Artemis Rising is #228 in Steampunk Fiction (Kindle Store), #379 in Steampunk Fiction, and #680 in Alternative History. If you don’t have yours yet, you can get the paper version here or the kindle version here. Four customer reviews now, but I need a few more to get Audible to take notice – if you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so here.

Celestial Accord isn’t ranked yet. If you don’t have yours yet, you can get the paper version here or the kindle version here. One review, thanks Michele! If you’ve finished the book and haven’t left a review, please do so here.

You can get autographed copies of both books at the Arlington Farmer’s Market Saturday.

I’m trying out another route to building up a following and creating content. The two are definitely intertwined. I bought into a course that helps content creators leverage AI tools to build content. That could result in a number of things – AI generated video where Walter or Eleanor or one of the other characters invites people to read the stories. AI generated audio books. Even AI generated audio books with AI generated visuals for YouTube. Although, if I do the YouTube videos, I might should just do the first 10k-20k words in a book…

I had one of those huge ah-ha moments this week. Getting AI to write things, create images, make videos, etc. depends on prompting the right AI. AI prompt writing is a skill (small ah-ha), specifically a mental skill. Since AI is all about improving the quality of mental skills, AI can help you write better AI prompts (MAJOR ah-ha). Talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I learned how to get ChatGPT to default to asking me clarifying questions when I give too vague a prompt. I learned how to get ChatGPT to identify the critical elements of a good AI prompt. I learned how to get ChatGPT to write a fill-in-the-blank good AI prompt. I learned how to get ChatGPT to analyze a logo/image/etc. and suggest how to write an AI prompt to recreate it (which you can then edit to get the variation you want). It was awesome!

I realized that I hadn’t come up with a jam flavor to go with the third book, Forging the Chain Breakers. Moon Apple, based on Hasid’s moon apple cider, was for Artemis Rising. Bolivian Peach, based on the mocochinchi drink the Bolivians have for the Presidents’ Ball, was for Celestial Accord. I was planning an orange jam like the one Mirim made and took to the Moon, for Selene Unchained. This evening I decided to use our State Fair of Texas award-winning Peach Butter as the one for Forging the Chain Breakers. After all, since the State Fair of Texas started in 1886, an 1891 Peach Butter could, potentially, also have won a ribbon at the State Fair of Texas…

I had an idea for a cool addition to the way liftwood works. What if one of the styles of liftwood craft that was being used for racing craft and military craft was to cover the skin of the craft with liftwood scales that could be electronically “steered”. An AI cogitator interprets control inputs into variable lift outputs on each scale allowing for far greater maneuverability. Theoretically, any point on the ship could be the point that is pushed in whatever direction. When there is a significant change in the liftwood output, the rapid change in gravity effect would make the scales appear to ripple. I also thought it would be cool to make it so when the scales are inscribed in a certain way, they absorb radio waves – making them radar absorbent. Voila, Stealth coverings… It would also put Tesla further on the road to beamed power (or deciding beamed power isn’t practical). I think Walter and Eleanor will encounter scales at liftwood island, but won’t have enough information to make a system until they see it in practice on Venusian interceptors. Yes – green scaled, long cylindrical shapes that fire lightning at enemies. Why wouldn’t lizardmen ride “dragons” into combat…

My cover people are finding it difficult to find stock photos of powered armor. Surprise, surprise. I used came up with four possibilities and sent them to GetCovers.

I’ve decided to not number the chapters in the manuscript document. The reason is that I use Atticus software to do the biggest part of my formatting – essentially the typesetting. Since Atticus automatically numbers chapters, it is easier to leave them unnumbered instead of deleting the chapter numbers after importing the manuscript from Word.

Selene Unchained chapters this week:
Lunar Atrium – Beraht’s vision added
Dark Rituals – Beraht’s vision added
Laughing Pastures – completed
Zafir Takes a Hand – started
The Beginning of the End – started, actually there are a number of chapters between Zafir Takes a Hand and The Beginning of the End, but there were some pieces of the later story I wanted to nail down before continuing in order.

Selene Unchained word count is 34,767, not counting Dramatis Personae (1,227 words).

If you want to get early access to Book 3 chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising or Celestial Accord on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.