What's Next?

Hey, fine folks.

So I’m in edits for Critical Mass, the third and final chapter of my award-winning sci-fi action thriller series The NADIA Project.

And it occurs to me. The story is really coming to a close. I have to say goodbye to Nadia and Jon, to Bunny and Hushi, to Jimmy and Irving, Beth, Donna and Jenna. I do have a novella coming that will be a free read, but that’s really it.

And I am having a hard time moving on.

It’s not like a divorce, because we’re parting on very good terms. I have spent the last five years making them all more miserable with each installment, but I do believe they’ve forgiven me. The few who remain alive, anyway. As for the rest of them, may they rest in peace, whatever their final fate.

And it’s not like I’m a widow, because I did leave some of them alive. Oh, believe me, I’ve spent a fair amount of time crying whenever I killed one of them off. Wow, did I just come off like a serious sociopath there, or what? Anyway, we all shed tears and blood together, and I mourned each one in his or her own special way.

It’s not even like breaking up. It’s kind of hard to understand, from outside the veil of the writer’s point of view, that separation as the project approaches its terminal phase ad I begin to ponder which one to bring to the front burner.

More characters to torment, more misery and conflict. More bullets flying, bodies dropping, people running around in flames. Ah, the fun of it all.

As it happens, I have several other white-knuckle rides to choose from:

1.)    Hush Little Baby. Crazy Annie Malone has nothing left to care about. Not even her sanity. Until she finds a baby behind a dumpster, between two dead men. What can be so special about a newborn that would take an army to kill, and another would be so willing to die to save?

2.)    Formula 57. A young doctor in a VA hospital is drawn into a deadly mystery when a bus locker key reveals a secret project with far-reaching – and deadly - implications.

3.)    Quiet on the Set. Simi is Hollywood’s newest and hottest action heroine, until she stumbles across a murder that didn’t happen. She can handle all the bad guys on the set. Can she handle the real ones?

4.)    Tempus Fugitive. Simon Crocker is a time sniper. He saves the world from maniacs and murderers by eliminating them before they get a chance to commit their crimes. But his biggest job is the one he should never have taken on. There’s only one way to save the world from himself: Crocker’s way.

Those are my top four picks. So help me out here. Which of these should be the next Cyrus Keith Project? I’ll pick a random winner from the winning group, and you’ll get a copy of Becoming NADIA, EPIC’s 2012 award winner for Best Thriller.