About Mac
Mac' Chandler is supposedly retired. At the end of 2022 I moved from Rochester MI to the milder climate of North Carolina and a condo without steps much more suited to my age. (75 as I write this)
Writing is still fun and I intend to continue as long as my mind stays fresh. I'm not a expert on English or a skilled grammarian but I love to tell a story. I thank all the people who take a moment to tell me they enjoyed my work.
Yay! ETA?
Happy New Year!
Good work! Here’s hoping editing goes well, and quickly!
Happy dance!
Be glad you can’t see it, you don’t want to break your eyes.
I’m always excited to see another book in the April or Family Law series. Hope editing goes well.
Great news. Hope to see it soon
Can’t wait!
Ohhhhh wow! This means we can buy & read it soon!!!!
Here’s hoping they are fast readers
Whatever comes our way 🙂 Familiy Law 3 already gave a really nice preview into Aprils future.
Loved the crossover!
And a belated happy New Year from me too!
Awesome! Can’t wait to read new installment to story! Happy new year.
They must have read it by now.
Do the suggested changes look like they will be quick?
Is this story ed or copy ed or both?
If it is anything like Family Law 3, I will start looking for it in March or April of 2016.
That sad part is since I know it ready I can’t wait it like please tell me when I can throw money at the arthur and get a copy
Are you finished yet?
No?
How about now?
Or now?
Out to readers. Have edited from one response. I think I made more errors than before. Silly little errors that embarrass. Gotta search images for a cover too.
Ohhhhhhh
Exciting!
Fingers x’d they are fast readers!
Hmmmm
Being cheeky here….. is it possible to purchase an early “errors & all” copy….. so we can read it sooner?
Not cheeky. That’s called an ARC – an advanced reader copy. So far the only ones I’ve done that for was for somebody who was so ill they thought they might not live to see the regular publication. And they didn’t guilt me to do it – I volunteered it. It isn’t like conventional publishing business where the publication process can run a year or more. I expect to have it up by the end of the month. Of course if you win the lotto and just can’t wait you can PayPal $100 to my e-mail addy you see here and that is enough to motivate me to send you a copy with all my embarrassing errors straight to your in-box. ; ) I’m not cheeky enough to ask $1,000 even if you win the Power Ball. What file format did you want?
Please tells us how many rich readers take you up on this offer.
If I had the Power Ball money (but it won’t happen since I won’t buy a ticket), your books would be one of the few I might do that sort of thing to get a early copy. The more likely occurrence would be buy multiple copies of paper and ebooks for all the local libraries.
Sadly no $100 books sold. I don’t buy any lotto tickets either.
If I win Lotto I’d certainly be tempted lol!
I’m just impatient! I love reading your stories!
Extremely Hyped for this
Glad you like them. There’s a lot of filling in back story and finishing out events on Earth in this. If it doesn’t have quite the scale of conflict and events of a couple earlier books in the series, but it has known characters doing interesting things. And lays the ground work for #8. Seven books into a series it would be too easy to make it ALL elaboration of back story. I should probably put a disclaimer in the book blurbs at this point suggesting people start from the beginning. It’s impossible to explain in rich detail who everybody is and how they relate to others. Knowing those things helps. You read it and say – Oh, yeah. That’s Jeff – or whoever…
Its nice to get updates about book. Just telling us it’s closer to publishing is making me excited. Have been putting your page on amazon up every day and hitting refresh once an hour and putting up your webpage and doing the same 🙂
Unfortunately, http://www.changedetection.com sends me an alert only once a day, so I try very hard to be good and not keep loading Mac’s website constantly. Still not good at waiting, drat it.
Thanks for all your hard work and great imagination, Mac. Love your stories.
-jimh.
Thank you for that website. Makes things easier. Created account and put Mackey Chandlers Amazon page on alerts LOL.
I’m using the rss-feeds to give me alerts. If you want mails, then you can feed them to blogtrottr.com or feedmyinbox.com, the shortest interval is 1 hour.
New Posts are here:
https://mackeychandler.com/feed/
All new comments are here:
https://mackeychandler.com/comments/feed/
You’re more of a power user than me…
Looks like amazon does changes in the background a fair bit. Already had 2 updates to page and no visible changes lol. Pretty good though. Was worried about to many false positives but only 2 in one week is not bad.
if you are amendable I love to ask a couple questions about the Aprils series firstly I want to say that there have been many series about the collapse of the constitution within a republic. as well as conflict with china but your books do so from a vastly different perspective that of a nation that wants to stay the hell away from that mess which makes watching it happens uniquely different.
My question is about “the three” in your latest book of family law we saw a royal guard refer to them as the three in a way that implies there whole society sees them as guardians of their way of life. and indeed in the current April 6 books we see that most people of home view them with a kind of distant awe they as a group did not archive independence alone but they were bright and center for almost every moment if getting it and keeping it.
My question is how do the people of home feel about these three because we really haven’t seen it expressed by any of the other characters yet specifically their parents, Do Aprils parents never have a moment where they sit down alone and say our daughter is bombing north America for our freedom how do we feel about that?
Finally I’m looking forward to your future books with great joy I love reading them, we know once this plague bushiness is cleared up the lunar republic is going to declare independence and the tree lunar powers will sign a defense treaty beyond that we know once FTL is discovered the three will move to send their interests in too deep space what’s also interesting is it seems like they keep their tech edge. even from their allies . it seems to me like the people of home and central are turning in to a sort of nobility one with personally integrity ( or at least the pretense of it), honor, and duels. but instead of having peasants who have to give their crops up. The peasants are everyone on the mutball who wants to kick down there castle door and steal their stuff.
That’s reading a little more into it than I intended. I try to avoid making them bigger than life like some series do. For example Honor Harrington on Weber’s series. At some point they need elevated to sainthood. I’m keeping them very human. They’ve moved on from their parents. That’s what kids do. I could detail their visiting but there is only so much I can cram in a book and those details won’t move the plot forward as much as interaction with business and political partners. In the coming book Jeff tells April quite a lot about how Chen regards her and how people seek back channel information from him about her views and what she supports. It’s already difficult to write a 7th April book without making it all backstory. The next book coming up soon only moves the story forward about a year. If I live long enough to finish merging the two series I obviously will have to make it move along a little faster than that.
So you may imagine those moments happen. There is a great deal the readers can fill in from their imagination. That is not always a weakness not to try to explain EVERYTHING.
I will probably mention April’s grandfather and Heather’s mother more often, because I find them more interesting. April’s father gets mentioned due to working for Mitsubishi, but her mother is a minor part of the story line. Jeff’s father and step mother may get brought back in connection with the FTL drive.
You are right the Central theme is one of nobility. Hopefully one where for a change the peasants are not abused. The customs they develop for their royalty and peers will be interesting to write.
I think the independence and sorting out the relationships between the lunar nations and home could take a whole book.
In reference to honor Harrington i have always felt it was more a result of where she was prompted to rather than her being elevated to saint level. she went from commander in book one to senior captain by book seven to commodore-admiral- by book nine I think once she was in charge of fleets there was little chance story wise for her to show her stuff outside of “real Political”. which has been almost all david weber books are now but god did i love her before Cerberus she was a kickass heroine.
I agree there is no need to explain everything i do so love to game out in my head what may be happening the background of your books one of the reasons i love reading so much. I freely admit I’m just speculating where i think the story is going, once of the big things i’m wondering is how taxes are really going to work in central is heather is going to be a queen with any kind of power to protect her people.
central seems to be the sifting priority where April-Heather-Jeff are putting there effort (again speculation). if central is fostering a nobility are all citizens to be nobles or will come be commoners ( after all referring to earthies as peasants is fine but calling anyone from central a peasant not so much : )
Thank you for responding btw don’t take anything i say as criticism I’m one of those people who couldn’t write my way out of a paper bag i just like gaming out how a story can go. thank you for some truly different stories.
One person, in their service, called them “the three”.
The average Lunar citizen might know of then about as much as I know about the government of the UK. There are hints the Lunar Republic is under the strategic umbrella of Central, in which case they would be known. The only indication is the fearful behavior of the guard when Gordon showed the ring, but Central is the landlord there, so again not exactly a common citizen.
So, how they are viewed has not been revealed as yet, and Mackey is unconstrained.
If I may ask, just to have something to think on as we wait (impatiently) for the new book to make its debut, what’s next in the hopper? Are you going on with April, or going back to the Little Fleet? Or perhaps something not connected to either! Whatever it is, I’m confident it will be good! And I think I speak for many when I say Thank you for all your hard work.
The post you are commenting on is about the next April book.
I may finish up one of the stand alone books I have well along.
CONSPIRACY THEORY!?? Honestly, though, anything you write is gonna wind up on my Kindle.
Outcast… I’ve worked on Conspiracy Theory a little. Also have quite a bit of a third stand alone titled Hoo Doo. I’ll post a snippet of it – don’t think I have shown any of it before.
Just curious, did you ever consider a sequel to “Paper or Plastic”?
The one with the aliens approaching earth?
That would be awesome…
I keep wondering if
“The History of Home and the Lunar Powers – Illustrated” by Paddington
mentioned in “Secrets in the Stars” was written by Lindsy Pennington? Also called Lindsey in later books?
Possibly Paddington is either a married name or a typo from Pennington?
Typo. Will change it. Didn’t write a bible for this.
I was re-reading the series and the entire volume where Mo and his family are introduced has the “Paddington” typo whenever Lindsey or her Mother are named, not Mo or Eric.
Also, whenever they are named anywhere in the series, it is April Lewis, Jeff Singh or Heather anderson? Anderson is always appearing as lower case.
At one spot in “Secrets in the Stars”, Lee says she got only as far as the ancient Greeks before her history studies were interrupted, and hadn’t studied anything later. Later in the story, she says she’d read history of the East India Company before her history studies were interrupted.
Guess she’s been reading in her cabin… 😉
ETA on the BOOK?? I’m finished rereading all the other books.
Waiting on the cover – going through it while I have time – to try to remove problems like mentioned below…
Yeh I just finished re-reading 1-6 last night and now picked up 2 single books from Alan black as I think I read most other books similar to April unless someone else knows of any other recommended books?
I’ve read:-
Ell Donsaii series
Family Law Series
America One Series
Vaz Series
The Hunter Legacy series
Koban series
Kinsella series
Bonesetter series
Kris Longknife series
and ofc many other books but those are the ones that seem to be similar according to amazon.
I obviously don’t know your tastes. My suggestions:
Check out all the authors at
http://www.baen.com/baenebooks
Starting with the free library at
http://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012
Also, I suggest you check at all the authors listed at
http://madgeniusclub.com/
They are listed on the side on a PC browser, on the bottom on a mobile browser.
Most of the people who write for MadGeniusClub are friends. Baen authors – I go shooting with them. Sarah Hoyt is a friend and doing my book covers. Her blog is interesting too. Been a long time since I’ve written for it though.
I’ve read a lot of other books by baen authors and been on the MGC site before but didn’t like it as it was hard to find out what books each author had which required searching on other sites.
Otherwise what series tends to interest me have some element of discovery with my favourites involving elements of thrill or adventure.
But I guess I was just hoping someone might be able to point me to a series similar to April or Ell Donsaii that I’ve missed and hadn’t listed as already read.
Other examples which I’d forgotten to list were say,
Boundary series by Eric Flint, Ryk E. Spoor
or
Troy Rising series by John Ringo
I like also the universum of The Seraphic Chronicles by Craig W. Atkinson, aliens, humans, war on planet, starships, and good old hate between normals against those with a bit extra until a bigger baddass comes killing (starting while the heroine is still visiting school, and nothing for grammar-police but thats their bad luck ^^).
OK, you seem to be interested in SF adventure, not so much fantasy or grim. Assuming that is so, books you might want to look into include:
Ryk E Spoor: Grand Central Arena series
David Weber: Dahak series, Honor Harrington series, In Fury Born, Apocalyse Troll, Empire of Man series (With John Ringo)
John Ringo: Troy Rising series, Looking Glass series, Dark Tide Rising series
David Drake: RCN (Leary) series
Eric Flint et al: Belissarius series, 1632 series, Jao series, Karres series, some others
Lois McMaster Bujold: most things
Sharon Lee: Liaden Universe
Anne McCaffrey: most things
Christopher Anvil: everything
C. J. Cherryh: some things
Sabrina Chase: many things
Dave Freer: most things
Travis Taylor: Warp Speed series
Elizabeth Moon: probably some things
Peter Grant: some things
James Schmitz: many things
James Hogan: giants series
John Hemry: most things
Robert Heinlein: most things
Gordon R Dickson: most things
A. Bertram Chandler: John Grimes series
Keith Laumer: many things
William Keith: many things
E.E. “Doc” Smith: Skylark series, Lensman series. others
S.H. Jucha: Silver Ships series
Christopher Nuttall: several things
Poul Anderson: many things
Murray Leinster: Med Ship, others
Mark L Van Name: Jon and Lobo series
Colin Kapp: The Unorthodox Engineers
Dave Schroeder: Xenotech Rising series
These are not in any particular order. You still need to look at them vs your taste.
Free ebooks are available for some of them, from Baen and/or Amazon.
Many are available multi-format ebook, and paper, from Baen, as well as Kindle or paper from Amazon. Others are only Kindle (and maybe KU and/or paper) from Amazon.
Thanks for that huge list. Read many of them but see a few I have not checked out before. Thank You 🙂
Unfortunately I’ve read most of the books by these authors but it did remind me to check on the ones I’d left in my to-read/wishlist.
Otherwise I don’t read paper books since I prefer to listen to books and so tend to convert all the kindle books to epub and listen to em using TTS via FBReader while working or gaming.
Did you do any specific reading on the East India Company when you were considering “The Three’s” culture? I haven’t done any reading on the EIC other than that required of survey classes in college but would like to read up on the real thing as well. I know they were a dominate corporate power to be reckoned with at their time.
I’ve read on them but it’s been a few years back. Not specifically for this book.
How’s that cover coming? Space ship or Space suit clad beauty?
Is it finished yet?
This will be great.
PS. Today is Australia day…. that would give me a whole day of reading if it went up now?
Any idea yet on when we might be able to expect April 7 out?
Hope the book comes out soon. Been checking amazon every day and checking comments on this page. Been eagerly awaiting the next april book. I check it every morning when i get up and check it 10 to 20 times a day hoping its out. The anticipation is killing me LOL. Love all the books you have out so far. Have read both series several times each.
Been going through amazons recommended stuff and going through scifi and fantasy section and almost every book is either scifi/romance or paranormal romance 🙁 I want to read a good story that does not involve sex in every chapter. Just good scifi or fantasy not a romance novel. I went through ten pages of amazons scifi section and found zero books that were not romance books made to look like something else. Hope this book gets released soon!
John Ringos graveyard sky series is good – no romance, just zombies and the end of the world….
Thank you for author suggestion. Have read all of John Ringo’s books. Appreciate the thought though 🙂
Also: Newish author: Honor Raconteur: Fantasy books (only one scifi, but that has a little romance). I like her storylines, but her books are aimed at a somewhat younger audience. zero sex lol.
Will check out author. Thank You for suggestion 🙂
Not sure if this’ll be your cup of tea, but I’ve been following the series set in the Liaden universe (Sharon Lee & Steve Miller) for decades, much like I’ve been following David Weber’s Honorverse series. Strongly recommend all of Miller & Lee’s books, but especially like Fledgling and Saltation, though it may be preferable (to some) to have read series in traditional order first, just so when clues and backstory show up in young Theo Waitley’s stories you’re prepared to recognize them and see the tie-ins to rest of series. I don’t think that’s necessary, but then again, I already knew backstory when I first read Fledgling, so I might be wrong.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaden_universe
Also, of course, anything written by Laurence (“Laury”) Dahners (Ell Donsaii universe; Vaz, Tiona, Disc; Bonesetter 1 & 2;…).
Also, Gina Marie Wylie’s Kinsella universe series (though there’s plenty of scary and dark dangerous turns in this series, and she’s not gentle on her characters nor on the whole human race, so be forewarned.
Another possibility might be Chris Hechtl’s “Wandering Engineer” series, if you don’t mind post-smash (rebuilding the Federation the hard way).
Elizabeth Moon did some good SF writing in both the “Vatta’s War” series and the “Serrano Legacy” series. Very highly recommended.
If you don’t mind Weber wannabees with massive editing failures (though some/many edit failures have been fixed since I bought e-books), you might investigate Thomas DePrima’s “A Galaxy Unknown” series. I think his new subseries “AGU: Border Patrol” is much better than the rest, to date. This author has rejected Amazon and his books are now only sold through a third party via his website.
That’s some good stuff. Hard to keep all the editions straight. They had a lot of publisher troubles.
If people are looking for some more indie authors I highly recommend
Mark Henwick – Athanate series “urban fantasy/vampires” some romance but it is tied into the supernatural elements and doesn’t overwhelm the series. Be prepared for plot threads to be left open at end of book this is a continuing series.
Evan Currie- his Warriors Wings and Oddessey are awesome space opera but not quite hard sci-fi totally recommend them to anyone looking.
Joshua Dalzelle- His Omega Force series is great mindless scifi entertainment. I can’t wait to see where he takes us with the new launch point. His other series the Black Fleet Trilogy is more traditional space opera and it is high quality but not as unique as his other series.
Joshua Lallo- The Big Sigma series has such great characters that I can’t get upset when the science takes a back seat in the sci-fi story. I am eagerly awaiting the new release in june. I also think the first novel might be free so pick it up and see what you think.
If you might have missed them these are a couple of newish authors from the main publishing houses that might be worth your time.
Elliott James – Pax Arcana series “urban fantasy”. The Author spent lots of time trying to make sure his reason why magic exists in today’s setting would be hidden and its spawned a interesting world that I’m looking forward to reading more about. Set very much in a Weadon-esce Buffyverse style.
SK Dunstall- Linesman series. New space opera series with an interesing twist to the “pilot Guild” angle. Interested to see where it goes and how powerful the Linesman might become.
if anyone is interseted I have a goodreads list that might be of help not to many reviews trying to be better about that but check it out if you want
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4041983-gallandro-83?shelf=read
I still need to review most of your read list but I did find the Linesman series to be awesome and can’t wait for the next book to come out.
The Spirit of empire series by Lawrence White is also pretty good.
Any updates on book? Are you still waiting on cover? How are edits going?
I’ve noticed a good way to review a book for spelling issues is to listen to it via TTS as it will spell out a lot of the words letter by letter when it doesn’t recognise em or when it’s a word that shouldn’t be there then it’s pretty obvious when you’re listening to it rather than just reading it.
That won’t work for me. I’m profoundly hard of hearing. I hear sounds faintly but can’t process speech.
Sarah promised to get it out today.
Cover is coming out today? Do u have much editing left to do? And are we close to a release date? Hate to bug you but I love your books and wait with baited breath hoping you reply and do not get too annoyed by ” Are we there yet?” 🙂
Yeah the fanboys, paparazzi, women swooning, are all hard to take, I can hardly go to Walmart…
I’m another waiting with baited breath for my next fix of your writing.
Just think…..
You are a popular author where you have fans pestering you for your next book….
Are we there yet…..
And it’s uploaded.
Now it’s up to Amazon.