Reader Questions!

I answered reader questions for the Crew a couple of weeks back and thought I’d post them here as well. If you want to read these early and get a head start on other Jupiter Pirates news and sneak peeks, join the Crew!

Will the Jupiter Pirates series continue after The Rise of Earth?

Absolutely! I’ve started figuring out the next book and while I don’t have a title yet, I do know how it will end. (Warning: it will be a really cruel cliffhanger, so I’m telling you now — don’t skip ahead to the last page.) Look for the new book in 2018. I know that’s a long time, so I’m hoping to write a short story or two before then.

Will we ever get to see Earth?

Absolutely. We’ll go there in the next book, in fact. And maybe visit Mars too.

I noticed you’ve described the ruler of Earth differently in different books. Is he the planet’s king or its emperor?

Good catch! But actually that’s not a mistake – some rulers have multiple royal titles at once. More will be explained in the next book.

Is Tycho’s first name really Herschel? That’s kind of a funny name.

It is, isn’t it? Tycho’s full name is Herschel Tycho Hashoone, and he’s named for a pair of astronomers – William Herschel and Tycho Brahe. William Herschel (1738-1822) discovered Uranus and infrared radiation, to name just two of his accomplishments, while Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) recorded the most accurate measurements of the heavens anyone had ever seen despite working before the use of telescopes. Google them – they were pretty amazing people.

Tycho’s name is also a bit of a joke between me and my editor – in early drafts of Hunt for the Hydra Tycho was named Herschel, and the nickname he really hated wasn’t Tyke but Hershie. I decided to change his name to Tycho before Hydra was published, but kept Herschel around as a reminder of what might have been.

Speaking of names, how did you come up with the family names in Jupiter Pirates?

So many ways! You know about Tycho. Diocletia came from Diocletian, a Roman emperor. Yana was based on my bad memory – I was thinking of a character on a TV show I’d liked, except that character’s name was actually Yola. (Oops.) Huff is from my family tree – my great-great-great-grandfather was Matthias Gershom Huff. Vesuvia is based on the volcano Mount Vesuvius, and is my parents’ nickname for the voice of the navigation system in their car.

Names are funny things – you find inspiration all sorts of places, and play around with the sounds until you get something that feels right. It’s one of the really fun parts of being an author.

If you’re curious about the other Hashoones’ full names, Vesuvia knows them and has recorded them in a dossier that you can read … if you’re a Crew member.

So who’s going to be captain?

C’mon, would I really reveal that here? Sorry, you’ll have to keep reading. And if you’ve read The Rise of Earth, you know that the competition just got a lot more complicated….

I want to know more about the history of Earth and the solar system. Can you help?

Yes! Tycho wrote a paper for Vesuvia that covers a lot of this history. You can read it (and other fun stuff) on the Crew’s page for exclusive goodies.

I was telling my friend about Jupiter Pirates and he said there’s no way kids that young could serve on a pirate ship and there’s definitely no way they’d give people orders. Was he right?

Well, first of all this is fiction – part of the fun of making an imaginary world is you get to decide how it works. But something very similar happened in real-world history. In the British navy, boys as young as eight (and back then it was only boys) were sent to sea as midshipmen and had authority over adult crewmen. These “young gentlemen” typically came from wealthy families, but some grew up to become excellent officers. They experienced battles and sometimes died serving their country.

I want to know more about Grigsby and the people who aren’t Tycho’s family. Will you write about them someday?

I already have! Read the short story “The Trouble With Crimps” – it has a lot of detail about the lives of the Hashoones’ crewers and retainers. You can find the story here. By the way, one of the main characters in that story, Batincey Corso, makes a brief appearance in The Rise of Earth.

You write Star Wars books too – will we ever get a story where the Jupiter Pirates kids meet the heroes of Star Wars?

No – those worlds will have to stay separate. (Though if you’ve got an idea for fan fiction along those lines, have fun.) Still, Jupiter Pirates takes place in the future of our own world, so I like to think Tycho, Yana and Carlo have seen Star Wars or some holographic update of it and are big fans. Who knows, maybe they’ve even read one of my Star Wars books….

Got a question I didn’t answer here? Write to me at jupiterpirates@gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do!

Building the World (Oops — the Solar System) of Jupiter Pirates

JP_etalOver the last week I’ve had a blast talking worldbuilding and storytelling with my pals at Eleven-ThirtyEight. They’re Jupiter Pirates fans, so we talk about everything from where the characters’ names came from to how the series has evolved to how you figure out a future history of Earth and the solar system.

Here’s part 1 and here’s part 2. There’s a lot here I hope will be helpful for aspiring writers – learn from my mistakes! (And the occasional success.) And I hope Jupiter Pirates fans will enjoy the peeks behind the scenes at how the series has unfolded so far, and a couple of hints — nothing too spoilery — about what’s coming in the future.

Reminders:

Great Price on Hunt for the Hydra

Arrr! This here deal be a right steal!

Amazon is offering the Kindle version of Hunt for the Hydra for just $1.99 through mid-June. This is a great way to dive into the Jupiter Pirates books, so please tell your friends!

And as an added bonus, folks can now download the short story “The Trouble With Crimps” right here for free. And the paperback version of Curse of the Iris includes the first chapter of The Rise of Earth, out June 14.

 

On Tycho, Families and ‘Convenient Orphans’

Here’s a new review of Hunt for the Hydra that made me happy, from Fantasy Book Critic. An excerpt:

What is truly amazing about Hunt for the Hydra is the relationships between all the characters. First, there are adults who are actively involved with their children’s lives. The parents know what is going on, are sought for help with problems, and truly care about the well-being of their children. There is even a ‘kooky’ grandpa who is part robot, who seems a little out there, but can be counted on at times to tell it like it is and listen to the main character when he needs to talk about issues.

Parental figures tend to be downplayed in middle grade fiction in an effort to appeal to the target audience. It was nice to see active, involved parents who aren’t hovering over the main characters, but are there to support, guide, and nurture them.

I like that because I wanted The Jupiter Pirates to be a series about families, but one without “convenient orphans.” Convenient orphans are a trope of all heroic fiction, but one that’s particularly common in kids’ books – and that I felt we could use a break from.

The Hashoones have their problems as a family – Tycho discovers that in Curse of the Iris, and things get really bad in The Rise of Earth (that’s Book 3 of the series, coming soon) – but Tycho isn’t an orphan. He’s a member of a family with strong-willed personalities, deep-rooted traditions and very definite expectations. I wanted the pressures and complications Tycho and his siblings face to reflect that, and it’s gratifying to see a reviewer respond to it.

News (well sort of): I’m working on a Jupiter Pirates short story that I hope will appear this summer. Members of The Crew will get the first crack at reading it, so if you’re not a member, sign up today! I also hope to have news about a publication date for The Rise of Earth soon, so keep watching this space!

Talking Jupiter Pirates With The More You Nerd

The More You Nerd

This is a really fun one!

I got on the phone with the merry band at The More You Nerd for a freewheeling conversation about The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra. We talk about … heck, it’s simpler to say what we didn’t talk about. Our discussion includes the difference between pirates and privateers, the struggle between the Jovian Union and Earth, the relationship between the Hashoones and their retainers, where I get the names for characters, storytelling decisions, some teasers about what’s coming in the third through fifth books, and much more.

We even talk about another space-fantasy franchise, a little something called Star Wars.

Check it out here!

Upcoming: There will be a free Jupiter Pirates short story this summer. Members of The Crew will get the first shot at downloading it, so sign up today!

Jupiter Pirates on the Olympic Peninsula!

So this post is LONG overdue, because I have been on deadline with Star Wars projects. But in March I went to Port Townsend, Wash., which chose The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra as its Family Community Read for 2015. (More about that here and here.)

Port Towsend’s a pretty cool place, with some awesome bookstores, a steampunk pirate store and a great library. And the connection was meant to be — the main settlement on Callisto is Port Town, after all! Port Townsend doesn’t have scads of underground levels, but it does have a one-block underground arcade of stores — which I’m glad to say was neither cold nor dangerous, unlike Port Town’s depths.

I talked about Jupiter Pirates at the public library (a very cool Carnegie building, by the way) and then went to Blue Heron Middle School, where I answered a bunch of very good questions about Jupiter Pirates, its character and plot and then got to talk with the whole school. Many thanks to library director Melody Eisner, to Diane Lashinsky and Cheryl Brady at Blue Heron, and to Jim and Gail at the Commander’s Beach House. And my particular thanks to the library’s Kit Ward-Crixell, who did so much to make this happen and was a kind, cheerful tour guide and historian. Everybody in Port Townsend was kind and welcoming. I had a blast and hope I get to come back!

Some photos from the trip:

Here’s a nice Jupiter Pirates display in the library (with a guest-star role for Zare Leonis from Star Wars Rebels):

That underground block I was talking about. I don’t know, I think this could be Port Town:

This, though, is definitely not Callisto — it’s a panorama from the waterfront:

Here’s a really great display the kids at Blue Heron made for Jupiter Pirates, complete with pirates. THANK YOU GUYS!!!:

And here’s a panorama from Blue Heron just before I started speaking. I love my job!:

Oh, if you go you need to go to San Juan Taqueria‘s taco truck. It was delicious:

And just for fun, some beautiful flowers along the way:

Thanks again everybody!

Port Townsend Here We Come!

Here’s some exciting news — the Jupiter Pirates are coming to Port Townsend, Washington!

Each year Port Townsend’s public library chooses a Community Read — a book for folks to read together — and this year their choice is The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra.

Extra copies of Hydra are available at the public library now, as well as at the libraries at Port Townsend High School and Blue Heron Middle School. Starting Feb. 21, free copies will be available at the public library. There’s a kickoff of the Community Read on Feb. 21 at the Cotton Building downtown from 1 pm to 4 pm, with swordfighting, LEGO starships, a mobile planetarium from the University of Washington and more. (See more about the events here and here.)

And that’s just the beginning — PT Shorts Readers Theater will be adapting Hunt for the Hydra as a play on March 7 at 7:30 pm at the Northwind Arts Center. I hope whoever plays Huff Hashoone has fun chewing scenery!

On March 11 the public library is having a Jupiter Pirates scavenger hunt.

And last and definitely least, I’m headed to Port Townsend to chat about my books and sign copies. I’ll be at the public library from 2 pm to 4 pm on March 18 and then at Blue Heron Middle School on March 19. I’ll talk about how the series came to be, how the story continues in Curse of the Iris, and maybe read some bits of Rise of Earth if folks are interested.

I also recently sat down for an interview with KPTZ that will be available as a podcast soon.

Port Townsend is a beautiful town on the Olympic peninsula, with a rich history as a seaport. Which makes it perfect for Jupiter Pirates! I’m honored and humbled that Hunt for the Hydra is their 2015 Community Read and can’t wait to visit in person and talk about the Hashoones and their adventures. See you soon!

‘Hydra’ Gets Reviewed — as a Cybils Finalist!

I really enjoyed this thoughtful review of Hunt for the Hydra at the blog Charlotte’s Library.

Hunt for the Hydra is a finalist for a Cybils award, which is a pinch-me honor — the other books in this category are so good that when I read about them I kept thinking, “my son should read that!” Check them all out here — lots of great things to read!

And now back to revisions on The Rise of Earth — my goal is to send the manuscript off to HarperCollins before the end of the week.

Want a Sneak Preview of Curse of the Iris?

Big day, folks!

First up: The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra is out today in paperback. You can get it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million or a local bookstore near you. This is a great chance for friends to check out what Jupiter Pirates is all about, so please spread the word — and thank you for your help!

Next: Let’s celebrate with something cool. How about a sneak preview of The Jupiter Pirates: Curse of the Iris? It hits bookstores Dec. 16, but you can read the first four chapters right now. Read it onscreen, download it for later, pass it on to a friend … whatever you want.

So let me tell you about Curse of the Iris. It’s the story of a treasure hunt, one that begins when the Shadow Comet intercepts a ghost ship with a long-dead crew. That puts Tycho, Yana and Carlo on the trail of a fortune that their great-grandfather Johannes Hashoone helped hide. But in trying to find the legendary Iris cache, the Hashoone siblings will dig up more than they bargained for — because like old pirate treasure, family secrets never stay buried.

Later this fall, I’ll have more about the book, its characters and some of the new places we’ll visit.

By the way, members of the Crew — that’s the free Jupiter Pirates mailing list — got an early heads-up about the Curse of the Iris preview. Crew members also get Jupiter Pirates goodies you can’t get anywhere else, so join today!

‘Hydra’ Paperbacks Are on the Way!

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New arrival! Just got my paperback copies of The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra and thrilled to say the book looks great — Tom Lintern’s awesome art really pops, and the book comes with a sneak peek of Curse of the Iris!

The paperback edition of Hydra comes out Nov. 11. I’ll mark the occasion with all sorts of goodies as we count down to the Dec. 16 release of The Jupiter Pirates: Curse of the Iris.