Today sees the release of Static Ruin, the third and final book of the VoidWitch Saga. You can order it from your favourite bookseller now, or wait a couple of months for the audio release. I recently did an interview with Paul Semel about Static Ruin, Repo Virtual, and other odds and ends, so check that out.
It’s been a long journey getting to this point. On this date three years ago I was working away at the first draft of Killing Gravity, confident that I had something great on my hands, but never really thinking that it would be the thing to kick-start my writing career. I’ll always be grateful to my editor Carl Engle-Laird for taking a chance on KG and on me, and I’m so thankful to Carl and the rest of the Tor.com Publishing team for supporting me across three novellas. And a big thank you to Martha Millard for helping to guide me along the early career path (I hope you enjoy your retirement!).
The seed for Static Ruin was planted within the pages of Killing Gravity, and now with the third book, Mars comes full circle, finally facing her past and the spectre of her father. Killing Gravity was quite a personal book in some ways, whereas Void Black Shadow was more political. Static Ruin returns to the personal, dealing with questions of family, expectation, disappointment, pain, and all the rest. It’s about parents, yes, but there’s a reason why I dedicated the book to my two sisters. Our parents can damage us in ways that they never intend, in ways that we can’t truly grasp until decades later. This doesn’t make them bad parents, it just makes them fallible, human. But for those of us who have siblings that we grew up with, they’re right there beside us – they’re hurt with us and sometimes by us, and they can hurt us too. But there’s a connection there that’s different to the ones we share with our parents. They’re our allies and enemies, our co-conspirators and occasional snitches, they’re distant, but never far from our hearts. They’re part of the memories that form the very foundation of our selves, and we have the privilege of growing up alongside them, watching them mature into adulthood with all the joys and pains that can bring.
All of this is just to say: Carlie, Jessica, I love you both, and you’re stronger and braver than I will ever be.