No Regrets, Book #17 in the Valens Legacy now on Audible!

So for all of you who have been waiting, No Regrets, the last book in the Valens Legacy, is now out in audiobook.

Link -> No Regrets on Audible

The "I'm Stuck at Home with Nothing to Read" Sale

Many of you I know are stuck at home this weekend and all of next week due to the Corona Virus. I wanted you all to know that I sympathize and wanted to do something to help. So, to make it easier on all of you, I've created this:

Introducing The Corona Virus Sale:

On Sale from this Saturday (21st) at 7am (in US stores) and 4am in UK stores until Midnight Friday the 27th! That's right, all of the following books are on sale for 99 cents, for the entire week!

That's Nineteen books for only 99 cents each (or pence I guess if you live in the UK)!

As John Van Stry:

Hammer Commission Books:

Hammer Commission (Book 1)

Wolf Killer (Book 2)

Loose Ends (Book 3)

The King of Las Vegas (Stand Alone)

Children of Steel Universe:

Children of Steel

Interregnum

Danger Money

Portals Of Infinity:

Champion For Hire (Book 1)

The God Game (Book 2)

Of Temples and Trials (Book 3)

The Sea of Grass (Book 4)

Days of Future Past Trilogy:

Past Tense (Book 1)

Present Tense (Book 2)

Future Tense (Book 3)

As Jan Stryvant:

The Valens Legacy Series:

Black Friday (Book 1)

Perfect Strangers (Book 2)

Over Our Heads (Book 3)

Head Down (Book 4)

Shadow

That's right! ALL are on sale for only 99 cents each (or 99 pence I guess if you're in the UK) from Saturday morning (the 21st) until midnight Friday, the 27th! If you're stuck at home, I wanted to be sure everyone could afford to have something, or lots of things, to read!

Link to the Sale Page: http://vanstry.net/vanstry/Sale.html

Links to books under my name, John Van Stry can be found at:  http://vanstry.net/vanstry/

Links to books under my pen name Jan Stryvant can be found at: http://www.vanstry.net/stryvant/

Upcoming Release Notice for Valens #17 - No Regrets Audibook

Hi Everyone, just got this:

Here's your friendly heads-up that the release date for No Regrets (The Valens Legacy, Book 17) will be March 24^th, 2020. The assets were recently submitted to Audible, so the listing should be up in the next week or so.

Mailing List

I would like all of you to sign up for my mailing list. With the way Facebook has started to throttle posts related to, well, damn near anything, it's getting harder for me to notify you when a new book comes out.

The mailing list info can be found on my blog, webpage, even in the back of my books or author central on Amazon. I only send out updates when I publish something, though I think I will start attaching a bit more information to those mails, to let folks know what's on the roadmap for the future.

(It's over there on the right --> )

Just put TakeTwo in to be published

About to head out to the airport to fly to SLC, but I put this in for processing a few minutes ago. Hopefully it'll be live sometime today.
Linky-> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084PZSGBC/

I'll be in Salt Lake City Next Week

I will be at LTUE in Salt Lake next week. I don't know how many of you live in the area, or will be at LTUE, but if you are going to be at LTUE, drop me a line.

So the Veil Verse book is done.

I finished it last week, and I'm just waiting on Will's approval (Blaise really enjoyed it) and the cover artwork to show. I haven't sent it to my editor yet, I'll probably do that in a few days, I want my Beta readers to finish with it first.

The title of the book is 'Take Two' and it will be published under John Van Stry and not Jan Stryvant. Most likely it will go live early in February.

I may have a Shadow short or Novella out next week. Depends on how much work I can do over the weekend, and how much Star Citizen sucks me in...

Just a General Update

So, someone mentioned to me that I hadn't posted here in a while, so I thought I should perhaps catch everyone up. I have been working, the first draft of the Veil Verse book is almost complete, and I'll hopefully have that off to Will and Blaize soon, so I can find out if I'm okay, or if I mangled their universe horribly beyond description.

I did end up taking off pretty much all of December.

I do have plans for a bunch of stuff this year and I'm starting to work on some of it, I just needed a bit of a break after all of the work on Valens, which pretty much was non-stop for two and a quarter years. It was like one of those big rock tours where you spend every moment in a new place working your butt off but not getting to see the sights :-)

I do want to do a portals of infinity book next. I have some plans to turn out a few more Shadow things, hopefully in the near future. I also have a short series I'd like to write between now and any future Valens series. I've already done some work on that, so I do want to develop it more.

I'm also thinking of a possible stand alone Valens novel, something to span the space between the two series. Probably a bunch more short stories at some point as well. I just need to work on my roadmap for this year.

So yes, I'm still writing, just took a bit of a break before getting back up on the horse.

As for audio books, the next publishers pack, should be out Jan 28th. The last audiobook for Valens (which will be coupled with - I think- the last set of short stories) should be out March 28th.

The next Portals of Infinity audiobook, well I talked to the guy who has been doing them for me, and he's going to let me know whats going on with him, his day job has been working him long hours lately, so he hasn't had any extra time.

For those interested in the Hammer Commission series (which for those of you who are Harem fans, yes there are some harem aspects) I will be writing more in that world. But I don't have a date on anything at this moment.

I'm also on Patreon, and while I know a lot of folks can't afford a regular $5 a month contribution, I am going to see about giving something to the $1 crowd as well, to thank them for their continuing support. I probably should redo my patreon, but I think I've already got more than enough tasks to manage, so I don't want to screw it up.

So hopefully that wasn't too confusing.

Nathan Lowell - If you like old school space Science Fiction

If you're a fan of the 'old style' or 'old school' Science Fiction, stories of big space ships plying the starways for trade and other reasons, with all sorts of interesting things thrown in, then you should read Nathan Lowell (Amazon Link)

I came across Nathan's Solar Clipper series quite by accident many years ago, and I have to admit, it was a really wonderful story. Except for the end, there was something that happens in the last book (and you'll know it when you read it) that kinda annoyed me. When I finally got to meet Nathan earlier this year (2019) we talked about it and he told me why he did it, and honestly? He was right, it needed to be done. It helped make the story better and it helped make the stories that came after it more interesting as well. He told me he got a LOT of grief over the incident (which I won't tell you because spoilers) and looking at that, it tells you just how many people bought it and loved it.

As an aside that incident in the story didn't stop me reading him. And I was grateful when we got to discuss it over dinner one night when we met at a convention.

The man really is a gifted writer. I've read most of his works (eventually I will read all of them). I highly recommend his stories, the clipper ship aspect is done well with some very interesting takes on things that are uniquely his and that definitely improve the story. As Nathan was once a sailor and spent several years on the seas, he understands the aspects of being at the mercy of the ship you are on and how you can't expect help to be there in a few minutes. That understanding ads a uniqueness to his stories that you can feel when you read them.

So again, I highly recommend Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper series and the books that run after it.

Black Friday Sales!

Starting at 8AM PST (don't look at me, Amazon picked that time) I'll be having a 'Black Friday Sale'!

The following books will be 99 cents until Monday Morning:

Portals of Infinity, Book 1: Champion for Hire
Portals of Infinity, Book 2: The God Game

The Hammer Commission (Book 1 of the Hammer Commission Series)
The King of Las Vegas (a Hammer Commission Book)

Book 1 of the Days of Future Past Series - Past Tense

Also, written as Jan Stryvant:

Black Friday - Book 1 of the Valens Legacy Series
Perfect Strangers - Book 2 of the Valens Legacy Series

And on Sale for Friday and Saturday until noon at 99 cents and then Sunday and Monday morning for $1.99:
Shadow 

Link to Black Friday Sale Page 

I played High School Football!

I'm sure that by now everyone knows that Al Bundy played High School football. And just how many TD's he scored in the big game. As is often the way of so much of Hollywood and modern TV, the people who write this stuff often seek to deconstruct some of the more important parts of our culture, of the bedrock that has made us what we are, or rather perhaps, what we were.

Now where I grew up, school sports had some import, but they were really only important to the people who had kids in school, and those kids. But they weren't mocked. When I moved to the west coast, school sports really lost a lot of their importance, and the closer you got to any city, the less anyone cared. But now that I'm living in the south again (I was stationed in Mississippi when I was in the service, hence why I can spell it without having to look it up), I have again seen the dominant and almost overwhelming role that school sports plays here.

And that's a good thing.

You see, there are a lot of lessons you're supposed to learn in school. How to think for yourself is the one that's been under attack lately. Basic history, math, economics, those things are pretty much long gone. Don't even get me started on civics. But all of those things were there to teach the basics, to stop you from being ignorant, to give you a sense of place in our country, let you stand on your own two feet, and prepare you to make something of yourself.

High School sports have a different lesson. High School sports is about teaching you to cope. To cope with failure, and just as importantly, to cope with success. You win some, you lose some, right? But how many kids nowadays have never been allowed to lose, so the first time they come up against adversarial situations, not only are they destroyed by it, but many times kill themselves over their failure? How many kids who suddenly find success, and not knowing how to deal with it, lose everything?

That's what playing sports teaches you, up and above teamwork, respecting the others on your teams and respecting the opponents, it teaches you how to come back after failure. How to deal with loss, how to keep keeping on, how to persevere, how to come back and try again. Those are very important lessons to a young man or woman. School sports also teaches you that when you win, that's not the end. You still have to go back out there and win again, and again. Or maybe next time you lose. You learn that just as failure is temporary, winning is temporary as well. Because there is always something new, there is always another challenge.

Life is like that.

And that's why I never really cared for that little joke. Yeah, on the one hand it's kinda funny that Al's biggest achievement is something he did in High School, and he never did anything again after that. It's also kind of sad. People who did well at school sports do not necessarily go on to be rich and famous, or even highly successful. But I've noticed there tends to be a lot fewer failures among those folks than those who never participated. Because you only fail when you stop trying, and the goal of school sports is to teach you to keep trying. Even when things are at their worst.

An Ending

As many of you probably know, I've been writing this little side project for the last two and a quarter years: The Valens Legacy Series   When I started this series I only expected it to go for six books, even though I had plans all the way out to eighteen. I worked very hard at all of it and I was surprised when after the first arc (books 1 thru 6) the next arc was eagerly awaited. So I wrote that, and then the third and final arc. The series did shrink from 18 to 17, because the second arc ended up more as five books instead of six.

As I told everyone when the story began, it had an ending. It wouldn't stretch out forever, it wouldn't run on until I just abandoned it. Everything would be tied up. I like stories to have an end, especially something with a long overarching story line to it, even if that story line isn't apparent at first. The success of the series, which sales wise is up there with most of the traditionally published authors, is still rather shocking. Honestly, if someone had ever told me I'd write a 17 book series, where every book was a best seller, I'd have asked what they were drinking.

But yet, here I am.

I have been blessed in that, as an engineer I got to work on many ground breaking projects and programs, some of which changed the world in ways we never expected to happen. I got to do things that were new and exciting and some of which made a very big difference. Now as an author, I'm working once again on things that are new and exciting, and which to me at least, have made a very big difference. (And all those folks ripping me off I'm sure it made a difference to as well ;-) ).

So now it's time to move on to other projects. I have two promised books I need to write next, one of which is a POI novel. After that, well I have a short series I'd like to write, very short. No more 17 book behemoths! After that, I most likely will revisit Valens, for a sequel, but I think somewhere in there, maybe I've earned a short vacation.