I’ve done one post about looking back at book releases in 2021. Now it’s time to look forward to 2022. I’ve got a tradition of posting a short story on my website at New Year. When I checked through my set of partially-written pieces, most were interconnected with other unpublished pieces, so too spoilerish to use. I did discover an Earth Girl prequel story featuring Fian though, which should be perfectly safe for anyone to read. It’s also especially appropriate for a New Year story, since it’s set at Year End 2788, and features Fian leaving his home world of Hercules to go and start his Pre-history Foundation course on Earth.
The snag is that this piece a partially written novella with a significant amount of story still to tell. Two years ago I posted a Jarra serial that got totally out of hand, but proved very popular with people in the gloom of the starting pandemic. The news isn’t exactly cheerful at the moment either, so let’s do the serial thing again.
Those of you who watched laughing as first Jarra and then Drago were trusted with the microphone to dictate short pieces to their author, only to refuse to give it back, will be laughing again now. I’m confident of keeping Fian under control though. He’s not a member of the Tell clan, is a generally well-behaved character, and crucially I have a cunning plan to stop him running away with the microphone.
That plan is to tidy up the existing eight chapters of the novella, and post them at the rate of one chapter a week. I’ll then add chapter nine which will take the story to a temporary end point. The serial will then remain on the website for a while before eventually vanishing to be extended to include the rest of the story, polished, revised, and published. It will probably be published under the title Deltan Escape but that is only a working title for the moment.
For anyone interested in how Deltan Escape fits into the other Portal Future stories, the relevant sequence is:-
You can read the first chapter of the serial here.
For the latest news on everything else planned for 2022, please check the Coming Next page.
Best wishes to you all in the coming year!
Janet Edwards
I was going to call this news post the high points of 2021, but decided that high points was an inappropriate phrase to use about the last year. In fact, it was inappropriate for the last two years!
Looking back at book releases in 2021 then. The delayed paperback of Earth Prime is now available.
Two full-length novel sequels to the novelette Hera 2781 are now available in ebook, Hestia 2781 and Array 2781, and there is one more novel to follow. The Drago Tell Dramis 2781 sequence features a 21-year-old Drago as a newly qualified fighter pilot and disaster magnet.
Hera 2781 was never released as a paperback because of the short length, so a combined paperback of Hera 2781 and Hestia 2781 is now available.
Also the Hive Mind series is now available as case laminate hardcovers.
There’ll be another post on New Year’s day, with news of what’s planned for 2022, and the first part of the traditional New Year story. This story is especially appropriate for a New Year story, since it’s an Earth Girl prequel story featuring Fian at New Year 2789.
Fian is leaving his home world of Hercules to go and study history on Earth, and has absolutely no idea how much drama lies ahead of him. Regular readers of the Portal Future may realise there’s more going on in the background of this story than Fian understands himself, and it will have important implications for the future.
Best wishes to you all!
Janet Edwards
Full details of the combined paperback of Hera 2781 and Hestia 2781 are here.
I don’t want to bombard people with a lot of newsletters, so the plans for this release were included in last month’s newsletter about the paperback release of Earth Prime appearing in paperback. The next newsletter will go out at the New Year, covering the New Year story appearing on my website, and other plans for 2022.
The paperback of Array 2781 is expected Jan/Feb 2022.
Laminated hardcover versions of the combined Hera 2781 and Hestia 2781, Array 2781, and Earth Prime are planned for early in 2022.
If you’d like to get an email alert whenever a new release heads out into the world, then please sign up here.
Earth Prime (The Earth Girl Aftermath Stories 1) is now available worldwide in Ebook and Paperback.
Full details here.
Other physical book news is that a combined paperback of Hera 2781 and Hestia 2781 should be out in time for Christmas.
Laminated hardcover versions of both these books will follow.
If you’d like to get an email alert whenever a new release heads out into the world, then please sign up here.
The short story, Hera 2781, about Drago Tell Dramis was published back in 2015. I planned to finally write a novella-length sequel to it at the start of this year. However, Drago Tell Dramis has insisted on turning this into his own four-part series set in the year 2781 , with the first part, Hera 2781, being followed by three full-length books.
The status of the Drago Tell Dramis 2781 sequence is now:-
Hera 2781 (short story) pubished 2015 in ebook.
Hestia 2781 (novel) published June 2021 in ebook.
Array 2781 (novel) out now in ebook.
Sol 2781 (novel) coming soon.
Please start reading with Hera 2781 to fully appreciate the series.
Those who prefer physical books will be pleased to hear that I’m currently working on catching up with outstanding paperbacks.
Drago has now learned the secret that his Betan clan has been hiding for almost a decade. He’s currently alternating between moods of pitying his second cousin and fighter team leader, Jaxon, and wanting to strangle him.
They both have to put their feelings aside though, and concentrate on using lumbering solar array transport ships to help with the repairs of the five Earth solar arrays, because Earth is critically short of power. Fortunately, repairing solar arrays is perfectly routine work, so Drago definitely can’t get into trouble.
Cover depicts the solar array transport ship, Antares.
Cover Design by The Cover Collection © Janet Edwards 2021
If you’d like to get an email alert whenever a new release heads out into the world, then please sign up here.
The big news is that there’s going to be an additional book in the Drago Tell Dramis 2781 sequence. Sol 2781 was already too long when it went into beta reading and I wanted to include some extra excitement and reveal a secret as well.
So, there are two books to come rather than one. For plot reasons, the final book has to have the Sol 2781 title and cover. That means the next book released will be Array 2781.
Array 2781 should be out around the end of the month, and the following release will be Sol 2781.
Drago has now learned the secret that his Betan clan has been hiding for almost a decade. He’s currently alternating between moods of pitying his second cousin and fighter team leader, Jaxon, and wanting to strangle him.
They both have to put their feelings aside though, and concentrate on using lumbering solar array transport ships to help with the repairs of the five Earth solar arrays, because Earth is critically short of power. Fortunately, repairing solar arrays is perfectly routine work, so Drago definitely can’t get into trouble.
Cover depicts the solar array transport ship, Antares.
Cover Design by The Cover Collection © Janet Edwards 2021
If you’d like to get an email alert whenever a new release heads out into the world, then please sign up here.
I’ve had a few contacts from people asking about the status of future releases. The Coming Next page is the best place to look for status reports, and was last updated on 1st September.
If you’d like to get an email alert whenever a new release heads out into the world, then please sign up here.
A bit of a surprise experiment. While I am desperately busy working on future book releases, I had the chance to try a case laminate hardcover release of Telepath. This crucially took up very little of my time since I just needed slightly modified cover art and the existing paperback interior.
There was a delay while I got the proof copy but the hardcover is now available on limited outlets. Note that the cover art is printed directly onto the book. There is no separate paper cover.
The following photo shows my proof hardcover next to the paperback. As this is a proof hardcover, it has a proof banner printed across it. That banner obviously won’t appear on the standard sales copies. The hardcover book is only fractionally larger than the paperback and has a virtually identical interior.
Full details here.
My proof copy of the hardcover of Telepath next to a paperback of telepath.
Janet Edwards Author Site 