sci-fi author, beatmaker

Tag: Reclaimed Earth Series

I Stopped Drinking and Got Better at Chess

I’m taking a significant break from consuming alcohol. I like to reset every now and then, and with a 13-year-old kid who is sometimes exposed to alcohol and drug use among her peers, I thought it would be a good time to lead by example.

Overall, I’d reduced my drinking from the last time I took an extended break, so the effects have been pretty subtle. It’s possible I’m sleeping slightly better, and that my gut biome has moderately improved. But so far my body composition hasn’t changed, my stress levels feel about the same, and I haven’t noticed any major physical, emotional, or cognitive differences.

Except for one area. My evening chess games are significantly better.

Three Spreadsheets I Use While Writing a Novel

I unabashedly love spreadsheets. I view spreadsheets as intelligent pieces of paper: totally freeform, but capable of calculations, lookups, list organization, and even database formats. Spreadsheets are a powerful technology that can externalize mental processes, organization, and memory.

I use spreadsheets for tracking my goals, health, personal finance, RPG games, and all sorts of other things. When I’m writing a novel, I primarily rely on spreadsheets to keep track of characters, scenes, and timelines. Here are a few examples:

Rethinking Book Marketing, and Some Quotes from Reviewers

A 1970’s artist depiction of a ringstation (from https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/70sArt/art.html).

Becoming a published science fiction author was a jubilant moment for me, and I coasted on that high for a long time.

But of course everything that goes up must come down. I’ve found my mood and attitude regarding my nascent writing career to be significantly less jubilant now that I’ve struggled with the problem of how to sell more books.

The Guardian Cover Reveal

Yesterday I sent my editor Don D’Auria a very-close-to-final version of the manuscript of The Guardian, sequel to The Sky Woman and Book 2 of the Reclaimed Earth Series. I’ve been working on revisions for the past couple of weeks, and it’s been gratifying to re-immerse myself in the minds and lives of the characters (including Tem, the ten-year-old son of Car-En and Esper, and Umana, aka the Squid Woman, the novel’s archvillain).

Here’s the cover!

You can preorder the book here, or at your local bookstore (most Barnes and Noble locations carry the Flame Tree line). The novel (hopefully) stands on its own merits, regardless if you have read The Sky Woman, so you can jump in wherever.

Please feel free to share the word on social media!

In the year 2737, Earth is mostly depopulated in the wake of a massive supervolcano, but civilization and culture are preserved in vast orbiting ringstations.

Tem, the nine-year-old son of a ringstation anthropologist and a Happdal bow-hunter, wants nothing more than to become a blacksmith like his uncle Trond. But after a rough patch as the only brown-skinned child in the village, his mother Car-En decides that the family should spend some time on the Stanford ringstation. 

Tem gets caught up in the battle against Umana, the tentacle-enhanced ‘Squid Woman’, while protecting a secret that could change the course of humanity and civilization.

The Guardian, the sequel to the The Sky Woman, is a story of colliding worlds and the contested repopulation of a wild Earth.

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