Where The Books Are Headed

     “I’m only here for the weekend,” he said.
     “I’m dancing as fast as I can,” she replied.

     [Barbara Gordon]

     In the wake of this wholly undeserved praise from Mike Hendrix, enough readers – old and new – have been asking “where’s your fiction headed?” that I figured a brief post about the matter would be appropriate.

     With Statesman, the Realm Of Essences series has left the Earth. I’m afraid my fictional USA (and the rest of the world) are in for some rough sledding. There will be more stories involving characters from that series, but the principal “story arc” terminates with Sumner’s rescue and exile to the Arcologics Habitat.

     With Freedom’s Fury, the Spooner Federation series has left Hope in transition back toward States and their multifarious consequences. As the saying goes, “this will not end well,” at least for the planetside population. But Althea is unwilling to be ruled, and a bit less than willing to live out her indefinitely long life immured inside an airless rock. Further interstellar travel, in search of a new world to colonize, lies ahead for Althea, Martin, Claire, and of course Probe.

     A gratifying number of readers have asked whether there’s anything left to the tale told in Love In The Time Of Cinema. I’m of two minds about this. I love that little novel; I return to it simply for my own refreshment, embarrassingly often. However, just now I can’t find a way to evolve more stories from it. Not that I’m about to stop thinking about it! We shall see.

     The “stand-alone” novels, The Sledgehammer Concerto and Priestesses, occasionally evoke queries, but I’m content to leave them be, at least for the moment.

     Here’s what I have on the drawing board:

• A novel founded on a “dark” version of the central motif in A Place Of Our Own and One Small Detail;
• A novel that extends the stories told in The Warm Lands and The Common Good;
• A novel set inside the timeline of Statesman that explores necromancy and why one might attempt it;
• And a notional novel that would unite the timelines of the Realm Of Essences and Spooner Federation series with a set of “capping” events.

     As I’ve said before, I don’t write fiction with the ease or speed I enjoy with op-eds, so please bear with me while I sort it all out.