Friday, February 21, 2014

Isn't It about Time You Got to Know Pradeep?

Well, I'm working on Fading Man, my latest post-apocalyptic adventure novel. I'm only about three chapters in, but it's shaping up to be a possible magnus opus. I know I said that about Shadows of Tockland, but there is something so profoundly significant and personal about Fading Man.

When I set out to write a novel, any novel, there is always some emotional subtext driving the story--or, more accurately, driving the author. Whether or not that emotion comes through in the story itself is never a guarantee. But I can say that if Fading Man ends up reflecting the driving emotions and mood of the author, it will cut pretty deep.

At the same time, the story has a certain beautiful strangeness. Just look at the chapter titles. The first three chapters are titled: 1) Admiral Vinegaroon, 2) Pradeep, and 3) All Places Are Bad Places. That should give you some sense of the strangeness.

In other news, Children of the Mechanism comes out very soon. Both the e-book and the paperback will be available on March 5. I am interested to see how people react to the story. It's quite a bit different than Mary of the Aether. I don't want to scare people away from it, but my wife's response after reading the first draft was, "this is really bleak."

Of course, it also has memorable characters, some really intense scenes, and I think it's ultimately a hopeful story (as I believe all of my stories are ultimately hopeful stories). But we shall see how other people feel about it.

As a final bit of news, I updated the Mary of the Aether page with a bit of temporary graphics for the fourth and final book, which comes out in September. If you've read the first three books in the series, then you can go click on the picture for Mary of Cosmos and read a sample chapter.

And that's all for now. It is super later (or super early, depending on your point of view). Good night/morning.



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