Tau Ceti, my first full-length novel is finally seeing the light of day.

“Finally” is carrying a lot of weight here, because there’s a long story behind the gestation of this book.

But first to the exciting stuff – the cover. Here it is, as you’ve probably already seen. I love this cover. As with all my covers, I made it myself, and I love that process. I’ve been using Photoshop, first professionally, then as a hobbyist, since it came out (and used Aldus Freehand, Aldus PageMaker, Corel Painter, and LetraStudio before that).

This cover was pretty simple, made from three royalty-free images: The star field, Pluto, and a Microphage. The rest is filters, gradient fills and colour infusion (And don’t forget the lens flare! Lots of that.). I’m happy with the final product. Hopefully you find it enticing.

Now onto why the “Finally” is so important.

I started writing this story in 1990. Yep, you read that right. This story originated over thirty-five years ago. Worse, it’s been mostly complete for almost fifteen years.

A further interesting part of Tau Ceti’s history is that I wrote it in many corners of the world. The drought and flood scenes were written while I was a volunteer English teacher in Namibia, experiencing drought and floods. The scenes in San Piaz were written while I was living in Johannesburg. Two key scenes were written while I was studying in Barcelona, another while I was on safari in the Serengeti.

The bulk of the book, including the “apocryphal” chapters, was written while I was living in Seoul and Toronto. The first draft was written while I was living in Guelph, a university town northwest of Toronto. And now the final touch ups are being done in Malaysia, where I currently live.

I couldn’t have written this book without those lived experiences, even if their influence might not be obvious to a casual reader.

One question I’m sure you’re asking is why, if it was complete fifteen years ago, didn’t I released it before now (My wife has that question). Honestly, there’s a big difference between complete and perfect. I know it’s not perfect. It’s a very complex plot for a first-time author to try to tell well.

But recently I started taking creative writing courses through the University of Oxford’s Distance Education program. One realization that I had during my studies is that there is no such thing as perfect. You have to accept that and let the book live its life, find its audience. Otherwise it will never get read.