Rogue Warrior update

Because readers asked:

The next Rogue Warrior is being published by Tor/Forge and is coming out sometime this fall, though for some reason the actual pub date seems to be a state secret which even the authors are not allowed to know. It'll be called Dictator's Ransom. (Unless it gets changed again by the title gnome, or whoever the F it is who's in charge of picking titles along with their nose.)

As usual, the hook mixes a lot of fact with fiction. There's a lot of Dick's over-the-top and very non-PC humor in this, kind of like the very first book he did (with John Weisman, not me. An excellent book, by the way. And you should check out Weisman's solo stuff as well.)

There's a lot of bs secrecy attached to the book because much of it is set in North Korea. Since the series is known for being based (sometimes more, sometimes less) on real life, with a lot of things that really happened and a lot of "on-the-spot" research mixed in, the lawyers are having fits. They say that Dick is not supposed to have gone there, being that he's an American citizen (according to rumor; I've never seen the papers myself).

So the official word is that he hasn't gone there, and neither did anyone else connected to the book, including moi.

I'm also not supposed to say that anyone was hurt making the book. The official thing there is some sort of formulation along the lines of "any injuries, damages, etc., that may have occurred, were incidental."

I love the etc.

WTF, right?

Anyway, the publisher has screwed around with the pub date for various reasons. The general date they've been using - early fall - "happens" to coincide with the general date for the planned release of the new Rogue Warrior game which, by "coincidence," is also set in Korea. No one went to North Korea for that either. And I don't think any of the dweebs - uh, exalted and honored technical experts - got hurt. That's for real, since I know they weren't there.

Questions?