My spouse's new book, Situation Normal, coming out December 14th

[brainwane]

My spouse, Leonard Richardson, wrote a military scifi satire novel, and it comes out on December 14th. Situation Normal is available for preorder now. You can also enter the giveaway for a free copy.

Kobo and Indigo have a free preview up, so you can see the content notes and start to meet Becky, Hiroko, Myrus, Churryhoof, Dwap-Jac-Dac, Arun, and the Chief. A few short quotes from the first few chapters:

“Your name,” she said. “Ma’am?” A bit of exaggerated politeness, from someone raised on Fist propaganda about humans and their intensely honor-based culture.

....
“Are you gonna kill me?” said Becky.

“Oh,” said Arun, grimacing, as though Becky had farted, or mentioned money.
....
Becky gulped down another slosh of water. She needed something stronger. Trellis had trained her to face down death. Not very effectively, but at least she’d had the training. Nobody trained you how to face unemployment.

This is a darkly funny book by someone who loves Star Trek, the Coen Brothers' films, and Catch-22. I love this book and want to keep quoting it at you. Here's another quote and links to some reviews.

A few things I particularly think are of note for my Dreamwidth readers:

• This story is told from a bunch of different perspectives, human and alien
  
• Some of the characters are queer women who have sex
  
• Leonard worked with multiple sensitivity readers since he was (for instance) writing Black and queer characters, and made changes at their suggestion
  
• There is violence, but no sexual violence, in the book
  
• There are like 3 jokes and references that I get but that people with no experience of Indian culture will not get, and I treasure them
  
• Multiple characters in this book are, themselves, scifi fans, and this affects the story
  
• If you have grumbled while reading/watching military scifi in the past -- Star Trek, Ender's Game, what have you -- I think you'll enjoy some of the skewerings in this book
  
• The publisher, Candlemark & Gleam, is very indie

I am looking forward to more people reading and enjoying this so I can talk about it with you!