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October 9, 2015

Human Empire is out now

I’m very pleased to announce my first collaborative writing project, Human Empire, the fourth in the six-book Human Legion series, is now available to buy from the Amazon Kindle Store here. It’s got space battles, aliens, treachery… all the usual good stuff. We’re moving up in scale too. Ian and I wrote scenes with dozens of ships and tens of thousands of people. Admittedly, we didn’t exactly describe each person’s experience in detail, but we think there’s a greater feeling of scale in this book, something that’s going to get even bigger with the next one. As normal, the book will initially be on sale for a bargain launch price of 99c/99p or local equivalent for at least a few days. I’ve been told off by fans for making my books too cheap. We’re doing the launch price discount partially to reward readers of […]
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October 14, 2015

Promoting the Human Legion and cases of mistaken identity

I’m hard at work promoting the new Human Legion release, though I’ve taken time to look through the casting options for the forthcoming audiobook editions, which is great fun. When the Human Legion was at the very top of the military sf charts on amazon.com (#1 and #2) the book that knocked me off the top slot was Warship by Joshua Dalzelle. Not one to take a grudge, I read Joshua’s book and loved it. It felt good to give way to another book at least as good as mine. Some of the early reviewers likened it to Christopher Nuttall’s Ark Royal books, even calling it a copy. Well, I don’t agree. There are some surface similarities, but then the two books go their own separate ways. People said the same about Marine Cadet copying Forging Zero, despite my having written […]
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October 18, 2015

Human Empire launch update

Busy, busy, busy! That’s the situation, as usual, at Human Legion HQ. Work is underway properly on Book5, in so far as we’ve written the first chapter. Doesn’t sound like much, but we know most of how the rest of the book works, just haven’t written it down yet. And we’re very good at writing words. I’m not saying we write good words, but we can type and dictate. Our thanks to everyone who’s helped out by buying or borrowing the new book. Having a whole bunch of folk buy the book over a short period wakes up the Amazon algorithms and gets us visible in the charts so that those (rather sad, if I may say so) people who don’t follow humanlegion.com can see us and buy our books. Also, thank you to everybody who’s left reviews. Reviewing on […]
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October 25, 2015

The latest 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. Firstly it’s an opportunity to celebrate what’s hot right now in science fiction in books (and beyond), and secondly it also gives me a few minutes to rest my brain from my day job of writing my own science fiction books. My last trawl through the charts was here, and a long-winded mission statement here. Data was captured on 24th October 2015, but I’ve been looking in on the charts most days since my last post. Authors who caught my eye this time include Douglas E. Richards, S. Harrison, Joshua V. Scher, Rysa Walker, Tim C. Taylor and Joshua Dalzelle. Spontaneous celebrations erupted throughout the world this week as people called Joshua welcomed the news that two […]
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November 6, 2015

War Against the White Knights: teaser#1

It’s been a tough week in the Human Legion writing shed (pictured). Ian and I had written 18,000 words for War Against the White Knights, the fifth Human Legion book, but we needed to meet to discuss the next stage. Unfortunately, I’ve been too ill this week to write books. Every writer is different, but for me I find it relatively easy to get my head in a place where I can come up with story ideas, but to get in the mental place where I can craft scenes effectively and efficiently is much harder. In a good working day dedicated to writing, I might write 5,000 words of story. Half of that will come in an intense 90-minute burst when the writing is flowing easily. It feels so good, it’s difficult to describe. That 90-minute burst will not only […]
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November 6, 2015

The Sad Puppies of Gin Street or Does a Hugo Award Boost Book Sales?

Until 2015 it had been decades since I’d paid much attention to the Hugos, which I’d say are still the most prestigious awards in science fiction. Like the Oscars, the Hugos have always courted controversy and always will. What’s been different over the past three years is that the most recent Hugo spat to emerge now has social media as both a battlefield to fight over and a way to whip up hatred for the ‘opposing side’ into levels of frothing madness that have at times brought shame upon the science fiction community. Furthermore the mutual recriminations on social media sparked a pamphlet war, as we shall see in a moment. I put ‘opposing side’ in quotes because we’re all science fiction book lovers here on this website, and I like to think that we’re too grown-up at humanlegion.com to […]
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November 7, 2015

War Against the White Knights: Teaser#2

They’re so powerful that they dominate this region of the Trans-Species Union. The White Knights are in charge. The masters. Or mistresses? Do they even have a gender? After all, we’ve already seen Pedro who is fascinated by the whole concept of gender because it’s so alien to him [see the Trog novelette, ‘My Extended Death’ if you haven’t already]. Who are the White Knights? How did they get to be so powerful? What is their civil war all about? What do they even look like? The next book is called War Against the White Knights, and I didn’t just grab the name because it sounded cool. That cover image is taken from their world. Way back in Marine Cadet when the Detroit base has to carry out the Cull, there’s a release of imitation flek clouds in honor of the […]
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November 7, 2015

More teasers: The Sleeping Legion

Secret agendas are everywhere in the worlds of the Human Legion. And here in the Human Legion production shed it’s just the same. There’s been an operation carried out in secret that will shortly be revealed. Here’s a clue now…
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