Dear friends and followers,
As of this writing, we are at 246 pre-orders. That means we are just 4 orders away from Quill! 4 orders from certainty! And 4 orders away from the beginning of the Chez Doris donation drive....
Getting to Quill means certainty of publication (unless I throw a hissy fit and decline the Quill package) so let’s have a look at some of the characters you’ll be meeting within these pages, starting with the club president, Oscar Mainwaring:
In other news, it turns out that there actually did exist a Veterans’ Club in London back in 1924, though it changed its name in 1936 to the Victory Services Club. Well, that’s lovely. I certainly don’t want anyone mistaking the club in this book for that real-life one, so it looks as though I might have to change its name ... which means I might also have to change the title of the book. Anyone have any ideas?
All right. Let’s get on to what’s what on the bookshelves this week.
1) "Seven Days Dead", by Christopher Johnson. Apparently, the focus will be on the interaction of different faiths and cultures in this particular zombie apocalypse, which I’m not sure I’ve seen done before. Also, the action takes place in the Middle East, and Johnson seems to be putting a bit of effort into verisimilitude with place names and geography.
2) "The Battle Within", by Alastair Luft. This one is an exploration of PTSD and its effects on one veteran soldier’s personal life, and if it’s filed as "thriller and suspense", it’s because dealing with life when you’re in that headspace is bound to be a rollercoaster ride of questionable reality. Also, it’s Canadian.
3) "Mission 51", by Ferd Crotte. The captain of a spacefaring craft crashlands on his destination planet ... from the excerpts I’ve seen, it looks like our hero is one of the Roswell aliens, and the destination planet is Earth. It’s an interesting setup, and I wonder where Crotte is going with it.
And that’s it for now. See you next week, folks, when we shall hopefully be discussing the joys of being on the qualified side of Quill.