I meant to post this a week ago, but… oops?

The copyeditor found some things in Mountain of Fire I’d missed (hilariously, I’d screwed up a part of the timeline in the Black Tide Rising universe after proclaiming “This is the cleanest story timeline I’ve done!”) but those were easy fixes and the final page proofs have been submitted. T-minus two months until the eARC is released by Baen… just in time for Libertycon!

But before Libertycon, next weekend I’ll be at FantaSci in Raleigh, NC. Yep, pretty much a “home con” for me, though I will be staying at the con hotel (conventions get to come back every year when their hotel blocks sell out) and hanging out with all my author and publishers friends who will be in attendance. I’ll only be on two panels as well, so plenty of free time!

• Government Systems in Science Fiction — Friday at 5:00PM — Governments are a complicated thing. Dune has an Imperium with three organizations working (together?) to run the galaxy. The Song of Ice and Fire has an amalgamated Kingdom of seven smaller kingdoms. Honor Harrington serves a Monarchy modeled after the United Kingdom in confrontation with a failed People’s Republic. How do authors choose their government systems?
  
• Anthropology in World Building — Saturday at 2:00PM — How Can One Apply Cultural Anthropology to Developing Human and Nonhuman Civilizations? This is a broad-spectrum topic that can cover everything from basics like diet, shelter, and mode of dress (or lack of same) to social stratification, marriage/mating practices, taboos, warfare, spiritual beliefs or rituals, and language, to name a few. How do such details, even if they’re in the background, add depth and realism to your created cultures?

Yep, only “smarty pants” panels this year for me! Which, truth be told, I’m kinda happy about. One of my biggest complaints about panels at conventions is I get lumped into the ones where it’s only a publisher talking about what’s coming out this year, or tossed into a panel for such-and-such universe. Very rarely do I get a chance to be on panels where we’re discussing things that make books tick, you know? I’m really looking forward to these panels.

Nick Steverson and I are currently wrapping up Salvage Imperium, Book 2 of what we’re calling The Invasion. This series is set in Kevin Steverson’s bestselling Salvage Title universe. We should have it finished and edited by the end of the month, and turn it and the previous title (Salvage Purgatory) in together. After that, I can then knock out two short stories I owe before getting to work on a new project… which will be announced in the coming months once the details are nailed down and contract is signed with the publisher.

I also signed a contract to edit another anthology for Baen Books! This one, titled Dancing with Destruction, is based on me giving the authors a piece of art and telling the story behind the scene. All of them took the challenge and I already have over half of the stories turned in! I’m hoping this one can get a Spring 2025 release (we can if I get the rest of the stories in on time). Hmm… one of those missing short stories is mine. I should probably get that done before the other two short stories I owe.

For those of you looking for a Monster Hunter Memoirs update, Larry and I have outlined the second book but with as busy as he is, it’s going to be a while before we can get to it. He has a Memoirs collaboration with Les Johnson to finish, a solo Monster Hunter mainline book to write, the next Age of Ravens book with Steve Diamond (I think it’s called Instruments of Violence) to complete, plus wrapping up his Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series all before we can get to our next collab. Oh, and he has a book to write for another publisher as well. But fear not! The Monster Hunter Files: Vol. 2 is coming along nicely, and we hope to turn that in by the end of the year. We’ve got some amazing stories so far and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the authors turn in.

Hmm… OH! Winterborn, book 5 of the Kin Wars, is finished. I’m not turning it in, though, until I complete Hammerfall so they can come out back-to-back. They were originally going to be finished by June but now, with the contract for the new project sneaking in, they’re probably both going to be done by August. Also, finished the read-through of Side Hustle: Vol. 2, and now that it’s up for preorder on Amazon, I just need to… actually upload the cover and finished collection. This one is going to be a little shorter than the previous volume, but not by much.

Have you preordered your copy of Mountain of Fire yet?

When the lights went out, humanity died. But from darkness came hope.

The surviving students at St. Dominic’s Preparatory School for Girls have had it rough since the H7D3 virus virtually wiped out human civilization. Between rampaging hordes of zombies and wannabe tinpot dictators, the only thing holding them together is the iron will of the school’s lone surviving nun, Sister Ann. They know how to survive, but rebuilding isn’t only about surviving—it’s about rising up.

As more survivors start to seek asylum at the isolated school, it becomes readily apparent that the school can be the anvil from which humanity is reforged. To achieve this, though, the survivors must rely on one another to rebuild. The flames of life will be fanned, and the sparks from every strike of the hammer will provide light in the darkness.

But it will not be easy.

From atop the mountain of fire, this beacon of hope must spread—or humanity will die quietly in the long, final night.

A Black Tide Rising novel by Jason Cordova