Science Fiction and Fantasy are oddball genres, because they’re based on setting instead of type of plot. Romance and Horror have an emotional plot arc they have to hit in the story, while Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense have to start with a problem or puzzle (usually a murder, for mystery) and solve it by the end of the story. Scifi, though, can have any other genre… in space!
This leads to my husband asking me for keywords, and then looking very confused when I tell him “heist!”
“Wait, what?”
“Dear, it’s a heist novel in space. You have a rich prize, a crack team of skilled specialists assembled to get their hands on a chunk of that prize under a brilliant scheme, and a bunch of other criminals also after the prize that they have to outwit and overcome.”
“But… it’s about a mercenary company!”
“It’s about a crew gotten together to con the company owning the system into financing them as a plausible deniability defense in the name of a mercenary company, which will let them swipe the richest loot right under the company’s nose, yes?”
“Well… yes…”
“It’s a heist novel.”
“But there are battles! They still have to defend the system!”
“Heist novels can have big space kablooies, too! In fact, that’s what the ‘space’ keyword is for – because space is a setting you can select in Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense.”
I got a very dubious look, but it’s true. Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn is a heist novel in a fantasy world where the Dark Lord won. And this is a heist novel with asteroid thieves. If you want to check it out, it’s now at:
(Or https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D1S38RJ/ for those who’ve got embedding blocked on their browsers!)
Mad Genius Club 
14 responses to “The Stones of Silence is live!”
Paperback when??? 🙂
When all three books are out in e-book format, I’ll format them all for print. Expect them anytime from late July through early August, God willing.
*scurries off in a mad panic*…….
What, more books to read? Dang it.
c4c
My keyword is Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!
Dagnab it! I start work early next 3 days and now I’m gonna be up way too late.
I remember being incandescent when Serenity abruptly jumped from being a Western in space, to being a Superhero Origin in space.
The genre assumptions are not very compatible to begin with, and certainly not in the slapdash way the shift occurred.
But friends who had no attachment to the Western genre could genuinely not understand why I was so pissed off.
“I remember being incandescent when Serenity abruptly jumped from being a Western in space, to being a Superhero Origin in space.”
They were just following in the tracks of Star Wars there.
Hello vacuum my old friend . . .
*has a mental image of the shhhhllllrrrping of the money from your wallet/bank account/card to fund purchase of books*
In space, no one can hear you read.
And with a nod to Christopher, I wonder why it’s called a vacuum cleaner, when the device doesn’t actually clean vacuum.
Yay!!!
Very fun book, and I’m looking forward to the next two.
And you were absolutely right when you said this was a heist book.
I hope you’re working on something else as well, since I enjoyed Scaling the Rim.