random bullet points.

–I’m still hunkered down in my writing dungeon here at Castle Frostbite. I have to deliver the manuscript for Lines of Departure by the 31st, so I’m busy putting the final touches on it. If you’ve sent me email and I haven’t yet responded, I’m sorry. I’ll get to the essentials like email, showers, and the regular consumption of foodstuffs once this manuscript is in send-it-off shape.

–Because Lines of Departure isn’t due out until January, I’ll do my level best to put out some new material in late July/early August. It will be a novella called Measures of Absolution, and it will answer some questions I got from a lot of readers, namely “What the hell was going on in Detroit?” The story is told from the perspective of one of Andrew’s old squad mates, and it will go into the how and why of the Detroit riots, and why exactly the rioters had military-grade hardware and tactics.

–Six weeks until Readercon! I guess I should start stockpiling all that Basil Haydens I’ll need to ferry down to Burlington.

—Terms of Enlistment has clawed its way back up to #2 on the Military SF list on the Kindle, and it’s back into the Top 20 for all SF (print, Kindle, and audio.) When 47North released its own edition, the novel lost its rankings and had to start from zero again, and I’m happy to see that it has regained most of the steam it had as a Frostbite Publishing(tm)! product.

–I watched Snow White and the Huntsman with the wife the other night. It was a truly awful movie, and we had our very own impromptu Mystery Science Theater 3000 savaging, which was probably the most fun anyone’s ever had with that flick. It is getting to the point where just seeing Kristen Stewart on the screen makes me sleepy almost instantly. She’s the thespian equivalent of thorazine.

–Pilot has a new fountain pen out, the Metropolitan. It writes ridiculously well, and I have no idea how they can produce such a nice pen, package it in a decent box with a converter and an ink cartridge, and sell it for under $20 without losing their pants, but that’s what they’re doing. I usually recommend the Lamy Safari to fountain pen noobs as a great starter pen that won’t break the bank, but the Pilot Metropolitan has the potential to knock the Safari off the #1 spot when it comes to “Best Fountain Pen under $50”. It has a lacquered metal barrel and cap and looks and feels a lot more expensive than $18.

–We got a Roku 3 for the TV in the grown-ups’ den upstairs, and holy shit, why didn’t I get one earlier? It will truly come into its own once they hook us up to the fiber-optic cable that’s tantalizingly hanging off the poles in front of Castle Frostbite, but even with our poky 1.5Mbit DSL line, it’s perfectly usable. (I got the Roku instead of the Apple TV because it supports Amazon Instant Streaming, which the Apple TV doesn’t.) Now we can catch up on that British series everyone’s been raving about. Downtown Abby, or something? I’m guessing it’s about a hooker.

Well, it’s back to work for me. Have a great Friday, and when five o’clock rolls around, hit that liquor cabinet harder than #3 hit the wall at Daytona!