The Expanding Universe

I have a story in a newly-released military sci-fi anthology, The Expanding Universe: Volume 11. This is part of a long-running sci fi series hosted by Craig Martelle, a well-known sci fi author and indie publishing guru and advocate. My story is about a space marine special forces operative who's behind enemy lines with her local Etascan spotter when she gets orders from command that the humans are pulling out of the Etascan civil war. They have to figure out what to do and how to extricate themselves, and she really doesn't want to let down her partner and friend.

There are 26 stories spanning over 700 pages, some from really big names in the indie sci fi community. The book released on September 15 in ebook and paperback. It is 100% free for Kindle Unlimited users for the first three months. It shot to some pretty high sales rankings in the space and military sci-fi categories on Amazon today, so a lot of people are checking it out. I hope you'll have a look!

Unwelcome Matt is available at my store

Also on September 15th, I got a huge shipment of paperbacks to restock my home store. That includes my new book, Unwelcome Matt, which you can get from me or from Amazon. I offer paperbacks for all my books that I send out through my store page. That's a direct link to the page, but you can also always get there from the Shop link on my website, DaveDobsonBooks.com.

If you order from me, I am happy to sign the books and include a message, and you can enter whatever you want me to include on the order page. That makes it great for personalized gifts. I also have a bunch of cool bookmarks that I include. The books are $14.99, but you get discounts of $2 or $3 the more you order, and shipping to any U.S. address is free, which usually makes them cheaper to order from me than from Amazon.

Writing Update

I've now started a 5th book in my Inquisitor's Guild series and am making some headway, although it's early days. This one is about a clerk at the Guild rather than an inspector, a guy who was in a magical accident when he was younger and suffered some permanent injuries, so it's a little different from my others. I'm excited to see how it turns out. I don't write those with any kind of outline, so I'm discovering the story as I go, like I usually do, not knowing how a chapter will end when I start it. It's a little like riding a horse blindfolded, but it's a lot of fun for me. I've been going back through the previous four Inquisitors' Guild books frequently to make sure I keep everything - people, places, lore, Frosthelm's government - consistent with the earlier stories.

My friend and writing partner Sarah Estow and I are also nearly done with a first draft of the novel project we're working on. It's a romance novel, but it's also a mystery story and a humorous sketch of academic life (we're both former professors, so we drew on lots of experiences). Botanist Flora Fineman and American Studies professor Mark Reynolds are thrown together on Budget committee and, despite a history of not getting along, they agree to work together to piece together evidence. Something shady may be going on, and they're going to find out how deep it goes.

This has been a terrific experience for me, probably the thing that's brought me the most joy this year. Sarah and I started in May, and we have monthly meetings of our tiny little literary society, so in five months, we've gone from ground zero to a highly developed outline, research notes, and a long file of supporting information and details about our world and people. Each month we map out the next section of the book and figure out what's going to happen (although we still surprise each other sometimes). I am so excited each time Sarah sends me a new installment, and I drop everything and write my part next, so we've kept up a pretty good clip with our alternating chapters. I sent Chapter 30 to Sarah last night, and that got us past 67,000 words, out of a probable total of about 80,000 for the first draft.

I'm not sure how fast we'll get it revised and edited. We're keeping a list of stuff we need to work on or clear up, and the document is full of comments to each other. Sarah's got another project she's hoping to revise after we finish this draft, and it usually helps to set a book aside for a little bit before diving into edits anyway, so we might not get it out to our early readers until later in the year, and of course there will be another round of revisions after that. Sarah's got an agent, too, so she will likely get to look at it first to see if it's something she's interested in representing, so it may be a while before we figure out how this book gets to readers. Still, it's super exciting, and we'll figure it all out, probably in the first half of 2026.

Thanks!

Thanks so much for being part of my newsletter community. I'm really excited to be back in Frosthelm and sending inspectors around the city investigating shady criminals and weird magic. I'm hoping to get a draft of that done by November, so it could be out early next year.

I hope you and your friends and family are doing well, having fun, and staying safe. Thanks so much for reading.

May the Bloodmother watch over you - 

Dave