There’s a lot going on with my next novel, Generation Ship, so I thought I’d write a quick post to keep you updated.

First off, we have both a publication date and a cover. The book will release in all formats (Audio, E-Book, and trade paperback) on August 22, 2023.

The artwork on the cover is by Jeff Brown (the same artist who did the cover art for The Misfit Soldier) and it was designed by Guido Carati (who also worked on the cover of TMS and the Planetside books)

You can check out the official cover reveal here.

I’m super happy with the release date, though it does mean we’re a bit behind on production I think.

You see, I just got my edit letter back on the book this week. So…yeah. It’s still a draft. Whoops. Okay then. We’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s okay though. We’ve got this. I had a call with my editor today and we talked through what he saw in the book and it all resonated. We’ve done four books together already, and we get each other. Along with that, the book is pretty close. So yeah, it’s a draft. But it’s a good draft. I’m not changing a lot in this revision. I’m adding stuff to bring out things that are already there and make them better.

I owe it back to my editor by January 17th, and that’s doable. Doable in the sense that I’ll be editing my ass off for the next few weeks, but still. Doable. And hopefully with the limited changes, he’ll turn it around pretty quick and we’ll get it off to production for copy edits so that we can make our publication date. For reviewers, I’m hoping to have ARCs this summer. But as you can see, it’s going to be tight.

I’m super excited about this book. I’ve wanted to write this one since back when I came up with the idea in 2018. The thing is, I didn’t have the skillset back then to pull it off. I know that sounds self-deprecating, but it’s the truth. This is a complex beast with five interacting points of view–they’re all stuck on a ship together, so it’s not like they can get away from one another. There’s a scientist, a hacker, a security officer, a governor, and a farmer who finds himself as the head of the protest movement on the ship. Uh…spoiler alert (Not really. That happens in the opening chapters.)

The actual work right now is a top to bottom revision where I’ll be revising 30 to 50 pages per day, and I think potentially adding one new chapter in the third act, but we’ll see how I feel about that when I get there. It’s possible that I can add what’s needed into the already existing chapters.

No rush on the pre-orders for this one. I’ll provide links for that at a later date along with an opportunity for those who want to get signed copies. There’s also no word yet on the narration of the audio book. There will definitely be one, and I’m going to be pushing for multiple narrators because of the multiple point of view characters. More on that once I know it.

I’m going to try to be a little more blog present in the next few weeks as well. I’ve got another book coming out in paperback in January (THE WEIGHT OF COMMAND) and I’m working on a 2023 debut science fiction post.

See you soon.

Tags: Generation Ship, Michael Mammay