Greeting Loyal Airmen, our apologies for this late posting.  As many of you know, the Air Chief is a co-host on the comic orientated weekly podcast, ZONE 4.  We record the show on Thursday and then it is posted at the Comic Related website Friday evening.  Well, we had a late hour recording yesterday, which made it impossible for us to get this week's Flight Log written early.  ZONE 4 last week posted its 250th episode and there are tons of changes in the works for the program coming in 2014.  If you've never listened to it before, why not give it try this week.  We have a blast doing it.

As of the 1st of Jan all our older Airship 27 Productions pulp titles were no longer being published by Cornerstone Book Publishers and all rights to these books reverted to the creators.  At which point we are now in the process of putting together new Airship 27 Editions.  One of Art Director Rob Davis' primary goals is to get ALL 76 of our books up at Amazon's Kindle.  Last year saw a very sharp rise in our digital sales and as more and more of our fans get used to downloading their favorite books on these e-readers, we fully expect these kinds of sales to continue to climb.  To that end, Rob kicked off the past week by putting four of our older titles on Kindle. These included the historic DAMBALLA by Charles Saunders, which debut the very first ever black 1930s avenger hero.  Also arriving on Kindle was Don Gates debut of his Challenger Storm character in Isle of Blood with art by Pulp Factor Award winner Michale Kaluta.  Also added to the Kindle roster were MYSTERY MEN (& Women) volumes 1 & 2.  All Loyal Airmen can keep abreast of which old titles are being posted to Kindle by simply visiting our website on a regular basis. Simply click on the dirigible logo to the left of this Flight Log.  Note, all titles from 2013 on have been done via Amazon and so are on Kindle as is our now regular publishing routine.

As all you Loyal Airmen know, Airship 27 Productions has published brand new Sherlock Holmes adventures via our Consulting Detective series for several years now and these are amongst our most popular titles.  Over the course of that time, several of you have asked why the Air Chief has never written a Holmes tale and the honest answer is, we have never felt confident enough to do so.  Writing a traditional Conan Doyle story means mimicking the voice of Dr. Watson in telling the story. Believe us, that is no easy task and one of the reasons we appreciate the talented writers we've worked with who can do this literary trick.  Ergo, we have pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we would most likely never write a Sherlock Holmes story.

Well, as ever, the adage of “never say never” seems to have nailed us square.  Yesterday the Air Chief received a wonderful invitation to contribute to a new Sherlock Holmes anthology being produced by an Australian writer/editor.  The thing is, this collection will feature alternate world versions of Holmes and the connecting thread is that his sidekick will NOT be Dr. Watson.  In the editor's note was a list of other noted writers who have signed on to this project and some of the historical and fictional characters they have partnered the Great Detective with.  We were really ….really impressed with the list and just like that a very tiny kernel of an idea began to grow in our mind in regards to one particular “doctor” we've always been fascinated with.  So we suggested our concept to this Australian editor and he thought it was solid and encouraged us to go ahead and write it.  Will we?  The deadline is some time in April.  We're currently putting the finishing touches on a new Brother Bones tale and then there's crime anthology Terrence McCauley is edited that we've yet to address.  For the past twenty four hours we've waffled back and forth as to commit or…not?

What do you think?  All comments are most welcome.  As ever thanks for stopping by.
Ron – Over & Out!