I have some good book news and some bad book news.

Bad news first: After all the months of waiting, Backwoods Home received two advance copies of Hardyville Tales this week. Uh oh. Something went wrong in the layout that makes the books difficult to read.

The Duffys are considering various options. The book will find its way into all our hands. But there could be further delay. :-(

But … the good news: Carl Bussjaeger, a long-time, hard-working friend of liberty who wrote the SF novel Net Assets has put the sequel online. You can satisfy your good-book jones by purchasing Bargaining Position for just five bucks.

I’ve just begun reading my copy, so all I can tell you so far is that it’s well-written and leaps right in with an interesting premise (though I really do wish it didn’t contain the word “perkies”). Carl’s a good writer.

Here’s the teaser for Bargaining Position from his website:

Deep space manned flight is a long-established reality.

When governments failed to live up to their own hype, and in fact refused to get out of the way, dedicated people set out on their own. They were immediately followed by the damned, the desperate, the hopeful, and the curious;each have their own motivations and methods, but generally speaking, they are out to make a living. They have largely left earth to muddle its way out of its own centuries’ worth of troubles.

But there are a couple of catches. Beyond an environment near-instantly lethal to the careless; beyond back-breakingly hard work; beyond distances that can be computed but are more difficult to imagine; beyond all that is catch number one: Unscrupulous operators were among those motivated to head out.

Catch number two?

Someone else got there first.

What begins as a purely speculative prospecting venture quickly escalates into a multi-sided battle for the ultimate prize for people still learning to live in space.

Carl would also probably tell you that Bargaining Position isn’t actually a sequel. It’s the novel he first set out to write. Net Assets, published a few years back, was actually written to supply background for this story. NA is available in paperback, Kindle, and other ebook formats. BP is in .doc form for now.

You can also preview Carl’s books online for free.

In the more more bad book news department … You know the term “starving writer”? Well, Carl hasn’t been paid by his publisher — not a dime — and he’s in some pretty serious hurt because of that. So please buy a book from Carl if you can; you’ll be doing a good deed for both Carl and yourself. If you can’t afford a book or want to give a bit more, you can also throw a few bucks his way via the Amazon.com “tip jar” on his site.

Oh yeah, and Mr. Publisher Man? You. The guy who took Carl’s books for so-far nothing: Pay up. I don’t care what your problems are. If you’ve got a shred of honor, give the man his due.

Share or Bookmark