I always intend to be a professional kind of writer, who builds out a good reputation in a single genre and has a plan for what I’m going to write next. Unfortunately, my muse is a flighty creature who reacts badly to being told what to do. I told her we were doing the robot book, and instead she fixated on some side characters from the Imperial Mars series to the point that I couldn’t focus on anything else.

“Fine,” I said, “I’ll write a little fic. A fanfic of my own work. The stuff that didn’t make it into the books, and since it’s just fic I can write whatever I want. Something totally self-indulgent and maybe smutty.”

She laughed and laughed.

One month later

I fell completely down the hyperfocus rabbit hole, and when I came out, I had a novella of forty thousand words. It was self-indulgent, but my brand of self indulgence tends not just to smut but to complicated worldbuilding and political machinations.

I didn’t want to post it as a fanfic, because the Imperial Mars fandom does not exist on AO3, so to get anybody to read the fic, I’d have to connect my fanfic identity with my author identity. My parents know my pen name. Absolutely not.

So a published novella it is. Will anyone like it? Who knows. But I wanted to put it where the people who might like it could find it.

It contains:

• one sad wet prince
• one murder valet (who is also a spy)
• political shenanigans
• class conflict (as always)
• politically-relevant fashion choices
• the intimacy of letting another man person dress you
• good reasons why nobody liked the Emprex
• a masquerade ball
• the BDSM dynamic you may or may not have detected in their vibes
• some smut, though the yearning:smut ratio is quite high
• guest starring: Kostya’s hair and Sagan’s forearms

Trying to find things to compare it to, I came up with:

• Jeeves and Wooster, if the problems they had to deal with were serious as a heart attack
• A Civil Campaign, if Gregor somehow had a young Simon Illyan as his valet and was in love with him
• Red, White, and Royal Blue, if it was on Mars and also everything about it was entirely different
• Downton Abbey, if it’s like it looks from the previews

Where to get it

It’s currently only in ebook. It seemed a bit short to print, though I may someday, either by itself or along with whatever other spinoff stories I write.

It is, however, available pretty much everywhere ebooks are sold. If you enjoy it, tell your friends!