Update:
The Book Detail Page went live on Amazon:
Wohoo!
I started loading the files for the e-book and paperback on Amazon. The release date will be 21JAN2026. I’m doing a last review of the text to find typos and “literary infelicities” before I hit the button and make the pre-release page live.
I’m setting up a page on the site (link directly below) for the marketer to direct traffic here.
I have to admit I’m more excited about this than I thought I would be. I’m especially looking forward to getting the paperback proof copy. I’ll put it on the shelf of my bookcase in the living room between my copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey. After all Homer has only produced two books in the last three thousand years and I wrote one in less than a decade!
I think today is the first time i started thinking about the next book in the series. Bogey’s had his work. I’ll let him off the hook and let Connors recruit some new folks to wrestle with the political chaos that has enveloped America after the events in “The Sniper.” For this one i’ll have to map out a series of events. I can’t just wing it. Maybe I’ll do a “future history” timeline like Heinlein did for his alternate history stories.
I think in these later stories I might like to have a moon base. It’s definitely not an unbelievable technological stretch and it would give the stories a less claustrophobic feel. Mars just seems too difficult and with a fractured America I doubt the resources could be imagined available for something as challenging.
But that’s just a spit-balling thought. I’m going to have to do some serious thinking before I just jump into it. It’ll have to feel right. And then I’ll have to come up some new characters. I think I want some technical types in this story. And I’ll have to think of what is going to happen to poor President George Chastain. I’ll left him holding the bag with a bunch of states in basically open revolt. He inherited this mess and he has my sympathy but I’m afraid it’s not going to get easier in the next book.
And in the next book I might try my hand at my first love story. I’ve left Paul Connors and Grace Boghadair sort of up in the air. With bogey out of the limelight maybe it’s time to see whether those two have a future. Well, I’m no romance novelist but maybe I can come up with a believable plot to get those two together. After all she is a widow looking for a husband and you can’t find a more eligible bachelor than the richest man in the world.
Well, I’ll attach the links to the Amazon pages for the books and the author (Jake Barter!) as soon as they’re live. Meantime here are my cover shots.
I will be hovering over my keyboard!
Excellent.