Hello from still sweltering Hollow Stone Towers.

In my last newsletter, I mentioned that when it came the the Sunset chronicles, my sprawling space horror opera (yes I just made that up) that quite a few of you had had mentioned yourselves as binge watchers rather than episode chasers. You like the idea, but sheesh, Paul, all those episodes! So here we are. The people have got what they asked for.

Sunrise, the collected first season of The Sunset Chronicles, is out today.

Cue fireworks.

If you've never picked up the Chronicles before, here's roughly what you're walking into. Not literally, one does not simply walk into a book. Or maybe you do. I'm not here to judge. Anyway. The Sunset Chronicles is an episodic sci-fi horror with a heavy dose of conspiracy thriller running underneath. The year is 2107, Earth is dying, and the ISS Minos is sent to Europa, an ice moon of Jupiter, to find a cure. That's Wyn's story, and it owes a huge debt to Alien and Aliens, because pretty much that's the entire reason I started to write this in the first place. So, you've got bucketloads of creeping dread, and a sense that whatever is under the ice isn't going to be friendly.

Back on Earth, Interpol agent Lois has her cover blown inside Sunset Industries, the corporation that basically runs the world, and her thread is pure corporate conspiracy, the rot running deeper than anyone wants to admit. Billionaires running amok, corrupting our political processes, undermining our democracies? Can't imagine what inspired that.

Then there's Judd, a telepath on the run from a secret buried even from himself, which drags in a whole strand about power, persecution, and what it costs to be the kind of person the world is scared of. And that, honestly, came from me never quite being satisfied by how the telepaths in the final season of Babylon 5 were handled. What can I say, my brain works weird.

It's intended to read more like a TV series than a novel, and that doesn't change just because there's a box set now. You've got multiple points of view, storylines weaving in and out of each other, cliffhangers built into the format itself rather than bolted on at the end of a chapter. That's the whole reason it went out as episodes in the first place, five to a season, and Sunrise is that first season collected into one book, for anyone who'd rather have the whole thing in hand than wait between installments.

And since I've clearly decided that momentum is a thing I'm doing now, I'm not going to make you wait around for the second season. Apex, the collected second season, is available to preorder as of right now, out on July 23rd. Same deal as before, same story getting bigger, same crew of people I'm apparently determined to put through absolute hell.

There's also paperback versions coming to my website in the next few days, but apparently I'm not that into building momentum.

Go grab yourselves some epic.

Also, I just wanted to say a huge thanks to all of you who went out and picked up Dark Horse, the second book in my vampire series, Darkness Rises. I had one particularly lovely bit of reader feedback on Bluesky, which I thought I'd share for anyone still on the fence:

So, if you want to get a little light headed like Sebrina, make sure you check out the book!

That'll do for now. As you read this, I'm currently baking in a festival field, so let's hope I don't leave too much of myself amongst the trees.

Until next time, happy reading!

Paul