DRAGON SPACE Goes Live!

Yes, there are dragons in them stars. And now, for the first time ever, my two dragon novels—Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger—appear together in one volume, just out in ebook, Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus. Science fiction with a fantasy dimension! This new book appears under my own imprint, Starstream Publications, in cooperation with E-reads, which publishes the novels separately in ebook form.

Both books were published in paper by Tor, just before I got started with The Chaos Chronicles. The story—set chronologically in the Star Rigger universe sometime after Panglor but before Star Rigger's Way and Eternity's End—really started with a short story, "Though All the Mountains Lie Between," that I wrote for an Orson Scott Card-edited anthology, Dragons of Darkness (though the story actually appeared first in newspaper format in the Science Fiction Times). You can read it here.

Dragons in the Stars, which includes the events of that story, recounts the journey of star rigger Jael LeBrae, whose life is changed by an encounter with dragons in the "mountain region" of the hyperspatial Flux that riggers navigate between the stars. With that meeting, Jael becomes caught up in an age-old prophecy claiming that "One from outside" will come and speak her name to a dragon, and in so doing bring upheaval and a new beginning in the dragon realm. Jael has a life to live as a star pilot, but she finds she is bound inextricably to Highwing, the dragon who befriended her and whose life she later holds in her hands.

In the sequel Dragon Rigger, we experience through the dragons' eyes the war that is  tearing the realm apart. For there are more than just dragons here; there are false dragons, and ifflings and false ifflings, and the tormented spirit of a captured rigger. And seeking control of all, there is Tar-skel, the Nail of Strength—a being from beyond the realm who seeks to spin all of the magic of the dragons into a web of power and deceit—encompassing not just the dragon realm, but all of the Flux where the riggers fly, and all of the layers of normal-space that lie beyond. Into this war, Jael must return. If the prophecy is correct, only she can lead the realm out of the impending darkness. But if the prophecy is correct, the price of that victory is her own death.

In their original publication, Dragons in the Stars did very nicely. But Dragon Rigger—a personal favorite of mine!—suffered from a series of distribution and marketing snafus, and never really found its audience. Both have been out of print in paper for many years, but they returned as E-reads ebooks two years ago. This is their first publication in one, low-cost volume—complete with the map that graced the paper editions. I've been working on it for months, and I'm delighted to have a new cover design by Pat Ryan, based on the original work from artist Jael (no relation to the protagonist!).

Dragon Space is available right now in the Kindle store, in multiple formats at Smashwords, and is "processing" in the Nook store. Over the next few weeks, it should start showing up in the Apply, Sony, Kobo, and Diesel ebook stores.

Please give it a look, and tell all of your dragon-loving friends!

Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus:

At Kindle | Smashwords (all-format) | Nook  and others (coming)
Free excerpts here

Times Marches On

What with one thing or another, I never got around to posting my Easter greetings to everyone. So, thinking in a time-travel fashion (ghoststream, as it is called in the still-nascent Reefs of Time), I will now wish all of you Happy Easter! And Happy Passover! And if you don't celebrate Easter or Passover, and even if you're allergic to chocolate bunnies, I hope you had a great weekend, anyway.

During the weekend, my Chaos omnibus got a nice featured mention on Spalding's Racket, the indie-book-oriented blog of writer Nick Spalding. His blog is well worth perusing, if you're interested in seeing work by some writers you might not know yet.

Family members have been coming and going here. Allysen was gone for two weeks and has returned. Alexandra was home for a week and has left again. Julia was gone for a week and has returned. Talula, our house guest, was here but just left on a trip. Me, I've just been settin' here coughin' on the pollen and wonderin' why God or evolution invented allergies, anyway. (But grateful for the Roombas and Scooba.) And wondering, why does our attic smell like mildew? Please tell me we don't need a new roof. (But I think we probably do.)

Here for your amusement are a few fun pages that appeared recently at Syfy.com:

• 17 animals you'd swear were aliens
• Howl's Moving Castle done in paper
• Science fiction film stars who got their start in soap operas

Ebook Special Prices!

I decided to hold a "Taxes Are Done, Done, Done!" sale and put a few of my books on special for a limited time. Thus, for a limited time, you can get:

• Neptune Crossing for $.99 - Kindle | Nook | Smashwords
• The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1-3 Omnibus for $5.99 - Kindle | Nook | Smashwords
• Eternity's End for $2.99- Kindle | Nook | Smashwords

Edit: That sale is now over. But everything below is still true.

Meanwhile, the prices are coming down on my other books sold through E-reads. It's taking a while for the price drops to trickle down, but in the Kindle store, you can now get:

• From a Changeling Star for $4.99 (formerly listing at $9.99)
• Down the Stream of Stars for $4.99 (ditto) -
• Star Rigger's Way for $4.99
• Seas of Ernathe for $4.99
• The Infinity Link for $4.99
• The Rapture Effect for $4.99
• Dragon Rigger for $4.99

Maybe you can show them that lower prices are better! Those prices should appear in all the other stores eventually--I hope sooner rather than later.

Watch for an announcement soon about Dragon Space, my new omnibus of Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger. I recently put the cool map created by Ellisa Mitchell on my website, here. It's being incorporated into the new ebook, as well. I'm just waiting for the cover art to be finished. I'm very excited about it.

Progress on the Audiobook

We're really rolling now on the production of our home-brew full-cast audiobook of Neptune Crossing. Our narrator Bob Kuhn has recorded through Chapter 12, and the dialogue cast has done quite a bit of recording, bouncing around through a number of chapters—sort of movie-shoot style, so as to consolidate reading sessions for the characters who are in fewer scenes. It is remarkably difficult to do good voice acting for an audiobook.  Bruce Coville told us he actually had stage actors at his Full Cast Audio studio who said, this is too hard—too different—can't do it. Not stopping us, though!  We're on a steep learning curve, but we haven't been flung off into space quite yet. 

While Allysen's away, we're taking a pause in recording, and hoping to get some of the editing done, so that we can start to hear what a fully assembled production will sound like.

I hope to get a bit of a teaser up online soon.

Interview at Two Ends of the Pen

Today I'm the interview subject (Don't hurt me!) at a blog called Two Ends of the Pen, which is worth looking at if writing interests you at all. (I mean the blog is worth looking at, though I would hope you find my interview interesting, too.) My host at Two Ends is Debra L. Martin, who it turns out is just a stone's throw down the road from me, at MIT. This one focuses on writing, and also some of the differences between publishing the traditional way, and the indie way. For a look, go to  http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com/. (Here's the permanent link.)

Speaking of MIT, my friend and SF colleague Joe Haldeman is scheduled to be interviewed this Thursday on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan from 3PM to 3:40PM. According to his wife Gay, he'll be talking about the effect his experience in the Army (and presumably in Vietnam) has had on the rest of his life. Definitely should be worth a listen.

And in Late-breaking News...

Our older daughter Lexi just called to say...well, I could hardly make out what she was saying, because she was hysterical with joy or fear or something... and then I finally made out the words "...accepted... grad school..."  So it looks like she's going to be at Northeastern next fall, studying engineering! (She was giddy with joy, after all—not hysterical with fear.) Way to go!

Taxes Are Done, the Christmas Lights Are Down, and Allysen Landed a Job!

Yes, I finished the taxes over the weekend! What a relief. And today it was so gorgeous out that I finally rousted myself to do what I couldn't face all winter—I took the blue LED Christmas lights off the tall evergreen tree in front of our house. Yes, I got them down before Easter. (They were somewhat the worse for wear from the hard winter. Two of the six strings broke in the middle; the wires apparently just snapped and came apart.) I also went rollerblading and saw the sun go down over Spy Pond. It was beautiful.

That was after putting my wife Allysen on a plane to Ponce to visit her mom for a couple of weeks. Allysen's just been hired as a technical editor at a company called ab initio, and is quite excited about it. This is kind of a last-chance-to-travel for a while; she'll start after she gets back from Puerto Rico.

In other news, our daughter Julia decided to withdraw from high school and pursue other means to getting a degree-equivalent. She home-schooled for a number of years, so this isn't completely out of the blue. She had entered the high school to try to deal with some special circumstances, but for a variety of reasons, that wasn't working out for her. It was a bit of a jolt to us, but we support her in taking an alternate path, if that's what it takes. She looks happier than I've seen her in long time.