Corvette 2 Release Date

Busy weekend. I’ve uploaded a stub for the next Corvette book and it’s now up for Pre-Sale on Amazon. So far, five eager readers have ordered it. Many thanks! It’s already done better in pre-sale than three of my back list books! The actual release date is this coming Tuesday, 14 November 2017. So it won’t have but a long weekend to gather pre-sales.

In preparation for the release I’ve also spent some time updating this website with a new page for the book and adding it to the front page. The cover I’m using is not quite final yet but it’s close enough. We’re going to add that it’s book 2 of the Corvette Trilogy and then alter the old book 1 cover to match. Details, details.

In the meantime, I’m still pounding on the Corvette 3 first draft. I’ve realized that I might actually need an outline for this one and so will take some time to organize it before continuing on. I have plans to do another trilogy following the career of Armon Vance, so I have to make sure the final Corvette book sets up the story arch for that trilogy. If it gets written, and that depends on sales and sales alone, that series will be called the Destroyer Trilogy. I think you can guess he’ll be captaining a destroyer starship.

Next year will be dominated by finishing the third Corvette book and working on the fifth Star Saga novel – XiniX. Can’t wait to get back to those characters again and see what the Silicants have been up to for the past five hundred years. Sometime in the next two months I will do a post on how my book sales have done this year. Thanks to the first Corvette novella, it’s been a pretty damn good year.

July is K’nat Month

Looking for a quick, fun read this summer? Then get yourself a copy of K’nat Trap. It’s loaded with starfighter fights, carnivorous alien squids and Special Forces Pravda. How can you miss with all of that? So go and order yours today so it’s automagically on your Kindle or Kindle app on the 18th. If you can’t wait until then, order your paperback copy now and be reading it in just a few days shipping time.

Here’s the cover blurbage:

Starstrikers agents Kiloe and Tamia team up to capture a new Votainion starfighter with NexGen technology.

On a remote, enemy held planet, a K’nat starfighter has crash landed intact. Commander Kiloe is sent on a one way mission to repair it and fly it to a nearby Alliance cruiser where Tamia is waiting to help recover the enemy starfighter. But more than just the Votainions are preventing him from recovering the starfighter. He also has to deal with a sentient alien who has an insatiable appetite. Can the Special Forces team recover the secret enemy fighter or will their efforts be thwarted by a vicious alien and best efforts of the enemy?

Here are some of the cool ships featured in K’nat Trap. You can find complete build pages in the Model Builds page of this site.

K’nat Fighter
Terrox Fighter
GCU Sherman Cruiser

Launch Day for CORVETTE!

Today’s the official release day for my latest novella, Corvette. You can get it exclusively on Amazon for the Kindle and in paperback. If you have pre-ordered your ebook, check your Kindle device or app to read it now! Corvette takes place before Starforgers, Book One of the Star Saga. It’s a great place to start if you are considering reading the Star Saga. Consider it Book Zero of the series.

Thirty years before the start of the Great War, a small starship has a deadly encounter with a massive alien warship on the fringes of the Outer Rim.

When Lieutenant Armon Vance found himself assigned to the oldest ship in the fleet, stationed on the edge of the known galaxy, he figured his Fleet career was over. In fact he was about to embark on the most important mission of his young career and his captain would rely heavily on him to help them get back alive after encountering a massive military warship of the Votainion Armada. In the spirit of grand Naval adventures of the past, Corvette packs exciting military action into a swiftly moving story of heroics and bravery in deep space.

As always, please be kind and leave a review. Thanks!

 

 

 

Devon’s Blade Now On Nook And Kobo

My most successful novella, Devon’s Blade, is now available outside of Kindle for the first time. You can purchase the ebook on Nook, Kobo and Kindle for just $.99 cents. There are no plans to bring the ebook to Apple or Google stores at this time, but there could be a paperback version in the not too distant future.

If you like your Military SF realistic and your starfighters fast and deadly, this one is for you. The story takes place after Starforgers and before The Rising and features the same heroine, Devon Ardel. It’s a completely self contained story that fits in nicely with the other Star Saga novels.

 

Two Novellas for a Buck Each

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Both of my Sci-Fi novellas are now only .99 cents on Amazon Kindle. Devon’s Blade and The Blood Empress both feature strong, independent female characters. They are quick, exciting stories that introduce you to my Star Saga universe. Devon’s Blade is the star of the first three novels and Empress Nykostra is the main villain. Both of these stories can be read independently of the Star Saga but if you want more, get Starforgers, Book One of the series – also only .99 cents.

Devon’s Blade Earns 5 Stars From Readers’s Favorite

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“Devon’s Blade is a solid sci-fi novella with an old school air combat appeal. It kept me interested from start to finish.” Readers’ Favorite

This little novella is starting to garner some praise out in the world. Reader’s Favorite is the latest, giving it a Five Star review!

Previous reviews include this one from Self-Publishing Review -“If you’re a fan of war fiction, especially with aerial fighting, and like your science fiction to have a large dose of recognizable realism, Devon’s Blade is action-packed, well-researched, and a fun read.” Self-Publishing Review

 

 

 

 

 

Bad Girl As A Hero

Can a villain be a hero in her own story? This is the central premise of my novella, The Blood Empress. Empress Nykostra is the ruthless leader of the Votainion Empire and the prime instigator in the war with the human Alliance. Her parents were killed in a vicious attempt to overthrow her Kastra as the ruling house of Voton. Thrust upon the throne of the largest space faring empire in the galaxy as a girl of only nine, she was immediately controlled by the royal Soothsayers. Rebelling against their hold on herself and her people, Nykostra took her daddy’s falchion and beheaded her chief Soothsayer the Kwizara Lonn. In a rage of violence and uncontrolled anger, she drank his still warm blood and gained his ancient ability to see the future. Thus was born the Blood Empress of Voton.

This is all we know of her from the novel, Starforgers. Until now.

Nykostra’s journey was far from over and it took her off the Votainion home world and directly onto the fiery sands of yet another Votainion enemy. The Blood Empress is a coming of age story unlike any other in the galaxy. It’s the story of how a young woman fell in love, avenged herself and eventually sided with another alien enemy to end a war. For generations the Votainion Empire had been at war with the Benzotii. Valuable war resources were being held up in this war by nearby Votainion Kastras. Resources that Nykostra needed to fight her war with the human Alliance. In order to get those warships she needed to end the war with Benzotii. This is the story of her thrilling adventure to the Benzotii planet of Con One and how she lead a rebellion against one of her own Kastras to end the war. It is the story of a young girl becoming a woman and a legend among her own people and the Benzotti people.

The Blood Empress takes place between The Rising, Book 2 and Counterattack, Book 3 of the Star Saga. It’s a stand alone story that can be read on it’s own or you can read it after reading The Rising. If bold characters, exciting action and thrilling plots are your thing, you’ll love this book.

Currently available exclusively on the Kindle.

TheBloodEmpress_Cover_Small

 

Free Short Story Ebook

To celebrate the release of my first novella, Devon’s Blade, I’m offering a free short story. Ambush! is set on Kew and is the antithesis of Devon’s Blade in that we see life from the Votainion side. What it’s like to be a pilot flying the KiV-3 against the Alliance pilots. You can get your free ebook for Kindle (mobi) and epub with the links below. If you like the story, please take a moment to purchase Devon’s Blade because you’ll really enjoy that one.

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(epub) http://ken-mcconnell.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=12

(mobi) http://ken-mcconnell.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=13

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Pre-order the novella here. –> http://www.amazon.com/Devons-Blade-Ken-McConnell-ebook/dp/B015Y01CO8

This novella ebook is only available for Kindle for the first 90 days. I’ll be going wide with it after that.

My Next Novella

This week I’ve started writing my next novella, Devon’s Blade. This story is set between Starforgers and The Rising and deals with Devon Ardel’s efforts to turn around the fortunes of a fighter squadron on a remote planetary base. This is straight up military Sci-Fi with a tight, war-time plot and lots of combat action. If you like war movies about fighter pilots, this is your story to read.

I’m changing my writing process for this novella. Instead of using Plume Creator for my first draft, I’ll be using Google Docs. What this means is that I can now write anywhere I have internet connection and I’m not limited to using my writing laptop. This is generally an experiment for me, not a new direction. I still love using Plume and my Ubuntu computer but just wanted to try something different and use Chrombooks as much as possible. I figured this would be the right time to try this on a novella instead of a full blown novel. I expect this story to be between 40 and 50 thousand words.

I don’t have any special scripts to manipulate my documents, I’m just using whatever GDocs provides me. I have set up a folder structure on my GDrive (cloud drive provided by Google) and will use only Google tools to track word count and outline.

 

Above you can see Chapter 1 is being written here along with the Research tab open for Navy rank identification.

 

This is the start of the outline using a spreadsheet to track word and page counts. I’ve already added the story beats per Act as suggested by Larry Brooks in his seminal book, Story Engineering. Buy it, read it, learn it, live it. I’m outlining this novella about a chapter ahead of where I’m at because I know my story structure is already in place with the outline template.

 

This is my top level file structure for the novella on my GDrive.

 

This is my two page synopsis from which I based my outline.

I’m toying with the idea of letting the folks look at what I write as I write it. I can assign read only privileges to folks interested in watching my progress. This will only apply to the chapters folder and there is no guarantee that what I write will be readable. My first drafts tend to be horrible, just ask my editor. But for those willing to read along as I create, I’m more than willing to let you shoulder surf. If that sort of thing interests you, please send me an email requesting to do so. ken.mcconnell@gmail.com