So about that book thing…

I’ve been teasing a third book project in the works for a couple of weeks now, though at the time its general shape was still sort of coalescing in mid-air before my eyes. The skeleton of it has evolved to a point now where I feel comfortable enough to make an announcement. I think it’s safe to say that you’ll probably dig this if you even remotely liked VWORP!1.

Where VWORP!1 was a guide to Doctor Who from 1963-2011, and VWORP!2 will be a guide to the Doctor’s spinoffs and adventures in other media (not to mention an update covering the 2012-2013 episodes), The Yank’s Guide To British Science Fiction TV will cover – get ready for the gag! – 42 notable small-screen science fiction offerings that aren’t in the Doctor’s universe. Like the VWORP! series, it will naturally be from an American perspective, and the gist of the book is: so you like Doctor Who. What else is out there that might tickle the same gene?

The 42 television shows covered will include both notable series and notable one-off TV movies. Some of them are notable for being awesome. A few of them are notable for being… not so awesome. In addition to guides to each show covered, whether it’s a single movie or a series lasting four or five seasons, there’s a write-up on each one, establishing both the fictional and factual background of each show. Writers, actors and directors familiar to Who fans will be flagged for special attention. There will also be between-chapter asides, much like VWORP!1’s short hops.

This book covers shows I’ve loved for years, shows I’ve always wanted to see, shows I’ve always been told to steer clear of, and shows I’d never heard of before I started doing the research. Shows will be covered that you’ve never heard of.

If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath on seeing The Yank’s Guide anytime before early 2014. Really. Just inhale. Don’t hold it in. Stop that right now. The color of blue that your skin turns to really doesn’t bring out your eyes.

So the plan right now is as follows:

• Summer 2013: WARP!1 – Star Trek guide covering the original series, animated series, tangentially-related Roddenberry productions of the 1970s, the movies (up to “Into Darkness”), ST:TNG and ST:DS9
• Late 2013: VWORP!2 – Doctor Who guide covering 2012-2013 seasons, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures, K-9 spinoff, Big Finish main range audios, fan films, possibly Big Finish Companion Chronicles
• Spring/Summer 2014?: The Yank’s Guide To British Science Fiction TV – does what it says on the box
• Late 2014/early 2015?: Phosphor Dot Fossils – here, you didn’t think you were going to get out of this alive without me turning Phosphor Dot Fossils into a book, did you? Exact format/content TBA
• Late 2015?: VWORP!3 – Doctor Who guide covering 2014/15 seasons, novels and comics, audio spinoffs
• TBA: WARP!2 – Star Trek guide covering Voyager, Enterprise, and any movies/TV projects that pop up between 2013 and then

It’s good to know what you need to do when you get up in the morning. I’m tremendously enjoying working on these. (“Of course you are, you goober, you’re sitting around watching TV!” I hear you saying. There’s more to it than that. I put in writing time on one or more of these projects every day. It’s a discipline. And it’s a difficult discipline to maintain around the schedule of taking care of the boy, taking care of my usual househusband routine, still looking for a “real” job since I haven’t exactly gotten into the same solar system as the bestseller lists yet, and so on.)

As always, I hope you like reading the stuff as much as I like writing it.

I’ve made jokes on the forums before about starting a Kickstarter to basically pay me a year’s salary so I can just write books. That is just a joke. It’s also not really what Kickstarter’s for – it’d be like saying “Hey, give me money so I can devote all of my time to writing books, which you’ll then still have to buy from me at the end of the day.” If I were seeing someone else do that as a Kickstarter project – and I have seen projects that were almost that exact setup – I’d find it extremely suspect.

One thing that does have to give in this equation is theLogBook e’zine. As much as I love putting that thing together – and as good as I think it was getting – it’s too much of a time sink, and it’s a time sink I can’t possibly make any money from. That time and energy needs to go into the books, because as much as the ‘zine has no chance of making any money, the books have a very slim outside chance of helping to bring home the entirely hypothetical bacon. The ‘zine has been huge fun, and I hate to let go of it, but it’s a detour, a distraction. It’s that discipline thing again.

So now you know what that book thing is all about. I’ll go into detail on the shows being covered at a later date, but feel free to ask me about specific titles, and I’ll either confirm or deny. Or dodge the question completely and run away giggling.