There, I said it. For those of you who don’t know, Dragonsblood is my first Pern book. It’s overdue.

Those that know, are wondering when it will be finished. So am I.

Honestly, the book is over 138,000 words and over 770 (manuscript) pages long. I have a good outline (some of you may have heard it at Dragon*con) and have only four more chapters to go before it’s done (three if you dont’ count the one I’m in the middle of writing).

So, to keep you up to date, I’ll post the latest news on how Dragonsblood is coming along, chapter by chapter. For those of you keeping track, I’m currently writing Chapter 22 (Chapter 25 is the last chapter — right now).

I attended Orycon25 last weekend. It was in Portland, Oregon. I met a lot of people that I hadn’t seen in years, including many of my Clarion ’92 class. As always, too little time, too many people to meet.

It was a great con (as always) and I hope to get up there next year. While I was there, I met the chairman and head of programming for a convention I hadn’t heard about called Radcon (www.radcon.org) which has been running in the tri-city area for over a decade. It seemed like a nice convention, well-run, and they invited me. Sadly, the timing just doesn’t work and I had to decline. Maybe the timing’ll be right in 2005.

I’ve got copies of both the US and UK hardcovers of Dragon’s Kin! Wow! It’s a real book! It never seems real until I hold the book in my hand and even then, sometimes, I have this little niggling voice in my head saying, “Wait! There must be some mistake!”

Dragon’s Kin should go on sale November 25th.

— Todd

This is the brand-spanking new Todd McCaffrey website.

It was set up by VirtualMagpie (www.virtualmagpie.com) which has done a marvelous job.

Have a look around. Check out the “Letters” blog as that will answer the letters sent to me — and may answer some of your questions, too!

— Todd McCaffrey