Eric Thomson's Starship Stories

Space Opera With a Twist

Category: Decker’s War Military Science Fiction Series (Page 1 of 7)

Happy Autumn

2022-10-13 / / 0 Comments

I can’t believe it’s mid-October already, but the evidence is there. Leaves are no longer green, when they’re not already lying on the ground, dried up and waiting for a rake. Although we had a few good warm days earlier this week, it’s grey and rainy outside today, just the sort of weather to keep you inside.

But we’ve not been idle. On the contrary. Cold Comfort (Decker’s War Book 2) has come out in audiobook format and is slowly appearing on various retailer websites. If yours isn’t on the list give it a week or two.

https://books2read.com/DeckerColdComfort?format=audiobook

If you want to help ensure the author rather than the big retailers receives most of the sales revenue from the Decker audiobooks, I encourage you to visit Authors Direct. My publisher has set up a storefront where all of the audiobooks we’re producing will appear. The two first Decker’s War books are already there, and I’m hoping the third, Fatal Blade, will be done before Christmas. And after that, it’s on with the remainder of my books. Have a look.

https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/sanddiver-books-inc

Finally, I’m at the halfway mark for Fear No Darkness (Ghost Squadron #4) and I’m trying something a little different. Because of the scope and reach of the story, which covers the events that trigger the downfall of the Commonwealth, Zack Decker himself is telling the tale, much like Caelin Morrow narrates her Constabulary Casefiles. So far, I’m enjoying it immensely. I’m also hoping it will be done before Christmas.

And that, my friends, is all the news that’s fit to tell. Stay safe and healthy.

Decker’s War in audio format

2022-08-14 / / 0 Comments

Though it’s been slowly percolating through the online ecosystem for the last 3-4 weeks, the audiobook version of Death Comes But Once has finally reached Amazon and Audible, the biggest retailers in the audiobook game, so consider this the official announcement. The following link will take you to the retailer selection page:

https://books2read.com/DeathComesButOnce?format=audiobook

The narrator, Henry Jones, did a great job and he’s now working on the second Decker’s War book, Cold Comfort. Our plan is to have the entire series done by the autumn of 2023 by Henry.  I know some of you are thinking, what about the Siobhan Dunmoore stories that haven’t been produced in audio yet? We’re working on a plan to get those done over the next year or so as well.

May Flowers

2022-05-09 / / 2 Comments

Things have been busy around here in the last two weeks or so. First, my publishing company, Sanddiver Books Inc. is entering the world of audiobook production. We’ve just signed a contract with Findaway Voices to engage a narrator who’ll turn Death Comes But Once (Decker’s War Book 1) into an audiobook, with a projected release date sometime around August. If all goes well, the rest of the series will be turned into audiobooks over the coming year or so, followed by the Ghost Squadron series. But what about the remaining Siobhan Dunmoore books you’re no doubt asking. That’s a little trickier. As you might recall, the first three, along with the four Ashes of Empire books were produced by one of the leading audiobook publishers, Tantor Media, and I still hope they’ll pick up the remaining Dunmoore novels. If it becomes clear they won’t, then we’ll go ahead and do them ourselves.

In the meantime, we’re conducting an experiment with the Constabulary Casefiles books in the audio realm. Google, never a company to let innovation escape them, has created a means of auto-generating audiobooks based on ebooks in the Google Play inventory. In other words, the audiobooks thus created are narrated by an Artificial Intelligence. And they’re remarkably good, all things considered, though in my opinion AI narration is best for novels told in the first person, because the AI cannot do different voices in a single recording, unlike a human narrator. As a result, we’re putting out all three Constabulary Casefiles in audio on Google Play and Kobo (the only places that’ll accept AI narrators). The Warrior’s Knife is already available, with A Colonial Murder to follow later this week. The price is less than half that of a human narrated audiobook. Mind you, my editor is spending at least a week per book to make sure all of the AI’s mispronunciations are corrected, so it’s not just a push the button and done deal. If you’re curious, both retailers allow you to listen to a decent sample for free so go see for yourself what this is all about. We may well have them re-done with a human narrator at a later date, now that we’re serious getting into the audiobook business.

Next, I’ve take down the forum. It wasn’t being used as I hoped and instead has been the target for bots and scammers (I’ll let you guess from which part of the world predominantly at the moment). It might return at some later date if I see a better way of using it, or it might be gone for good. Same with the Sanddiver Bookstore. We dealt with a bot-generated credit card scam in February. Fortunately, our credit card processor, Stripe, caught on quickly and the only one out of pocket, by under $20, was me. Since sales were never really phenomenal, we haven’t put it back up, though it’s still there.

Finally, I’m at the 70% completion mark for Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts.

And that is all the news fit to print. Stay safe and healthy, fellow humans.

On the First Monday

2019-09-01 / / 0 Comments

And on the first Monday in September, we celebrate work by being idle.  The concept of Labour Day has always amused me, but nowadays, these statutory holidays make little difference in my life.  If I’m driven to write, I’ll write.  Mrs Thomson, who still works in the bowels of the demented bureaucracy on the other hand, quite enjoys them.

Labour Day is the unofficial end of summer in our part of the world, and in the last week or so, it certainly seemed that way.  The nights are getting chillier, the sun sets earlier and rises later, and the sky is taking on that autumnal luminosity which we recognize but cannot quite describe.  Mrs Thomson’s vegetable garden is just about done for the year – a few green tomatoes remain, but nothing else.  Where has the summer gone?  It started so late, after an awful and awfully long winter, followed by a cold and soggy spring.  Will we get an early winter as well?  Speaking of winter, another sign of the season’s passing landed in my email inbox the other day.  Our snow removal company’s contract for the 2019-2020 season.  Let’s hope we won’t need their services until well into December, but the way things have been going in the last few years…

I’ve written three quarters of When The Guns Roar (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 6) and should be typing those two words every writer loves, The End, in the next two weeks.  After that?  Well, the next installment in the Ashes of Empire saga, Imperial Night is on the menu.  And perhaps the start of a new series covering events in Zack Decker’s later career when the Commonwealth slowly becomes that empire we’ve learned to hate in Ashes of Empire.  I was playing with a book cover idea for the first installment yesterday, to flex my graphic design muscles and take a break from writing.  The result is below.  And that, as they used to say, is all the news that’s fit to print in my little universe.

We Dare - small

The War is Over

2019-02-08 / / 0 Comments

The final tally in my war against mice is five in mousetraps, and one which died from poisoned bait. I think that’s it for now since I haven’t caught any more mice or seen evidence of mouse activity in recent days, but I’ll be leaving traps out on a permanent basis and check them every morning.

The other war that’s over is one which has been close to my heart for the last four years. If you’ve read Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7) you might have noticed how I brought Zack Decker full circle and wrapped up a lot of his story. Yes, it’s the last Decker’s War adventure. You may also have deduced from his distant descendant, Brigid DeCarde, whom you met in Ashes of Empire: Imperial Sunset, that Zack still has an illustrious career ahead of him. Does this mean I’ll never write of our favorite Marine Pathfinder again? No, but for the next while, I intend to concentrate on continuing the Ashes of Empire saga, write the next Siobhan Dunmoore, and work on a project that’s been fermenting in my brain for a long time.

However, it’s entirely possible Zack Decker could return in a fresh series which will chart his story through the messy dissolution of the Commonwealth and the formation of the empire as he rises up the ranks. Perhaps I might call it Decker’s Empire or something of the sort. But that’s not for 2019.

In the meantime, progress on Ashes of Empire: Imperial Twilight remains slow but steady: I’ve reached the 25% completion mark.


New Year, New Challenges

2019-01-08 / / 0 Comments

Mrs. Thomson and I just returned from our annual pilgrimage to an undisclosed scuba diving destination after two weeks without thought of work, writing, or anything other than emptying the mind and recharging the body.  As usual, I found it took at least a week for me to accept the notion that doing nothing other than read, watch Netflix, or laze about (when not diving) were acceptable uses of my time.  It didn’t take anywhere near that long for the local mosquitoes to accept me as their preferred meal!  But now it’s back to reality, snow, ice, cold weather, and complaining about it all in good old Canadian style.

To my surprise, my editor is already deep into working on Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7), and says she’ll get back to me with her comments sometime next week, so it’s definitely coming out this month.  I suppose I should buckle down and see that the various formats, covers, and sales channels are ready.  But fear not, work on Imperial Twilight has begun.  I worked on the outline during the trip home using a good old notebook and pen.  The way I see the Ashes of Empire universe unfolding, with its multiple threads, it’ll take a bit more planning and a bit less seat of the pants writing.  But the scope it gives me to tell stories!

And now, back to work.  I wish everyone a prosperous 2019.  As a mischievous sage once said, ‘May you get what you want, not what you deserve.’

It’s Starting to Look Like…

2018-12-20 / / 0 Comments

Last night, I finished revising Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7) and sent it to my editor. With Christmas coming up next week, I don’t think she’ll get to it until after New Year’s Day and probably not until the second week of January. But the holidays won’t impede a late January publication date, so I’m not worried.

I now intend to put the pen (or to be more accurate, the keyboard) aside for two or three weeks to recharge the batteries. As usually happens once I finish a book and send it to my editor, I find myself drained. A good thing I have an agreement with Mrs Thomson that I don’t work or even think about work at this time of year. But come January, I’ll dive into Ashes of Empire: Imperial Twilight.

Since this is likely my last blog post of 2018, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Count your blessings instead of your crosses.

Count your gains instead of your losses.

Count your joys instead of your woes.

Count your friends instead of your foes.

Count your smiles instead of your tears.

Count your courage instead of your fears.

Count your full times instead of your lean.

Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.

Count your health instead of your wealth.

Love your neighbor as much as yourself.

 

The End

2018-12-09 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote the final sentences of Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7).  When I’m putting down a first draft, I rarely know where my characters will take me and the story, and this time was no exception.  Hard Strike‘s ending surprised me quite a bit.  Until a few days ago, I had no idea it would turn out as it did, but perhaps I should have seen it coming.  This is Zack Decker we’re talking about.  His adventures always have a twist.  I won’t say anything more.  You’ll just have to read it when it comes out in the new year.  I still have a few weeks of revising before my editor takes over sometime around mid-January.  And then there are the holidays.  I have an agreement with Mrs Thomson:  the two week period around Christmas and New Year’s Day are non-working, even for a sometimes hyperactive author.

What comes after Hard Strike?  For starters, my next project is Ashes of Empire: Imperial Twilight which I hope to see published around the late April, early May time frame.  Then, the sixth Siobhan Dunmoore of course.  And I’m mulling over a fresh idea that doesn’t involve the Commonwealth/Empire universe featured in each of my books, but that’s still in the embryonic stage. 

If you’ve joined my mailing list, watch your inbox sometime late January 2019 for the announcement that Hard Strike has hit the virtual and physical bookshelves.

Another Gray Sunday

2018-12-02 / / 0 Comments

We Canadians like nothing better than to complain about the weather, but this weekend, we had snow, freezing rain, rain, and fog after a gray week, so I think I’m just a bit entitled to grumble.  This morning again, just like last Sunday morning, the damp fog closing in on our part of town transported me thirty years into the past and to a different continent.  At this rate, I’ll probably be happier once real winter settles in with minus twenty degree centigrade temperatures – no rain, no fog and more chances of sunshine.  Of course, after a few weeks of minus twenty, I’ll be complaining again.

In just over three weeks, it will be Christmas.  Another year gone.  Where it went, I couldn’t say.  My brain tries to ignore the passing of time but my body feels it, even though I’m at the gym six days a week, exercising harder and more regularly than I did in my forties, or even my thirties.  Being my own boss these days helps me get out there and pump iron instead of sitting in endless, futile meetings where, when all is said and done, much will have been said and precious little done.  I don’t miss those days at all.

Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7) is in the home stretch.  I’m at the 85% completion mark and intend to see it done by the end of the coming week.


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