E.S. Raye

It’s official and I can talk about it!

Gas Giant Gambit has been picked up by the indie press Alex Parker Publishing! This is the same publishing company that accepted my very first published short story (a horror titled “SSID” which can be found and read for free on their website, here), and accepted my sci-fi/noir short “The Stuff Legends are Made of” for their upcoming RARE anthology (I believe the current release date is in February, but I’ll have more details on that the closer we get).

Alex Parker is a new independent publishing company–so new, in fact, that their first book (a portal romantasy titled The Light of Lúnasa by Laura Foley) is releasing early next year. And working with them has been a delight.

I’m not sure how much of the behind-the-scenes parts of the process I can share, but we are aiming for a September 2025 release date, so it’s going to be a busy year! For now, I’m browsing through every modern sci-fi and western book cover I can get my eyes on to get a feel for not only what’s currently popular among reader and writers, but to give me an idea of just what I want the cover to look like. I’ll let you in on a secret: the cover is something I have been struggling with since I wrote the first draft. I’ve never had a single inkling what it should look like. In fact, that was one of the driving forces behind my decision tp try for traditional publishing over self-publishing–I wanted help with the art direction! (Obviously, that’s not the only reason, but I admit to it holding a larger place in my brain than it probably should have!)

I know some developmental editing and copy editing are coming soon, but I have been assured neither require big changes, and I welcome every chance I can get to polish Gus’s story to a shine.

After that somewhat long process we’ll be looking for ARC readers. So, stick around if you want an early look into Gus’s highly stylized world, where the space between planetary systems stands in for the deserts of the American Southwest, and the star cluster on the other side of the Cygnus Rift represents the promise and hope of the American frontier. Where spaceships, called “mounts” or “carriages,” exhibit equine personality traits. Where robs (robots) of every shape and size worry about the status of their freedom–and their sentience–and constantly look over their shoulder, waiting for the law to bring them back from where they escaped bondage.

A world where greed reigns supreme, and the success of your next job, and perhaps the continuation of your very life, may depend on how fast you can slap leather and draw.