As if I didn’t have enough writing to do, I plan to complete a Christmas short story involving the Raven of Iskandar Universe.

The working title of the story is Christmas 2226 and will involve Raven (Denise Angwin) when she was 8 years old. Those of you who’ve read the series might recognize that Raven’s 8th year was an important one for her. That’s about as much as I’m going to say.

If you want the story for free, pdf format, send an email to ravenofiskandar@gmail.com. Yes, I will be collecting emails but they will not go anywhere else. Nor am I going to spam you. Benefits will include getting a free copy of any short story I happen to write (even if it’s not Christmas), advance notice of when I have a free kindle book giveaway (I’m probably due for one) and probably even some spoilers as I’m writing the next book. I’ll put ‘Spoilers’ in the title in case you want to avoid them. Of course, you can always contact me at that email anytime.

The story is almost finished in first draft and I expect to have it ready for the email list in early December. After that, the story will be released on kindle only on Amazon.

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I don’t remember the name of this comic strip, but as a Doctor Who fan, I find it hilarious.

Those of you who have read the Raven of Iskandar Books (Raven: The Call from Central; Raven: Mirabelle; Raven: The Triballi Incident) would have noticed that the preface of each book is a continuing story of 102 year old Raven.

Raven: Necris continues the story, however, by the time I’d gotten to the end, I realized I would left things hanging until the next book. The last line of the preface (not much of a spoiler) is ‘She opened the letter’. I didn’t think it a good thing to let my readers have to wait for the next book to find out what was in the letter. So, book four will also have an Epilogue which will continue the story. However, it will result in a really sad finish to the book. Just a warning.

And no, I’m not killing off any major characters.

Approximately the last third of the book will be a little bit of a shock, it was to me when I wrote it! I had mentioned before that the series does have a story arc and in the first 3 books, it is mentioned so subtly that I don’t know if I’d even pick up on it. In Raven: Necris, it will hit you right in the face. It’s all part of a series of incidents that will lead to something already hinted at in the previous prefaces.

I hope that sounds mysterious enough!

All the Books of the Raven of Iskandar series are available on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback formats. Just search on ‘Raven of Iskandar’ and they’ll come up right on top. Amazon still hasn’t straightened out that it’s a 3 book series so far, so you’ll see references to a ‘2 book series’. Phht!

You’ve probably noticed that in the Raven of Iskandar series that I exclusively use metric units (centimeter, meter, kilometer). For someone who was raised with the English system of units (inch, foot, mile), it’s not difficult to do the translation, but difficult to remember to do the translation. Sometimes, while editing, I’ll find numerous references to feet and inches that I have to change.

In the fourth book of the series, Raven: Necris, which right now is well over 50,000 words and counting, Raven makes a reference to how much shorter Chaoschick is.

So here’s a rundown, in English units, of the height of the members of the team.

The tallest on the team is Gothgirl (you thought that it was Grabby?). She is roughly 6′ 2″ tall. I envision her as muscular, as someone who had worked doing mining, but not unfeminine. She’s the strongest member of the team.

Grabby is next in height, being about 1/2 to 1″ over 6 feet. Raven is 6 foot tall. She’s slight (compared to Gothgirl) but strong. You wouldn’t want her grabbing any part of your anatomy in anger.

Chaoschick is two inches shorter than Raven at 5′ 10″ tall.

Skylla is another story entirely. Since she is part squid, her dimensions are semi-fluid. In fact, when they were attempting to record her statistics, Skylla would change her size slightly between measurements, pretty much driving the technicians bonkers. We’ll call her about 5’8″ because she usually looks taller than Dahija. If you read the story ‘Foosball’ you’ll have read that Dahija was of ‘moderate height’. When compared to who we’ve mentioned already, 5′ 7″ is a moderate height.

Lara Croft is also 5′ 7″ and, no, I’m not going to give any further dimensions. Suffice it to say that she fits her namesake fairly well.

Soria, the team captain is 5′ 3″ to the top of her head, 5′ 4″ if you count the ears. You know why that is.

Zinaida is 5′ 1″ and her Xeres hairstyle does look ugly to most of the Alliance. She’s a little sensitive about her shortness which is why she’s a fan of huge heels.

Finally there’s Calamity Angel. In order to really fly, nature made Pertescians small and hollow-boned. The latter is the reason that the team tries to protect her when things get wild off the field. She’s 3′ 11″ (well, she may have given herself another inch or two) and does weigh only 54 lbs.

So that’s the rundown and should give you some visual on how the team members relate to each other.

Early this morning I had to scrap frost off my windshield, so I figured that it’s time for a picture of this rose which I took yesterday.