Let's get this out of the way immediately — we're not talking about 2020. 2021 has arrived, and as you've probably noticed already things are back in full swing in the Armadaverse. This post is a round-up of the plans for this year. Don't forget that there is a mailing list for the Armadaverse. It's recommended that you subscribe, because there's a good chance that the Armada Wars brand will abandon mainstream social media in the near future. Releases Planned for 2021 and Onwards...I am now resuming my original plan of interleaving the novel releases with the novella releases, albeit with the following changes:
My aim this year is to knuckle down and keep up a steady pace. I Dream of Damastion is already available for Kindle, with the paperback proof on its way to me even as I type. I am planning to have A Storm to the Savage ready for a release soon, then all efforts will be focused into Whom Gods Shall Fear. You may have noticed the artwork for IDOD changed in the past week, and the same iconography and cover design has been used for ASTTS. It will also be used for Forge Ruinous, although I have not yet chosen an image for the central glyph of FR's cover. Feel free to suggest your thoughts in the comments below. Steal from the Devil — the ReduxI've said before that there are aspects of Steal from the Devil which I now find embarrassing and or problematic. As a debut novel, although many readers do enjoy it, one can only really say that it was released way before it was ready. I've previously floated the idea of making some quite large changes. On those occasions I have received mostly negative responses, with people saying they would rather it was left just the way it is. I've decided to split the difference. As well as being generally tidied up (see below), SFTD is going to get some enhancements, clarifications, and — of course — a thorough stylistic edit. I want to be very clear that nothing will change substantially as far as the plot goes. What will happen is that characters and situations will get expanded text, so that it is clearer what is happening, and the consequences further down the line are more understandable. I will try to bring the style of the book into line with the sequels, without losing any of its weird atmosphere. I also aim to trim just a little fat — this means the teasers and references that ultimately went unused as the story found its own way through the sequels. If you have strong feelings about this, then please do say so in the comments. Kindle/Paperback RefreshesOver the years, with me having to update the same stories in various alternate files, discontinuities have crept into the published materials. These include vanishing custom fonts, different typographic conventions, and in some cases even material differences in the actual words of the books.
There is also the cap-wearing elephant in the room. A poll was conducted across Twitter and Facebook, and the overwhelming majority favoured a retrospective change to the lore where a certain acronym is concerned. The conventional air and ground assault forces will have to be called something different. Perhaps I just solved it there, and CAGA will be the replacement. The point is that I've had it up to the eyeballs with people assuming that the old acronym is a nod to Trump, despite it obviously having nothing to do with him, so I'm just going to change it. "AGRO" won the polls (standing for 'Air and Gound Recon Operations'), but I think I will save that label for a team of specialists in a future story :o) For all of those reasons, every single Kindle edition and paperback is going to be overhauled over the next couple of months. With the exception of I Dream of Damastion, which from today has the latest typography, corrections, and defined lore, all the updated versions will be released together. I will do my best to convince Amazon to push the Kindle updates out to existing customers, but only the changes to Steal from the Devil are likely to be considered significant enough to justify doing that. You don't have long to wait now before the next volume arrives from the Armadaverse: I Dream of Damastion is now available as a Kindle pre-order! It's been a dry couple of years for Armada Wars fans, and this expansion episode should hopefully slake your thirst prior to the release of the final full novel in the current series. Set during the events of The Ravening Deep, IDOD takes a sideways step from Caden and the others, and follows a different set of characters as they discover and resist Voice on a smaller and more claustrophobic scale. Happy August!
It's been a while, and you probably thought everything had ground to a halt in the Armadaverse. But fear not, for the wheels are always turning. When the blurb dropped for volume one of Perseus Aflame some people got so excited that a little bit of wee came out. You still have to wait until 2023–2024, but in about five seconds you will know what you're actually waiting for. The volume one book page has now been updated with the actual title... Over the past couple of weeks, the paperback editions have been quietly migrated from Createspace to Kindle Direct Publishing. This means faster and simpler delivery (now fulfilled by normal Amazon means), and full Prime availability. The opportunity was also taken to make some tiny tweaks to the content and covers.
As you might have heard, every Armada Wars novel available on the Kindle platform now has X-Ray content available. But what is it? And where? Put simply, X-Ray content gives you a compact, dedicated database right alongside a Kindle book. It contains profiles for characters, significant terms, and definitions. It can add depth to the world of the book, provide you with a means of quickly refreshing your memory, and give you quick and simple explanations. The X-Ray system can show you all the terms or characters on a page, or for the whole book, ordered alphabetically or by relevance. It also generates "notability" scores for some content, and it picks out passages which might be of particular interest. All in all this is a feature that succeeds in combining functionality with entertainment, and when you're exploring an expansive and subtly detailed world like the Armadaverse it's an invaluable companion. It's available from the tool strip at the top of any Kindle's reading page, or in the book menu on mobile devices. All the X-Ray content in the Armada Wars novels comes straight from the source, and it is designed to be consistent and spoiler-free. Due to the character limit for X-Ray entries there are of course much more extensive articles on this site: the web site's entry on the Rodori, for example, is vastly more interesting than the abbreviated version found in X-Ray. But the idea is to give you a quick summary of what a Rodori is, right while you're reading. How to get the latest X-Ray content: Simply delete the Armada Wars novels from your Kindle reading device/s, and then download them again. That's literally all there is to it!
From Shattered Stars is now fully available in both Kindle eBook and paperback formats! As well as buying outright or borrowing for Kindle, you can now purchase the paperback edition to line up with your other lovely paper copies. This paperback is in the same format as the other current books, with one small new feature: some elements of the front cover wrap around onto the spine. See the FSS page for links to your preferred Amazon site. As mentioned yesterday on the Facebook page, there has been a universal update to all of the Armada Wars Kindle eBooks. The purpose of the update was to:
The new editions are a huge improvement over previous versions, and the eBooks have never looked so good. Read on to learn more! It has begun! The Kindle edition of From Shattered Stars is arriving now, for those lucky readers who live in Australia or use the Australian Kindle store. As midnight hits in the time zone for each regional Kindle storefront, the book will become available for download there. If you pre-ordered, and your device is connected, it will appear by fricking magic. Handy things to know: If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read for free. You only have a few days before the prices change across the board! The paperback edition is expected to land on the store and on Amazon before the end of June. Encountered a term in an Armada Wars book and not sure what it means? Fear not. The brand new Glossary was added to the Universe section today.
The glossary is not yet exhaustive, but it does come quite close. It will of course continue to grow as new volumes are released in the Armadaverse, because every new book means new strange things with strange names. |
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