MAY 2025
So, I was going to apologise for sticking the new novel in another Bookfunnel promo, but I’ve been studying the dark arts of book marketing for “indies” recently, and the received logic seems to be that I should offer discounts and deals on early books in the series and sell the new one at the full price even to Readers Club members! I’m doing the opposite, of course, partly because I’d already promised to give you the chance to grab the new release free, and partly because I’ve never been a fan of doing things that don’t seem to make any sense. Anyway, the important thing to remember is that the Kindle Free Deal for A Martian Ending only operates from today (5 June) to Monday (9 June), after which it will be at a shocking 99 cents until the end of the month!
I’ve included the preceding two books in the series (The Safest Moon – with a new, funked-up cover! – and Callisto’s Monstrous Secret) in the same promo and also at discounted prices if you haven’t already read them and fancy stocking up for the summer. Just click on this link, or on the banner below (is she meant to be another android?) and then go “fishing”:
[Editor’s note: the promo has now ended, of course!]
So, where do all the novellas flying around between the longer reads fit in? Well, the idea was always that you could read them whenever you wanted, if you felt inclined to fill in some of the gaps between the main stories, but I’ve just realised that – by sheer luck or “accidental intelligence”? – there are two short stories before the first full-length novel (chronologically speaking), another two between the first and the second, and two more between the second and the third. That means I’m just missing one between the third novel and this latest release, to accompany the freebie still on the website (Reckless on Rhea). I think it’s going to be about Red’s “lost six months” (mentioned briefly in A Martian Ending), but I don’t know when I’ll find time to write it, given that right now I really need to focus on the final novel in the main series …
One thing at a time!
PS – My brother reminded me the other day that he did actually bring the play about the time machine to the stage not so long ago, with the machine itself being designed by an AI! (That way, nobody had to know how it was done!) Climate change and stuff like that should be easy in comparison, shouldn’t they? By which time I wonder if people will remember how to think at all.
PPS – I have a new and entirely friendless Facebook page! I’ve uploaded some “working diagrams” (that I imagine Roland might have drawn) if you’re interested, but I’ll probably also add them to the webpage at some point. And I’m working on a grand list of characters (a truncated version of which will probably find its way into the final novel itself, to make things easier).