The People pages under the Universe category have now been completed for all characters seen or mentioned so far in the Great War of the Shaeld series. At time of writing this literally includes every named character, from civilians seen in passing to each and every member of Tanker Regiment seen in the last book. [Edit: since this article was first posted, new index pages have also been added for all characters by surname, all the women, and all the men.] This feels like a great achievement, since there are over 100 named characters, many of them linked to various events throughout the four existing novels and beyond. The "upcoming characters" page has now been removed, so the new characters who will be arriving in Perseus Aflame will be added to this site when the first book from that series — On Vicious Wing — is actually approaching its release date. Some characters from the first of the upcoming GWOTS-era novellas, however, do have partial profiles on the site already. These are:
That novella is of course I Dream of Damastion, which should be released before the end of the year and may help to tide people over until the much-delayed release of Whom Gods Shall Fear. The protagonist of another upcoming novella — A Storm to the Savage — also now has her own page. Watch this space. For serious fans of the Armadaverse, it's highly recommended that you take a deep dive into lore by reading the background and insights into your favourite characters! Originally due in 2017, Whom Gods Shall Fear is still notable by its absence. Regular fans of the series will have noticed that the production schedule went from a prolific, one-a-year assault on the readers' senses, to a long and painful wait set to the refrain "not yet but soon, not yet but soon..." All I can really do at this point is apologise. I'll probably write a longer post about this at some point — lord knows it must affect a large number of independent writers — but for now let's just summarise the root cause as a prolonged and non-trivial bout of depression. The thing about depression is that it saps not only your motivation to do anything, but it also affects your memory. With an author, for a long time it can pass undetected as "I'm just not feeling inspired." In fact, prior to recognising what the problem actually is, I was reading and re-reading my own books in order to "get re-inspired". And do you know what happened? My working memory must have been affected pretty badly, because in certain parts I kept wondering if I really wrote all this, and how. Weird huh. Anyway... the part you as the reader want to know: I am taking steps. Normal service is resuming bit by bit. My priority now will be to get WGSF finished, and I'm just going to stop suggesting release dates that may or may not be kept. The delay has had benefits. As I have mentioned previously in various spheres I have adjusted Voice's storyline so that his actions fit more smoothly into the overall Armada Wars story (I think I mentioned before I've got a couple of decades of releases planned out, which all contribute one way or another to a final conflict of prodigious proportions.) It's also given me, as you might expect, some first hand insight into some of the characters' situations, and rather than being a two-dimensional asshole Maber Castigon in particular will now be far more rounded via his flashback episodes. Also, while these delays have been ongoing, discoveries and observations have appeared in the astrophysics news which have direct impacts on the climax of the book and future plans. Hasty but careful adjustments are required! In related news, I've spoken to a few superfans about Tankers, and what is very clear is that there's an underlying need for their sub-world to be expanded. I included more of Tanker Regiment very deliberately in From Shattered Stars — purely because they were so well-received when they first joined the lead characters — but it seems there's still great demand to see more of them in action. Because of that, the planned novella Forge Ruinous may now be written as a full length novel. It will of course link in with the plot points in FSS, and I'll leave it to you to speculate as to how it does so. Writing this as a novel may somewhat delay the start of the Perseus Aflame series, but I guess delay is now becoming a tradition. Because of that change, the 'novellas' section of the web site has now been restructured as the Expansion Episodes section. RCV The web site has been lavished with attention this week. In the past day, the following changes have gone live:
It's been a week of news in the Armadaverse. If you're feeling shell-shocked, imagine how I feel.
Along with everything else added to the site this week, I sneaked on the details pages and synopses for the two novellas which will expand the fourth full novel, From Shattered Stars. These are: Whereas the novella expanding The Ravening Deep is intended to explore one of the core mysteries of the novels, in quite personal ways, these two novellas will be more action-oriented. They will take a closer look at two of the groups operating within the Imperial Combine: intelligence field agents, and Tankers. You will probably pick out hints from their synopses about what is coming in the last two novels. The book page for the upcoming novella I Dream of Damastion now exists, and with it comes a summary of the plot.
Pre-order links and so on will arrive in due course, and you can expect the cover art reveal to happen some time in the next week. Exclusive to ArmadaWars.com, in this final month before the release of The Ravening Deep, the title of the fourth major volume in the current series has now been confirmed as From Shattered Stars.
Just as The Ravening Deep has two companion episodes coming, the fourth instalment will also be followed by two linked novellas. These will be: |
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