Urdaisunia Book Extras #3 and Release Update

The Spotify playlist for Urdaisunia is now posted on the book page. You don't have to listen to the playlist to enjoy the book, but I always like to have some songs that set the mood for what I'm writing or that have lyrics that go along with it, and thought it would be fun to share this. Most of the songs are pretty self-explanatory as to why they go with the book, but one, "Brothers on Diamir," doesn't seem so closely related. It's about a tragic mountain-climbing incident in the Himalayas, which doesn't really have anything to do with the story of Urdaisunia, but the epic, tragic scope of it goes well with the battle scene and the aftermath, plus the theme of brothers is important to the story.

Also, for "The Secret's In the Keeping," you have to just ignore the last two lines because they don't go with the story at all.

I do have a fondness for female-fronted European symphonic metal bands, but there's a variety of music on the playlist and I hope you'll find something you like and that will give you a taste of what Urdaisunia is like.

This playlist thing is an experiment, and I'd like feedback on how it works. I'm especially interested in knowing how/if it works if you don't have Spotify; I was having trouble testing this because every time I started the playlist, my Spotify would start up automatically. Spotify is awesome, though, and it's free, so if it's available in your country you might consider getting it. If anyone is totally unable to use either the link or the embedded playlist or even see them, let me know and I'll also just post the song titles and artists.

After looking at the calendar and where I am and how things are going, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about a Feb. 18 release date for Urdaisunia. There's a part of me that firmly believes that making plans and setting deadlines is just a way of saying to the cosmos, "Oh yeah? You and what army?" So, just to be safe, I'll say that barring any unforeseen circumstances, difficulties, zombie apocalypses (apocalypsi?), etc., I expect to have Urdaisunia uploaded to various online ebook retailers by Feb. 18. It takes a little while--from 24-48 hours to a couple of weeks--for new books to actually go live on the sites, so I will put up buy links to the various retailers as that happens.