Jan 30 2019

TV Interview with Jon Caldera

Published by under Writing

So earlier this month I was interviewed by Jon Caldera for his TV show “Devil’s Advocate”. The clip is up on YouTube. We chatted about science fiction in general and about indie publishing, but he did plug my books. Caldera is a science fiction fan from way back, I had fun. It’s only twelve minutes, so not very in-depth. Maybe it will lead to more.

Anyway, check it out. (I’m the one in the blue shirt and glasses. 😉 )

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Jan 01 2019

Happy 2019

Published by under Uncategorized

Happy New Year, folks. Not much to post because of the usual year-end chaos, but Kakuloa: A Rising Tide is now available in both e-book and paperback from Amazon. I’ll be at the CoSine SF convention in Colorado Springs January 19-21.

More later.

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Nov 29 2018

Kakuloa: A Rising Tide — Done!

Published by under T-Space,Writing

Finally. It still needs a few finishing touches based on early-reader feedback, and the usual publishing steps like formatting for print and ebook, cover blurbs, and so on, but the story is done. A Rising Tide comes in at about 85,000 words, so my longest yet.

The book starts out following the Victoria to the planet Kakuloa (in the Alpha Centauri system) immediately after the events of The Return, then skips forward a few years to the settlement of Kakuloa, and the rise of the squidberry* industry…and the problems they’re having with tree squids. Cephalopod expert Dr. Ellie Greystone is called in, but she has problems of her own on Earth, and not everyone on Kakuloa is happy with what she’s discovering about the squids.

Squidberries aren’t the only industry on Kakuloa, of course. It’s becoming a jumping-off spot for further interstellar exploration; a resort developer likes the beaches, and especially likes some loopholes in the law governing the planet; and William Blake finds his role expanding from mission commander to de facto planetary administrator, with all the associated headaches.

There will be more books in the Kakuloa series, bridging the gap between Alpha Centauri and the The Chara Talisman, but without the cliff-hangers that the Alpha Centauri series had. Jason Curtis will show up in there somewhere.

A Rising Tide should be available around Christmas. That’s the cover above on the right. Now, I have a couple of others to finish….

*(Squidberries are the source of an anti-aging drug.)

UPDATE: Kakuloa: A Rising Tide is now available in both Kindle and trade paperback editions. It is also available on Kindle Unlimited.

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Nov 14 2018

Progress!

Published by under T-Space,Writing

I keep promising that the next book is coming Real Soon Now, and it is, so I though folks might be interested in just how it is progressing. I keep track of my writing time and word count in a spreadsheet (this is valuable, especially if you’re doing something on a deadline like NaNoWriMo). Below is a chart from the current spreadsheet.
Book progress graph.

The dates along the bottom should be self-explanatory. The horizontal lines mark increments of 10,000 words. The dark blue line, which just crossed the 70,000 mark, is for Kakuloa: A Rising Tide. The orange line is for The Pavonis Insurgence.

You’ll notice a sharp dip in the blue line just before 09/08/18. That’s when I realized that a couple of chapters I’d already written more properly belonged in a later book, so I took them out. That’s the yellow line (incomplete because I’m not tracking it at the moment), which will be Kakuloa: A Downward Slide when it’s done.

The wavery bits in the September/October time-frame are where I’m doing some editing and revising, and October looks relatively flat because I’ve been removing outline notes to myself (which I embed in the text as I go along) and replacing them with actual story. Also incorporating edit fixes from my alpha readers. (Also dealing with some non-writing crap, like replacing my car.) Pavonis is mostly horizontal recently because I’m focused on finishing Kakuloa; it will climb rapidly once that one is done.

My pace this year has been slower than last, partly because of life interfering, but also because I’m having to do more extensive research and world-building (and keeping track of it all) than for the first Alpha Centauri trilogy. Next year should go faster.

So. I’m not forecasting a release date yet (still aiming for this year though), but my editor/beta readers should have it by Thanksgiving. For which I, for one, will be truly thankful.

P.S. There’s another chapter I pulled out because it was more of a sidebar that just didn’t fit. It’s relevant background, though, so I’ll probably make it available to my newsletter subscribers. You can go here to sign up. No spam, I promise.

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Nov 11 2018

Remember

Published by under Uncategorized

Today is Veterans Day in the US, Remembrance Day in Canada and the UK, and is also marked in other countries under different names.

To all those who served: thank you.

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Nov 01 2018

Update: CAL book sale is this weekend

Published by under T-Space,Uncategorized

Colorado Xmas Show couponAs mentioned earlier, the Colorado Authors League (of which I am a member) will be part of the Colorado Country Christmas Show this weekend (Nov 2-4) at the Denver Mart (I-25 & 58th). My books (trade paperback) will be on sale at discounted prices, even bigger discounts if you buy multiples. Use the coupon at right (click on the image for full size) for discounted entry to the show (there will be a lots more going on than just books, but lots of books.)

All books are signed, but I will be happy to personalize them from 2pm to 4pm on Nov 2, 11am to 1pm on the 3rd, and 2pm to 5pm on the 4th. Look for the T-Space poster.

Cheers!

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Oct 03 2018

Upcoming events – MileHiCon 50, CAL book sale

Published by under Conventions,T-Space,Writing

It’s that time again. MileHiCon, the Denver regional science-fiction convention, at the Denver Tech Center Hyatt-Regency hotel is celebrating its 50th the weekend of October 19-21. MileHiCon 50 logo I will be there for the weekend, including panels Friday afternoon and Saturday evening and the mass autographing Saturday afternoon. I’ll also have books at one of the author tables in the lobby. Find me and say “hi”.

The Colorado Christmas Gift Show will have a booth for the Colorado Authors’ League (CAL), which will have my books available. (I’ll also be at the booth for a couple of shifts, I don’t know exactly when.) The Show is the weekend of November 2-4 at the Denver Merchandise Mart.

I’m into the final editing stage for the Kakuloa book. This will be the first of three: Kakuloa: A Rising Tide, Kakuloa: The Downhill Slide and Kakuloa: Revivified (that last title may change). These span the gap between the Alpha Centauri series (you can think of them as books 4, 5 and 6 in that series, although the original characters make only minor appearances, if any) and The Chara Talisman. I can’t promise it for either of the above events, but I’m hoping. Definitely by December. And the next Carson & Roberts is in progress too.

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Aug 21 2018

Catching up, again

Published by under T-Space,Writing

Things have been a little crazy over the summer. Too much going on and not enough progress on the next books. As mentioned earlier, I had The Eridani Convergence re-edited and republished (see the earlier post below). I am planning on doing second editions of all the previous novels, with some updates and additional material, but that will wait until at least Kakuloa is out.

I pulled my old collection Starfire & Snowball (with the crummy cover) and issued a new collection (with many, but not all, of the same stories), Alastair Mayer – A Sampler. (Cover image at right. Much better than S&S.) This is currently paperback only, but there will be an e-book version shortly. This will be available on most e-book outlets, currently the novels are Amazon only (it’s a restriction imposed by Amazon to be available through Kindle Unlimited). Stay tuned (or sign up for my newsletter) for news about getting a free copy of this.

Conventions I’ve already done StarFest and Westercon this year, next up (August 24-26) is Bubonicon in Albuquerque, NM. Alas, I missed WorldCon and I think I’m going to have to give DragonCon a miss too because of work schedule. MileHiCon 50 (October) for sure, and I’m debating World Fantasy Con in November.

Works In Progress Kakuloa is coming along slowly but steadily. It’s a sequel to the Alpha Centauri trilogy, but not exactly the fourth volume. It starts just after The Return leaves off, but then skips forwards a few years to when the planet is being settled by squidberry farmers and Kakuloa City is being built. A few characters from the trilogy make appearances, but it is mostly new characters and new plots, and the book covers a span of a few decades (Jason Curtis puts in an appearance). The next Carson & Roberts book, The Pavonis Insurgence, is about one-third done. This one feels like the middle of a chess game; it’s a matter of getting all the pieces in the right places before the end game, which will be the next series of books, where we’ll see a lot more of various spacegoing aliens.

As background to all this, I’ve been worldbuilding. Some of that shows up on the T-Space Wiki, although I try to avoid too many spoilers for work that isn’t published yet. Check it out, and if you want edit access, just ask. I’d love to have some help with it.

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Jun 01 2018

The Eridani Convergence temporarily unavailable

Published by under T-Space,Writing

Just a quick note that I’m pulling The Eridani Convergence from distribution temporarily. The current version has a few minor errors (mostly badly placed commas or words accidentally omitted in edit), more than I’m comfortable with.

I’ve had it all re-proofed by another editor and the corrected version should be available in about a week. (No plot elements were harmed in the making of this edit.)

[UPDATE: 6/30/18 – Both the Kindle and print versions are now available again. ]

On a related note, I’m at about the one-third point in the sequel, The Pavonis Insurgence (or possibly, The Pavonis Surprise. I’m waffling on the title.) Kakuloa, the sequel in the Alpha Centauri series, is further on. Release is planned before DragonCon (before WorldCon if I can manage it), so this summer for sure.

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May 23 2018

Presenting at Westercon

Published by under Conventions,T-Space,Writing

Westercon 71 PostcardI’ve been invited to give a science-track presentation at this year’s Westercon (Denver, July 4-8). They asked for a topic, so I proposed The Science of T-Space (blurbed as “Terraforming and warp drives and fusion power, oh my! What’s the real science behind Alastair Mayer’s T-Space series?”), which they accepted. This gives me a chance to talk about some of the stuff I didn’t want to just info-dump in the stories (grin).

The current schedule has me on at 4pm on Thursday, July 5. I realize that won’t work out (either time or location) for some of you, but if you can make it, I’d love to see you there. My plan is to cover some of the key topics and then throw it open to questions. Speaking of, if you have questions about the background of T-Space, go ahead and post them below. I’ll answer them here, and also see about working it into my presentation.

If it works out, I’ll pitch the idea to MileHiCon for October (it may be a tough sell; this year is MHC’s 50th anniversary, and there will be a lot of guests, including many previous guests of honor.)

I’ll be around at Westercon for the whole very long weekend. Currently I’m not planning on having a sales table. StarFest worked out alright but I’d rather attend the events. If you’re going to be there, check out the schedule, I may be on other panels.

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