London’s Calling comes out on the 10th! I’m so excited I could lie down and wait for spring. Winter is not my strongest suit. I find the dark depressing and my poor garden doesn’t see much action. Nevertheless we persevere, I suppose. What other options do we have?
This book is not like the last three. Sex Bunker Apocalypse the lunchbox, the Movie, the Netflix series! Alas, probably not. Who’d have the guts, I ask you! Change modern viewing with one fell swoop. Bring back the Golden Age of pornography, except this time it’s shiny and chrome and really, really silly. Like, really silly. Also for heaven’s sake treat your naked actors better, whomever you are. Don’t make me send Terri out, she’s dangerous, I tell you! Actually it’d probably be Quay. Or Dirk. Maybe both. Detective team Quay and Dirk? Is that a thing? Somebody write that down.
Where was I?
London’s Calling is a step above the Sex Bunker Apocalypse trilogy. I’m not afraid to say it. I have written more than one million words since I started in November of 2023. Not all of them are good, and most of them won’t ever see the light of day. I started London’s Calling last winter when I was in a scary place from a medical perspective. The first seven or eight chapters of that particular manuscript were, at the time, pretty darn dark. I couldn’t get past it. Our hero is grievously injured in their last adventure — London shows up in Spin the Throttle and Handcuffed to Never, and let’s just remind everyone that this is an adventure trilogy, not an erotica series, so People Get Hurt — and they are more than a little lost when London’s Calling opens.
Fortunately we have editors, and thoughtful alpha readers, and especially my beloved spouse K, who went over the story again and again until it sounded right. K often knows what I want to say before I do, and while London’s Calling is very much about getting back on your own two feet (possibly with the help of a fairy physician) it’s also a story about family and friends, especially friends I feel. We’re headed into a very uncertain world. Friends are important when things are scary, when ghostly Redcoats invade your home town or when you suddenly realize certain parts of your life you thought might finally be safe…aren’t, anymore. It is up to us to help make them safe again, in large print or fine, big or small. That’s London’s job, ultimately, though they tend to carry rather more of the burden on their back than perhaps they should. And it’s mine too, in some very small way. If this book helps relieve just one of you of that heavy weight pressing down against your shoulders, your spine, your legs, I will have done my job as an author.
K and I will be attending Arisia this January, as well as Boskone (fingers crossed here, haven’t heard back about Author’s Alley and all that for Boskone yet). I will have London’s Calling with me, as well as the entire SBA trilogy, in print for the first time at Arisia! Please stop by and say hello, especially if you carry a burden.
I might have something that can help with that.
