I’ve just updated my Coming Next page with the latest status of Sol 2781. Basically, this is going to be released later than planned because it’s turning into a full length novel. I hope most of you will feel that’s good news.
You can read the preview first chapter of Sol 2781 here.
Sol 2781 Cover Design by The Cover Collection © Janet Edwards 2020
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As a science fiction writer, 2020 has felt increasingly like I’m living in a dystopian novel. I know that many of you won’t be spending today how you planned. Wherever you are, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, my very best wishes to you. I hope that the sequel story to 2020 is far more cheerful for everyone.
Trying to be creative in 2020 has been like wading through especially thick mud. Since Adversary (Hive Mind 5) won’t be ready to be published until well into 2021, I especially wanted to have a new short story on my website for Christmas/New Year. I chose to write Sol 2781, a sequel story to Hera, featuring Drago Tell Dramis. While Jarra has a tendency to run riot the moment I hand her the microphone, I thought Drago could be trusted to behave, but sadly he’s nearly as bad as his second cousin.
So this year’s Christmas/New Year story is also the first chapter of what will be a novella-length Sol 2781. I’m hoping to publish the full novella in ebook around the end of January.
You can read the preview first chapter of Sol 2781 here.
Sol 2781 Cover Design by The Cover Collection © Janet Edwards 2020
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I’ve already posted a warning that Adversary (Hive Mind 5) is running horrendously late, and said that I’d be trying to release Sol 2781, a short story set in the Portal Future, for Christmas.
Regular readers will know that I have virtually no control over my characters, so won’t be surprised to hear that Sol 2781 is turning out to be a novella rather than a short story. However, the first chapter of that novella does work reasonably well as a short story.
The current plan is therefore to post the first chapter of Sol 2781 on my website on Christmas Day. Sol 2781 is the sequel story to Hera 2781, so you may want to read/reread Hera 2781 first.
Sol 2781 is set eight years before the Earth Girl trilogy. It features Drago Tell Dramis as a newly qualified fighter pilot who still has a lot to learn about many things, especially his own relatives. The story starts directly after the events in Hera 2781.
I’m hoping to publish the full novella of Sol 2781 around the end of January, but these days the entire world is subject to change without notice. I definitely want to publish Sol 2781 before the planned second Earth Girl Aftermath Collection since it clarifies the background history for some of those stories.
Sol 2781 Cover Design by The Cover Collection © Janet Edwards 2020
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ADVERSARY (Hive Mind 5)
Ebook Est Release:- End Feb/Early March 2021
All outstanding paperbacks will be released as soon as the situation allows.
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I can now announce the title and cover. Book 5 in the Hive Mind series is Adversary. The first draft is nowhere near complete, so I daren’t give a book description at this point, but the following cover description should give a strong hint about some of the book content.
Cover depicts Adversary Aura of Hive Genex.
Cover art (C) Janet Edwards 2020, Cover Design by The Cover Collection.
The global pandemic has affected everyone’s plans for 2020. My apologies that illness and bereavement have left me way behind schedule all year, so the release has to slip into early 2021.
One of the reasons that the release of Adversary is slipping into early 2021 is simply that it’s turning out to be another long book. I know that some of you will regard that as good news.
Rather than leave people without anything new to read for Christmas, I’m looking at the possibility of releasing a short piece set in the Portal Future. It would be nice to get the follow-up story to Hera 2781 out into the world at Christmas, because that story is a sequel to Hera 2781, but also provides the background history for a story already written for the planned second Earth Girl Aftermath Collection.
If you haven’t read Telepath, the first book in my Hive Mind series yet, then it’s at the reduced price of $0.99/£0.99/0.99 Euro until 12th October. This is a good time to give it a try!
More details of Telepath here.
#SFWAPRO
Earth Prime is the first in what is planned to be two collections of stories set in the Portal Future after the Earth Girl trilogy.This collection is set immediately after Earth Flight, and focuses on Jarra, Fian, and the other archaeologists before they head to excavate the alien ruins on Fortuna.
Approximate length 460 pages. Full details here.
A huge apology for paperback readers that Earth Prime won’t appear in paperback until early 2021.
Cover Design (C) Janet Edwards 2020, Cover Design by The Cover Collection.
#SFWAPRO
There’s a guest blog post from me over at Defying Doomsday, talking about how I first started writing, and how pleased I am to have a short story in both the Defying Doomsday and Rebuilding Tomorrow anthologies.
Back in 2016, Twelfth Planet Press published the Defying Doomsday anthology, which includes my very own doomsday story, “I Will Remember You”.
If you haven’t read Defying Doomsday yet, it’s currently only £2.70/$3.99. This is an anthology of apocalypse fiction featuring disabled and chronically ill protagonists, proving it’s not always the “fittest” who survive – it’s the most tenacious, stubborn, enduring and innovative characters who have the best chance of adapting when everything is lost.
If you have read Defying Doomsday, then you’ll want to know that Twelfth Planet Press are now running a kickstarter for the followup anthology Rebuilding Tomorrow. This will include a sequel story from me, “I Will Lead My People”, set twenty years after the events in “I Will Remember You.”
Earth Prime was planned to be a collection of scenes and stories set after Earth Flight, told from the viewpoints of various characters in the Earth Girl trilogy and revealing a few things that Jarra didn’t know.
As always, I hugely underestimated the number and length of the stories. Rather than throw stories away, and leave out some favourite characters, I’ve decided this will have to be split into two collections. This will also give me the chance to include two Portal Future stories that have only appeared on my website and one that appeared in an anthology with stories by other authors.
Earth Prime should hopefully be published in ebook in August of this year, estimated length 440 pages. It will focus on Jarra, Fian, and the other archaeologists during the period after the events of the Earth Girl trilogy, and before they head to excavate the alien ruins on Fortuna.
The second collection will be published in the first half of 2021 and will focus on scenes and stories from the Military and Jarra’s family.
Earth Prime will contain the following stories set after the Earth Girl trilogy:-
Jarra – The End, and the New Beginning – originally published as a first draft 19 part serial story on my website.
Fian – I’ll Be Right Here Waiting – Novelette
Dalmora – Twenty Seconds in Ark – Short story
Lecturer Playdon – Full Circle – Novelette
Krath – Raw Material -Short story
Amalie – Balance of Power – Short story
Jerez – The Real Jerez Rivera – Novelette
I’m also taking my chance to include a story set a year earlier and featuring many of the same characters.
Lecturer Playdon – Year End 2788
A huge apology for paperback readers that Earth Prime won’t appear in paperback until early 2021.
When I publish an ebook, the paperback usually follows about two months later. In the current world situation, I can publish ebooks relatively normally, and my existing paperbacks seem to be available to buy with longer than usual delivery times, but publishing new paperbacks is a problem. Some steps in my usual paperback process are likely to take much longer than normal, while others may not be possible at all.
My deepest apologies that I’m therefore reluctantly delaying publishing the paperback of Earth Prime until early 2021 when I hope everything will be back to normal.
People have been hopefully asking me about future Hive Mind books, and stories about Fortuna. I have so many ideas for books I want to write that I had a backlog of projects building up anyway, and side-effects from the current world situation have slowed down my writing. Jarra confused things even further by making the New Year story so long that the Earth Prime collection queue-jumped everything else.
So this is a quick status report on my current projects. Please note that I can’t guarantee to publish even two books a year in the current world situation, and any of my projects can go off totally off the rails at the best of times.
The Earth Prime collection has to be finished and published next.
Hive Mind 5 will then be my top priority and hopefully out in time for Christmas, but there’s the usual danger of it slipping into January.
Fortuna. If there’s enough interest in Earth Prime then I’ll be aiming to write more about Fortuna, ideally next year. A project that is slightly complicated by it being the second half of the chimera wars, and interlinking with my partially written book about Tellon Blaze.
Also on my list to progress whenever I have time. Scavenger Exodus 3 and Earth and Water.
(Just to clarify Scavenger Exodus 3 is definitely on its way, but progress has been affected by the world situation, so I daren’t commit to a publication date at the moment.)
Right at the bottom of the list is the mystery book. Pity this book. The poor thing has been sitting in first draft since I first wrote it eight years ago. It’s set in yet another different future, and needs some revisions, but I may eventually sort it out and publish it as a standalone just to stop it whining at me.
Please feel free to comment with your own wish list. The creative side of my brain seems to pay more attention to comments from my readers than it does to anything I tell it myself!
