First things first, all completed books can be found here
Cliff Dale Books
What is WIP? - Work In Progress, basically, what is in the pipeline, what I am working on, and how complete, or not, some of these projects are.
Well, listed below are a brief indication of what I am working on and how far advanced they are, things will move from here to their own page on servusadartem.com when they are done, so you never know what you will find, if you were following progress of a title and it is no longer here then it should be found in the link below (opens a new page on servusadartem.com).
completed titles page
PLEASE NOTE: All the WIP are still covered by copyright and are the Intellectual Property (IP) of the author, please respect that IP, to learn more about what IP is, click here
Okay, February 2020 is where we start, most of these started as outlines of stories years ago, some are a bit more recent, but I have plenty of material to work with, all I need to find is the time to do them!
any updates will be dated
You may ask, how do some of these things come about?
How can I work on several stories at once?
Actually, it is usually boredom that prompts a new story to be generated, not boredom with what I am working on, sometimes continuing something already started or perhaps something finished and in need of tidying up, is stuck, you can't see a way to progress because you are already deeply involved in a storyline that is fixed, sometimes you need to go away and come back later, so, I start something new as a distraction. On the rare occasion I am waiting for some event to play out, or perhaps waiting for my Mother at a hospital appointment, or waiting whilst she attends some club meeting or an Opera (don't understand them myself), then I need something to do, so I find a coffee shop, or preferably, a burger bar, and sit in a quiet corner and work. If I find I can't concentrate on something already well on the way, then I will start something new or expand something only just beginning.
If I planned it right, I have my trusty laptop, if not, then it is work from my phone.
Trying to edit stories that are complete needs concentration, you can't do that in a bustling, noisy, coffee shop, full of delicious smells and loud noises, at least, I can't.
Orbiter One Series - Capsaa Series - Anecdote Series - Independent Stories - Short Stories - TTEA Series
Book One is published (January 2020) - At Worlds End - see the Orbiter One
page for more information (opens a new tab)
Book Two is published (May 2021) - Silent Night - see the Silent Night
page for more information (opens a new tab)
Book Three - ??
February 2020 - the first chapter is written (Current Affairs) and the storyline is well mapped out
No planned publication target yet, it still needs a lot of work, and other stories are more advanced
April 2021 - mapped out the first five chapters, all i have to do now is find the time to write them.
Books 4,5,6,7 and possibly 8, all have working title names, so the continuing saga has a direction to travel and a way to go forward, it just depends if I live long enough to get there!
Book One is published - The Genesis of Capsaa, see the Capsaa series page for more information. (opens a new tab)
This book has been ready for publication since 2017, but I wanted to get other projects finished first (Orbiter One - At Worlds End and Anecdotes of a Zero).
Book Two - The Genesis of the CPDF. ©2020, 2023
A story about the Capsaa Proletariat Defence Force, set on the surface of Capsaa, it tells the story of why the CPDF was needed, how it came to be, and some of its early escapades.
It is currently four chapters done of a planned eight chapter story, around 40,000 words written so far.
Hopefully I can get this finished by the end of 2020.
October 2020 - not going to get anywhere near getting this completed for 2020, maybe Easter 2021 at the earliest.
January 2021 - OK, easter is not going to be close either, and not anytime in 2021, way too much going on.
November 2021 - got some more chapters done, edited the earlier stuff and created a new direction, currently around 96,000 words and not going to be just 8 chapters.
August 2022 - getting closer to completion, but other titles will be finished first, 160,000 words.
January 2023 - Almost finished, another book to complete and publish first, looking at later in 2023 to get this done if I can.
April 2023 - Finished, needs a final edit and a read-through, art work still to do but should be published by July, 106,000 words.
September 2023 - Was hoping to get this published by July or August, but not possible, still not finished the final readthrough, hoping for October.
Book Three - Ghost in the Darkness - ©2020, 2023
The return of a previously mentioned character or two (not telling you from where!) and the story of travels and confrontations along the way, the struggle between doing the right thing and overstepping the mark. It takes place in the area of Space around Capsaa, and on their journey to get there.
Currently it is one chapter done, around 12,500 words, the storyline is complete, I just need to fill in the blanks!
I hope to get this story finished by the middle of 2021
October 2020 - Covid19 and Brexit have made a dent in eveyones lives, none of it positive, this story is unlikely to be completed until late 2021 or even 2022,
can't see it getting done as planned.
January 2023 - managed to sort some extra content before xmas, but still a long way off.
August 2023 - tidied up the storyline a little, generated some of the notes required for charachters and tech, still way off from starting properly, 2 books to publish first,
and another to write before getting around to this one.
Book One Anecdotes of a Zero was published for the Kindle in May 2020 and in print for July, see the Anecdotes of a Zero page for more information. (opens a new tab)
Book Two Anecdotes of an X-Ray -©2020, © 2023
A story of a man, similar in many ways to Zero (Anecdotes of a Zero), one already escaped from the planet of Sajim to a new place, not too far away, and doing what he knows best, patrolling the surface, keeping law and order, and discovering that there are darker things at work on what he thought was a well settled planet.
April 2020 - It is currently two chapters down of a probable ten, though both chapters are not finished, 6,000 words
I want to get this done before the end of 2020 if I can, if not, then by early 2021.
June 2020 - Looking unlikely this will be published in 2020, started a new book (Breaking News - no, that's the title of the book), so, aiming for early 2021
October 2020 - not going to get to this for a while yet, anytime in 2021 is going to be a push.
January 2023 - not done anything to this title, may find the time in the autumn
May 2023 - Have re-read the chapters and tidied a bit, but will have to get on with another book first, this one is not going anywhere until 2024 at the earliest.
September 2023 - tidied some more and generated a more defined storyline, created the notes to base the technical terms and charachter associations, 3 chapters completed.
Book Three Anecdotes of Zero part 2 -©2020 © 2023
the continuing story of Zero and his quest to escape from the harsh reality he found in book one, and the realisation that he doesn't know much about life outside of his profession, or that much about life in general.
Currently just the outline, but it is fairly well sorted, the ending still needs more thought! The title is more or less decided, but it is not what is above.
February 2020 - No planned date for this one yet, mid to late 2021 is possible.
April 2020 - re-edited the original story (Anecdotes of a Zero) and the last 5 chapters are now set for the beginning of book two, around 28,700 words, but in need of a shuffle.
May 2020 - Shuffle is done, a few more words added, but lockdown for the CoVid19 outbreak meant a different sort of reshuffle.
October 2020 - plenty of other work to do unrelated to writing has meant this story is on hold until at least mid 2021, blame brexit!
January 2023 - Brexit is not all there is too blame for delays to this book, unlikely to get back into this until 2024 or even 2025
Earning the Spurs -©2020, 2023
set on the planet of Getone (pronounced geh(t)-tone) and its moon of Yatton where the character WunTun is mining Krypton Ice spurs.
He is an interesting character, secretive of his past, likes to keep himself to himself but then goes and takes on a partner in his mining operation.
He has agreed to teach the newbie all there is to know about the hazardous collection of Ice Spurs, and then intends to sell his plot and mining operation to this
newcomer at the end of a year of tuition, probably.
March 2020 - Three chapters of a planned Eight, Ch3 is incomplete, but the story line is mapped out, currently at 60,000 words
Hopefully this will be completed by 2021
April 2021 - re-started by reworking the first two chapters, and getting back into the third, looking forward to running with this one.
May 2021 - Chapter 3 completed, Ch4 getting there, currently 72,000 words.
August 2021 - stopped working on any books for the time being, too much personal drama going on that needs my attention.
February 2022 - getting back into this one, rewritten some pages and adjusted the story, chapters 5 and 6 done.
June 2022 - going to be quite a few more chapters than planned, currently at 10 and probably looking at 12, may be more, up at 230,000 words
August 2022 - 275,000 words and 12 chapters, looking at another one to complete it, 450 pages or so, not the shorter story I first thought this was going to be
November 2022 - almost sorted, 13 chapters, 480 pages or so and nealry 290,000 words, into editing and fact checking.
December 2022 - was hpoing to get this released for Christmas but not going to be possible, looking at read-throughs for the end of January and publication in February
January 2023 - getting into the first bits of the read-through, hoping for a february publication.
March 2023 - Still not managed to find the time to get around to a full read-through, but final edits completed, 296,900 words, 486 pages plus 29 additional pages in 2 online chapters
still looking to get this published by the end of April 2023.
Finally got it published, Kindle version on the 29th of April, Printed version on the 30th, just about made the target set!
Daytrippers and Cyberpunks -©2023
June 2023 - This story just appeared out of the blue, I had played around with an AI generator to see what it could come up with and was suitably unimpressed by the content.
That said, it did form the basic skeleton for a storyline that I expanded on, the original AI generated storyline was based around Chapters 1, 2 and 10,
though the finished article is very different to the meagre offering from the AI.
So, from humble beginnings, it is 17 chapters, 120+ pages (at 6x9 inches) and over 52,000 words, completed in June 2023.
September 2023 - The plan was to release this in August, after book 7 (The Genesis of the CPDF), but the mothership is not at all well and this is taking up most of my time, it will get released eventually.
Asteroid Wars -©2020 © 2023
Tale of a mining operation in the Outer belt that goes slightly awry, they launch asteroids back toward earth via Mars to the Moon, to be captured and then broken up and the resources harvested for a world short of everything, but things don't quite go to plan.
April 2020 - The outline is done, looking into the mechanics of how it needs to work, currently just a working title
Tales from the CRIPT -©2020 © 2023.
CRIPT Cosmic Ray Inspection (and) Passive Tomography©2020 © 2023.
not much more than an outline and a possible story direction, at lot of technical stuff to delve into to get into this one, but I will eventually get there.
I have a feeling though, that this one will take quite a while to get around to.
The Cube of Control -©2020 © 2023
The story of an artificial Intelligence that is in control of the people on the planet, exerting its will and its way, making sure that all are influenced in the right way.
There are some it lightens its control of, those that need a degree of freedom to think things through.
Others on the surface have worked out how to evade this control and there becomes a need to find them, and to eliminate them.
First though, you have to identify who you are looking for, and this is the job given to the Agent tasked with resolving the problem the AI cannot deal with on its own.
March 2020 - A storyline more or less complete, an initial beginning of a chapter, around 1,000 words, the title is just a working title, there are alternatives, but these still need to need to be worked on.
June 2020 - this most likely going to be a follow on story for another book, it wasn't planned that way as the other book was started later but finished first (go figure),
but sometimes, that is the way these things go, serendipity.
I like the independant stories, but feel the need to continue the series stories first, I think it is going to have to be a combination of the two, complete a series story, an indie, then another series story, currently, I have plenty of ideas for all of them, but finding time is the problem, perhaps, it is a good place to be!