A Quick Q&A About The Spinward Fringe Series

Recently a thread about the First Light Chronicles and Spinward Fringe books has sprung to life on the Mobileread forums. You can find that here. The posters there seem to have become quite aware that I read their posts and am ready to answer within a day or two of them posting practically any question. I'm enjoying the public back and forth, and invite anyone who frequents my blog to pay it a visit.

So far the thread has been spoiler free, so if you want to start a topic where the plot lines of the books are discussed, then I ask that you start a new one. I'll be happy to discuss the plot, characters or technology in a different discussion thread for people who have already read the books. I won't reveal future plans or what's coming up in the story, however. (If you do start a new topic concerning my work, please send me a message telling me where to find it. Mobile read is a big bulletin board).

Here are a couple questions that have come up in the existing thread:

I didn't know you updated the MOBI versions of First Light and such. When did the updates go through and what changed?

The updates went live a few weeks ago. Here's the most recent post regarding that.

There were a few grammar corrections (a few of which were submitted by readers who were in the book industry, thank you if you're reading this!), I also wrote in some extra character development and re-wrote some sections so they were more believable and easier to read.

That sounds like a lot, but when you consider the plot didn't change, and I was told time and time again not to completely rewrite Freeground, so I didn't, the changes aren't ground shattering.

The next book to get this treatment is Resurrection, which, thankfully, doesn't need nearly as much work.

Judging from the feedback I've been getting on the re-release of the First Light Chronicles Ombibus, I'll be re-releasing Spinward Fringe Broadcast 1: Resurrection on Amazon for $0.99 for the first month or two, so people who do want the updated version on their Kindle won't have to pay the full price again. This is in reaction to Kindle not being willing to offer their users the most up to date versions of a book. Their customer service people have spoken.

All these updates will also happen on Mobipocket and Smashwords, where people who already own them will be able to get the updated versions for free.

When is Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments coming out?

Right now I have two thirds of a manuscript that's been written two and a half times. Thankfully, I'm not doing another draft unless my editor tells me I've bungled the book, so I'm working on the ending right now. It's looking like this book will be out in the next couple of months if it gets my editor's approval.

Things do tend to move more slowly these days, however, as I take a lot more time with editing and have gotten a couple more people involved. With an audience that has grown to about 500 for the Spinward Fringe series, I've become pretty quality conscious. The development time for each book after it's written is still only weeks, however, as compared to big publishing houses, who normally take months, so we have that going for us!

In a post later this week I'll be answering questions I've received over the years about vacsuits. It seems that people have no problem believing in worm holes and mass modifying particles, but thin protective clothing is a little boggling. It makes sense when you think about it, science fiction is filled with examples of objects that move faster than the speed of light, but you don't hear about clothing that does more than cover you from neck to toe.

RL

Do you have any questions about the Spinward Fringe series?