New Year, New Look!

Hi, everybody! Welcome to my newly updated blog for 2017. As you can see, I made a few changes to the template, updated my profile, and came up with a new name. Atomic Dragon Battleship was fun, but it wasn't particularly clever or any kind of play on my name, so I decided to up my game a bit. I've never actually been to Bakersfield, but it rolled off the tongue better than Baker City (it's in Oregon, and I have been there). I would have called it Baker Street after Sherlock Holmes' famous address, but Jeff Grubb kind of beat me to it with his Grubb Street blog. So Baker's Field seems okay for now.

I'll try to keep my posts shorter and more frequent than in the past. So, without further ado, here are three things I'd like to share to start the year.

Valiant Dust in November

I'm busy working on a new series of military-themed science fiction novels for Tor Books. The first one is entitled "Valiant Dust" (it's a reference to a Kipling poem), and it'll be out early in November (2017). I've actually been done with the book for more than a year, but publishers have schedules to keep, and I had to wait for a slot to open up. Valiant Dust (and its sequels) tell the story of Sikander North, an officer from the colony system of Kashmir serving in the star navy of the Commonwealth of Aquila. I'm pretty proud of it and I think it's a good read! I'm now working on book 2 of the series, working title of "Restless Lightnings" (another Kipling reference).

Hired Gun at En Masse

Back in September, my friend and former WotC colleague Daneen called me up because her employer En Masse Entertainment (publishers of the popular TERA MMORPG) had just landed a big new localization project. Daneen needed writers, stat! So for the last few months of 2016 (and the first couple of months of 2017) I've been working in a contract gig with EME to help bring a Korean game to the US market. I don't speak a word of Korean, but fortunately we're working off files that have already been translated. 

One of the interesting parts of the experience is that I'm working in downtown Seattle for the first time since moving out to the Northwest in 1997. I catch the train in Auburn at 8:01, I debark at King Street Station around 8:35, and I walk a short mile to the En Masse office (3rd and University), arriving a few minutes before 9:00. It's strange to be a non-driving commuter! I only wish the train ride were a little longer so that I could do some serious writing in transit.

Warmachine

At GenCon this year, fellow Sasquatch Dave Noonan persuaded me to buy into Privateer Press's excellent Warmachine Miniatures game. I'm still learning how to play, but I'm having a ton of fun assembling and painting minis again--it's been a good 15 years since I did any painting at all. My faction is the Protectorate of Menoth. Here's a look at my Vanquisher (I use an alternative paint scheme featuring off-white and Prussian blue, just to be creative).

That's all for now!