The Last Dragonrider is almost ready to go on sale. The beta readers didn't find any more problems with it. I've spent this month fixing plot holes, tying up loose ends and ferreting out typos and grammatical errors.

I have a little program that's supposed to help with proofreading, which prints the book's sentences in a random order. The theory is that seeing a sentence out of context forces you to read what it actually says, rather than think about whatever is happening in the story at that point. But my problem is that each sentence has the line number next to it (so that I can go to the source if I find a mistake), and I've spent so long reading and rereading that the line number plus the sentence usually gives me a pretty good idea of what the context is. I need to start encrypting the line numbers, or replacing them with a checksum of the line number and the sentence...

One amusing mistake I found was that a character who I'd killed off in a battle in the middle of the book miraculously survived one near the end. More amusingly, I found this mistake while reading random sentences, because the program put the two mentions of this character fairly close together.

A few more Is to dot and Ts to cross, and then it'll be off to the retailers.

Speaking of retailers, I'm taking part in the Smashwords end-of-year sale. From 8th December to 1 January, the first book in each of my series is free, and my others are all 50% off. Go to
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi... and stock up your e-reader!