Rich Man's War Updates and Post-ComiCon Fun

So this past weekend was Emerald City ComiCon, and just like last year, I had a blast. The crowds were well-managed, a lot of great artists and writers came out, I finally got to shake Peter David's hand after reading his stuff for nigh on twenty years (I'd even used one of his Star Trek novels for my obligatory "outside reading" book reports in high school American Lit), and the Carol Corps were out in full force.

I went to a great panel by Talaria Press on self-publishing and the opportunities available now to new writers, and had a chance to talk to several of their writers at their table afterward. They are some very cool people, and I encourage anyone with an interest in supporting independent authors to take a look. They aren't a big imprint with lawyers and agents and publicists; they're a handful of writers who banded together to create a nice, professional line of books.

Cons like this are also highly motivating for me as an author. It came at a great time, too. The rough draft for Rich Man's War is well more than halfway finished now, with the climax in sight. I'll admit I've wrestled with the middle of this book for a few reasons, not the least of which being that I wanted to make sure my timelines make sense. Rich Man's War reaches further away from Tanner's home than just Archangel and Hashem--though you'll see plenty of both--and I've paid close attention to the delays created by such distances.

The Union hasn't developed real-time communication between star systems yet like you see in many other sci-fi settings, and I have no plans for that to occur. If you want to send a message from Earth to Archangel, you'll need to put it on a ship with a Faster-Than-Light capability, and even so it'll take a couple weeks to get there. When you put a detail like that in place, it plays all sorts of merry hell with things like diplomacy and stock exchanges.

At any rate: as usual, my attendance at ECCC led to me commissioning a couple of art pieces (and not nearly as many as I'd like to have done... stupid finite resources!). When you're talking to an artist at a table in a crowded hall, and said artist only has a day or two to do his or her work, it's much easier to describe urban fantasy ideas than sci-fi concepts, so I don't have anything to show of Tanner or his associates just yet. But I'm always happy to see more of Alex, Lorelei, Rachel & Co.

And, well... there was a pro from a particular comics line right there in Artist's Alley. While I never set out to write Good Intentions with them in mind, I'd be a damn liar if I said I never once thought of Betty and Veronica while writing those stories.

Hope to have more to announce soon!

--Elliott Kay