Darkspace Press

Tag: release date

  • A Carew Update

    tl;dr – Carew 7, A Brief, Interminable Peace, is complete, in editing and revisions, and will release in January or February.

    Is it some finely-honed piece of literature made great after four years of careful crafting? No. I think it’s a solid Carew story that acts as a good transition from the previous books to the next stage of Alexis’ career and story.

    Why did it take so long? I addressed most of it in a previous post — and I’ll catch you up here.

    After all that, I had a decent spate of writing, taking me into January 2024, and then it dried up again. The day-job went from the dysfunction it’s been for the last quarter century to full-Simple Jack. Now, again, all things are relative — even at its worst, it was a good job to have. But I realized I was never going to recover either my health or writing if I remained. That’s a me-thing, mostly, not some indication that I had a situation so much worse than most others. I’m still regularly angry with myself for not being able to recognize and get myself out of my problems on my own over the last few years.

    Anyway, over the summer I realized something had to give — I either had to make a change, or accept that I was probably done as a writer or maybe just playing at it. I decided on the change and decided to YOLO — at 57, with no discernable other support, and my writing income at the absolute least it’s ever been, even the first month of Into the Dark’s release, I quit the day job and decided to write full-time.

    It was the support of the Carew fans — those of you who stuck with me on Patreon for four years, receiving nothing in return but silence, those who emailed me, sent messages on Facebook … looked up my phone number and called me to see if I was okay (sir, I am never going to not mention that – thank you), and the knowledge that every one of those represented many, many other followers of Alexis’ story — that gave me the strength to make that leap of faith.

    The change in my mental state since then has been indescribable. I’m writing nearly every day for the last five months, averaging 1000-2000 words a day since I made the change and, though still not my old self, I think, it’s getting there.

    Why haven’t been better about posting updates here, Facebook, etc.? Dude, do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?

    Anyway, hopefully this will be the last angsty update and they’ll all be better and more frequent going forward.

    Carew 7 is coming within the next ninety days and Carew 8, tentatively titled Smoke and Silver is nearly done with plotting (so much plotting as I actually do, anyway) and I hope to have it done in 2025, settling into what I plan as a 1/year schedule for the series.

  • Updated Little Ships Release Date

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    I’ve just uploaded the final copy of The Little Ships to Amazon and the new release date is November second.

    I hope you enjoy it. 🙂

    Of course, if you haven’t preordered it yet, you should do that now.

  • The Little Ships update, Planetfall changes, and more

    Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000039_00002]

    The Little Ships final draft is off to the proofreader.

    Sent it off Tuesday morning, 9/29, and I expect it back by 10/15. It should just take a couple days after that to fix the typos, then I can release it via Amazon. Unfortunately, there’s a vagary of the Amazon prerelease system that means it’ll be ten days from the time I say it’s final until it’s actually released. It’s an Amazon thing.

    I’ve also been in touch with Elizabeth Klett, the narrator who’s done such a fantastic job on the Into the Dark and Mutineer, and she’s scheduled to narrateThe Little Ships in November, so the audiobook should be available before the first of the year or shortly thereafter.

    I also have an update on Planetfall, the novella prequel to the Alexis Carew series.

    Originally, Planetfall was supposed to cover the time from the founding of Dalthus until Alexis’ birth (really until when her parents die). What I found was … that’s a really long time!

    Almost thirty years, which is a lot to cover in a novella of thirty or so thousand words. And, in fact, it’s really two stories: First the founding of Dalthus until Lynelle, Alexis’ grandmother, dies; and second her father’s, Harlynne’s, story.

    So I’m now going to release it as two novellas, each covering one of those things. The first will still be titled Planetfall and should be finished around the end of December or January time frame, with the second, still untitled, coming after that.

    Newsletter subscribers will receive both of these novellas at no charge.

    The fourth book in the series is underway — tentatively titled HMS Nightingale — and is so far about 10% complete.

    Thank you all, again, for your support of the series — I hope you enjoy the next installment as much as the first two!

    J.A. Sutherland

  • The Little Ships (Alexis Carew #3) is now available for Preorder!

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    The Little Ships

    Alexis Carew #3

    Newly commissioned lieutenant, Alexis Carew is appointed into HMS Shrewsbury, a 74-gun ship of the line in New London’s space navy. She expects Shrewsbury will be sent into action in the war against Hanover, but instead she finds that she and her new ship are pivotal in a Foreign Office plot to bring the star systems of the French Republic into the war and end the threat of Hanover forever.

    The Little Ships is done and on its way to the editor, which means it’s now available for preorder on Amazon!

    The “official” release date is now November 8th, but that will move up if the editing goes well.

    In the meantime, if you’re looking for a good read, I can recommend Rookie Privateer by Jamie McFarland.