It’s been about a month since the last time I did a ‘news’ article on upcoming projects from Star Wars authors and other media-tie in projects - so I figured it was about time to do the usual round up. This time around you’ll find news about Greg Keyes, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Alan Dean Foster, Timothy Zahn, Karen Traviss, Sean Williams and Christie Golden - as well as some FREE fiction available for you to download. Sometimes this all feels like six degrees of separation - watch and see how three books planned for release on the same date, along with authors working on the same anthologies, nearly connects this entire cast of authors past the break. 

Most of this Greg Keyes info comes to us from the book blog A Dribble of Ink. First up, there’s the cover and blurb for The Infernal City, the Elder Scrolls videogame tie-in novel being published in trade paperback on Nov. 24th:

Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow–for wherever it falls, people die and rise again.

And it is in Umbriel’s shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest….

Then comes the news that Greg Keyes will also be writing a short story based on his Fool Wolf series for the Swords & Dark Magic anthology coming out next year. This anthology is set to also feature Joe Abercrombie, Gene Wolfe, Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Scott Lynch, James Enge, and C.J. Cherryh (with more names to come).

Last in the coverage of all things Keyes comes the news that The Briar King (one of my favorite novels) is FREE in the Amazon Kindle store.

It’s been stated elsewhere in our forums, but for anyone who isn’t already aware, there will be books next summer continuing the new Star Trek movie timeline, and Alan Dean Foster is set to write one of them – Star Trek: Refugees. According to the author’s blog:

STAR TREK: REFUGEES is coming along nicely, and I just finished a portion of a chapter that I’ve been wanting to write ever since the new film came out. You’ll know it instantly when you read it (if they don’t cut it). The rough draft of STAR TREK: REFUGEES, the first sequel novel to the ST film, is finished and I expect to turn in the final draft before the end of next month. I’m very pleased with it.

Foster is also  finishing up his SICK, INC. rewrite, following which he plans to conclude the Tipping Point trilogy with THE SUM OF HER PARTS. Foster also talks about a D&D original story he’s done, called POINT MAID, which he seems to indicate may lead to more work of his in that universe. Also, Alan Dean Foster along with Timothy Zahn (as well as Star Trek writer Keith DeCandido and many others) have written stories for More Tales of Zorro, the second anothology collection of original Zorro stories (I’ve included the cover for the first one here, which included A.C. Crispin as one of its authors).

I’ve previously shown the cover for Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Diving into the Wreck, as well as shared the author’s description, but now we’ve got the full cover and blurb courtesy of Pyr.

Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she’s an active historian. She wants to know about the past—to experience it firsthand. Once she’s dived the ship, she’ll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It’s a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people.

Then one day, Boss finds the claim of a lifetime: an enormous spacecraft, incredibly old, and apparently Earth-made. It’s impossible for something so old, built in the days before Faster Than Light travel, to have journeyed this far from Earth. It shouldn’t be here. It can’t be here. And yet, it is. Boss’s curiosity is up, and she’s determined to investigate. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her, the best team she can assemble. But some secrets are best kept hidden, and the past won’t give up its treasures without exacting a price in blood.

What Boss finds could rewrite history, cost lives, and start an intergalactic war.

Like the Keyes book, Diving into the Wreck is coming out on Nov 24th in TPB for $16.00. Trade Paperback seems to be the book format of choice, as Halo: Evolutions – Essential Tales of the Halo Universe will also be coming in that format, on that same day. This short story anthology in the world of Halo will feature stories by a number of writers, including regular series writers Eric Nylund and Tobias Buckell, as well as Karen Traviss forst foray into this universe.

And I’ll leave you with just a few more tid-bits from author blogs. After the success of Arthas, Christie Golden is apparently working on another World of Warcraft novel. Meanwhile, Sean Williams talks about the Austrailan release of The New Space Opera 2 (which I reviewed for a previous column, and you might recall also includes a story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch) and mentions that his story from this anthology takes place in the same universe as a previous story (A Map of the Mines of Barnath) and that he has plans for a full novel set in this universe called Godlike Machines. Lastly, here’s a look at the cover art for next year’s The Map of All Things (Terra Incognita book 2) by Kevin Anderson.