Space Opera With a Twist

Month: June 2020

Happiness is a Warm Summer

And it’s finally here for us in the northern hemisphere. Happy summer solstice, everyone. And a happy winter solstice for those in the southern hemisphere.

I’ve just passed the halfway mark on the second Chief Superintendent Morrow case A Colonial Murder. It takes place shortly after events in We Dare (Ghost Squadron No. 1) on Mission Colony, which still suffers from the aftereffects of Decker and Talyn’s visit in Hard Strike. Of course, since this is Caelin Morrow, it’s not an ordinary internal affairs investigation, let alone a simple homicide. And since it takes place during the increasingly tumultuous years leading to the end of the Commonwealth and the rise of humanity’s first interstellar empire, you can be sure of darker motives and more violent players.

I’m also well advanced with the outline of the next Ashes of Empire story and am finalizing the story line for Deadly Intent (Ghost Squadron No.2). It’ll be a busy summer here in the Casa de Thomson. At this point, I plan on writing Deadly Intent the moment A Colonial Murder is with my editor, simply because in the overall Commonwealth-Empire timeline, the events in the second Ghost Squadron adventure occur immediately after A Colonial Murder.

Stay healthy and stay safe, fellow humans. Peace.

Ashes of Empire: Imperial Night

It’s official, the third installment in the Ashes of Empire saga is coming out on Monday, June 15th, 2020, four days earlier than planned. If you pre-ordered the ebook, it should appear on your device Monday morning. If you didn’t pre-order it, visit your favorite online retailer Monday and enjoy. The hardcover and paperback versions will also be available.

Here’s the link: https://books2read.com/ImperialNight

Imperial Night completes the first cycle in the saga, recounting the establishment of Lyonesse as a final bastion of civilization. The next three book cycle will tell the tale of what remains beyond Lyonesse, starting with Ashes of Empire: Imperial Echoes, which will come out next year.

In the meantime, I’m making decent progress with the second Chief Superintendent Morrow case, A Colonial Murder.

Stay healthy and stay safe, fellow humans.

And Just Like That, it’s June

Although with the current weather, you’d never know it. We had a few days of summer-like heat last week, but since Saturday, it feels more like March, with nighttime temperatures in the single digits (Celsius, not Fahrenheit) and daytime not much better. So far, 2020 just keeps on being 2020.

This morning, I invented a new activity: tidycize. I’ve been working out in my basement rec room ever since they closed the gym and with the amount of stuff down there, I’m not bored while resting between sets and exercises. But the place was a bit of a mess, so instead of working on my current hobby project during my rest periods, I tidied the place. Ten reps of arm curls, 20 seconds of tidying, another ten reps, etc, etc, etc. Got a lot done in 40 minutes!

As of today, I’ve written over twenty-five percent of A Colonial Murder, the next Chief Superintendent Caelin Morrow casefile, and my editor is almost done with Ashes of Empire: Imperial Night which means things are moving along at Sanddiver Books Inc. even though summer is just about here. And summer means the propane grill is in action, as is my charcoal smoker. Food has never been better. Those of you who follow me on Facebook will have seen my culinary postings. Even before the current pandemic, I knew there was a lot of good in buying local. We get our vegetables and meat home-delivered from small, family owned and operated local farms, and boy can you taste the difference. Of course, living in the Great White North means I can’t get much of our fruit supply from local sources other than during a short period of year, but such is life. I blame Samuel de Champlain for setting up his New France colony north of the 45 parallel instead of smack dab in the middle of the Caribbean.

Stay healthy and stay safe. Peace, fellow humans.