Wow… how in the world did 2025 go by so quickly? It seems like yesterday it was only March.

2025 was a rough year on the home front, while a wildly successful one on the publishing one. In January, my foster dad Max passed away at the age of 87. He’d been battling a lot of health issues that he hid from me the past two years, so while it looked like a rapid demise to me, it had been a gradual descent for those out in California. The estate was a mess as well but fortunately, not my monkey, not my circus.

Then in August my cat Casper died. He’d been my writing buddy for 15 years almost, sitting on my arm or at my feet for every book I’d written except the first one. I think it was something like 75 books and short stories he’s been there with me for, not entirely sure. His death was literally the week before Dragoncon and right after I’d been hospitalized for a week, so yeah… 2025 was rough.

Oh, yes, the hospital visit. So I went in to get my eyes checked for prescription and I was rushed to the emergency room because I had blood pooling in my eyeballs. WTF, right? Turns out it was a rare side effect of the cancer drugs I was on. The immunotherapy drugs triggered my autoimmune system to fight (which is terrific), but then my immune system decided that my eyeballs needed their asses kicked (not so terrific). After a week at the hospital, they finally realized that I need to stop all cancer treatments and my eyeballs should heal.

They’ve… kind of healed. I still have issues with text on white screens. Fortunately, most computers have dark mode now and I run everything on that. Still a little weird to be working in Word with a black background and white font…

I am not looking forward to that hospital bill…

On the publishing front, however, I had 7 books and short stories published, with the latest being yesterday (It’s free! Go check it out here). I had a total of 2 novels written, 1 anthology edited, 1 novelette written, and 3 short stories. Not a bad year at all. I also signed a trilogy contract with Baen Books for the collaborative work with Melissa Olthoff for our Bronze Legion series. To Tread Obsidian Shores is scheduled to come out January 6, 2026 (less than three weeks away!!!) and the sequel miiiiiiiight get published at the end of 2026 (depending on how quickly we turn it in). I’m expecting it to be a January 2027 release, personally.

I also was invited to participate in some upcoming anthologies set in two different John Ringo universes, as well as a brand new anthology from Jamie Ibson (scheduled in March 2026). 2025 was a fantastic year for publishing, and 2026 looks to be even better. Plus, Larry Correia and I finished editing The Monster Hunter Files Vol. 2 anthology, which is also coming out March 2026. We also should wrap up book 2 in the Chloe Mendoza trilogy of the Monster Hunter Memoirs series. It’s a little over half done right now.

The next two Quintus Fox books should be released in summer 2026. Stars Over El Dorado is book 3, and Renegades at Tycho is book 4. But that’s 2026. I’m supposed to be talking about 2025.

2025 was also the first year I ever cracked ONE MILLION words written. That is one hell of an achievement, especially given everything that’s been going on. My best month was October, surprisingly, with 158,678 words written. Dang. I don’t know if I can pull this sort of year off again. I already am seeing a decline this month compared to the past ones. My best year before this one was last year, with “only” 580,500 words written. To double my production is a little insane. Next year will probably be back down around 500,000.

Below is a list and links to everything I had published in 2025:

• Bounty Hunter (Quintus Fox Book 1)
• Moons Run Red (Quintus Fox Book 2)
• Dancing with Destruction (Baen Books)
• “Concursante” (Novelette in Dancing with Destruction)
• “The Gods Anointed” (Short Story in Not To Yield)
• “The Grimm” (Short Story in Elder Things Expedition)
• “To Catch A Crow” (Free Bronze Legion short story on Baen.com)

Here’s to a better 2026!