My fiction writing plans for 2018
This shot looks like an alien world to me.
Continuing on from my post from yesterday, now onto the fun writing I'm working on. I have a lot of science fiction publishing planned for this year (making stuff up is soooooo much easier than academic writing!) .
Day 115 on an Alien World will be out mid-April (I'll be revealing the cover soon!). This will be book 1 in a four book series about a colony starting out in a new solar system. This is my debut book, and I'm really happy with how it has turned out.
Here's my working blurb:
This morning Gary Holbrook watched his wife die.
And she wasn't even a wife he wanted. When he signed up for a brand-new colony on a desolate planet connected to Earth by an intermittent wormhole, there was a catch - the mission was for married couples only. Without a suitable spouse, he reluctantly married a woman he'd never met: Margo Murphy, a grubby entomologist with a fondness for butterflies.
It was the crash of their colony ship that started a cascade of life-threatening problems. Accident after accident robbed them of colonists, and their desperately needed skills, while damaged and broken equipment had stalled their efforts to make a viable colony. To Gary, Margo’s death seemed like just more of the same bad luck.
That was until Gary read his late wife's journal and her suspicions of a saboteur in their midst. Now he has to follow a trail of clues to unmask the saboteur and stop them before the colony is completely devastated. The first communications window with Earth - their only chance to ask for help - is fast approaching, and someone needs to be alive to make that call.
The follow up book, Far Side of the Moon, is written and going through editing right now. This book starts right where book 1 ends. I'm aiming for a summer release.
Here's the working blurb:
Margo Murphy is in a borrowed body and running out of time.
Just over a week ago, the colony she calls home, an intermittent wormhole away from Earth, survived The Conglomerate’s efforts to destroy it. As it departed, The Conglomerate’s ship abandoned the mastermind behind the sabotage, Lucy Snow, and her sick son at the colony. The boy knows things that he couldn’t possibly and is hiding a secret that puts the colony at risk.
Before the colonists could catch their breath, their adopted world of endless daylight throws them a twist - extended darkness combined with frigid temperatures. At the same time, the colony’s artificial intelligence becomes compromised by a Conglomerate virus, bleeding power when they need it most. The colony is in jeopardy once again. Something needs to be done to remove the virus before the colonists freeze.
Lucy is the only one with the skills to hack into The Conglomerate's system, forcing Margo to work with her to stop the virus.
Putting her life in the hands of an experimental technology, Margo travels to the moon, to convince a group of insurgents to help her infiltrate The Conglomerate and get the answers she needs to save the colony and the sick boy they’ve taken in.
Book 3 in this series was my NaNoWriMo project titled Abandoned Ships, Hijacked Minds and has been the funnest one for me to write so far (I'm loving working on this book). My aim is to publish this one in the fall.
Here's the blurb:
Someone or something is trying to kill Margo Murphy.
It’s been six months of progress for Margo’s colony, a wormhole away from Earth. Things are finally looking up for the settlers - crops are coming in and new colony members are on their way.
A group of insurgents turned refugees led by Iago Ocon arrive. The Conglomerate destroyed their home in an abandoned lunar mine, leaving them looking for a safe haven. The influx of new people creates new tensions and opportunities, including Iago’s unwanted interest in Margo.
With the refugees came a space worthy ship, reopening the question of what happened to the first two colonies. Margo’s was the third colonizing mission sent to the same solar system. Repeated efforts of communicating with the other colonies only returned silence. Were others out there, and did they need help?
Margo joins an awkward combination of colonists and former insurgents lead by Iago to investigate what has become of the other colonies. While still suffering the side-effects of her last battle with the megalomaniac leader of The Conglomerate, what Margo finds changes everything.
Book 4, The Alien Artifact, is still in the outlining stages, I hope to get into writing the first draft later this spring. Likely this one will be out early 2019. For now, I'm going to keep the details on this one to myself.
I'm working on a couple of short stories and a novella set in this world, which I'll send out when they are ready.
Finally, I have a request. Is anyone interested in getting an advance copy of Day 115 on an Alien World in an exchange for an honest review? If you are, just drop my a line at jeannette.m.bedard{at}gmail.com (changing the {at} to a @) and I'll send you a copy when it's ready (likely late March).