Exordium -- at last in ebook format!

Beloved spouse, davetrow, says of his newly-ebook-releasedExordium, The Phoenix in Flight:

If you're looking for space opera with “coruscating, ravening beams of unstoppable force” (in every color but purple), devious aristocratic intrigue and sexual tension, and high-velocity custard flingers, check out The Phoenix in Flight.

From BVC: Smith and Trowbridge describe the flavor of their five-book space opera Exordium as a cross between Star Wars and Dangerous Liaisons with a touch of the Three Stooges. With its faWant death rays, aristocratic intrigue and sexual tension, and high-velocity custard flingersst-moving blend of humor and horror, of high-tech skiffy and the deep places of the human heart, The Phoenix in Flight launches the reader into a complex, multi-layered universe as Brandon nyr-Arkad, dissolute youngest son of the ruler of the Thousand Suns, abandons the life of Service planned for him and flees into the lawless Rift. Only slowly does he discover that the world he rejected now lies in smoking ruins as the ritual vengeance of Jerrode Eusabian against Brandon’s father, twenty years in preparation, culminates in an explosion of interstellar violence. With both his brothers dead and his father the Panarch imprisoned, Brandon becomes the Panarchy’s last hope.

Why Stories Are Like Bodies

From The Physiology of Foreshadowing, guest blog by Alina Klein.

1. Every component must serve a purpose (or two).

2. Padding, no matter how luscious, is best kept to a minimum.

3. Bits that aren’t working should be removed like the gall bladders they are.

4. Characters=kidneys, it’s okay to remove one if the other can do its work.

5. Neither a novel nor a body needs an appendix.