So, our baby has been sent out into the world, and aside from checking on our little darling and lending a hand now and again it’s time to move on. So what are we moving on to? Well, on tuesday we signed on to do another Foreworld Side-Quest Novella set in The Age of Myth and Myst between the fall of Rome and the Middle Ages. This is the same era as our first side-quest, ‘The Shield Maiden.’ Vaguely at least; that’s a fairly long time-period. This novella will be more mythologically based with some stronger fantasy elements.
After that? More of the Dwarven Rifleman series, probably ‘The Lord of the North’ (another working title) and next in queue after that is ‘The Half-Elf’s Daughter.” That ought to carry us through 2013 pretty well. After that comes ‘The Goblin’s Tale,’ and possibly another yet-to-be-named book to round out the series. Of course this isn’t set in stone; we might reverse the order of one or two of these.
If at some point we need a break from the Rifleman’s World there’s always ‘The Gray Man Journals’ waiting in the wings. This is a contemporary fantasy about a man that hunts werewolves. Not your typical hunter-novel; the protagonist is not a beautiful teenage girl fated to fight evil; he’s a non-descript middle-aged man who has no super powers, is not handsome or tragically hip. He is in fact so non-descript that he’s practically invisible. We’re about half-way through the book and so far the protagonist’s name has never been mentioned and probably won’t be. Ever. He also views himself as a serial killer and fully expects that one day he will be caught, tried and executed for his ‘crimes.’ He’s depressed because he spends more time ‘cleaning up after monsters’ than killing them; most of the werewolves he deals with are surviving victims that are now ‘turning’ themselves. He combats this with humor and irony.
That’s what is in the works at this moment, but who knows? Maybe some other project will make a grab for our time and attention. For now we’re focussed on ‘Tyr’s Hammer.’ Going to be an interesting year or two…