That said, here, an electronic novel about a young man with a strange job, his pet bug monster, and his crazy strung out bosses and their attitudey space ship:

Honor & Sacrifice, Kindle edition!

Replacing this all is a monetary nightmare.

We apologize for the delays. Trust us this is as frustrating for us as it is for you.

The book may end up costing me more to publish at this rate though and may require a small fundraiser – not a kickstarter though, just a little fundraiser, since the lack is more in the 50-100 area and not the thousands.

Book two, “Above the Sun” is also on the horizon already, and there is a young adult series planned for later in 2013 or 2014, set during the Ice Armada era, following the story of a young gunner named Nia. Whether we’ll be doing that as standard fiction or a graphic novel is currently up to debate around the ranch.

More to come. Stay tuned!

“From the opening pages, I was hooked. Ann Koi’s debut novel is vivid, baroque, and exciting with a combination of xenobiology and mysticism that evokes aspects of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Great, surprising stuff and worth a look.” — John Scott Tynes, co-creator of Delta Green and Unknown Armies

(I may have actually fainted, being compared to one of my biggest influences as a world designer, and by Tynes of all people.)

Now for the more confusing and/or more mixed news.

- There was a massive revision during the last spin through the forges here at the Ranch. While it does not precisely change the story of “Honor & Sacrifice”, it may strongly change the way two (maybe three) characters are perceived by readers. The decision largely stemmed from wanting to get somewhere quicker, but also to avoiding an ugly blindside when that bit of back story came to light in “Above the Sun” (book 2, tentative title) or supposing people actually read all the way through “Roots in Hell” (which was all online and I pulled realizing that that little back story bit was never directly stated in book one and it’s an express train to Spoiler Town)

- I have regained control of my hands through the amazing skills of neurological specialists, so I’m sculpting again. It’s a huge YAY! but it also means a) I’m broke from several doctor’s visits involving travel etc. and scraping the money back together to print H&S and b) I roped myself into a hyper-complicated art exhibit in order to help scrape that money together.

Progress, in some form or other, has occurred.

Still apologizing from the sizable detour I took there for a while, but things are back on track with the print version of the first book. Wyvern, Sol, and Parthenos all ended up making guest appearances in a limited comic – the catalog for the “Familiar Spirits” art exhibition. This will be available online in some form after it is available at the shop, which will be after I return from Comic Con. Why does everything take so long? Because it does. That’s your answer. Please forgive us. Trust me that I would love to spend less time at doctors’ offices, hospitals, funerals, and the really dull parts of my day job.

Also a tiny apology for our down time while our web master had to free us from the yoke of oppressive Russki hackers. That was dumb. We did not lose any data, though, so go Tony!

Take care.

Onzi & Bacon

I will get more of “Roots in Hell” up soon, I promise; kinda got distracted with an epic fine art show, the last round of revisions for the printing of “Honor & Sacrifice”, and the annual excursions to both Sakura Con and the HP Lovecraft Film Festival.

This image is by Jayelle Anderson, and you can let her know you enjoyed it over at her Deviant Art site!

Synopsis:
Karshi – “Val” to his co-workers – is a young Archon officer determined to win his call sign, even if it means volunteering on a high-risk, morally questionable operation with a team of hardened veterans.

Roots in Hell, part one – Note that this was a good draft but not a perfect one. Since I have to send my files to someone else to convert for me until I fix one of the other computers at the Ranch, it’s going to be a little flawed for a while. Don’t complain too much, OK, this is free after all.

Hand-wringing aside, “Honor and Sacrifice” (or “Tribes of Heaven, Book 1″ as some of you have come to call it) is off getting a nit-pick by one last editor before it goes to layout to become a more official book.

Available formats will include printed paper and a version specific to e-readers. Supporters, of course (and you know who you are) will have their support honored on the official release date, as per original agreement (i.e., free art or free copy of the book depending on specific options).

Unfortunately, the painting intended for the cover “went missing”, and rather than digitally repair the existing photograph for that purpose (thereby increasing the value of the “missing” work), I’m coming up with something entirely new.

There remains a cash reward for the return of the original painting:

Missing Artwork & Supplies, Cash Reward, Olympia WA

And for those curious, tentative release date is April 3, 2012. Apologies for the delays; blame unscrupulous rogues and vandals of the normally lovely Olympia WA.

Figured I’d answer a couple of these emailed questions here in case other readers had similar issues.

Q: Just double checking here to see if I got this correct. The current queen is Marsura, yes? Has she been queen for a while? Who came before her?

A: Marsura is the current queen; she took office comparatively young during Third Mior (so she’s been on the throne over three decades – not long in terms of a kaffir life span but longer than Sol has been alive). She succeeded Aphoisia, who was extremely popular with civilians and military within the Archon empire. The careful reader has probably noted that in spite of her popularity, Aphoisia failed to keep Archos out of a long conflict with the Ilu, whereas the Accord was signed rapidly on Marsura’s watch, briefly elevating her popularity among civilians. Over the ensuing years, she slashed military spending including cutting entire units, apparently to further appease her morally offended public, and cutting benefits to veterans living off the home world in a very tricky move approved by a home world-majority High Council, deeply to the slight of Holtiin (Archos’ “sister planet” should have more Council representation, but that’s another story).

Q: I’ve read the glossary entry on staging, but I’m still not 100% clear on the functions of the process. I understand that the first stage(s?) are temporary or at least low-impact in terms of negative side effects, but the higher-level side effects seem traumatic! What are the benefits, aside from apparent “eternal youth”? Can pure humans be staged the same as kaffir?

A: Depends on how one defines “benefits”. The third and fourth stages hone the body into a better killing machine – faster, stronger, tougher, quicker thinking; if you game, think of it as a massive across the board stat buff for your character. In kaffir, haki, and saurka with functional pulse organs, a strong boost occurs; staging can shift a kaffir’s rating from “safe” to “HTC” levels, ergo the third stage is not available as an option to everyone who might want to take the risk of losing fertility for extended youth. With the addition of the ESDD (usually found only in the black collars of Star Assault) and training, a fourth stage soldier may decide (or be assigned) to activate a pulse “loop cycle” which ramps up over a short period to turn the individual and any equipment he carries essentially into a devastating chain reaction (something like a miniature hydrogen bomb). If an SA member is allowed to retire or should he join the Haarnsvaar, his ESDD collar is removed. The general public within the empire are unaware of this side of Star Assault, although as mentioned during Sol’s admission to the unit, urban legends do spread near the air defense bases.

As for the final part of the question, regarding pure humans: experimentation has been performed; later stories may answer this better for you.

Q: OMG TYPOS. OMG PUNCTUATION AND CAPITALIZATION INCONSISTENCY.

A: That’ll get fixed before the print version! A new editor came onto the project this past weekend.

Q: I am really sad! Why for you do that!?

A: You know, you are now the third reader to ask me that. Do you want my reasons as a writer, or the in-canon reasons in terms of the world? I am sorry, though. If it helps any, I cried like a bitch not only when I wrote it – even though I knew from day one what happened at the end – but every time I edited it. At least you enjoyed it enough to get to that part?

The Shandrians aboard the Sanjeera give their approval.

Link has been here the entire time but Word Press’s default system makes them invisible unless you diligently re-title them.