Hi everyone, sorry this is not going to be a witty or interesting post about science or any wonderful new developments in our world, but just another ramble about what has been happening and what I am up to with my work.
We may be only a month in, but already 2013 feels like it’s flying by. Here in Australia, it’s been a month of madness, with heat waves, fires, cyclones and floods. My thoughts and best wishes are with everybody whose lives were effected by these events over the last few weeks.
Obviously a lot of people have had a lot of stress. I have been lucky, although I could have done without the heat. My home spent the better part of a week hitting over 49 degrees celsius(120.2F) and a lot more besides in the high 40’s. During that period, the fire danger here reached the newer “catastrophic” rating. This is the highest fire danger rating in Australia. The smoke of several fires was visible from the house, and we did evacuate for one day at the height of it all.
Even so, I still have a home to return to, and I lost nothing to the ravages of the Australian summer so far. Many of my country men have suffered recently, and to them I offer my thoughts and prayers.
When the heat was at its worst, we gave in and erected a two foot deep wading pool in the living room. We sat there half submerged in the icy water, while the AC vent cast its spell across us and the TV, watching marathons of various TV shows from the DVD library. It was actually too hot to write as my study/office has no AC – something that I intend to rectify before next summer! That room was rocketing well up into the fifties with it’s flat tin roof and poor ventilation. One day I went in there, turned on my PC, and the thermometer display on it’s front immediately gave an ambient room temperature of 65Celsius! It screamed its little heat alarm sound like a banshee, so like I said, too hot to write. Even if I could handle those conditions, imagine what that poor old AMD Athlon X2 7850 CPU would have done after an hour or so…
Even given that, I can still report that Armada’s Disciple is approaching the first major edit cycle reasonably quickly. I hope to get this one done soon and be able to give an idea of release times soon. I think that the rearrangement of this book’s schedule to allow last year’s release of Shades of Farthrow and of When History Fractures, Heroes Rise was the correct move, and Armada’s Disciple is now shaping up to be a better book than I feel it would have been had I written it sooner after completing Starlight.
Of course we have the return of some characters many readers have expressed their affection for, including Haark Junli, who seems a much more popular fuzzy alien gentleman than I could have imagined. Also, we have the introduction of more characters who I hope will be as loved as he is. Only time will tell, and I hope you continue to follow along for the ride. I think some of these new characters, as always, have enjoyed introducing themselves to me as much as I have enjoyed writing them. From the sparky and strong FIU agent and Chancellor’s assistant Shae Jarzi, to the drunken larrikin bounty hunter George. I hope you enjoy getting to know them as much as I have.
Till next time,
Martin.