Hello everyone! We hope your holidays were gratifying. Ours were harried, to say the least — but not so harried that Veronica couldn’t record a little holiday tune for you.

The Secret World Chronicle enters 2008 in an interesting position. We’re preparing the first few books for print consideration, so not only have we been writing new prose, but also reconsidering old prose, revising it, reordering it, etc. Fans will notice interesting changes in the new material, such as dropping the term “Mach” for the Echo Metas. Shhh! That’s a secret!

We’re also temporarily ending the SWC Echo Street Team. We have a new approach, with better technology, that we’re going to implement in the next month or so. Stay tuned, Echo Operatives, and you will be rewarded. We won’t forget you… you’re in our database! And we really appreciate your efforts.

This winter has been exciting for our team. First, we tried to “clean up” our RSS feed, only to discover that it triggered a wave of automatic downloads that crashed the site. Our solution to that was to partner with Podiobooks.com, who have a robust podcast hosting solution AND they’re great guys to boot.

Secondly, I (Steve) was given a strange Christmas present: eviction! The new owner of my apartment building decided to gut the place. While I was scrambling for a place to live, I caught strep throat and had to tough out a long, painful wait for the holiday festivities to end and doctor offices to reopen. While I was being treated, I mentioned the persistent, minor discomfort in my side. Probably just gas… or appendicitis! Today I write this news post one organ lighter and stoned on prescription opiates. Needless to say, this does not accelerate SWC progress.

But we have received a metric ton of great reviews (here’s the latest at SF Site) and enthusiastic fan mail. Misty, Dennis, Cody, Veronica and I read every single one, trust me, and we chat about them on our ultra secret communication frequencies provided by a secret organization dedicated to world domination (Google). We want to thank everyone all at once for your kindness.

2008 will be an exciting year, as we conclude The Hunt. As you know (and probably grouse about), we have switched to an irregular schedule to accommodate the extra work we’re doing for the print version of the series, but the raw material will keep coming out as podcasts — some material, in fact, that may not even make it in the book. And the series arc? Hooboy… you’re going to like it, trust us. It makes us giggle with sadistic author’s delight. In a chat with Misty, I likened it to playing with action figures as a kid: you just beat the crap out of them until the paint comes off.

Back to our toys!

Steve (and the SWC team)

As some listeners learned in “Gravity,” Veronica Giguere is, in fact, an elf maiden, with a breathless, high-pitched voice.

Rather, the bitrates became gazorkled, resulting in a sped up podcast. Oops. We have resolved the problem.

In the spirit of continued improvement, we are re-encoding all of our podcasts at 128kbps. This will result in slightly larger files but with greater clarity, and hey, once you’re downloading 32 mb, you may as well get 36 mb, am I right?

Your thoughts are always welcome.

Stupid technology! The fourth episode of SWC, a long chapter entitled “Gravity” and featuring Handsome Devil and Shahkti, is trapped on my laptop. Why trapped, you ask? Because the power adapter has shorted out and a new one won’t arrive until Monday or Tuesday.

I didn’t realize this until I had wound down the battery to nearly nothing by watching “The Fountain.” (Verdict: not worth the battery life!).

Apologies to our Street Team members who receive the sneak preview feed. No sneaky this week! But we’ll be back on course in short order. Meanwhile, I am relegated to my desktop, which has virtually none of the apps I use for my job. Hmm… there are a few computer games on here, though…

We have collated the thirty-odd Book One: Invasion episodes into an easy to download audiobook. Eight chapters, eight nice long mp3 files. Some of the chapters offer over two hours of uninterrupted listening.

The old episodes will be retired and the RSS revised to reflect this new change. If you still want to grab them, they are available here.

You can also subscribe just to the audiobook at http://feeds.feedburner.com/SecretWorldChronicleBookOne.

We kick off Book Two: The Hunt on Monday with an introduction to one of the Secret World’s less reputable characters: Dominic Verdigris VIII. If you’re a member of the Echo Mach Street Team, you have already gotten a preview of this episode as a prize for signing up.

In the future, only those who have completed Mission One and above will be eligible for the sneak preview feed that offers juicy SWC audio three days before it goes live. Visit www.echometahumans.com today and sign up. It’s easy, free, and fun, and gives you the opportunity to win prizes such as autographed books, swag, and a chance to appear in the Secret World as yourself!

We’re all very excited to return to broadcasting The Secret World, and we appreciate your support in our first year.

We’re pounding away at this sucker. After the set up of Book One: Invasion, we had a whole bucketful of plotlines to work on. SWC is nothing if not nonlinear. So we hunkered down and wrote like crazy. The result is that we’re nearly done with the entire thing, and Veronica has already begun recording episodes.

We know you’re anxious to find out what happened to Belladonna Blue, Handsome Devil, VickieVee, Ramona Ferrari and the crew, but be patient, for your wait will soon be over.

We have a treat for you. Mur Lafferty interviewed Steve and Misty a few months ago for her I Should Be Writing podcast show, and now that segment is available. The interview is fun and wacky, as you might expect, but full of good advice for fledgling writers.

You can visit the site here.

Hello all!

I write this from the loft of a barn on Vashon Island, WA — a loft with wifi and hardwood floors, mind you. They know how to live out here! Tonight I fly up to Anchorage, Alaska, where I will meet up with my father and strike out to a lodge in the Denali range. That’s where our family reunion is taking place, and also where I’ll be researching my series of books set in a near-future, post-collapse America. In three weeks I’ll have transformed into a weathered cowboy.

We’ll be posting another World War II story, Navy Seal, around that time. Until then, please enjoy Il Macabro, stop by the forums, join the Echo Mach Street Team, or buy tee-shirts.

Thanks for your support and listenership! We are deeply grateful, and I will be sure to brag about it around the campfire.

-Rattlesnake Steve

Why, look at that! We’ve posted the Feedburner FeedCount widget on the right side of the page, just under the news feed. As of today, we have 1300 listeners!

This brings us unutterable joy and a renewed sense of commitment. Our statistics show that for every subscriber through iTunes, Google Reader or another RSS service, there is at least one other listener who visits the site. Either way, we’re tickled pink.

Want to see that number rise as much as we do? Join our virtual street team at www.echometahumans.com.