I published The Ice Star on January 26th, 2017. It was the first book I published that ever really sold, and it changed everything.
If you’re familiar with my story around writing The Ice Star, you’ll know I was sick of it. I had rewritten the book, from scratch, at least three times. While the lecturers at Falmouth University thought I was on to something, and I achieved a distinction for my work on The Ice Star (graduating in 2015), I was done. My brain was cooked. And, as I’ve mentioned before, I embarked on what I knew would be a successful writing career based on the conviction that The Ice Star would never sell, and Steampunk was the way forward.
Yeah.
That went well.
It took two months on the Yukon River to persuade me to dust off the latest draft of The Ice Star, and I revisited it on a tiny computer in the canteen of an Alaskan ferry crossing Prince William Sound.
I can’t remember how much I wrote on the ferry, but I finished revamping the story (and The Starlighter) before the end of 2016. I self-published in January 2017, and things became interesting after that.
And Maratse arrived, of course.
I often credit Seven Graves, One Winter as my breakthrough book, but really it was The Ice Star. Maratse is in it – his first ever appearance – but it was Konstabel Fenna Brongaard who forged my writing career.
So this post, and the new cover, is basically a thank you to Fenna, and the readers who bought the book and helped me take the next step on my way to becoming an independent author.
Chris
Great book Chris. I happen to be reading it again at the moment. Seven Graves was my first i read of yours and havn’t looked back.
Thanks, Graham! Gosh, second time around… the words “glutton for punishment” come to mind. 🙂 At the risk of sounding rather self-centred I do love the scene on the ice with Maratse driving, Fenna shooting, etc!
I’m on chapter 13 of “The Ice Star” and loving it! I’m glad you decided to publish it. We never know what is happening next and when we think we know… there’s a surprise. Yeah, for someone who prefers science fiction it can be annoying. Once I read that Arthur Conan Doyle started writing about Sherlock Holmes because detective stories were what sell… At some point he hated it and killed Sherlock Holmes… only to bring him alive again because people missed the character. However, what he really wanted was to write science fiction like “The Lost World”.
Hi Ana-Catarina. I didn’t know that about Arthur Conan Doyle, but in my own small way I can relate. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, I’ve been curious. 🙂
Happy Anniversary! These were the books that initiated me as a Christopher Petersen fan!!
Oops! Sorry! CHRISTOFFER! I should know better – your books now take up an entire shelf of my digital bookcase! :o)
Hi Dave! Yes, I too get confused which name I’m using. 😉 But thank you, I really appreciate your feedback. The Ice Star will always be an “important” book for me. I’ve been toying around with a number 4 for a few years now, but then Petra happened. 🙂