Final Book in Quadrilogy Released

Well, my last short story collection is done.

There turns out to be some tidying up I have to go do on the previous ones, so those of you who have bought copies, may want to update in a few weeks. Nothing major. Mainly just the commercial telling you the name of the fourth book that was “Coming Soon” because, well, I couldn’t really decide on it and, at the last minute, I changed it.

It’s now called The Hyperbole Engine, which I think is a pretty good name for an adventure book and it matches the cover well. All in all, after giving it a final edit, I was surprised to find myself thinking that it might be the strongest of the four.

Here’s a bit from the introduction:

“At first, I was going to publish this book as a science fiction anthology, but I didn’t think my pure science fiction shorts were always as strong as other work that I would rather see go into print. Then the adventure angle hit me and, well, now you’re holding it in your hands. Well, you’re holding an ereader in your hands. It’s holding the book.

“I know the cover makes this look like a science fiction book. That was intentional. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of science fiction here. My story Nashville Beaumont is one of the best science fiction novellas I’ve ever written, in my opinion. I don’t think Reclaiming the Moon is all too shabby either. In fact, I would have to classify three out of the four stories in this volume as science fiction, even if they aren’t what I would call “hard” science fiction.

The Reality of Time is a fun adventure story that takes place in a Carrollian world. I suppose any tale featuring Nikolai Tesla has to be considered in one way or another science fiction, too, but I would really call this one pure adventure. It’s the untold story of the battle of the Jabberwocky. Oh, and before you ask? Yes, the weird contractions that appear twice in the text were done on purpose. It was the way Lewis Carroll did them in the original Alice books, so I was trying to add a bit of seasoning.

“This book marks the end of the quadrilogy of short story anthologies I set out to publish as ebooks. Four books, totaling over 120,000 words (I think they are quite a bit over that, actually). I hope you enjoyed them. If you did, please let me know. I am available at www.michaelhiebert.com or you can post a review on Smashwords or Amazon.”

So that’s it for a bit, other than waiting for Smashwords to approve everything and making any changes they deem necessary.

My next step, other than to continue working with my editor at Kensington on my novel, Dream With Little Angels due to be released early 2013, is to combine these four collections into one 130,000 word trade paperback. That’s actually 10,000 words more than these collections combined, because the trade paperback will contain a bunch of bonus material. I’m hoping to have that ready for release by fall of this year.

In the meantime, please send me your comments, death threats, error corrections, omissions, ransom notes, whatevers. You can leave me something here or just post a review on Smashwords or Amazon.

Thank you very much for continuing to support me and my writing, and taking interest in my work. I look forward to hearing from you.