The Human Legion

October 9, 2015

Who should we recruit for the movie?

The Kindle version of Human Empire is working its way through Amazon’s servers. While I’m waiting, I’m going to take up a suggestion from Sergeant Mike. Now that the movie version of the Human Legion is inevitable (see my last post) let’s have some fun and figure out who we need to play the characters. I’ll set the ball rolling with some actors who remind me of various characters. Some of the hair, skin color, age, and body shape doesn’t quite match, but something about these actors or their portrayals reminds me of some of the characters. For Zug I definitely had Laurence Fishburne in mind. As in this pose. For Springer, I think of Josette Simon as Dayna in Blake’s […]

October 8, 2015

The Human Empire of tomorrow

The final eBook build of Human Empire is now underway. It will take a few hours and should mean the book is available for sale on Amazon by the end of tomorrow. Paperback to follow very soon after. Thanks to all the help we had in making this. In other news, today I have also accepted an offer for the audiobook rights to the first three books in the series. I’ll wait to sign something before I announce more details, but since the audio publisher approached me, I don’t see any problem! This, by the way, is the route Andy Weir took with The Martian. First he self-published an eBook that became a bestseller on Amazon. Then an audiobook publisher […]

October 5, 2015

Human Legion Publications

When I published Marine Cadet last Christmas, I decided to do so under an imprint name of Human Legion Publications. I liked the name, but didn’t expect to use it to publish anything other than my own books. I still run Greyhart Press, which is a bona fide publishing business, just largely on hold right now. At least with regard to publishing new books, though I’m still working on selling the existing books. But Human Legion Publications was just a name. I never pretended the Human Legion was anything other than self-published. My best sales day came late January when I sold just shy of 1,500 copies of Marine Cadet and Indigo Squad. Some people urged me then to turn Human Legion […]

October 5, 2015

This week’s science fiction bestseller charts

Here’s my latest trawl through the science fiction top 20 bestseller and bestselling author charts on amazon.com The point of these posts is twofold: it’s an opportunity to celebrate what’s hot right now in science fiction in books and beyond, and I write it in chunks to give me a few minutes at a time to rest my brain from my day job of writing my own science fiction books (and with a book launch later this week, I need that occasional break). My last trawl through the charts was here, and a long-winded mission statement here. Authors who caught my eye this time include Andy Weir, Margaret Atwood, and Kameron Hurley. Chart positions were captured on 2nd October 2015. Top […]

October 2, 2015

Human Empire paperback cover

We’re still awaiting some Recon Team reports, but are hopeful to get the next book out next week. Thanks for all the suggestions you’re making so far. Very helpful! In the interim, here’s the paperback cover. The covers of Marine Cadet and Renegade Legion don’t relate to a specific scene in the books. The ship on the cover of Indigo Squad is Beowulf and the deck plans match the image. We continued that idea further with Human Empire. The front cover image is actually a scene from the book.

September 28, 2015

What’s really hot in science fiction: part 2

Welcome back to an occasional series of posts on what’s hot in science fiction, concentrating on Amazon’s science fiction bestseller charts. For a discussion of what I’m up to, and why I want to move away from bullying and arrogance and onto celebrating success, see part one. Let’s start with the top-20 bestselling science fiction books on amazon.com I scraped the data last week (I had a busy weekend building sand daleks on the beach which is why I’m posting a few days later), so if you follow the link, you will get a slightly different picture. I’m escalating a request to Amazon for permission to replicate their chart data, but for now you’ll have to click the link. The […]

September 28, 2015

What’s really hot in science fiction: part 1

Science fiction is flourishing! Adult SF book sales are up sharply. The past few years have witnessed an explosion of vibrant new literary talent. I believe that more science fiction authors are earning enough to support themselves and their families as a full-time writer than at any time in history. No wonder the scene is so healthy. Although I hear some traditionally published mid-list authors telling of their pain at falling sales right now, overall there’s never been a better time to be a science fiction author, or reader. But, wait! I’m only talking about books, and that’s such a small part of the SF scene these days. If we look beyond books we can see the huge popularity of […]

September 28, 2015

Human Empire coming soon

As you’ll see shortly, I’ve gotten a little carried away writing blog posts today (which is why I don’t write that many: I always have a lot to say!). But I wanted to let you know that tomorrow I’ve an all-day summit with Ian Whates where we’ll set a release date for Human Empire and develop the outline for War Against the White Knights and The Battle of Earth. When Human Empire gets its release does depend on the reports coming back from our Force Recon Team (which is already performing an outstanding service) but I’m hopeful it will be the middle of next week. I think I must be related to the Night Hummers because I always seem to be […]

September 24, 2015

Announcing the Human Legion Wiki

Today I’m very proud to announce the Human Legion Wiki is officially open. No doubt you’ve seen Wikipedia, but you might not be aware that there are tens of thousands of other sites based on the same Wikia platform. In a blurring between real life and the worlds of the Human Legion five centuries hence, the Legion Infopedia is now available for you to explore in the present day. Not only that, but you can go and contribute yourself. My thanks go out to the Legionaries who traveled time to construct our Human Legion wiki. These brave individuals are known only by their codenames: Homo Helveticus, and Porkchop NCR. Take a look, enjoy, tell me what you think is missing, and […]

September 22, 2015

A map is discovered of the planet of Tranquility

Many thanks go out to humanlegion.com regular, Sgt Mike, who has painstakingly restored this alien map of Tranquility, and helpfully added some English labels, while preserving the alien text in the border. The timing is most excellent because we’re not yet done with this planet! There will be a special announcement about further background material later this week.

September 17, 2015

Human Empire Force Recon Team: recruiting now!

Update: the sign up period has now closed, and initial Recon Team candidates are being contacted. Stay sharp, though, in case we need to call up the reserves 🙂 Human Empire is the fourth book in the Human Legion series. If real life behaved itself, the book would be available to buy now. But no plan survives contact with reality, as you know. Ours certainly hasn’t, but we’ve never stopped re-knotting our plan in a way that would make the Duke of Wellington proud. And it’s worked! We pulled some time back, and we’re just days away from finishing. We’ve had some wonderful messages of support from fans, but I’m sure for some that it’s been such a long time since […]

August 27, 2015

Human Empire release update

Bad news on the release date of the fourth book: Human Empire 🙁 A month ago Ian and I were confident we’d be finishing the book around about now, and handing it over to the Recon Team prior to a mid-September release. We’ve slipped. A release early October is more realistic. Between Ian and myself we’ve had one bereavement and one very ill family member in recent weeks. I’m not apologizing for any of us putting family first under difficult circumstances, but I am deeply disappointed that we’ve lost all traction for 2-3 weeks. We’re back in the game now, though. Well, nearly… I’m taking my family for a vacation next week. We think the book is well worth the wait. Well, […]