Welcome back, commander...
I've got a few things on the go at the moment. I took a little break after I published Hadan's Reach to get my head in the right place for a new project. I knew I wanted to get out of the UN-iverse for a while, potentially forever, and start some entirely new projects. The temptation of course is to keep dabbling in the same sandbox and churn out more and more standalone projects like Hadan's Reach, but there's 2 problems with that: 1) there are serious diminishing returns on readership with each novel / novella I publish outside the trilogy, which, although of course not the be-all-and-end-all, can really kill motivation; and 2) I don't think I necessarily improve as a writer, because I'm constantly in my own canon comfort zone.
I have a bunch of different ideas I want to commit to paper, but I've been loathe to commit to a new novel straight away. In the intervening period I've been writing some fantasy short-ish stories, which I might collate into a novel-length piece in the future. I also brought a few other shorts out of retirement, and made a few submissions to different places (notably Black Library, who are running an open call this year for the first time in yonks).
I have now also been working on a new military sci-fi novel, which remains untitled. I'm only 10,000 words into it, but the premise is a pulpy alternate turn of the 20th Century story in which all of the planets in our solar system are colonised by different, and often hostile alien races. Imagine WW2-era kind of technology but in spaaaaace. It's fun, it's action-packed, it's frightening... I guess The Thin Red Line on Venus would be the one-sentencer. A picture says a thousand words, so look at this Karl Kopinksi art: this is the aesthetic I'm shooting for:
I'll be posting progress updates etc. in the usual way in the coming months. In the meantime, watch this space!
Rich