I’ll be renaming Memory War to Orbital Chaos. You might notice a mismatch between the book cover image and the text in this blog. As soon as I get an updated cover, I’ll be replacing it.

And, why am I renaming this book at the last minute?

I’m a psycho?

That might be true, but I have a killer idea for the third book, and the name will be similar, though I haven’t settled on the name for that book yet. As soon as I figure out the name, I’ll get a cover for book 3 done and get it up on this website.

Also…

The 10th Daphne book cover has been ordered. Oh yes. Book number 10, will be called “To End the Silence”. I’m sure you’re wondering what that obscure sentence means. Here’s the blurb that I’ll be working with to construct the story:

Daphne Blazefire thought she was delivering medicine. Instead, she delivered death.

When a job hauling medical supplies turns into a nightmare, Daphne’s world is upended. Her first delivery ends in the sudden capture of a rebel camp. The second? The same. Only after her ship is impounded and her quirky robot companion RUSTY runs a diagnostic does the truth come out: the supplies were rigged with tracking nanites—designed not to heal, but to expose resistance hideouts for targeted strikes.

Now marked as a traitor and unwitting pawn in a brutal military operation, Daphne sets out to clear her name. But things get even stranger when a captured rebel calls her by name—before she ever introduces herself. The resistance has been watching her. One of them flagged her as either an ally… or a threat.

Oh yeah. I can hardly wait to start writing it. Since I’m ordering the cover now, that means I’ll probably end up writing two Daphne books in a row. The next one, titled “The Missing Link,” I will be starting the rough draft next month (or maybe at the end of this month). That means book 9 will be published around the beginning of April. Then, if I roll right into the next Daphne book, that will be published sometime in June.

Ten books will round out the series nicely. After that, I have no specific plans…

Well, OK, I always have something in my head, but any further than three books out is subject to change. But I have options. One option is to rewrite Dangerous Cargo as a second release. The read-through from Novis Terminal is around 30 to 40%. What that means, for those who don’t publish books, is that about 30 to 40% of those who finish Novis Terminal go on to read Dangerous Cargo. I know what that is. Books 2 through 5 were written in 2022, when I didn’t have any sweet writing skills. In fact, Novis Terminal, the first release, was weaker than those books. Of course, the entire series didn’t sell, so I assumed it was a dead series. Well, after writing RUSTY’s Memories and discovering that there was life in the story (when written well), I decided to test my skills with a 2nd release of Novis Terminal, and that has caused a huge boost in interest in the series. So, I understand what’s going on with the read-through of the series.

Of course, if I fix Dangerous Cargo, that will bring the read-through up to something more normal (80 to 95%) for the new books in this series. And, of course, you can probably read the tea leaves and see what would happen next. Right now, those who plow through Dangerous Cargo, read The Nav Computer, through Stolen Property, and Supercomputer, at a rate of around 94%. If Dangerous Cargo were rewritten with my current writing skills, the read-through from Dangerous Cargo to Nav Computer would end up around 30 to 40%. But that’s a problem for later. Such crazy rewriting could lead to a second release of all 4 older books.

Another option is that I could plow into The Chronicles of the Robot Whisperers and get the minimum of 4 to 5 books written. Those books take me two months to write as well. I’m wrapping up book 2, so that would leave me with two to three books to write. Probably rounding out the year (or publishing the last planned book by the beginning of the holiday season).

One last option is to start a new series. I could start a completely new series, though that’s tough. There’s the whole character-building and series-building stuff. Then, of course, I have to write 4 to 5 books to get the series going (unless I can get a signal that the first book is killer). To get around some of that, I could start a new Daphne series. One that is disconnected from the first, but uses the first series as her background.

And, now you can see why I don’t make concrete plans that far out.