It's been a long time since there was an audiobook release in the Armadaverse.

For the past year, Amazon has had a new programme in beta which can generate audiobooks from Kindle editions. After being invited recently, RCV has now tested the system using the two available expansion episodes: I Dream of Damastion and A Storm to the Savage.

You can obtain these immediately from Amazon US or Audible US. I'm keen to know what readers think of the job the system has done, because this could be a game-changer for books which otherwise would never have been available in this accessible format.

Owners of the Kindle edition receive a huge 80% discount on the retail purchase price through Amazon.

The Ravening Deep has now joined I Dream of Damastion in the wide marketplace!

The novel has populated across numerous ebook sales platforms and libraries already, and paperbacks are available from major retailers across the globe. More will be added as they publish their product pages.

The ebook is still available to buy for Kindle, but is no longer in the Kindle Unlimited subscription service.

More of the Armadaverse books will be arriving with non-Amazon retailers over the next six weeks. You can see approximate timescales in the previous announcement.

The Armada Wars back catalogue will soon be 'going wide', which means the Ebook editions will be available at a range of retailers and no longer exclusive to Amazon Kindle.

The drawback of this decision is that the books will no longer be available to borrow as part of Kindle Unlimited. Electronic editions can only take part in KU if they're exclusive to Amazon.

Kindle editions will still be available via Amazon/Kindle as normal retail purchases, and if you've purchased any outright they will of course stay in your account.

If you're currently reading an Armadaverse title via KU, here are the deadlines before the books leave the subscription platform:

As we hurtle towards the Tenth Armadaversary, it's slightly daunting but also extremely satisfying to acknowledge that in a few months' time, this is what the line-up will look like... 

The Universe section of the site has received a makeover today, primarily focused on the Places section.

• You can now view lists of named star systems, either by controlling faction, or by galactic region.
• The list of named planets has been updated with the new worlds mentioned in From Shattered Stars, I Dream of Damastion, and A Storm to the Savage, as well as some of the less spoilery planets that will be named in Whom Gods Shall Fear.
• Some planets named in earlier books were found to be missing from the site, and have now been added in.
• Some worlds and systems were found to have been listed in the wrong galactic regions, and have been corrected.

Updates have been made to canon as a result of these edits. Most of the details below have been in notes and plans, some even elsewhere on this site (e.g. on planetary profiles), but few have been specified in books — although for some that will change in WGSF.

• The Lem Bataan home world, Phnemaph, is now listed canonically in the Yuacc system.
• The Viskr home world, Riishi, is now listed canonically in the Sampta Chfum system.
• The Kibriani home world, Kibria, is now listed canonically in the Ewarrn system.
• Woe Tantalum is now listed canonically in the Parable system.
• Lopama, the site of Forge Ruinous, is now listed canonically in the Roumhale system.
• Kelvestyr, the location of the Imperial War College, is now listed canonically in the Worrokek system.
• Mibes is now listed canonically in the Komistir system.
• Aldava is now listed canonically in the Breig Eta system.
• Damastion is now confirmed canonically as being in the Axicon system.

Whom Gods Shall Fear is well on the way, with over half the planned word count finished despite the fact that only a third of the chapter spine is filled out. This might actually be the one book where a lot goes in the editing stage! Or it could just end up being double the length, guess we'll find out.

The book is planned to arrive later this year. When it does land it will end the main story of this series, and conclude the Great War of the Shaeld.

In preparation for this release, the People section of the site has been updated. Almost all characters who will be in WGSF are now marked as such on their bio pages. Those where it is uncertain at this stage if they will be written in have been left without the link, as has one character in particular whose appearance is intended to be a sickening surprise.

Those of you who enjoyed the introduction to the crew of the Leo Fortune will be pleased to hear that they will be making an appearance. We may also encounter Hywen, last seen in A Storm to the Savage, and Doctor Berris, who played a small role in I Dream of Damastion.

In fact... many characters who have only had small moments so far will be turning up to watch the galactic bonfire, and some of them will be bringing marshmallows. The theme of 'consequences' may well play a significant role in this finalé...

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.

I am now resuming my original plan of interleaving the novel releases with the novella releases, albeit with the following changes:

• Significant elements from The Granite Whistle have been merged into A Storm to the Savage, so it is unlikely that I will write TGW in the form I originally planned. Watch this space.
• Forge Ruinous will now very likely end up being a full novel, rather than a novella, and it will be released after Whom Gods Shall Fear.

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.

I'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.

Over 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.

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:
​

• Reximillian Bel-Kenita — Protagonist.
• Euelli Berris — Head of developmental research, Kenita-Deng Incorporated.
• Mansour al-Rashid — Captain, ICS Ardent.
• Zana Turei — Chief engineer, ICS Ardent.

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!