Horngard Ships, WIP Drawings

shlomi on October 6, 2026

Horngard!

Today was the release date for Horngard, Elizabeth Moon’s latest novel, which I had the privilege of collaborating with her. Horngard is a great return to the Paksennarion fantasy universe, with new locations and challenges along with characters from her previous works. This is a standalone novel, or (I hope), an entry point for new readers to explore Moon’s universe and thorough worldbuilding. The ebook is available starting today, and there’s a twist: the current regime’s idiocy has resulted in delays in bringing paper down from Canada for printing the book. Welcome to 2026 in America. <insert sigh here>

Writing in Progress

AI is a hot topic, especially among writers. AI companies have illegally fed copyrighted books from authors into training their AI aliens. When I ran the ArmadilloCon Writers Workshop this past September, we had to check as best we could for AI. In fact, the con itself needed to disinvite guests who’d used AI in their creative works.

I take advantage of AI for my books–but not for anything related to writing the book. For example, I wanted to visualize and sanity-check a (relatively) closed-loop food system. I’ve used (and checked and sometimes found errors in) it for physics, mechanics, and materials science related to operations in cold lunar nights. These feed my ability to describe a character’s interaction with their environment, and are part of my worldbuilding. They are NOT (repeat several times) used in any way to create content in my books, short stories, poetry (yes, I have a past history), or anything else except…

Full disclosure: I have used AI to create the covers for most of my short stories. There’s no revenue from them for me, and I had no budget to have a cover. I used NightCafe and ChatGPT for them. My books used covers created by an artist over in Europe and cost almost a thousand dollars for each one. I got what I paid for, and I’m grateful for the human who created the works. (Check them out at solsharp.com.)

A PWYW (pay what you want*) for a PILE of Elizabeth Moon’s Books

shlomi on September 23, 2026

As you wait for Horngard by Elizabeth Moon (It’s an October new release!!), you should totally check out Humble Bundle’s Mini Bundle of Elizabeth Moon books! It includes the three seminal books that tell Paksennarion’s story, as well as key novels in the Heris Serrano “space opera” series.

I collaborated with Elizabeth on Horngard, and am excited to see it come to light in…less than three weeks!

The way this works is that you pay a minimum price – you can pay more if you want – and you get a huge value in return. For this bundle, if you pay at least $16 (see * above), you get $119 worth of books. The more you pay, the more the charity makes – in this case, it is Canine Companions. HumbleBumble are also upfront that if you pay more, Humble Bundle and Baen make more money as well. Elizabeth Moon is paid royalties according to what you pay.

Hurry and buy your bundle; it’s only available until September 26!!!

https://www.humblebundle.com/…/elizabeth-moon…

ArmadilloCon 2026

shlomi on September 16, 2026

Dara Kountz, spouse, and Shlomi Harif — and books!

The latest ArmadilloCon in Austin was a blast. The QuickSilver Quills Collective was there in force, as were many, many books and wares for sale in the Dealer Room.

I collaborated with Elizabeth Moon on the upcoming novel, Horngard, due out October 6th. She was here as well, with T-shirts in lieu of books, as they’re not done printing them yet! We were on a panel on co-writing, and much laughter was had. As was advice equally appropriate to critique groups in general: Be gentle with feedback, create a safe place to give and receive feedback, leave egos outside, and remember to laugh. I can’t wait to work with Elizabeth again.

I’ve got three manuscripts in play at the moment: Last Run, a post-apoc SF story, Zepps, a SF thriller, and Induction, a spicy SF thriller. It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes out of this. My WIP is a hard SF.

Zepps was interesting to do edits: one member of our collective is a rocket somethingorother (I want to say scientist, but he keeps swatting me down on that. Victor). Cue me spending some quality time with Claude to work out the science of airships and CO2 processing, to ensure that what I write can theoretically be possible in 2151–provided Claude doesn’t kill us all before then.

More anon…

WorldCon in the rearview…ArmadilloCon Ahead!

shlomi on September 5, 2026

WorldCon was a sip at a firehose in terms of contacts, and a wonderful opportunity hob and knob with fellow authors and the odd agent. I’ve already registered for WorldCon 2027 in Montreal, and hopefully will be on more panels next year.

Now…ArmadilloCon 2026 (48th year!)… There are about 25 students in the writers workshop, which I’m running, along with about 14 instructors and panelists. The usual schedule of events–one speaker, one panel–has morphed into two speakers, as the ArmadilloCon Guest of Honor, Micaiah Johnson is joining author (and collaborator) Elizabeth Moon.

It’s been a lot of work, complicated by me being out of action for two months earlier this year. The great thing about a convention is that it’s not a lone-gunman effort: There’s a team, and there are folks stepping in to help if necessary (I’m looking at you, Nick).

My critique group, QuickSilver Quills (formerly White Gold Wielders) will be there in force, with a table (two, actually) in the Dealer Room, and a reading slot on Saturday. I’ll probably end up on a few other panels as well.

I’ll have pix and a short recap next week, after the sturm und drang of the week and weekend.

WorldCon Schedule!

shlomi on July 30, 2026

AKA LACon V, But Whatever

The schedule is up and, barring being added to more panels, this is my (paltry) schedule. I’m going to see what I can do in terms of scaring up publicity for Horngard, as that’ll be published (eep!) a couple of months later.

Here’s my rubric:

The Jewish Horror one is interesting because, in my traumatized opinion, the whole Shmuley Myers series is one, long, drawn out horror show. But I’ve got From Generation to Generation (ebook/audio), a Jewish “Lazarus” tale with enough personal history trauma to make it qualify a bit as a horror piece. Speaking of which, if anyone’s interested in free listener codes and is willing to write a review, just contact me and I’ll see if I can make that happen.

I’m guessing the second will be an AMA, but I don’t know if anyone’s going to be moved, at the end of the Con, to come see… We’ll see.

It’s been a while

shlomi on July 4, 2026

Life has a way of slipping time through one’s fingers; it’s time for an update.

Writing: The book I’ve been a collaborator on, Horngard, is off to the publisher. It was a blast working with Elizabeth Moon and, after I post this, it’s back to the manuscript for whatever comes next; she’s published some short story collections, and I hope to be in a future one.

The annual Agents and Editors Conference, sponsored by Writers League of Texas, was an interesting three days. It’s not my first time attending, nor the first time pitching to an agent, but I spent some time people-watching others and soaking in where they were in their careers. My pitch went well, I thought, and I submitted my query + pages for their assessment. I’m going to need an agent anyway if certain projects come up.

On. personal note, I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, and a couple of weeks recovering. All is well–now. Ah, the joys of aging!

Adding Short Stories and Audio Books!

shlomi on January 21, 2026

Maggie Weber strikes again! Consent is now joined by Shloshim, Shut Eye, and Joy on Audible. next short story in my collection is now out. Listen to it here!

Blood of Leeches is a new ebook, currently enjoying (for the split second) a #1 rating:

I’m currently soliciting for an audiobook producer (aka a narrator) for the story.

Consent Now Out as an Audiobook!

shlomi on October 30, 2025

Consent is a science fiction short about, frankly, revenge as a PTSD cure. I don’t encourage it and, having had PTSD for decades, there’s a reason this story is in the fiction instead of self-help genre.

Maggie Weber was the producer (voice and sonic layout) of the book, and she’s working on a few more short stories from my collection. (She’s also a human and dog mom, clothing upseller (check out her book), prolific youtube…and apparently someone who doesn’t need to sleep).