Tip of the Spear is Out!!!

A revolution has erupted across the planet Jefferson, an uprising that the Battlecruiser Alamo helped begin. Lieutenant-Captain Marshall and his crew, in a desperate bid to prevent the rebellion collapsing before it can begin, must fight a war against the forces of the Cabal in the jungles and seas of the planet, while the engineers race to repair the damage to the ship before an approaching spacecraft that destroy it, stranding them on the planet forever. Now the crew of Alamo face enemies on every front, in a desperate bid to get the information they have gathered back to the Confederation while there is still time...

Amazon US Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZQTYDM
Amazon UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GZQTYDM

Inspiration: Beyond Fighting Fantasy

As I prepare to write fantasy in the new year – which is going to dominate this blog a bit over the coming month, and yes, that means I actually plan on writing something this month (I flag my illness last month, but still, my record on this blog has not been particularly stellar, something I am anxious to improve in the coming year) I am looking over my old inspirations once again. I'm a firm believer that you need to recognize where you come from while you are writing – without knowing those inspirations, you can't get past them. Assuming, of course, you want to.

Around a month ago, I wrote about my early experiences with Fighting Fantasy, and how they really were fantasy to me when I was a kid. There was a lot more to the gamebook field than just Fighting Fantasy, though, and – heresy here – I would go so far as to say that they weren't the best in the field. They might have been the first, but the field improved as time went on. The first non-Fighting Fantasy book I picked up – and I can very clearly remember this – was a Lone Wolf, the Darke Crusade, Book 15, and it made quite an impression. Here was an ongoing campaign, part of a long narrative story. I eagerly sought more of the books, though never managed a complete set...something I may have to remedy, now I think about it.

There were countless others, and as a part of my preparation, I have gone ahead and picked up three complete series, comprising sixteen books in all – two of them complete runs of an ongoing quest, a complete arc, and the rest independent...but not Fighting Fantasy. Those books I know, these books I know less well. I've gone for the four-book 'World of Lone Wolf', featuring the adventures of a wizard – in the same world as Lone Wolf, but a different area, the six-book 'Golden Dragon' series, which are not dissimilar to the Fighting Fantasy books, but that I have never actually played through, and the six book 'Way of the Tiger' series, where you play a ninja assassin. Cool, huh!

Now...you might have guessed what is coming. I'm still working on the 'Tip of the Spear' revisions, of course, but given that I have December scheduled as 'get me in the mood for fantasy' month – with too many other things going on for me to do that much actual writing – I think I will be doing some gamebooks. I've been admiring quite a few blogs playing through and reviewing the Fighting Fantasy books for some time, and I think it might be interesting to play through some of the other ones! As soon as they all get here – which hopefully will be by the end of the week – and I've got 'Tip' out into cyberspace, I'll get going...

(And...damn I'm tempted by the new Fabled Lands books. I think they might end up being next on my 'to-buy' list...Dragon Warriors made me a huge Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson fanboy...)

What's the hold-up....

About three weeks ago, I completed work on 'Tip of the Spear', with the expectation of giving the beta readers a week or so to go over it, make the changes, and get the book on sale. By now, I was hoping that it would be available. Now, the beta feedback was actually extremely positive, no major changes needed (aside introducing another character, but that's another story...) which meant that it should only have taken a few days to get it out there...

Then I caught Death Fever. I tend to get my illnesses on an annual basis, and I was half-expecting this one – usually it's either November or January, and it floors me for a few days, and I get back to normal again. Often I just work through it. This time, wow, it was a good one. Two weeks it hit me back – I couldn't concentrate on anything long enough to work on it, and it was as much as I could do to stagger to my computer to check my emails.

Finally, however, I have managed to shift whatever god-awful bug it was that had its evil grip on me, and have got myself back on my feet – and just in time, too, as I have a little deadline to meet on this one, aside the desire of the readers (well, I certainly hope so) to get the next chapter in the Battlecruiser Alamo saga; my dad's going into hospital in a couple of weeks, and I need to have the book finished by then, or see it delayed even further...

So, to work! I'm now plugging my way though the manuscript, and will log my progress on the blog on a revised version of the progress sidebar. Everything's going pretty well up till now, and I'm hoping that this means that 'Tip of the Spear' will be out at the end of the month. I have a list of everything that needs doing, I pretty much just have to input the changes at this point, so with any luck, this should go fairly smoothly.

Then, of course, the nerve-wracking process of seeing what the outside world thinks of it will begin...

Tip of the Spear is Finished!

Well, yesterday, at around 1630 GMT, I wrote the last word in the first draft of 'Tip of the Spear'...and I'm absolutely exhausted. I feel like all of my strings have been cut. This has been in some ways the most difficult of the four Alamo books to write; the three-month gap in between books didn't help, and this was the most pre-scripted of the four – in that it was hitting certain beats I already knew, and building more heavily on a previous book than the others have done. I expect the next one to be somewhat easier – I have an idea where that one is going, but I'm exploring unknown country again. Which should be nice; that's always more fun in many ways, and I get to play with the star charts again.

This one naturally had to focus on cleaning up at least some of the mess made in 'Victory or Death'; something that always infuriates me is when a world gets turned upside down and the starship – funnily enough, often named Enterprise – simply blasts off into warp leaving someone else to clean up their problems. TOS was littered with examples of this. I wanted to show the consequences of actions here – so in the third book, Alamo (some spoilers here) starts a planetary revolution as the result of rescuing their crewmen, and they then have the responsibility to follow up.

Now the scope of this was too big for just a single book; the first book in the forthcoming 'Espatiers' series will look into this as well – it might be a good idea to look at that, in some respects, as the third book of the 'Jefferson trilogy', though it will naturally stand alone, and feature a new cast of characters. I think 'Tip of the Spear' closes enough loose ends to be satisfactory, though that in itself was also a fun challenge – come up with a big ending that still left room for a sequel. First reports from the author suggest that this is so...

As for what comes next, well, I have some editing to do of this book and another, and then the release, probably in a week to ten days. I've got the cover already, of course, so that makes things a tad easier. Following that, well, it's a bit of a toss of a coin at the moment. I've invested some of my royalties in expanding my research shelf – that Saxon fiction is certainly very tempting, but probably next off the block is a revamp of an old book of mine that I was rather fond of, called 'One False Step'. After? Two possibilities, and I haven't 100% decided yet. I've been wanting to do another space history for a while, and there are some thoughts in my mind on that one – though writing the next Alamo is increasingly tempting. (Battle of Hercules; I already have the cover for that one as well.)

Naturally – I will keep you informed...