In Which Miriam Black Delivers Some Bad News

Miriam Black is pretty much the poster child for bad news delivery. Her entire curse in life is to touch people and see how they’re going to die — which sucks for them, and frankly, sucks for her. It’s why, I think, she’s such a spectacularly unpleasant person (by the way, unpleasant people are often the most fun to write, and occasionally the most fun to read).

It’s bad to have to get the news, sure. But I think it’s also bad to have to give it.

Which is where we come around to me giving you guys a couple parcels of bad news.

First item on that list:

The Miriam Black TV show adaptation at Starz is dead. Kaput. Miriam touched it, failed to see its demise, and yet — IT DEAD. I don’t really know why. Things were going quite well over at Starz! We had infrastructure. We had something just shy of a confirmed pickup. Scripts! Producers! Things! Stuff! And yet, it was not meant to be. (One theory is that they also bought Gaiman’s show, which while quite different on paper is also a crimey-flavored urban fantasy show, and his is almost assuredly both more expensive and more exciting than mine was. Not slagging on BLACKBIRDS, but c’mon. It’s Gaiman, baby.)

We’ve had rumblings from some other networks, and before it was a TV show at Starz it was once (almost!) a film, so — I’m hopeful that it’s still going somewhere. And if not, hey, whatever. A book is not made better or somehow valid by its adaptation (even though it would’ve been cool).

Hey, I got paid, at least.

Now, onto the next item on the list:

THUNDERBIRD, the fourth Miriam book, is delayed.

It’s delayed by less than a year — it’ll land now in March, 2017.

It’s a bummer, I know. It’s not because the book isn’t done — it is, more or less. But it’s due to a couple reasons. First, because it’ll allow people to get caught up on the series properly. Second, because it’ll let us do a slightly more inventive (and much faster) release schedule for the next three. That means all three books will drop quite quickly — three over the course of one year. I don’t have firm dates on all of them, but roughly:

THUNDERBIRD in March 2017.

Then THE RAPTOR & THE WREN in fall (?) 2017.

And finally, VULTURES by or before March 2018.

Which means with this release schedule the series will conclude earlier than it would’ve on the previous schedule. I figure that’s a silver lining on this dark cloud of angry birds.

What I may do now is populate the space in between now and THUNDERBIRD with some short stories / novellas that tell Miriam-focused tales set after CORMORANT. And there’s already the bridging novella, INTERLUDE: SWALLOW available now as part of THREE SLICES.

Regardless — eek, sorry! More as I know it.

Of course, as you may know, the books are returning to e-book and print. (CORMORANT returns to book shelves in February.) You can check out the books if you so choose:

BLACKBIRDS (Indiebound | B&N | Amazon)

MOCKINGBIRD (Indiebound | B&N | Amazon)

THE CORMORANT (Indiebound | B&N | Amazon)

Or pre-order THUNDERBIRD (Indiebound | B&N | Amazon).

(And if you haven’t seen the book series trailer, here goes.)

And I’ve also got a bunch of other new releases coming up —

ATLANTA BURNS: THE HUNT (Feb 2016).

STAR WARS: LIFE DEBT, Aftermath Book 2 (June 2016).

INVASIVE (August 2015, was called “Myrmidon,” August 2016).

STAR WARS: EMPIRE’S END, Aftermath Book 3 (2017?)

Also, if you’re in PA or NC, I’ve got two appearances of note:

Doylestown Bookshop, this Friday, with Adam Christopher.

Queen’s University, Charlotte, NC, on November 19th.

So! Some bad news, but hey, some good stuff, too.

*grins maniacally while trying not to sob openly*