Chris James's Blog, page 4

Fast cars and gorgeous chicks…

Are just two of the things I’ve never been too fussed about. However, this week five gorgeous chicks arrived in the James household. Do you want to see them? Okay, here they are:

That hen had spent three weeks sitting on around 15 eggs. Seven hatched and those five remaining chicks are today five days old. Mrs James and Eldest Daughter are working hard to make sure they get the best care with the right food, and yesterday I rigged up a heat lamp. Fortunately, summer goes on here in Warsaw, and we’re seeing temperatures we don’t usually get in the second half of September, so we’re hopeful the chicks will hang on.

Even though the temperatures remain high, autumn is on the way. Here are a few shots from the garden today. The first one is the silver birch in the front garden. Despite the blazing late-summer sun, its leaves have begun to turn yellow. Everything else is still green and the bumble bees are hard at work:

And about the fast cars in the title? A couple of weeks ago, I decided it was time replace our main family car. On my budget, I had the option to go for an older large vehicle, or a less-old vehicle that was designed for pygmies. I went for the big car, and this beast has a 3.6 litre lump! Thanks for reading and stay safe till next time, peeps!

More summer photos and in praise of the blogosphere

My summer vacation finished last week, so predictably the sun came out this week and temperatures here in Warsaw have risen to well over 30 degrees. While I’ve been struggling not to dissolve into a puddle of sweat, the garden has entered one of its best phases of the whole year. I took all of the photos below this morning, and you can see how busy the bees are, and some of the fruit we’ll soon be munching on.

Also this week, I guested on the amazing Diana Wallace Peach’s blog, Myths of the Mirror. Diana is a seriously impressive person (author, reader, reviewer, and blogger) with a remarkable audience and level of interaction. She interviewed me about Onslaught and her post garnered 241 comments! I had an absolute blast with it and can’t remember the last time I enjoyed talking to so many nice people in one place.

Elsewhere, Operation Repulse had a fantastic opening week, and I must thank all of you once more for picking the book up. It spent its first week glued to #1 in Hot New Releases, Hard Science Fiction in the UK, and that’s always good for visibility.

Anyway, here are today’s pics. If the good weather holds, next weekend Mrs James and I will be off sailing in the lakes, so I’ll be back after then. Stay safe, peeps!

Interview at Myths of the Mirror

Today, the fabulous Diana at her Myths of the Mirror website has been kind enough to ask me a few questions about fun stuff like the future of AI and war. Do click through to read my answers and find out more about Diana!

Interview with Chris James: Military Sci-Fi and AI

Publication day for Operation Repulse, and in praise of EnergyLandia

If you pre-ordered my new book, The Repulse Chronicles, Book Six: Operation Repulse, then it has arrived on your device, along with my unspoken but sincere thanks. As always, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And don’t be shy letting your opinion be known, whether good, bad or ugly.

While Amazon were preparing to release the new novel, earlier this week the rest of the James family and I went on some vacation travels. These included a day at EnergyLandia, Poland’s largest amusement park. This is a vast and hectic 70 hectares with seemingly endless attractions for kids of all ages. While I’m usually happy just to watch my daughters having fun, on this trip something amazing happened to me. Look at this photo:

On the left is a mug of a size that is normal for the world’s pygmies. In the middle is my slightly larger mug. I’ve been drinking tea from that mug while writing at least the last six novels. But, on the right, is the revelation of the EnergyLandia mug. When I saw this beauty in the gift shop, well, I knew my life was about to get a whole lot better. For me, writing requires a lot of tea, and that EnergyLandia mug is certainly up to the job. Really, with a mug like that, who needs the Hyperion Roller Coaster?

And, in a nicely timed touch, Operation Repulse is #1 in Hot New Releases in Hard Science Fiction this evening. Thanks for reading and take care for now, peeps!

Six days to publication

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I try to resist authorly navel-gazing. Like political opinions and body odour, it’s something readers really do not need to be aware of (I’m a reader too, and those are two things about an author I don’t care to know). On the other hand, there is a time in the cyclical writing/publishing process that tends to make me catch my breath, even if it’s only for a moment. Next Saturday, the new book goes live on Kindle, and thousands of hours of effort and work and creativity and editing culminate in that one moment, as they have done so many times before.

Amazon takes pains to remind you of what’s about to happen. Friendly-worded advice in automated emails encourages you to upload your finished manuscript in appropriate time. And your book’s publishing page even includes a handy countdown that looks like this:

At this point in the process, I’m always reminded of a literary quote (I think it was by Wilde) along the lines of, “I spent the morning deciding to take a comma out, and in the afternoon I put it back in again”. It really can get like that sometimes. But then, those are usually the times I look around and see a huge, fat bumble bee in one of Mrs. James’s flowers, or Bonnie the tabby cat having a doze in the basket we use to collect eggs, and I realise that I need to breathe again. These are moments to treasure. And everything will work out.

Have a great week, you lovely people!

The Repulse Chronicles, Book Seven: title reveal

Phew, it has been a hectic couple of weeks here, but at last The Repulse Chronicles, Book Six: Operation Repulse is in the bag. Now, I need to crack on and write the seventh and final part of this series. The next book will be called The Repulse Chronicles, Book Seven: Aftermath. This is in keeping with the chapter titles in the original Repulse, Europe at War 2062-2064 historical account on which this series is based.

In the meantime, the Kindle edition of Operation Repulse will go live in just under two weeks, on 12 August. I would like to thank all of you who have pre-ordered this title. The paperback was published yesterday and is available in the UK here and in the US here. If you can’t wait for the Kindle version, you can at least read the first two chapters or so as the ‘Look Inside’ feature is already live. Earlier this week, the Kindle version reached #2 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases chart in Hard Science Fiction in the UK, which was rather lovely.

Take care for now, you fabulous people!

June Book Reviews

Best-selling fantasy author D. Wallace Peach is also an avid reader who regularly reviews the books she reads. In June, she was kind enough to include a very nice review of The Repulse Chronicles, Book One: Onslaught in her monthly round up. Take a look at it and her other reading recommendations, which look like very good books! And I’ll add a huge thank you from me, Diana!

Myths of the Mirror

I’m back from a busy June! And though I’ve been running around like a nut, I made time to read. I’ve got some great books for you to browse.

June’s reviews include my 4 and 5-star reads of fantasy and sci-fi, a murder mystery, middle-grade historical fiction and middle-grade fantasy, and a collection of short stories.

Click on the covers for Amazon global links.

*****

All Of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and C. L. Herman

The Ilverhath curse demands that every twenty years, seven young champions from seven families must compete to the death for control of high magick. They’ve been groomed for this their whole lives, and for three months, they remain separated from the city by the blood veil, armed with an arsenal of curses. But the competition’s pattern is breaking apart. If they can’t fix it or destroy it, it may kill them all. The challenge…

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Summer in my garden

We’re enjoying one of the best summers this year I can recall: warm sunshine that’s not too hot, along with enough rain to ensure we don’t have to water the plants every day. Here are some photos I’ve taken today that show how gorgeous the garden is and the rewards of all the effort Mrs James puts in. Take care, you fabulous readers.

New Repulse Chronicles title, cover reveal, and pre-order links

The Repulse Chronicles, Book Six: Operation Repulse will publish on Saturday 12 August. Regular readers will know the next bit: the Kindle version is available to pre-order now at the special introductory price of $2.99 or equivalent where you live, and that price will stay until the title leaves Amazon’s Hot New Releases’ list 30 days after publication. Then, the price will go up to the usual list price for my novels, $4.99. But if you’re that keen to get a copy, I’m delighted to let you have it for a lower price.

Once again, I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to all of you who spend your time reading my stories. It remains a huge pleasure to do my best to entertain you. And to think: there is only one more novel left in this series. The one after this one will be the last. But for now, to pre-order Operation Repulse in the UK, click here; in the US, click here; in Canada, click here; and in Australia, click here.

Here is the cover. Stay safe, peeps.

Rhododendrons in flower and a bit about the next book

Late May has arrived and the rhododendrons are in flower, so here are a few pictures of them. Mrs James planted this shrub in front of our kitchen window when it was a very small plant in 2002, and it gets bigger and better every year.

In other news, today I wrote “THE END” on, er, the end of my eleventh full-length novel. If you are one of my wonderful readers, then I can let you know that The Repulse Chronicles, Book Six: Operation Repulse now exists somewhere other than just inside my head. Of course, that was the easy bit. Now comes structural editing, content editing, line editing, and proofreading. Lots and lots of it. My next job is to decide the publication date, create the cover and set up the pre-order. More blogposts on that will follow, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here are the rhododendrons. Stay safe, peeps.