Been a while since I looked at this webpage. In the interim I’ve written a couple of extra books in the series, or at least got them published which is ‘as good as’)
(Ends in Shadow which needs a new text upload for a proofed version, and Iceland Cold which I finally got around to editing and making a little more coherent.)
Current options for the next book are complicated and I’ve been faffing about for the past four months working out which I want to push through.
I’ve got a nice little alt Sherlock and Watson style story and a half-finished cover for it, main issue with getting that one out is ‘authenticity’ so I’m taking a squizz through a series of 1870s and 1880s books and records to get the tone right. Basic premise is ‘Sherlock and Watson if they lived in the precursor to the Ice Age world, and Sherlock’s insufferable intellectual curiosity starts him off the Brooker path.)
I’ve also got a skeleton of an Enkidu and Gilgamesh story – Gilgamesh as the main competitor to the arms dealer in Repent Humanity, and following him and his best pal old Enkie through the initial years of the Catastrophe themed around the original Sumerian epic.
Easy enough to find an immortal to have a chat with in that setting.
Then we have a couple of mainline entries. I really do need to sort out the story for Witches in the Woods, which combines two main failings. First, it’s one and half stories crammed into a single two thirds written book. The intermissions in the main ‘chase’ story became too chunky for the structure, whilst also difficult to uncouple without losing a lot of depth. Maybe cut it into three? Chase, what’s happening at the Castle and before, and then a final stretch into the confrontation at Thanet?
Not sure. Hence… on hold.
Last one is closest to complete – Cloud Sailing. One of those stories you get about halfway through editing and realize the second half is going to need a complete rewrite given the first half has spiralled off into something complicated and more aligned with the plot of the later written books. I could probably knock that one out in a week if I could just settle!
Got a cover too.
Well. Decisions, decisions. Time to make a decision. In between work.
Toodle pip.
Ice Age in Scarlet 