A Forthcoming Novel

Now that we've:

     Signed the contracts, I guess it's official.

     For nearly 25 years now, I've been writing stories about Cluny the Sorceress Squirrel and her assorted friends and foes. For an idea of how long that's been in internet time, you can read the first of her stories, "Familiars," for free if you can reach this old Livejournal page. Otherwise, you can try tracking down a copy of the 2001 edition of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress anthology—that was vol. 19, or XIX since they used Roman numerals most of the time. Or you can pick up The Ursa Major Anthology from Fur Planet Books. The story got reprinted there when it won the Ursa Major award for best anthropomorphic short story of 2001.

     After that, I had more stories about Cluny in volumes 23 through 32 of Sword & Sorceress, then got one more into the final volume, #34, in 2019. There's also one more story, a direct sequel to the original, in an anthology called What Happens Next also published by Fur Planet. But I'm linking to the page where the anthology is available through Fenris Publishing because they're the folks I'm working with to bring out a complete Cluny novel later this year.

     It'll be called Familiars, Frosh Year, Part 1, and it'll cover how Cluny and Terrence Crocker got admitted to the familiar and wizard programs at Huxley College respectively, then it'll run through their adventures during Fall Quarter, Winter Break, and Winter Quarter, bringing Shtasith the firedrake into their lives and including the events of the original short story, its direct sequel, and three other subsequent short stories with a bunch of new material written to paste everything together into one semi-coherent narrative.

     If it sells, Fenris'll bring out Part 2 to wind up the happenings of their Frosh Year, and I've already got material from the previously published short stories to put together their Sophomore Year pretty easily.

     And from there? They're Junior and Senior Years await! I should live so long... :)

     But I'll let folks know when it actually becomes available for purchase, and we'll see how it goes.

                                        Mike

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