Marko Kloos's Blog, page 6
August 18, 2023
AFTERSHOCKS on sale today
AFTERSHOCKS, the first book in the Palladium Wars series, is on sale today as a Kindle daily deal.
If you haven’t checked out the series, here’s your opportunity to try the first book out at a discount. I am currently writing the fourth Palladium Wars book, so you have a few to catch up on if the first one grabs you.
August 17, 2023
17AUG23
I don’t have much to report because I am busy pushing this draft along (as you can see on the progress meter in the sidebar), so have a picture of a Dinky Dog in her favorite habitat–a cozy dog bed in a kitchen where there’s food preparation in progress.
I’m a slow correspondent at the best of times, and I am downright neglectful of my email inbox in the middle of a draft, so if you have sent me anything lately, please don’t be surprised if the reply (if applicable) takes a while.
July 21, 2023
SCORPIO release date change
Some readers have noticed that the release date for SCORPIO has been moved out to January 1, 2024.
There’s a reason for that change, one that I can’t reveal just yet. But I can tell you that good things are happening behind the scenes that will make the new date make sense once I am allowed to disclose them.
Edited to add: if you are a reviewer, book blogger, YouTuber, editor, book club, or someone who otherwise talks up books and makes recommendations, hit me up at marko dot kloos at gmail dot com. I have a number of ARCs (advance reader copies) left over after Readercon, and I can hook you up with one while my supply lasts.
July 11, 2023
11JUL23
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
–Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”
Wild Cards: Pairing Up release day
Happy WILD CARDS day!
I have a novelette featured in the latest Wild Cards anthology, titled PAIRING UP. It’s out today and available wherever books are sold:
The novelette is called “In The Forests of the Night”, and it features my Wild Cards character Khan, the joker-ace who’s half tiger. The theme of the anthology is, well, pairing up–as in romantic connections. You don’t need to have read prior Wild Cards books to enjoy this one because they’re all stand-alone stories.
Kirkus Reviews did a nice write-up of the book and said nice things about my story, including this nice little pull quote:
Featuring two memorable and downright cool fight scenes, this story has a fitting conclusion that makes it noteworthy.
Other featured writers in this anthology are Kevin Andrew Murphy, Christopher Rowe, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Bradley Denton, Walton Simons, Peter Newman, Gwenda Bond, and David Anthony Durham. It’s a fun collection of romantic superhero entanglements, which is a subject we don’t often touch in Wild Cards.
June 29, 2023
ARCs and progress bars and also Readercon
The ARCs for SCORPIO are in, which officially means it’s a real, actual book now.
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the progress bar for DESCENT hasn’t moved a whole lot in the last two weeks. That’s because the whole family came down with COVID two weeks ago, and now that we have recovered, we are hosting family from abroad for a little while. Family visits always keep me extremely busy because I have to function as tour organizer, translator, interpreter, driver, and so on. But the bar is moving again, and I predict that the draft will still be done on schedule.
Lastly, I’ll be at Readercon in mid-July for a few days, so drop by and say hello if you’re going to be there as well. I’ll also have a bunch of these ARCs with me for reviewers and bloggers and so forth, so hit me up for one if you are such a person and you bump into me at Readercon…unless I see you first, in which case I’ll try to push an ARC on you.
June 2, 2023
Bookplates are on the way
I finally got my ducks in a row for the bookplates I promised, and they are on their way. Everyone who requested a bookplate for their misprinted copy of ODDMENTS will receive one in the mail soon.
I also changed the layout of the paperback to reduce the font size and clean up the formatting to make it less of a phone book in size. The new format saved about a hundred print pages. As an added benefit, fewer pages means lower cost, savings which I decided to pass on. The paperback version is now $12.99 instead of $14.99.
May 25, 2023
One of the top three American inventions
Why didn’t anyone inform me that licorice-flavored gum is a thing?
(Today I learned that Black Jack has been around since 1884, that it was the first flavored gum in the United States, and that it was the first gum to be offered in sticks.)
May 7, 2023
Not a sponsored post (but I’m available for endorsements)
After five and a half years of steadfast and reliable service, I semi-retired The Beast, a 17″ Alienware laptop. I replaced it with…another 17″ Alienware laptop.
The Beast served me so well that I decided to go the same route for its replacement. I stuck with the same brand and screen size, picked a model I liked, and moved the configuration sliders for the hardware options all the way to the right for almost every component. I’m hoping that this system will last as long as the old one, which is still trucking along and now serving as a spare gaming rig for the kids in case one of theirs goes out of commission.
The new one is much faster than the old model and over two pounds lighter. But the killer feature for me is the mechanical keyboard they managed to squeeze into the laptop chassis, ultra-low profile Cherry switches. It’s a $100 upgrade from the regular keyboard, but let me tell you that it’s OH SO WORTH IT. It makes every other laptop keyboard I’ve ever typed on feel like mushy garbage. It’s firm and tactile and very clicky, and I want this keyboard on every laptop from now on.
(Keyboards are an important component when you’re in the business of typing a quarter million words or more a year.)
April 29, 2023
Work in progress status update
The edits for SCORPIO are done, and I’ve started work on DESCENT, Palladium Wars #4. My plan is to turn in the draft by the end of July for a release in the first half of next year.
I installed a progress bar widget for WordPress, so now you can all follow along as I write the draft. The progress bar is in the sidebar to the right, on top of all the other widgets, and I’ll update it daily with the current word count.
