Time's Arrow: Black Swan - released today!

That's right, it's the news fans of Pax Britannia and Ulysses Quicksilver have been waiting to hear, today Black Swan (Part 2 of my latest steampunk action thriller) is available to download from iTunes and the Kindle stores in both the UK and the US.

Here's the blurb from the Abaddon Books website.

Time’s Arrow:

Black Swan

by Jonathan Green

Available from Amazon Kindle Store and iTunes from Monday 7th May

An exclusive ebook release and an intriguing publishing experiment

The caper is afoot, but where it leads only YOU decide! The latest instalment of the exciting new novel from Abaddon, Pax Britannia: Time’s Arrow, is coming!

In a unique publishing experiment, readers themselves get to decide on the fate of our hero Ulysses and where the Time’s Arrow story will take them.

Our hero Ulysses Quicksilver – wanted by the French Police for murder – battles his way across Paris, from the Louvre to Notre Dame, in order to prove his innocence. Readers have been voting online on where they want the story to go and they overwhelmingly voted for Ulysses to go in search of the mysterious "M. Lumière”.

Time’s Arrow puts the reader in charge and merges the best of print and online. Each instalment is published as an ebook with readers able to vote on where THEY want the story to go at the end of each episode. The first installment, Red Handed, was published in October and once all three instalments have been published, they will be bound together into a print edition.

“Lashings of derring-do, sprinkled with just the right amount of plot development to keep a reader hungry for more.”

– The Eloquent Page on Time’s Arrow: Red Handed

In case you haven't picked up Time's Arrow Part 1 - a.k.a. Red-Handed - it's not too late. You can do so here, and while you're pondering your purchase, here's a pleasing review of Part 1 too. (If you catch my meaning.)

It's tough to review this first instalment of the new Pax Britannia book fairly, since it is only the first third of the story. On top of that, not only do I, as a reader, not know where the story is going next, neither does the author: this instalment ends on a cliffhanger, and readers can go to the publisher's web site to vote on which way they think the story should go next. The second instalment will have a similar vote, and only after the third part is published as an ebook will the whole thing be released as a complete novel.

I can say, as someone who has only read the first Ulysses Quicksilver Pax Britannia novel before I read this one, it's fairly accessible. There's quite a bit of mention of earlier stories, but while I understood that I was coming in on the middle of a series, I didn't feel particularly lost. While this story very much seems to follow on from a cliffhanger in the previous book, I felt I had enough information to still enjoy it. Plus, once that cliffhanger was wrapped up, the new story was completely fresh and accessible.

What I ended up with was a fast-paced, science fiction, steampunk action-adventure, with some cute nods to genuine Victorian science fiction. The interactive part of the story was fun, and it's really got me looking forward to the next instalment (which is why I was willing to skip ahead in the series). And now I've got some time to get caught up!


Thanks, Penelopecat!