September is turning into one of those months where several different parts of my writing life seem to be colliding at once.

And, strangely enough, I kind of love it.

The Silent Core Arrives September 22

First, The Silent Core officially releases September 22.

This book has been living in my head for a long time, and it is probably one of the most directly “me” stories I’ve written.

At its heart, The Silent Core asks a question I keep coming back to both as a science-fiction writer and as someone fascinated by where technology is taking us:

What does it mean to be human when intelligence is no longer uniquely human?

Artificial intelligence, memory, identity, consciousness, agency—those ideas are rapidly moving out of science fiction and into the world around us. The Silent Core plays in that increasingly blurry space between technology and humanity, while still being, first and foremost, a story about people.

Seeing the finished book finally make its way into the world is always a strange feeling. You spend months—or years—living inside a story, obsessing over characters and sentences and tiny pieces of continuity that approximately three people on Earth may ever notice.

Then one day you hit publish.

And it belongs to everyone else.

The Silent Core releases September 22 in ebook and print.

Meanwhile, Back in the Shadows…

While one book is heading out the door, another has reached an entirely different milestone.

The first draft of Crucible of Shadows is complete.

That sentence feels very good to type.

Crucible of Shadows is the third book in the Seana Byrne storyline, following Shadow of Light and Edge of Defiance, and it has grown into exactly the kind of sprawling science-fiction story I apparently enjoy inflicting upon myself.

Civilizations collide. Old enemies resurface. New threats emerge. Seana and the people around her are forced to confront some uncomfortable consequences of everything that has happened before.

And because finishing a first draft is apparently not enough suffering, I have now entered what every writer knows as:

Editing Hell.

The stage where I discover all the fascinating decisions Past Robb made and Current Robb must now somehow explain.

Why is this planet called something different thirty chapters later?

Why did this character apparently teleport?

Did I establish this piece of technology two books ago, or did I merely think about establishing it?

Why did I write this sentence?

Who approved this?

Unfortunately, I am the answer to that last question.

The good news is that the story is there. Now comes the part I genuinely enjoy despite complaining about it endlessly: tightening the narrative, strengthening the characters, fixing continuity, and turning a completed manuscript into the book I actually intended to write.

And Then There Were Three

Because finishing one manuscript and releasing another clearly isn’t enough, my attention is also beginning to drift toward the next project.

I’m preparing to begin writing Book Three of the Stellar Reach Series.

The Stellar Reach books occupy a different corner of my universe than the Seana Byrne stories, and returning to that side of the sandbox feels exciting.

There is something uniquely fun about starting a new novel.

At this point everything is still possible.

The characters haven’t ignored my outline yet.

The plot hasn’t developed opinions.

Nobody has unexpectedly become important enough to require seventy additional pages.

It’s peaceful.

It won’t last.

Right now I’m beginning the early work: ideas, characters, themes, pieces of worldbuilding, and the first hints of the story that will eventually become the next Stellar Reach novel.

Soon enough there will be a blank page.

Then a sentence.

Then another.

And eventually—if history is any indication—another enormous manuscript that I will someday complain about editing.

Such is the glamorous life of an author.

For now, though, I’m celebrating the milestones.

The Silent Core arrives September 22.

Crucible of Shadows has a completed first draft and is officially deep in edits.

And somewhere in the distance, the third Stellar Reach novel is beginning to take shape.

Not a bad place to be.