Lev wrote the following:

Love your series, just bought book #7. Will there be a book #8 – the epilogue and when?

First and foremost, thank you so much for the very kind comments you offer as well as the fact that you’ve decided my work was worthy enough for you to spend your hard earned money on buying it!

Will there be a book #8?  The short answer is: Absolutely.

But…

Here’s the thing: The 8th Book in the series is, as I’ve noted many times before and you’ve noted, is an “Epilogue”…

…as such, the Book effectively closes the door on stories featuring at least two of the major characters I’ve introduced in the series (I’ll not say who they are!) and I’m not sure I want to close that particular (pardon the pun) book on them quite yet.

Author Agatha Christie, during the heights of World War 2 and the London Blitz of 1940 and fearing that England -and she- would not survive the war, wrote the novel Curtain, which was the “final” and “concluding” story featuring what was arguably her biggest, most beloved creation, detective Hercule Poirot.

Ms. Christie put the novel in a lock box, intending it to be released only should she not survive the bombings and/or war.

Ms. Christie, England, and the world survived the war.  Ms. Christie kept writing new novels at an astonishing rate, including new novels featuring detective Poirot, but she kept Curtain in that lock box.  The novel would not be released until 1975, very shortly before Ms. Christie passed away in January of 1976.

Now, without sounding too obnoxious, I sometimes think that maybe Book #8 in the Corrosive Knights series, or what I call the “Epilogue”, once fully fleshed out (I already have most of the novel written, believe it or not!), should also be kept in my own little lock box and released when I’m certain I don’t want to write any more Corrosive Knights novels.

So the short answer regarding Book #8, “Epilogue”, is: I WILL write this novel in the next year.  It WILL be done.  But it may not be released right away.  I may give myself a few weeks/months to think through the whole thing and see if I do want to release it or, perhaps, work on a different Corrosive Knights #8 novel and, in time, release the Epilogue when I feel its worth doing so.

Moving along, Lev, I hope this answers your question!

To you and those who have read my books and enjoy them, I ask a big favor: PLEASE write reviews for the books and post them either to Amazon or, at the least, offer a star review for Goodreads (if you read the Kindle edition of the books, you get the chance at the very end to click how many stars out of 5 you feel a book merits).

I jokingly say that if you loved my books, write reviews praising my oh-so-magnificent work.  If you didn’t, then don’t bother! 😉

Seriously, though, tell your friends about them, write reviews.  If you want to see more of my works, make them successful enough for me so that I can devote even more time on ’em!

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there have been a dearth of updates/blog entries as of late ’round these parts.  Usually, I’m looking around and offering my 0.02 cents about many (too many!?) things.

Well, the reason I’ve been rather quiet is because not only did I finish up writing Legacy of the Argus, the seventh and concluding novel in the Corrosive Knights series, I’ve contracted ebooklaunch.com to re-do the covers for books #2-6 of the series along with doing the cover to Legacy.

But hiring them was just the first step.  Being something of an artist myself (cough), I’d work on rough versions of the covers as I was hiring them and sending those roughs out to them to use as the basis for the covers they came up with.  Then, when I’d get their versions of the covers, most of the time we’d go through a few “drafts” before hitting on the “right” cover to use.  To be fair, though, there was at least one cover, that of Nox, which they hit at the first go and I didn’t feel any more work needed to be done.

And while doing all that, I was preparing the paperback versions of the books, which meant going back to the original book files (not an easy task…I had to make sure I had the right files!), making sure I fixed any glitches (grammatical or spelling) that I was aware of in the earlier drafts and taking care of them.

Right now, I finished going over all the books but the first so that when I get the paperback cover files in the next few days, I’ll send both the new covers and revised/corrected novels in to Amazon.  While I can’t promise you ALL the grammatical/spelling glitches were found and taken care of, I’ve done my level best to go through these books and give it my best shot.

As for the first book in the series, Mechanic, given how long ago I wrote it, I’m going to spend a little more time on it.  In the next few days I’ll read through the entire book and see how it works while fixing any problems -if any- I may encounter within it.

No, I won’t pull a “George Lucas” and reinvent/rewrite the book.  Her story will remain as it is, but I figured given its age I needed to do a more thorough read-through and make sure everything within is smooth.  I figure in all the years between making that book and Legacy of the Argus, I’ve become (hopefully!) a slightly better author and am capable of smoothing out any rough edges while strictly adhering to that novel’s story.

Truthfully, I don’t anticipate any major changes!

So, for now, that’s what’s left on my creative “plate” for what’s left of this year.  It’s been a wild 10 or so years of writing the Corrosive Knights books and now that the main story is done, I want to make sure that in 2019 they’re cleaned and polished just right.

Onward!

The fine folks at ebooklaunch.com have been re-doing/doing the covers to Books #2-7 of the Corrosive Knights series and, IMHO, have been doing a terrific job at it.

They saved the best for last:

…swoon…

What a freaking lovely cover!  I’ve uploaded it to Amazon and it should show up very soon for the Kindle edition of the book (you will find it here).  The paperback with this new cover will arrive soon, along with the paperback versions of all the new covers for the various books.

Now, to update the covers:

And, finally, the promo page I will use for all the covers (to date anyway!) of the Corrosive Knights novels:

I’m just beside myself with happiness! 😉

Oh, and just so we’re clear: I intend to keep the original cover to Mechanic (Book #1) as is.  Yeah, it no longer fits with the other covers but, of the covers I personally created, I’ve always liked that one the most and plan to keep it.

At least for now!

Apropos of nothing… and at the risk of puffing my own chest, I was staring at the computer and noted…

So I decided…

Yep, its the entire run of the Corrosive Knights series (my own copies) laid out on the floor just so I could admire ’em.  Note the many little stickers I’ve put into various books.  This was done to keep track of certain characters/scenes.  Also note the covers to Books #2 (The Last Flight of the Argus) through #6 (Foundry of the Gods) have the “old” covers.

For now, if you order the books through Amazon (you can check ’em out here), you will get them with these original covers and as shown in the photograph.  Very soon, though, these books will be upgraded to the new covers I’ve shown off before (just scroll down a few posts… you can’t miss ’em!).

If you look closely at the cover to Legacy of the Argus (the last book in the series, #7), you’ll see a gray band on the upper half of the book and over “The Argus” on the title.  It is a “Not for Resale” statement.  The copy I have of the book was a “preview” copy I ordered so I could see how the novel looks and then determine if it can be formally made available via Amazon.  I have made it available although, for now, Amazon hasn’t linked the Kindle (digital) copy with the Paperback.  I assume that will happen soon enough.  UPDATE:  It’s happened.  When you click on The Legacy of the Argus via Amazon, you’ll have the option of getting the Kindle/Digital copy or the paperback.

One final picture (hey, humor me here, I feel so proud of all this work!)…

New cover for Foundry of the Gods, Book #6 in the Corrosive Knights series…

So, an update on the series as a whole, with the new covers put in place…

Next up is a remake of the cover to Book #5, Ghost of the Argus.  After that, I’m done.  I like the cover to Mechanic (Book #1) and will likely keep it as is.  I may, in some future date, change my mind, but for now I’m happy with it!

Soon enough, all these covers will be available in the paperback editions!

Of late, it appears all I’m doing is giving updates on the concluding novel, Book #7, in the Corrosive Knights series…

Here’s the latest update:

I took a few days to clear my head from the book and yesterday slowly began the process of re-reading and doing pen/ink revisions on Draft #12 -what I’m quite confident will be the last draft- of Book #7.

So far, the revisions are incredibly minor. which further enforces the notion that this will indeed be the final draft of the book before I release it.

The cover is almost complete, I expect it will be done either later today or at most tomorrow.  So all that’s left for me to do is read the damn thing, write those pen/ink revisions, then transfer them to the computer.

Once that’s done, I format the book properly and then, it WILL be released.

This month.

Perhaps even later next week.

Interestingly enough, I was looking at my old novel files and Foundry of the Gods, book #6 in the Corrosive Knights series, was completed on, believe it or not, 11/6/16 and just shy of 7 P.M.  This was the last time I saved the file before it was sent off to be published through Amazon!

So today we are exactly two years and one day from that date and I can’t help but be amazed at how consistent, time-wise, I am with the release of each new novel.

Yeah, in this case it looks like it’ll take me two years and perhaps a week to complete Book #7, but isn’t it amazing that the final draft is completed so damn close to the very date I completed the final draft of the previous novel?

Wild stuff.

Sometimes, I’m certain I’m a masochist.

On Friday, 11/2/18 I posted an update  (you can read it here) where I stated with considerable pride -and joy!- that I finished reading the latest draft, #11, of my latest Corrosive Knights novel, #7, which is the concluding chapter of the series…

I noted back then that it took four days to read through the draft and do the pen & ink notations/revisions and that I figured it wouldn’t take very long to put them into the computer.

It took me two days.  I started doing the transfer of notations on Friday and finished on Saturday.

It was not easy.

In fact, considering how exhausted I usually am by the time Friday rolls around, you would think I’d welcome some relaxation come the weekend.

Not so this weekend.

Friday was filled with hard work.  I managed to get through 1/2 of the novel, putting the revisions in the computer.  As the day ended, I thought: Since I finished half the book in one day, could I finish the other half on Saturday?

I could, but wow did I burn the proverbial candle at both ends.  Not only did I completely finish the revision, I also went out to three different places to buy some stuff we needed, do some minor grocery shopping, do about an hour of exercise, etc.  I wound up eating only once, at about 3:30 pm, and was done with the revisions around 8 P. M.

It was tough sledding but the bottom line is that the damn draft is finished and its off to what I’m quite certain will be the final draft, #12.

As of the coming week, I may -we’ll see as it’s not entirely certain- be at the Miami Gamer Comic Expo between November 9-12.

Again, this isn’t certain.  If I’m there, it’s as a “and one” guest of a good friend of mine and, therefore, I will not be listed among the “formal” guests at the con.

But, again: THIS IS NOT CERTAIN and I may well not be there at all!  Regardless, I’ll provide updates as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, I made this neat-o little promo of some of the books in the Corrosive Knights series and figured I’d present…

Regardless of whether I’m at the convention or not, I will begin working on Draft #12 of the book and should have it done by later this week (if I’m not going to the con) or perhaps by later next week (if I will be at the con).

And from there, its time to work on formally releasing it.

The time is coming.

Very, very soon!

This could be one of the bigger updates for the latest book, the concluding Book #7, in the Corrosive Knights series:

As of yesterday, I finished the read-through of Draft #11 of Book #7 and… it’s freaking great.

Yes, there are some things that still need to be done… I still have to put the pen/ink revisions I made into the computer and, yes I do want to do a 12th Draft of the book… but I can now say with absolute certainty that Draft #12 will be it.  The book will be done afterwards.

I read and did the pen/ink revisions of Draft #11 in a matter of four days.  I suspect that transferring the revisions to the computer shouldn’t take me that long.  As for Draft #12, I suspect it’ll take no longer than it took me to do Draft #11, which means that this book should be concluded completely by the third week or so of November…

…which means Book #7, the concluding chapter in Corrosive Knights series… may well be released later this month!!!!

And, to add to the fine day I had yesterday, I got the new cover to Book #2 of the Corrosive Knights series, The Last Flight of the Argus.

Behold!

There you go, B’taav and Inquisitor Cer on the cover, our first look at a Displacer in action.

So, to update the full gamut of covers to the Corrosive Knights series to date:

So very soon now, my friends… so very, very soon!