Shards of Starlight acquired by Solaris Books

I'm very, very pleased to confirm that my third novel, and debut science fiction novel, SHARDS OF STARLIGHT, has been acquired by Solaris Books in a one book deal!

For those who are subscribed to my newsletter or follow me on social media, this is the novel I referred to as Project SHARD over the past few years, as I reworked it and polished it and got it ready to send it to editors. I cannot wait for you to read it in Fall 2027!

Wait, I thought you wrote spy novels?

I do, as David Goodman. My science fiction will be published as David W. Goodman. I've been writing in multiple genres for years and I have multiple published science fiction stories, but I'm very, very excited to be taking the first steps into my dual writing career as a novelist.

What's it about?

It's a far future generation ship SF novel, with lots of spooky, abandoned spaceships. Here's the pitch:

SHARDS OF STARLIGHT follows Sylla, who grew up on an ark ship that left a devastated Earth centuries before, on a voyage to save the future of mankind. She’s spent her life preparing for Landing Day, when the work to make their new planet habitable will begin, but the arks have been overtaken—Earth has recovered in the generations since they departed, and the arks themselves presumed lost.

Fifteen years after the violent chaos of Landing Day, Sylla volunteers for the organisation tasked with finding the remaining arks, where she does the harrowing work of exploring derelict ships. Then the Prairie Dawn, a new type of ark ship scrubbed from Old Earth’s records, arrives from deep space with the sinister Fathers in command. Sylla is thrust into the centre of a brewing shipboard revolution as she tries to help the people onboard reclaim their future, and save her adopted home from the wrath of the Fathers.

Oooh, when can I get it?

It's going to publish in Fall 2027 (or Autumn, if you prefer). We don't have a finalised format list or a precise date as yet, but stay tuned to this website, my social channels and Solaris to find out as soon as we post. Once I have pre-order links I'll be posting them far and wide.

Where can I get it?

As above, precise formats are being nailed down, but this is a traditionally published novel, so we'll have physical copies as well as digital formats. It will be available from a wide range of online and physical retailers.

I've only read your spy fiction - will I like your SF?

I think you might! They share a certain amount of excitement and action focus, and I've set out to write a fairly accessible SF novel that nevertheless has the big ideas and scope that dedicated fans of the genre love. If you like a bit of SF already, I think you'll have a great time. And if you're taking a tentative step into the speculative, my hope is that this will be a great place for you to start.

What's happening right now?

I turned in the draft late last year and I'm getting ready to work on the book with my new editor, Amanda Raybould. I'm really looking forward to working on it with her. This is my first time working with a different editor and publisher, so I'm intrigued to see where the commonalities and differences are with my experiences at Headline Books, who publish my spy novels.

At some point next year we'll reach the point where we send the manuscript to other authors in hopes of a blurb. If you're an author who would like to read the book and possibly blurb it, you can use my contact form to get in touch. I'll post about proofs and eARCs closer to the time, once we've got the launch plan sorted out.

So are you going to write more of these?

That's the plan! This deal with Solaris is for one book, but if it does well, then hopefully we can continue to work together. I've got plenty of ideas for books set in this universe, as well as lots of other speculative concepts. I love to write, read and watch science fiction and I'm delighted to be working in the genre at novel length.

Does this mean fewer spy novels?

Not if I can help it. I went part-time at my day job in January, at least in part because of making this deal, because I'll need the time to write more books and the deal with Solaris is one of the financial components of making that work. Right now, I think I have the stability and capacity to write books in both genres at a pace that works for both me and my publishers. I'm a fairly prolific writer, so I think it's going to work really well. Hopefully when I revisit this question in a year or so I'll still feel the same way!

You're a new author to me - how do I find out more?

I'm glad you asked - check out my About page for starters. I'll be updating my website (including the bios on my press kit page) soon to reflect the new book.

If you can't wait for the book to come out and want to know what my science fiction work is like, you can always read my published short fiction, much of which is available to read online for free, or in very reasonably priced and truly excellent anthologies.

If you want to follow along with my day-to-day as an author, I write a monthly newsletter (which is cross-posted to this website) and I'm active on Bluesky and Instagram. I also blog here pretty much every weekday. If you're cool and old school, you can subscribe to this blog in your RSS reader.