Happy New Year! I hope everyone’s having a good winter. Shapeshifter should be available in the next few months. The delay is on me, but it should be ready soon. I’m also working on the fourth Atrophy novel, which follows Into My Parlor and concludes the story that began in Fourth World Wonderland. This is actually kind of a big deal to me because like Highest Hopes, it brings resolution to a story that’s been going on for a long time. In the case of the Atrophy series, I’ve been working on different iterations of it since 2008. So, this final volume means the end of an era for that, although we can always revisit it and do more if readers would enjoy it. It’s a little funny that this comes just after S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has finally been released. The very earliest stories about Elizabeth Belle were completely bonkers* fan-fiction for the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game that I did when I was a teenager. That actually got me into a lot of Soviet film and literature, and some of those influences are pretty heavy in the Admiral books and newer Atrophy ones.

Anyway, I’m back to not really knowing what to do about social media. I’m still on Twitter and Facebook for now, but I’m ready to be talked into switching to something less problematic if I could just figure out what that ought to be. Do people use Bluesky? I’ll get something figured out eventually. 

As always, thanks for the nice reviews and sweet comments. I appreciate them. Here’s what you can expect from Shapeshifter this year. Thanks for sticking around: 

Now married, Tessa Salmagard hasn’t given up her crusade against weapons initiatives like Project Sunrise and the people behind them, but she can’t fight them alone. To get the help she needs from a former enemy, she’ll have to go to a remote colonial world in the Demenis system called Aegir. She has a daring plan. 

Tessa’s wife, Nina, is attempting to leverage her brief military experiences to seek elected office in Cohengard with a balanced, centrist platform. She also wants children and to spend time with Tessa. She has a sensible plan. 

Tessa’s mother, Jane, is out of retirement and in at Imperial Security as a trainee; she wants only the best for Tessa, and she too has a plan. 

Aegir is possibly the least hospitable world in regulated space. The relatively new Evagardian colony there is unique: a monolithic habitat built to protect against corrosive oceans, endless storms, and titanic natives who don’t take kindly to strangers. Locked together inside are thousands of colonists, an assortment of foreign spies and domestic terrorists, and something that does not belong. It is unlikely to be the romantic holiday that Nina is hoping for. 

*more bonkers than what I do now; not suggesting that what I write now is not bonkers.