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The Cipher is the first book in my new Crosspointe Chronicles series. It was released just a few weeks ago. You might think I was resting on my laurels (if I had laurels—and no that's not a euphemism for any part of my body). But as it turns out, there's no time for that. I have hovering deadlines, don't you know. What I'm working on now are two related things. The first is the revision for The Black Ship, a loose sequel to The Cipher. It takes place on a clipper ship and focuses on several new characters who find themselves having to make some difficult choices. In The Cipher, we're introduced to treason and intrigue, and in The Black Ship, we see more of both—as it turns out, chopping off the head of one snake doesn't mean the end of the plots against crown and country. Except that there's quite a twist at the end . . .

The Black Ship had some pretty important plot problems that my editor (Jessica Wade) most helpfully pointed out and now I'm scrabbling with my knitting needles, bondo, bricks, nails, chewing gum and glue to fix it. Hey! Where's that Dutch boy and his finger? I've got a dam breaking here! No, really. The revisions are coming along nicely—which is to say, as difficult as some of them are, the book is improving hugely. (Look for it on the shelves in about a year).

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Military Science Fiction

As its name suggests, military science fiction is a subgenre that deals with interstellar or interplanetary conflict and its resolution: war. The tale is usually told from the point of view of members of the military, ranging from soldiers to generals, and focuses on the complexities and detailed depictions of war in the future.

The causes of war are as varied as they are today; conflict can arise between aliens and humans, or between different political bodies, but what is commonly accepted is that armed resolution is the only solution. Many works do not blindly glorify war, but may rather emphasize the toll war takes on all involved, the brutalities and excesses, how the resolution can vastly outway in cost that which was initially demanded by the cause.

William Dietz (1945)