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April is Autism Awareness Month…
Art for Left With The Dead, A “Gathering Dead” Novella. Artwork by Jared Rackler
For myself, my little boy was diagnosed with autism when he was about three. He doesn’t speak, has some emotional distress conditions, but he’s beautiful and happy. Poppa Knight and Momma Knight ship him off to the best schools in the area, and we keep him growing and learning as best as we can. Despite everything we do, though, his road will be a hard one. So give a kid a hand and tell folks there’s this little book out there that might add some pennies to the war effort, eh?
I don’t normally post personal pictures and the like here, but I’ll bust open the piggy bank this time. Say hello to my son, Brian.
Craig DiLouie Reviews EARTHFALL
EARTHFALL Print Cover…ain’t it purty?
Here’s some of what Craig has to say about Earthfall:
[Knight] raises the technical and military detail in his books completely off the Michael Crichton scale and to the point of fetish, which is good for me as a reader, because I love a tense, action-packed apocalyptic story told with extreme realism. On every page, you know you are being told a story by a guy who knows his business. The all-terrain fighting machines the Harmony explorers use to cross the wastelands are virtually characters in the book, and I loved every minute of screen time they had. They’re fantastic–the ultimate ROAD WARRIOR vehicles. Knight’s attention to detail and realism also means his characters don’t do anything that has you slapping your head in disbelief. From the steady Captain Andrews to the haunted veteran Mulligan, they’re stark, likable, tough.
Thanks a million, bro!
EARTHFALL: Now In Print!
EARTHFALL Print Cover…ain’t it purty?
Link to the product in Amazon’s Create Space book area: https://www.createspace.com/4174997
Should be available in other markets fairly shortly, and I expect it to be listed on Amazon with the Kindle title shortly.
And now…back to writing!
EARTHFALL Print Cover (and some non-related errata)
The talented and just plain old über-cool Jeroen ten Berge turned in his cover for the print edition of Earthfall yesterday, and I have to say, it’s a nice one. For those who aren’t familiar with his work, he’s probably most widely known as Blake Crouch’s artist of choice–check out his covers for Blake’s excellent novels Pines, Abandon, and Snowbound, as well as the trendsetting illustration for RUN.
EARTHFALL Print Cover…ain’t it purty?
Some thanks to Craig DiLouie for his cover blurb, and of course, the long-suffering Derek Paterson for his work on the product description, something I’m horrible at. Additional kudos to Joe LeBert, ultra-amazing author Fred Anderson, Scott Wolf, and ton of other folks.
And, oh yeah…thanks to those of you who bought Earthfall and actually liked it! It’s always a thrill to see a release creep up the charts, especially in a different genre.
Errata: the free period for White Tiger came to a close yesterday, and the numbers were almost 3,000 downloads in the US, and a surprising 685 in the UK. While giving away books for free seems like a dumb business move, it actually translated into some great sales–5 in the US in one day, and 14 in the UK. That’s a month’s worth of sales right there, and it’s also generated a few borrows through Amazon’s Prime program, for which I’ll get a couple of bucks as well. If this trend continues, Derek and I will have the best month ever for this book. Not a tough feat, since the highest sales numbers to date have been 21 in one month.
I’ve pulled The Gathering Dead from the other ebook sites and entered it into Amazon’s Prime program, as well. This gives me the opportunity to offer it for free, with the hope that it would spawn substantial sales of Left with the Dead and the two The Rising Horde books. I haven’t decided when–or even if–I’ll take this step, since The Gathering Dead is still my primary money-maker, but it is something to consider.
Anyway, that’s all for now, crew. Thanks for your patronage, and I hope this weekend is full of fun and excitement for all.
EARTHFALL Released!
Well, at least on Amazon. EARTHFALL has managed to make its appearance, starting with Amazon in the US, and I expect it to make it to Amazon’s foreign markets within the day. It hasn’t yet appeared in Barnes & Noble, but I’m hopeful that will occur soon.
Paperback to follow within two weeks or so, and I’ll let you fine folks know when it’s rolling off the presses. And as soon as the book is available on the other usual sites, I’ll be sure to share the links.
Hope you guys like this one!
EARTHFALL Draft Cover
Hola, gang.
I’m not ready to reveal any text just yet, but I will share the second draft cover for my upcoming release, EARTHFALL. EARTHFALL is a science fiction adventure story set in the relatively near future (though a date is never mentioned, we’ll call it 2040 or so) and deals with America’s final restoration initiative designed to reconstitute the nation after a thermonuclear exchange. (Does anyone even use the term “thermonuclear” anymore?) Essentially, Harmony Base puts itself on ice for a decade after the bombs fall and the mushroom clouds sprout until the time comes for them to dispatch teams that conduct recon operations to determine how badly off the nation is, and of course, to contact any human settlements that might have survived the ravages of the Sixty Minute War. The teams are a mix of military and civilian specialists, and they have armored rigs called Self-Contained Exploration Vehicles (SCEVs) which they use to begin explore the shattered remnants of the former United States of America.
Of course, what they find isn’t what they had been looking for.
As I said in an earlier post, this is a novelization of a screenplay I wrote back in 1983. There’s actually a huge amount of work involved in resurrecting such dated material, and the fact that it’s in script format doesn’t make things any easier. I stripped out a lot of movie elements that just didn’t work in a novel (mutants after ten years? Really?), but I worked hard to preserve and enhance the drama. It’s still in first draft format as of this writing, and I’m still doing the required body and fender work, but I imagine the book will be released in January.
That said, I do have an eye-popping cover in the works, and while it also is not yet finalized, here’s a peek. It was developed by Jeroen ten Berge, and the rigs at the bottom are provided courtesy of digital artist Nathan Carlisle (not the opera singer…well, at least I don’t think he is…)
Hope you like it!
THE RISING HORDE: Vol. 1 In Paperback
Well, it took longer than I’d anticipated, but The Rising Horde: Volume 1 should be available in paperback in just a few days. The printer has finalized the release, and as soon as they list it on Amazon, B&N, and other retail sites, interested parties should be able to grab the first book pretty soon.
A new cover had to be generated to complete the effort, and I’ve attached a screenshot of it to the left of this text. I dig the Army SF troops silhouetted against the glowering stench… nicely done work executed by Jared Rackler.
And now… on to Volume 2!
Paperback Update
Hi folks,
Just a quick note to let you know that I received the proof for The Rising Horde: Volume 1 and I decided the cover didn’t look right. So it’s being replaced. The printer has the files, and I expect another proof to arrive next week, after which I expect my approved version to be shipped to Amazon and other outlets a week or so later. Sorry for the delay!
LEFT WITH THE DEAD Reviewed
Art for Left With The Dead, A “Gathering Dead” Novella. Artwork by Jared Rackler
Continuing to prove they have simply great taste in zombie apocalypse fiction, the crew over at Bricks of the Dead have reviewed my “Gathering Dead” novella, Left with the Dead. Happily for me, they gave it a general thumbs-up. You can check it out at:
For those who may be curious, LWTD picks up pretty much right where The Gathering Dead left off. 1SG Dave Gartrell is alone in New York City, cut off from the good ship Escanaba. The only way he’s going to survive in the city is if he pulls himself together and resources every ounce of skill he’s accumulated over his thirty year career as a U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret. But hey, this is Gartrell we’re talking about. Of course he can survive!
Well, until he picks up a young mother and her autistic son. Then the mission essentials kind of change for him…
From the review, there’s this little snippet which pretty much sets the tone:
Our protagonist starts off surrounded by zombies in a giant city, short on ammo, and without any real resources other than what’s on his back. Things don’t really improve for him from there. Instead, they just get tougher. Not only does he have to try to extricate himself, he also becomes responsible for two other people: a mother and her severely autistic seven year-old son.
That young boy is what really made Left with the Dead work for me. It takes our über-masculine special forces soldier, and humanizes him in ways most books like this could only dream of. He also makes for some interesting challenges throughout the narrative. Not only must the boy be protected, he must also be kept occupied and calm so as not to draw in the army of zombies prowling the streets.
Kind of a raised bar there if ever there was one, if I do say so myself. Interested parties can find this little zombie apocalypse sojourn at the following sites:
Smashwords (eBooks in a variety of formats)
For those who haven’t had the opportunity to check it out, now would be a great time. And yes, I am using Jedi mind control…
THE RISING HORDE: Volume 2 Draft Cover; Edits Are In
Well, Jared Rackler has produced a pretty eye-popping and evocative draft cover for the second volume of The Rising Horde. Click on the image to the left and enjoy.
And, better news–I received the edits from Lynn O’Dell, and things could have been a lot worse. She’s not usually the kind of editor to gush to her clients about how great their work is, but she gave me a high five for The Rising Horde, which was awfully nice. Now it’s up to me to cruise through the edits, make the requisite additions, deletions, and corrections, and fire it back for her to deliver to one of her proofreaders for a final review. I expect I’ll be done with my part today or tomorrow, so that’s easy. The final proof could take as long as three weeks, since the manuscript is still so damn long–Lynn was only able to remove about 9,000 words, brining the total word count down to 177,000+ (from its formerly robust 186,000+ words). So far, I’ve not found the reduction compromises the story in any way.
Just the same, this ensures the product will be released as two books. I can’t reasonably deliver an 800+ page book to Lightning Source to print and distribute, since the costs would be quite high; no one is likely to be interested in paying $24.95 for a soft-cover book. And this way, I can effectively link the paper and electronic versions together, which helps ensure sales tallies are more accurately calculated, and that there’s a corresponding relationship between the two selections.
All that said, the worst case release date for the ebooks will be May 15, 2012 with the paper editions coming out about a month later. But I do expect them to be released sooner. It all depends upon when the final proof is released to me. After that, I pull the trigger.
Hope everyone is having a great day…we’re looking at temperatures in the 70s here in the New York City area.
