foreign countries through the dedicated iBookstores in those lands. The title Untreed Reads picked to launch the new venture?

K.G. McAbee's Vandals on Venus. So we must be doing something right.





ITEM THREE
We must indeed be doing something right. Untreed Reads just gave the formal green light for a second series of Space: 1889 and Beyond EBooks to be released in 2012. Andy Frankham-Allen and I will be co-authoring the lead-off novel in the new series. Andy remains series editor as well and while several of the books have already been assigned, he is accepting proposals/treatments for the rest. Any writers out there interested in taking the plunge, contact Andy through the Space 1889 and Beyond Facebook page. (It is in the links for this blog.)


Not to get too far ahead of myself, I am just finishing up the re-writes on A Prince of Mars and will have that off to Andy by week's end. Then it's to serious work on Earth Fall, the first book in next year's series. Nathanial and Annabelle remain the focus of the story, and this second season of books will answer some questions about the Space: 1889 universe people have speculated about since the original book was released back in 1988. Big questions.

Oh? Like what?

Well, let me tell you a story. In 1756, shortly before the outbreak of the Seven Years War, Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, was travelling across Germany to Berlin. He was about to mobilize the Prussian Army and throw it against the Austrian Empire, but while speculation along those lines ran hot, no one yet knew for certain what his intentions were.

He stopped for dinner at the manor house of a minor German noble and over dinner the noble asked if he actually intended to attack the Austrians. Frederick leaned over and in a soft voice asked, "Can you keep a secret?"

"Oh, yes sire!" the noble assured him.

"Good," Frederick said. "So can I."