Marko Kloos's Blog

“Es gibt drei Dinge, die sich nicht vereinen lassen: Intelligenz, Anständigkeit und Nationalsozialismus. Man kann intelligent und Nazi sein. Dann ist man nicht anständig. Man kann anständig und Nazi sein. Dann ist man nicht intelligent. Und man kann anständig und intelligent sein. Dann ist man kein Nazi.”

“There are three things that can’t be combined: intelligence, decency, and Nazism. One can be intelligent and a Nazi. Then one isn’t decent. One can be decent and a Nazi. Then one isn’t intelligent. And one can be decent and intelligent. Then one isn’t a Nazi.”

–Gerhard Bronner, Austrian composer

I got my proofs for the reformatted paperbacks in today, and I’m happy to report that the new version is properly formatted, with larger type and correct chapter headings. Alas, the new format uses more paper than the old one, so the price went up by a dollar because I have to set a minimum price on the Amazon publishing tool that covers the printing costs.

My apologies to everyone who bought the older version and ended up with print that’s too small to read comfortably. I should have caught this earlier but I was too busy finishing the draft for CYGNUS, and when I am in deadline mode, I just don’t have any brain bandwidth to spare.

I spent some time today uploading corrected Kindle and paperback files for ECHOES OF SILENCE. A frequent criticism of the paperback was the size of the print, which left too much white space on the page. On the Kindle version, there was no table of contents. Both of these issues are hopefully fixed now–owners of the Kindle edition should get the new version uploaded automatically. I’ll have them send me a proof print for the paperback version to make sure it looks correct now.

Since it has come up in comments:

I’ve recently been made aware that there are people out there pretending to be me and DM-ing or emailing readers with “hey, let’s talk” messages.

I don’t message or email people out of the blue, ever. If you get an unsolicited message from me you didn’t expect, it’s 100% a scam. Someone is trying to sell you VIP fan access, or editing or review services, or something else that’s shady and fraudulent.

I’ve also been told that people are trying to sell their editing services by using me as a reference, complete with fake endorsement email. I do not endorse any product or service for anyone. I will sometimes blurb a novel, but I am highly selective about that, and those blurbs are always a.) solicited by the author’s agent or publisher, and b.) done for free as a favor.

I have no time at all for running a developmental editing service on the side, I do not offer blurbs unasked, I don’t charge anyone for reviews or pay for them, and I do not have a fan club, whether with or without a VIP tier. My only public-facing web presence is this blog and my Instagram and Bluesky accounts. My only public email is marko.kloos@gmail.com. If you get an email from any other address or any direct message on social media purporting to be from me, it’s a scam.

I haven’t updated this space in a while because I’ve been crazy busy and had nothing much of general interest to report. However, some of you may be happy to hear that I just finished the draft for CYGNUS, the third book in the Frontlines: Evolution series, and sent it to my editor this morning.

This will be the final book of the series with Alex as the point-of-view character. My publisher wanted me to cap the series as a trilogy, and I think I managed to accomplish what I had planned to do, which is to give Alex a great character arc and bring her story to a full circle. People really seem to like Corvus, and I think this one may be even better. But time will tell.

Now I’ll be in recovery mode for a little bit, and then it’s off to the races to finish Palladium Wars #5, ECLIPSE, before year’s end so you can all get your hands on it soon.

Today is the release day for CORVUS, the second book in the Frontlines: Evolution series!

When colonial refugee-turned-soldier Alex Archer is stranded on a hostile planet with her unit, she has to draw on her experiences growing up on an occupied world to keep her little band of survivors alive.

CORVUS is available here in Kindle, paperback, and Audible formats.

Buy, read, enjoy, leave a review if you enjoyed, tell your friends, tell them to tell their friends. Heck, just approach people on the street and hold out the paperback. Say “Is good book. You read. You read now.”

The draft for CYGNUS, third book in the Frontlines: Evolution series is due to my publisher this month, so I’ll be busy with that one until I turn it in. When I am in deadline mode, I don’t have much bandwidth for anything else, so if you have sent me an email in the last few weeks (or plan to do so in the next few weeks), remember that I am bad at quick replies on the best of days, so bear with me until this manuscript is on the way to my editor.

After that, I’ll be finishing ECLIPSE, the fifth and final book (for now) in the Palladium Wars series. Since 47North declined to continue the series, I’ll be publishing ECLIPSE myself through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For those of you waiting for the book (and I hope that’s a lot of folks), that means it will be available not too long after I’ve finished the draft and edited it with my partner in crime. I aimed to have it ready later this summer, but the way the calendar is progressing, it will be out in the fall instead. I’ll be sure to make it worth the wait–it’s shaping up to be a very good novel.

Now the world just needs to stop falling apart for a little while. I thought my cortisol levels were high in 2020 and 2021, but all of this 2025 business is making the pandemic stress feel trivial by comparison. When I write, I need to tune out the world so I can get into my zone, but this world keeps refusing to let itself get tuned out…

Over at Transfer Orbit, Andrew Liptak is saying some nice things about Frontlines in general and ECHOES OF SILENCE, which is in his list of 14 books to check out in July.

I buy more books from Andrew’s excellent curated lists than any other source of reviews or recommendations. If you are looking for a good source of SF/F genre news and book reviews, Transfer Orbit is well worth a subscription.

The not-so-little novella is chugging right along in the Kindle store as more Frontlines fans are discovering its existence. Of course, I already got a one-star review from someone who didn’t know what was going on because they failed to read the author’s note in the product description. I mean, I just put it in there in prominent bold font instead of making it a singing, dancing, unkillable pop-up warning, so that’s probably on me.

Listen up, Frontlines fans: Echoes of Silence, a Frontlines novella, is now available in Kindle and paperback formats.

(Edited to add: the paperback version is currently under review but should show up as available for purchase on the product page at some point today.)

When special operations Major Andrew Grayson and NACS Washington disappear without a trace during a clandestine mission to the Capella system, his wife, Lieutenant Colonel Halley, is left reeling. With Andrew’s whereabouts unknown, she settles in for a long and agonizing wait as their lives together are put on hold.

This is Halley’s personal journal, started shortly after Andrew’s disappearance. It chronicles the highs and lows of her life without him as the silence of his absence stretches out over months and then years. The journal that begins as a reluctantly obeyed order from her military therapist becomes Halley’s sounding board for her joys and fears, a record of all the big and small events that shape her life as she waits for Andrew to come home.

Author’s Note: Echoes of Silence is told in epistolary format. This is a collection of Halley’s diary entries that cover the timespan of the Frontlines novels Orders of Battle and Centers of Gravity. To understand the references in this novella and to avoid spoilers, it’s recommended to have read Orders of Battle (Frontlines #7) and Centers of Gravity (Frontlines #8) first.

This one was in the works for quite a while, and it ended up one humdinger of a novella at almost 40,000 words. Halley’s thoughts and musings during Andrew’s long absence include a fair bit of new information about the Lankies that expands on some of Andrew and Elin Vandenberg’s discoveries in Orders of Battle and Centers of Gravity. In the reading order, that makes Echoes of Silence Frontlines 8.5.

If that sounds like your cup of favorite hot breakfast beverage, you can pick up your very own copy right now, for less than the price of half an hour of city parking!

My wife recently surprised me with a new laptop bag she had commissioned as a custom job, using my old German military backpack that had been gathering dust in the garage as raw material for the project.

I’ve always been picky about bags, and most of them tend to fall down in at least one category between material, layout, size, craftmanship, or durability. This one is the first that ticks all the boxes for me. It’s the perfect size, just big enough for a 14″ laptop. The internal layout is exactly as I would have designed it, the stitching and detail work are superb, and the material (being from a military backpack) is ridiculously sturdy. They even used one of the backpack straps as the carry strap, repurposed one of the outside gear pockets as an accessory pouch, and used one of the original buckle straps for the laptop compartment. And to top it all off, they sewed on a velcro strip, reattached my old name tape, and took the flag rondel off my old field cap and put it on the messenger bag.

I’m super happy with the end result, and I’ve retired all my other (store-bought) bags. The custom material and detail work makes this a unique one-off, and I believe this is the first time this company used that particular bag pattern, so there’s no other bag like it out there.

The company my wife approached with this commission is R.Riveter, for those of you who are curious. They’re based in North Carolina and employ military spouses for their bag collection. This isn’t a paid pitch–my wife paid full fare for their work. They make mostly handbags and other bag patterns oriented towards women, but they’re thinking about making that messenger bag a regular item. I thought I should give them a shout-out because of the excellent work they did on this bag.

Here are some pictures:

My wife had them make her a bag out of the same material, which also turned out very well.