Character-charged sci-fi with a shot of Rock & Roll!
I was honored sit down with host Randall Willis for a wonderful chat about the craft of writing, the re-release of the Mako trilogy through Theogony Books, and much more on the first ever episode of the Future Books Podcast.
Click here to check it out!
(The Future Books Podcast is a production of Chris Kennedy Publishing)
I’m proud to announce that my debut novel, MAKO, has been officially re-released by Theogony Books, an imprint of Chris Kennedy Publishing. You can find the book on Amazon (ebook and paperback) as well as on Audible in audiobook form.
Story Synopsis:
It’s just a game…or is it?
On the heels of his divorce, down-and-out history professor Lee Summerston doesn’t have a lot going for him—a nowhere job at a third-rate college with kids who don’t care about anything except how to slide through class. All of that changes, though, when Lee leads a team of old friends to virtual glory as the first-ever group to beat Mako Assault, a revolutionary new game that has emerged from nowhere to take the Internet by storm.
As a reward for their achievement, the group is flown to meet the game’s mysterious designer and assist in developing the follow-on game Mako 2.0. But what they find when they get there is more than they’d expected…much more.
Mako’s intent was never to entertain its players. It was to train them.
An epic sci-fi thrill-ride of action, suspense, laughter, and romance, Mako is the story of five ordinary people who will have to rise to the challenge of extraordinary events, driven only by their faith in each other. If they can’t, the game will become very real to more than just themselves—the Earth itself may ultimately be at stake.
MAKO is the first book in THE AMKO SAGA. Books two and three will release this June and July respectively.
Theogony Books, an imprint of Chris Kennedy Publishing, today unveiled the cover for the re-release of my debut novel, MAKO.
I can’t tell you guys how happy I am with the way this design turned out. Truly. It stays faithful to my original vision for the concept while integrating some really nice artwork and font styles to give the entire piece a vibrant, modern look.
MAKO, book one of THE MAKO SAGA, arrives May 22.
Related Story: IJM joins forces with Theogony Books for DETRON CITY VICE and THE MAKO SAGA (Read More)
I’m proud to announce that the next book in my sci-fi Makoverse series, titled DETRON CITY VICE, will be released in August 2020 through the Theogony Books imprint of Chris Kennedy Publishing (CKP). In addition, CKP has also acquired the rights to the original Mako Saga trilogy and will be re-releasing each book in the series throughout the summer in preparation for the arrival of VICE sometime before Labor Day.
Tentative Makoverse release schedule (exact dates TBA):
For more information on this development as well as what readers can expect from the new book, visit the IJM Facebook page and watch my live announcement video on the Makoverse/CKP partnership.
For more on Chris Kennedy Publishing and Theogony Books, visit the CKP website or follow the company on Facebook.
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by JR Handley for his SciFy Shenanigans blog. Needless to say, we had a blast!
You can read the full interview here!
About the Blogger:
JR Handley is a veteran who writes military science fiction to excise the demons of his time spent fighting in the late unpleasantness in Mesopotamia. Handley is also a blogger and book reviewer, as well as a co-host of the SciFy Shenanigans podcast.
Happy New Year, y’all! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and are bunkered in for Snowmageddon 2018!
I wanted to take a second while I had one to bring you up to speed on my current slate of projects.
First,Colonies Lost is through round one of line edits and back in the hands of the publisher. We’ll now take that into round two of line edits before moving on to copy edits, then the first of two proofreads before sending the novel to post-production (formatting, cover design, etc.).
Sadly, I don’t have a release date yet for Colonies Lost, though it’s my hope the publisher will have it out by Memorial Day, if not sooner. Regardless, I think you’ll find Trip Hackett’s story well worth the wait once it does arrive.
Second, I’m currently penning draft one of a novel called, Where Eagles Fly. This will be a continuation of A Family Tradition, the short story I wrote in 2017 for the Four Horsemen anthology, For a Few Credits More. In brief, this story will follow Taylor Van Zant as he struggles to rebuild his family’s mercenary company while slowly realizing that there may’ve been more to his brother’s death than investigators let on.
My goal is to wrap this manuscript by May so the publisher can have it out by the end of summer.
BONUS: I’ll also be writing a second short story to set the table for this book, told from the perspective of Taylor’s late brother, Terry. It’ll be titled, Pronounced Ry-lee O-sy-ris, and be made available only to my newsletter subscribers.
Not a member? You can sign up here to get Pronounced when it drops, as well as the Mako prequel short story, Mako: Genesis, which is available now!
Finally, the long-awaited Mako spinoff novel, Detron City Vice, chronicling the adventures of Danny Tucker and the Overlook crew should be out by Christmas.
In closing, much of what I did in 2017 with The Mako Saga relaunch and two short stories was to set up what will hopefully be a banner year in 2018. I can tell you this: with four—FOUR—projects on the docket, it’ll be a busy one if nothing else. LOL
Cheers, y’all! Stay warm and talk soon!
Ian
Got to talk scifi, writing, Mako, and more with Raymond Bolton of The Write Stuff blog. You can find the full interview here!
About the blogger:
Raymond Bolton lives near Portland, Oregon with his wife, Toni, and their three cats, Georgie, Sophia & Courtney. Reviewers have been generous with praise, offering such comments as, “Eschewing the more commonly overt manifestations of alien technology and the well toted elements of fanciful magic, Bolton breathes originality into the genre with his singular focus on telepathy.”
Hey folks, welcome to summer and another edition of the Mako Manifesto! I hope this blog finds you well and, preferably, on a beach somewhere with a mojito in one hand and a book in the other.
We can dream, can’t we? LOL
First off, I want to thank everyone who helped make the At Circle’s End launch a success — especially those who reviewed it on Amazon. To date, everyone seems to like the story a lot, and that’s a big deal for the last chapter in a series, no matter the medium. Letdowns are always possible — The Sopranos, anybody? — so I’m profoundly happy that everyone enjoyed The Renegades’ ending as much as I did.
I also can’t forget to thank ABW Voiceovers and everyone else who helped make the At Circle’s End audiobook a success. Andy Wehrlen always does a superb job on these, but he was especially on top of his game for this one. Really, really great stuff.
Next on the docket — Marshal: A Trip Hawkins Novel
I’ve already done some world-building for the next set of Mako books, one of which will follow the adventures of Danny and the Overlook crew, while another will feature a standalone story starring Link and Hamish (Think Butch and Sundance with a crap-ton of sarcasm).
Having said that — and please don’t kill me, Mako fans — but I’ve decided to table those for now in favor of something all new. It’ll be sci-fi, of course, but with a hard splash of alternate American history.
As a lot of you know, my reading tastes tend to fly all over the map, from urban fantasy to murder mysteries or thrillers to space opera. That said, next to sci-fi, one of my all-time favorite genres is still the American Western — specifically the Sackett series from Louis L’Amour. Those books are just a blast to read, and I’ve long since wondered what it would look like to take characters from that era — in this case a little earlier, e.g. New World, circa early-seventeenth century — and plug them into a modern-day science fiction setting.
Enter Trip Hawkins, a wrongfully disgraced U.S. Marshal from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
Naturally, this story will take place on another world, but it’ll still feature characters from our Earth, seeking an escape from everyday problems.
Sound familiar?
What can I say? As a writer, I’m a sucker for a sandbox that lets me play with wicked-cool spaceships and David Lee Roth references. Only in this case, it’s more like Waylon Jennings… but I digress.
As specified above, the book is tentatively titled Marshal: A Trip Hawkins Novel and I hope to have a somewhat finalized synopsis for you soon.
Goodreads giveaway
One other housekeeping note before I go. If you or anyone you know would like a signed copy of Mako, surf on over to www.goodreads.com. I’m running a four-week giveaway there through the month of June. You’ll need a Goodreads account to sign up, but from there, the process is pretty straight-forward.
Other ways to get a book signed:
Either works.
That’s gonna do it for this one, gang. Everybody take care, be safe if you’re traveling for Memorial Day, and see you back here for the next installment of the Manifesto!
Cheers,
IJM
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SHOW YOUR SUPPORT, REVIEW AN IJM BOOK TODAY!
Customer reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others are vital to the success of independently published works like those of Ian J. Malone. As such, if you enjoy his books, please consider leaving them a brief review on the retailer of your choice. (One or two sentences will do wonderfully.)
Please Note: Clicking “yes” on the “Did you find this review helpful?” line for other four and five-star reviews is also extremely helpful.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. It is much, much appreciated.
(BLOGGER’S NOTE: Here’s the press release that went out via my publisher, Sharkflight Publishing.)
DURHAM, N.C. – In 2013, science fiction fans welcomed the release of MAKO, the debut novel from author Ian J. Malone about five college friends, dubbed “The Renegades,” who become intergalactic war heroes by way of a videogame. The book met immediate success, rising to fourth on Kindle’s Military Science Fiction list, and eventually spawned a sequel, 2015’s RED SKY DAWNING.
Now, one year later, the curtain falls on sci-fi’s most beloved band of bar buddies in AT CIRCLE’S END, the third and final stanza of Malone’s MAKO SAGA.
Story Synopsis — (spoilers ahead for Red Sky Dawning)
In the months since his disappearance, Danny Tucker has retreated to the darkest corners of Alystierian space in search of intelligence on the empire’s new chancellor, Alec Masterson. Backed by a crew of outcasts and fighting from the shadows as the enigmatic Rogue centurion, Danny will stop at nothing to achieve his mission: absolute vengeance for Masterson’s now infamous “Return to Fear” demonstration.
Still, try as he might, Danny can’t remain underground, and with sightings of the Rogue growing more frequent, Lee Summerston won’t rest until the lost Renegade is found. Meanwhile, in the core, Aura stands on the brink of annihilation as imperial forces, aided by an ancient enemy, draw ever closer to her shores.
In the end, scores will be settled, and brothers will rise united… or they’ll all burn together.
“This is very much a story about loyalty,” said Malone, a native Floridian now living in Durham, North Carolina. “At their core, these books have always been about family. That’s why book two was so hard to write, because in a lot of ways it saw that spirit fractured. In this story, we see the family come back to each other, and that was a really cool ride to take.”
While THE MAKO SAGA is unquestionably sci-fi, evidenced by soaring starfighter battles and high-precision tech, fans of the series laud its use of other genre elements such as romance and political intrigue to tell its story. Even still, its success is and has always been irrevocably tied to its six main characters.
“There’s a lot of nostalgia in this one,” Malone said of the saga’s finale, “for the characters, the fans, and for me as a writer. This time we all got to go home.”
AT CIRCLE’S END is now available in ebook and paperback on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the iBookstore. The audiobook will arrive in early-summer on Audible and iTunes.
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SHOW YOUR SUPPORT, REVIEW AN IJM BOOK TODAY!
Customer reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others are vital to the success of independently published works like those of Ian J. Malone. As such, if you enjoy his books, please consider leaving them a brief review on the retailer of your choice. (One or two sentences will do wonderfully.)
Please Note: Clicking “yes” on the “Did you find this review helpful?” line for other four and five-star reviews is also extremely helpful.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. It is much, much appreciated.
Had a blast talking Mako, Star Wars, comics, writing, and more with The Brotherhood of the Evil Geeks! Listen to the podcast here!
About the Geeks:
Sequestered in the dankest depths of the Evil Lair, the Brotherhood of Evil Geeks strive to bring you their honest opinions on the entertainment that we all love. Comics, video games, movies, TV shows, and geek culture in general are dissected, reviewed, then re-assembled by each Evil Geek with devious care and nefarious ingenuity.
Greetings, people! Welcome back to the Manifesto!
My, oh, my is stuff going on. Let’s get to it.
At Circle’s End to arrive early
The third and final chapter of THE MAKO SAGA is officially in the can and ready to roll — early, in fact. My crew over at Streetlight Graphics did me a solid and got my files ready on the double. As such, I was able to bump up launch day from April 12 to April 8. That will coincide with a book blogger blitz I’ve got planned (try saying that one five times fast) and a Kindle promotion which I’ll get to in a minute.
Everything in the way of books drops April 8 on all sales channels. That’s the e-book and paperback on Amazon, as well as the e-book on various other platforms, including B&N, Kobo, and the iBookstore.
Haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet? Do so now!
Sadly, fans of the MAKO audiobooks will have to wait a bit longer for theirs. Andy Wherlen (my narrator/producer) is a busy man these days. Factor that in with the usual 60-90 day turnaround time for sound editing and production, and you can expect the AT CIRCLE’S END audiobook to arrive sometime by early-summer.
Amazon giveaway for Mako
Up until now, I’ve been running a promotion on my website whereby those who sign up for my mailing list get an e-copy of MAKO for free. Beginning on April 8, however, readers will be able to download it directly from Amazon — for five straight days. This is to help usher in the release of AT Circle’s End, and hopefully attract new fans to the series.
So what’s the takeaway here? If you know someone who’s been toying with the notion of giving the Renegades a shot, tell them here’s their chance to do it.
Evil Movie Review: The Summer of 2016
Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune of getting to know the crew over at The Brotherhood of the Evil Geeks blog. Good people, those geeks (see my recent guest appearance on their Transmissions from the Evil Lair podcast).
In any event, I conned them into letting me spin up a guest post, in which I got to preview my Top 10 list for the Must-See movies of summer 2016.
Here are a few of the highlights:
On Batman v Superman — This is the film that, cinematically speaking, will either catapult DC into true rival status with Marvel or potentially cripple their brand to a point not even salvageable by the Batman franchise.
On Captain America: Civil War — Story: check. Top-level acting talent: check. Effects: check. Directors with a proven track-record of being able to weave it all together into the perfect tapestry of motion picture excellence: CHECK.
On Warcraft — This film is primed to be one of, if not the best big-budget fantasy film we’ve seen since Return of the King.
On Suicide Squad — If DC does intend to hedge their bets on Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad looks to be the perfect picture with which to do it.
You can check out the entire blog here.
Okay, guys, I gotta jet. I’ve still got tons of prep work to do for the launch, plus another guest blog to write for Bull Spec and at least two press releases.
Ah, the joys of being an author AND a publisher. LOL
Stay groovy, everybody. As always, you know I’m grateful for the support.
RUAH!!!
IJM
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SHOW YOUR SUPPORT, REVIEW AN IJM BOOK TODAY!
Customer reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others are vital to the success of independently published works like those of Ian J. Malone. As such, if you enjoy his books, please consider leaving them a brief review on the retailer of your choice. (One or two sentences will do wonderfully.)
Please Note: Clicking “yes” on the “Did you find this review helpful?” line for other four and five-star reviews is also extremely helpful.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. It is much, much appreciated.
Hey guys, hope the holidays were great to you and yours, and 2016 finds you well.
Lots to get to in this one and not much time for blogging so let’s dive in.
Brown Bags & Books
In an effort to read more in 2016, I’m launching a new post series on social media called “Brown Bags & Books.” At least once a month, I’ll post up links to the books I’m reading during my lunch break at work (a favorite reading time of mine). Sometimes it’ll be sci-fi but not always. I’ve also been known to pick up a western from time to time, as well as a good urban fantasy, a crime drama, a suspense thriller… you get the idea. Any of this could make the list, so expect the unexpected.
FYI, I’m always up for recommendations so feel free to drop those in the comment section. If, on the other hand, you choose to critique one of the books I’ve read, that’s cool, too. I’d only ask that you keep it clean… HONEST, but clean.
Update on AT CIRCLE’S END
Last week was a big deal as I finally got the content notes back from my editor for AT CIRCLE’S END (the forthcoming final book in THE MAKO SAGA). Great news… it doesn’t suck!!!
I say that only partially in gest. I didn’t think it would be bad. However as the author and someone who is totally biased toward the characters, I wanted to see them have the best possible, and while I thought I’d achieved that, I couldn’t know for sure until someone else with a neutral/professional eye had taken a gander at it.
As it happens, my editor really liked the book. That’s enormous praise coming from her because like all good editors, she’s subtle as a sledgehammer when stuff’s wrong. Do I still have tons of work to do? Sure. That’s always the case coming off a beta draft. But I don’t have much in the way of re-writes, and that’s no small thing when it comes to hitting deadlines.
Now it’s on to my line edit, due Feb. 19. After that comes proofreading then it’s off to post-production formatting.
In all, I’m on target to have AT CIRCLE’S END on shelves by the end of spring. Stay tuned before then, however, as I’ve still got the cover reveal to do and the pre-order run.
A NOTE FOR MY EMAIL LISTERS: As always, you’ll totally get the hookup first. That’s how this works.
NOTE TO THOSE NOT ON MY EMAIL LIST: You might want to join my email list. Just sayin’. 😉
Illoigocn 2016 wrap-up
Without fail, I always have a blast at Raleigh’s annual illogicon, and this year’s edition was no different.
Among the panels I got to be involved in:
I also got to moderate my first panel, “State of the Wars: A Chronological Discussion of Star Wars through the Decades.” We had a ball, too, picking apart every aspect of the franchise from the original trilogy to the Clone Wars to the Expanded Universe, and of course, The Force Awakens. Good times and spoilers were had by all, and I can’t wait to do it again next year once Rogue One has hit theaters.
Big thanks to Gerty and the programming staff for having me, as well as all of my fellow panelists: Chris Kennedy, Margaret McGraw, Josh Leone, Gail Z Martin, Susan Griffith, and others. Hanging out in your sandbox was a treat, and I really appreciate the opportunity to do so.
Okay, gang. That’s gonna do it for now. Take care in the New Year, stay warm wherever you are, and please don’t forget to drop my books a review on Amazon if you haven’t already (MAKO, READ SKY DAWNING). In addition to sales, those really are vital to the success of indie works — mine included.
Until next time… RUAH and GO NOLES!!!
IJM
PS – I write this on the day after the world lost Glenn Frey, legendary sing/songwriter and co-founder of The Eagles. I, like millions of others, grew up on Frey’s music. Be it Hotel California from my dad’s old vinyl collection (which I still own) or his occasional stints on Miami Vice, Frey had a huge impact on my listening tastes as a kid and still does to this day.
“Take it easy,” my friend. You will be missed