Tom DeLonge and A.J. Hartley's "Sekret Machines: A Fire Within" is scheduled for release this fall

Other projects are also in the editorial stage. Some of you (those who have been badgering relentlessly er... requesting updates for about a year now) will be pleased to hear that the second in the SEKRET MACHINES series, my collaboration with Tom DeLonge, is done and going through its final polishing. The new book, which was mostly drafted last year, picks up where the last left off, though it has quite a different and invigorating feel, I think. It’s always important in the second book of a series to extend and build upon the first while ensuring that the new volume is a distinctly different entity, not just “more of the same.” I’m confident that this one does just that, moving the series into still stranger, more uncanny territory on the edges of what is sometimes called The Phenomenon. The new installment is subtitled A FIRE WITHIN and is scheduled for release this fall. As you may have already seen, Tom and I will soon be doing a joint presentation and signing book 1 in Los Angeles at the end of March. These are always fun events so join us if you can.

Speaking of the balancing act involved in writing second books

–or indeed middle books in the case of a trilogy–I’m also finishing the first draft of the second CATHEDRALS OF GLASS book, tentatively titled  VALKRYS WAKES. This one picks up several months after the end of PLANET OF BLOOD AND ICE, beginning when Sola discovers a secret realm to the frozen planet on which she and her friends are stranded, leading to an unexpected reunion with someone she thought lost for ever, and the possibility of an escape from the barren planet. But all is not as it seems on Valkrys, and what happens next will test Sola’s mind as much as the strength and endurance which have kept her alive thus far.

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