The Clash: Spinward Fringe Broadcast 17 Rollout and Audiobook

 

The day has finally come. Clash: Spinward Fringe Broadcast 17 is here! The release is landing early everywhere. Starting with Amazon and Google Play on 12 / 12 / 2022, Clash will be available to everyone. The other distribution network is slower, so the book will be released at the other vendors (Smashwords, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo), on 19 / 12 / 2022. I’m grateful to everyone who preordered and thank you for picking the book up after the release, it’s been a great launch so far.

The timing for this is unusual, but when I had the opportunity to release it early I took it because I didn’t want this to come out so close to the holidays. People have enough to deal with in the second half of December, so I really wanted to have this out before you started travelling and hosting family.

There’s another thing. I’ve been experimenting with Google Auto-Narration which is, simply put, audiobooks that are narrated by an artificial intelligence. The cost of producing these is extremely low and the quality has just improved quite a bit. I wouldn’t call the Auto-Narration a performance, but the reading style is acceptable now, so I’m releasing the Audo-Narrated audiobook version of Clash along with the ebook edition for a low price that reflects the fact that it isn’t read by a human who is offering a performance instead of simply clear reading with a good cadence.

If I could afford to pay a narrator to produce this book I would, but I’m still five figures in the hole from producing Broadcast 0, 1 and Psycho Electric, so I have to earn that back through audiobook sales before I produce any more with a live narrator. There’s still a small demand for Spinward Fringe in audiobook form, so the Auto-Narration version will do for now, and I’d like to thank the team at Google that is working on this. The improvements over the last year are surprising. Oh, and if you buy this version your copy will be updated every time the Auto-Narrator improves for free. You can check the Clash: Spinward Fringe Broadcast 17 Audiobook out here.

Here are the links for the eBook.

My Bookstore (Out 12 / 12 / 2022)
Amazon – US | UK | AU | CA | DE (Out 12 / 12 / 2022)
Google Play Books (Out 12 / 12 / 2022)
Apple Books (Out 19 / 12 / 2022)
Barnes & Noble (Out 19 / 12 / 2022)
Rakuten Kobo (Out 19 / 12 / 2022)
Smashwords (Out 19 / 12 / 2022)

I truly hope you enjoy this book in the series. I think you’ll find that it’s a little different from the rest because it takes the time for real character development and there is a great big pivot that changes things for most of our favourite characters.

Thank you in advance for picking it up. If you have any interest in an audiobook version, I encourage you to listen to the sample.

 

***This is a re-blog. My site has permanently moved to: http://www.randolphlalonde.com Please update your bookmarks and re-subscribe there if you have a moment. Thank you.***

Psycho Electric: A Spinward Fringe Novel Is Out!

 

There are ideas in this book that have been haunting me for about a decade, and I can scarcely believe that it's not only finished but out now.

Virtual space where you can become anything you want, cybernetics, the question of worthy sentience, being on the run, secret societies, and the rise of streaming celebrities intersect in a Cyberpunk novel that takes place in a super future that's recovering from a massive apocalyptic event.

Rafe is a challenging character, which seems mild mannered at first. One decision puts him on a path that will force him to confront the physical and mental wounds accumulated during his short life. Thankfully, he doesn't have to do it alone, or unarmed. An industrial grade cybernetic body may not look like much, but he can lift hover trucks and climb buildings like he's running down a city street. He dreams of looking more human, but can't afford the work, especially since he doesn't want to let go of the mechanical power and other advantages of the cybernetic body that was forced into. It would be easier to earn the right upgrades if he wasn't running from Captain Dawden, a ruthless bounty hunter whose brutality built his reputation.

We join Rafe as his luck is about to improve and his life is about to change abruptly.

Rafe became a cyborg when his aunt sold his body to pay her debt. Left only with his human head and a rough, industrial cyborg body, he is on the run from his master. We find Rafe in the megacity of New Udalpur, where he's been able to hide amongst a massive diverse population that's more interested in social media, earning platinum, or trying to visit Earth to pay much attention to him.

Thanks to a daring caper, his curiosity, and a little heroism, Rafe is about to be in more trouble than he can handle. Strap in for an adventure that includes a bossy unofficial superintendent, shapeshifters, trips through full-dive virtual reality deathmatches, rude but colourful gangsters, social media influencers, spaceships, a wasteland, a ruthless Captain, irate pedestrians and so much more.

Writing this book was a challenge, especially since there were many ideas and themes when I began. So many that I had to pick the strongest ideas, scenes and themes and go with those. Even then, this novella became a full sized science fiction novel that has a quick pace and more emotion as it goes on. It's different from the other science fiction novels I write even though it contains concepts and other things from the Spinward Fringe series that firmly ties it to the same universe. At the same time, no one has to read the Spinward Fringe series to understand or enjoy this book.

I truly hope you enjoy it. As I look towards other projects, I find myself thinking about Psycho Electric from time to time, missing the characters and the act of telling the story. As a one-shot, there's no need for a sequel or a Psycho Electric trilogy, but I would return to that part of the Spinward Fringe Universe if there was enough demand. I may do so regardless.

You can find Psycho Electric using any of the following links or wherever quality ebooks are sold. The release of the Audiobook is scheduled for October 31 of this year.

Randolph Lalonde's Library (My personal bookstore provided by Shopify)

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Australia

Amazon Canada

Apple Books

Barnes & Noble (Nook)

Rakuten Kobo

Smashwords
[This is a repost from the blog at www.randolphlalonde.com]