I’m pleased to report that I’ve just sold five books, Not new books, but books decades old. My Privateers & Gentlemen historical from the early Eighties. The sale is to Flagship Editions, a brand-new publisher dedicated to works with nautical themes.

Flagship is based in London but the works will be available in North America, both as ebooks and publish-on-demand. The audio books have been available for some time.

The first will appear (or re-eppear) in a few months, with the rest coming at short intervals.

I will be removing my self-published titles from the webs over the weekend, so If you want one you might have a chance of slipping away with one, but don’t count on it.

I’ll be very pleased to find books this venerable available in print once more, the more so because I’m getting fairly venerable myself.

It’s well past time for this update, but quite frankly I’m tired enough of living it without having to recount it in narrative form. Plus I was deprived of Internet for over two weeks, as the local router resolutely refused to connect to the computer, until just couple days ago the Guy from IT turned up to fix the problem. (A reminder for all of us: it’s not just a guy from IT who’s needed, it’s the right Guy from IT.)

So a little over three weeks ago I turned up at the surgical center and was subjected to a total replacement of my right knee. I’ve been urged to replace that knee for forty years, but I managed to hold off the knee’s demands till now.

The surgical center’s bright idea for my recovery was to send me home to be cared for 24/7 by Kathy until I was good as new, but this seems just a little unfair to her, and so I checked into the recovery wing of a local health unit and have been here ever since.

I thought I’d be here just 5-7 days, but I was overoptimistic, and also I reckoned without an outbreak of norovirus that kept me in quarantine for over a week.

On the whole this place is quite pleasant. I have a room of my own with a television and basic cable, I get three meals per day, and the staff are uniformly friendly and helpful. There’s only one inmate who raves late into the night, and that’s what the music channels are for.

I’m doing physical therapy at least once per day and am making progress. Today I put the walker aside for a while and took a brief stroll with the aid of just a cane. The pain from my cursed knee has diminished, at least when I’m walking, though basically any part of my body feels free to radiate pain at any intensity as long as it wants.

I’m hoping to be going home early next week, though this involves enduring yet another hideously empty weekend alone the way.

And I only have to do this twice more, once for the other knee, and again for the right shoulder. After it’s all over, I’m hoping to fulfill a lifetime’s ambition, and place in the International Walk Like Quasimodo Day competition.

I’m attending Boskone, my last bright fling at freedom before my first knee replacement.

Here’s my schedule for them what’s interested:

Fri 5:30 PM 1 Hr Harbor III 50 Secret Wars, Futuristic Espionage, and Lost Technologies

Sat 2:30 PM 1 Hr Galleria – Autographing 220 Autographing: Theodora Goss, Michael A. Ventrella, Walter Jon Williams

READING 4:30 on Saturday

Sun 10:00 AM 1 Hr Marina III 38 The Art of Crafting Authentic Periods

Sun 1:00 PM 1 Hr Marina IV 158 The Power of the Puppet Master: When Villains Drive the Story

Apple Books has put my Quillifer the Knight on sale for the criminally low price of $2.99 (regular price $15).

I have no idea how long this will last, so you should plunder while you may.

(The book shown in the ad may have a different cover, but don’t let that stop you.)