Next projects…
As I announced in a tweet (I don’t know how much longer I’ll be on Twitter because Elon Musk seems intent on ruining it!), I’m finishing a short story for my “Friday Fiction” series on my blog (see this Friday’s post). I use short fiction to take a few breathers, a cooling down if you will, after running the marathon of completing a novel (in this case, the first three “Inspector Steve Morgan” novels that may or may not end as a trilogy). Of course, short fiction is like running a few sprints or mid-distance races in comparison to a novelistic marathon. (The real NYC Marathon will take place soon. I was never able to run a real one, but I can still admire all those runners stamina!)
Once I’m done with that short story and posted it, what comes next? I’ve been debating three possible new novels. I had intentions of morphing More than Human: The Mensa Contagion into three novels, adding to the first and second parts of that sci-fi novel. There’s also still the question about what becomes of the combined Human-Mensan expedition to a nearby star (nearby in cosmic terms, of course).
I couldn’t call on A. B. Carolan to help on that, though, an avid fan of sci-fi himself. He’s still working on the second and third books of “The Denisovan Trilogy” to add to Origins. Unlike the Mensan book, there’s two novels there that need to be written to finish that story about galactic empires and their political battles. The first book took place on Earth. I can understand A. B.’s indecision about the next two with all the politics already going on here on Earth! He expressed that when he appeared in Intolerance, Book Seven of the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. (It’s available as a free PDF download—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page here at this site.)
To avoid badgering A. B. and to take a breather from sleuthing, British-style (the Brookstone and Morgan series), I’m going to try to control my ire against Black Opal Books (publisher of The Last Humans) and Amazon (for confusing the first book with its sequel, The Last Humans: A New Dawn) by finishing the trilogy with a novel tentatively titled Moscow Menace. Here, as hinted at the end of the second novel, Penny Castro, the principal protagonist in the first two novels, and her husband Alex will have starring roles once again.
The plot for Moscow Menace is about Russia, of course. Don’t worry. Vladimir Putin is long dead, having succumbed to the same virus bioengineered by the PNRK and unleashed on the US’s west coast only to see it become worldwide and kill billions, even most of its originators. (All that predated Covid-19, although it’s still in question whether the latter virus was bioengineered by the Chinese. At any rate, it certainly made The Last Humans more believable and a warning that no one heeded, among them the Chinese.) Penny and a few others are among the survivors, all a fluke of genetics. (The mRNA vaccines help explain why genetics is important here. And we’ll be studying the consequences of that, i.e. the vaccine side effects, for a long time.)
The post-apocalyptic world of Penny Castro is still one where human beings must struggle to survive, but like in the second novel, this third novel adds the debris from world politics to the trials and tribulations of the survivors. I’ll keep readers posted on my progress. In the meantime, if you haven’t read the first two novels, you have some catching up to do!
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Four sci-fi novels. Mentioned above are More than Human: The Mensa Contagion, The Last Humans, The Last Humans: A New Dawn, and A. B. Carolan’s Origins. All are available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon, except for the last). They’ll make fine holiday gifts for all the sci-fi addicts among your family and friends. (See the “Books & Short Stories” web page for descriptions.)
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!