Even in the midst of the Hellhole tour, the other projects keep going.

A few months ago I started work on an ambitious proposal for a new standalone trilogy set in the Seven Suns universe, developed and expanded it to the point where I felt comfortable submitting it to publishers.  “The Saga of Shadows” is set twenty years after the end of the previous series, with a new cast of characters as well as some returning familiar ones.  After the Terra Incognita trilogy, and Hellhole, and The Sisterhood of Dune, my imagination was ready to go back to the Seven Suns universe.  (The hard part was creating an even bigger cosmic threat…I didn’t want the level of Spectacular to go down.  I think I’ve got a very intriguing idea for the basic conflict, plus dozens of side stories and interesting characters.)

My British publisher, Simon & Schuster UK, has just made a very nice offer for British rights to the trilogy, so I can make this announcement.  We’re still negotiating with US publishers, but I will be starting the outline process for the first book.  Tentative titles are The Dark Between the Stars, Shadow Cloud, and Waking Chaos…but those could well change during the course of the writing.  I’ll turn in the first manuscript in about a year; no projected date yet for publication, but I’ll post updates via the usual sources.

Meanwhile, on tour, I’m drafting lyrics for the third “Terra Incognita” companion rock CD—ProgRock Records is very interested in completing the musical trilogy and Henning Pauly is ready to work on the music; our plan is to get the CD finished and released to accompany the paperback edition of Book 3, The Key to Creation.

During our train ride, Brian made good progress on his edit of The Sisterhood of Dune, finishing another hundred pages, and he also signed more than 500 bookplates for Wondercon.  And we did take some time together to brainstorm Hellhole Inferno.

Today’s signing event will be at Borderlands Books in San Francisco at 3 PM.  It’s rainy and cool in the city…a perfect day to come hear a couple of authors talk and then curl up with a good book.