Icaran Confederation Navy (Coming Soon)

My next series of books is military science fiction, a Navy in space.

I’ve read a lot of space Navy books, and while I’ve liked a lot of them I’ve also cringed at how poor a job most military scifi does at portraying Navy people, doing Navy things.

Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Navy, and I know how it works.  So I figured if I’m going to complain about other writers messing it up, I better put up and do it better myself.  So here we go.

I’ve got this thing planned out for a good long ways (by planned out I mean I have concepts in my head, not outlines or anything).  I envision this will be a Horatio Hornblower in space kind of thing, following an officer from his first ship as a raw Ensign all the way until he gets tired of the Navy and retires (as in until I get tired of writing about him).  Should be fun.

Here’s what I’ve got planned so far.

Book One: Warfare Qualified (In Progress)

Join the Navy.  See the Galaxy.  Meet interesting people, and kill them.

For Ensign Matthew Gilbert, a newly-minted officer in the Icaran Confederation Navy, putting to space on his first warship marks the culmination of years of hard training.  As he completes Tactical School, he and his friends look forward to a grand adventure together on the newest, most powerful ship in the fleet.

Instead, a last-minute change in orders sends Matt, alone, to a backwater station on an aging ship he never would have chosen.  There he will have to contend against an unfamiliar culture, semi-hostile natives, overweening superiors, constant maintenance issues, mischievous sailors, and less than helpful peers on the way to his goal: earning the golden warfare device of a fully qualified Stellar Warfare Officer.

And that’s all just in his first year.

Technically detailed and capturing the culture of a Naval vessel in a way that only a 20-year Navy veteran could, Warfare Qualified is a fun and exciting excursion into the life of a junior officer, far from home on his first adventure in a large and dangerous galaxy.

Estimated completion date is the end of the year, for a release in February or March of 2018.

Stay tuned!