Helix Strike drops this week, the sequel to Drop Zone, and it picks up heartbeats after Drop Zone concludes. Sever Squad’s in trouble, trapped on a world filled with enemies known and unknown, and now they’re split up and being hunted. If Drop Zone was the appetizer meant to set the stage, Helix Strike is the delectable entree that defines the meal.
Does that metaphor work? I’m not really sure, but considering Sever Squad started as a diversion to tickle my sci fi action taste buds while digging into superhero work on The Hero’s Code, I’m really happy that it grew into a fully fledged story and now a series. You’re going to see Sever Squad’s adventures continuing because, frankly, they’re a fun group to hang out with and have a penchant for getting into trouble, which, you know, makes for easy writing.
In September, you’re going to see a different type of release. Still sci-fi, still chock full of action, but it’s a little longer than my usual stuff. A little different – I’ve never written first person sci-fi before, and certainly not with a setting like this one. The Farthest Star takes risks, but, in many ways, it’s been the most fun story I’ve written, one that takes a unique world, characters, and conflicts and spins it into a fully-fledged tale. This one is looking like a trilogy, and you’ll get your first look at it next month.
Splitting away from the books for a bit, I’ve been digging back through some movies. Disney+ dropped X-men: Days of Future Past not that long ago, and I hadn’t seen it since its theatrical days – I’ve heard an alternate edition, “The Rogue Cut”, presents a better story but alas, that’s not here – so took the opportunity to run back through the superhero series that started it all for me. The O.G. X-men movie from the late nineties, as goofy as it feels next to polished fare from the MCU, still presents an appealing, somewhat serious look at beloved characters. If you’ve resisted running back through this series, I think it’s worth a revisit – just skip The Last Stand, or hate watch it knowing Future Past obliterates its awfulness, and then skip everything after Future Past too. Not worth it.
I’ve gotta say, Notion, if you’ve not heard of it, is an amazing system that will suck all your time away tuning it to perfection. I use it to track virtually everything related to my books, publishing calendar, and housekeeping tasks. I even write in the app, because its cloud connectivity and ability to easily jump from one scene to the next, and from one status to the next, presents an easy way to keep going no matter where I happen to be. And with a young kiddo, that flexibility is paramount.