In June of 2008, you fans of the Golden Age asked for a forum where you could discuss the books, the universe, and everything. You can find that back on the old server.
NOTE: This site is largely defunct. I keep it for the reference materials in the sidebar. If you want to stay up to date, check with http://nathanlowell.com.
Absolutely love your books! Normally I listen to the more horror driven sci-fi but I find that your stories are very well put together, so it is difficult not to listen to them. Just wanted to let you know that you are doing a fantastic job and that I look forward to more of your fiction in the future.
I was trying to save this book for another time, but I lacked the necessary discipline! I started Friday night and finished this morning – all the episodes. Fantastic. Can’t wait for the next book in either series.
and if you want to get a little more hi-tech – take a look at bbPress to run your fan forum…..
thanks for getting the last book episodes out so rapidly. But now you are going to here from all of us about wanting yet another book!
Yea, I don’t like bbPress. I’ve used it before and SMF does fine. I just need to take some time to make it pretty, and I got too much other stuff going on :)
The last episode wasn’t published for 2 hrs before I got the first query about “when’s the next book coming?”
It won’t be TOO long. :)
I really enjoyed your shares series of books. Somehow I missed downloading the last 5 episodes of Double Share and it just ended with nothing resolved! I was quite upset! Then I found the final episodes and stayed up most of the night finishing the book and series. It is really rare that I get THAT HOOKED by a book. But you GOT me!
Thanks again!
I’m glad you got the last set
I’ve had a couple people ask me when I was going to finish the book … in each cast it was because the episodes just hadn’t been downloaded :)
Hey Nate,
Thank you for everything you do for your fans. I have spent the last hour browsing your site. I am a hard core geek and I completely loved finding the background info on the Great Diaspora, the McKendrick, etc. This is really going above and beyond! And I love it!
Also wanted to thank you for inspiration. It really shows that a guy with an idea and a gift for words can do geat things, even without a major publisher. You’ve got me working on my own space-based novel again. =)
Thanks again!
A little bit at a time — you can do a lot. This place has changed a lot in the last 18 months :)
I’m happy to be an inspiration! We need more people writing and podcasting :)
You always make me hungry the way you talk about food >.>. I’m vegetarian, but I eat eggs and dairy. When I listened to the trilogy a year ago (I think) I ate omlettes for dinner for a week straight! With all the eggs and bacon I kept wanting breakfast! :) Can’t wait to see what ELSE Ish is going to do for Billy. :quivers with excitement:
I’ve already listened to Double Share 3 times cause I listen to audiobooks all day at work. Good books make time fly!
Dear Sir
Thanks for the great books. Having spent most of my life on the ocean as a captain and engineer you have managed to capture quite well the inner workings both good and bad of life on board a vessel, was wondering if you spent any time on ships?.
Cant wait for triple and quadruple share!
Cheers
Hey, Ben. I spent time at sea on a Coast Guard Cutter on patrol in the North Atlantic.
Glad you like the books and I’m looking forward to Captain and Owner myself :)
Mr. Lowell,
I must add my thanks to all the others. I have listened to all 4 books of the Share series and am just about done with South Coast. I cannot wait for more. You have managed to capture the very best of story telling. Wonderful characters, beautifully crafted stories, perfect settings, and oh the food and coffee… Without the splash and crash of a Star Wars or flashy story and set you tell a riveting tale. Pure Art. Since I started listening to audio books I truly appreciate hearing the author read it. No wondering about the tone of the speech or the feel of the character – we get it straight from the source. The quality of your recordings and pacing is superb. I’ve been a Science Fiction fan for some 45 years and consider your stories to be some of the most welcome in a long long time. Please don’t ever stop.
Thanks
Thanks, Vince.
I’m really pleased with the way the stories turned out, myself. It’s doubly gratifying to get great feedback from the listeners.
There’s more on the way!
To start off with. Love all of your books. I can’t wait for more. The stories are wonderfully done. I hope that there will be more stories with ishmail. I listen to alot of audio books, but yours keeps me hungry for more. Keep them comming .
thanks.
There’s more on the way.
I would appreciate it if you would in future desist from using my name in your stories- I’m getting fed up of my name now being an item on peoples tee shirts!!! Or perhaps I could get royalties for your use of my name??
I was just wondering if any one else is having a problem with podiobooks.com feeds or if you know, Nate, if something is going on. I can’t get to the website anymore and I had to delete all my book feeds becasue they kept coming up as “!” in iTunes. I’ve even tried going through the iTunes store instead and got the same problem with any books originating at podiobooks.com. I hope everything is ok! Is it just me?
I’m actually logged into the podiobooks site in another window now. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it that I can see here.
I am almost finished with Double. Will there be two more books – Captain & Owner? If so, when will they be released – and please hurry!! Very excellent story
Yes, two more Share novels and at least one more Shaman’s Tale – the sequel to South Coast. As for “when?” … I don’t have a good answer, I’m afraid.
Thanks Nate. I’ve gotten on through another computer elsewhere too. I don’t know why my computer has issues, but it does, and it’s ONLY my computer. ^_^0 just wanted to be sure everything wasn’t tipped over and crashing to the ground.
Nate, I loved your books. I don’t think I have ever seen Sci-Fi done so well in an everyday living kind of way. I really liked the comfortable life-story kind of feel and did not miss the guns and explosions at all! Your first 3 books kept me company while I was deployed in Kuwait in 2007.
P.S.
Have you thought about releasing them on the Amazon Kindle? They have an interesting self publishing option.
That’s a possibility. I have considered it, but at the moment, I’m holding all textual representations for a publishing house.
I love your book! They are one of the best series that I have come across in a long time. I love that it is about an ordinary person and that it is full of humor. I work as a scanner so I have to do something to break up the boring work of scanning medical files in all day and your books do that. My comrade in the scanning department all love your books and all you can hear is laughter from our room. Thank you so much for them and I can not wait to read the rest. ( We are still of half share and working our way through :)
Just finished “South Coast” and am now in official “Golden Clipper Withdrawal.” It’s really helped me get through the work day on a tedious and long-lived project.
Great work Nate! Looking forward to “Cape Grace.”
Love all the stories and have recently gone back to relisten to all the shares. BTW when is the next release Nathan!
One thing that caught my mind was the beaten lady who joins the crew of the lois is Sarah Krugg, is this a character that is going to get more attention in the st. cloud line? is Sarah the wife of Otto? It would break my heart to think that Otto becomes a wife batterer.
We’ll meet Sarah in Cape Grace — which I had hoped to do in November
:[
I just got to the part in Half Share where Sarah tells the snipit of her story, and all thoughts of Otto being that mean are gone. But new thoughts of this must be his daughter have surfaced, and makes me even for excited to hear Cape Grace.
PS I loved your addition to the POV James Keeling. You Sar are a magician of words my good man.
I love your stories, they leave me needing more. Keep up the good work.
Very best regards
Rich
Keep writing, you are very good at it. Thank you
I am in full withdrawl for more of the golden age of the solar clipper. When many podcasts are excessively violent it’s great to hear podcasts that deal with everyday life in the far distant future. Your character developement is in depth and leaves us with characters we care about . Looking forward to cape grace and eventually Captains Share. Keep writing…..THANKS THANKS THANKS
Hi Nate…just started on Double Share, and I’m still hooked! One question: I love the little literary allusions in the books, especially the way you start the books with a first line from another novel, but I was disappointed you didn’t carry that through for Double Share. Was this deliberate, or was it just not something that you were able to work in? Keep up the great work!
Thanks to everyone! You folks are the best!
Carl:
It was deliberate. After the first three novels — while they worked out particularly well there taking many of the themes of the original work and revisiting them in a new setting — I thought maybe it was getting to be too much of a gimmick. So I took out the one I had set up for Double Share “The sky above the port was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.” It didn’t really *work* as well as I’d hoped because of the somewhat anachronistic use of “television” and “dead channel.”
I’m not sure I made the right decision to stop the allusions, but it was definitely the right decision not to use THAT one.
Hey Nathan,
Just had to tell you how much I love your stories. I’ve been hooked on many authors through Podiobooks and find there is so much talent out there. Kudos for giving your books away. Will you be publishing them! While I enjoy listening I always find something I missed when I go back to read the actual print copy. Perhaps you could see the books as a app through iTunes that I could download onto my iPod touch???? I also like that your stories are more family friendly – although I wouldn’t mind seeing Ish in those jeans!!!!! Keep up the good work and let me know if I can help promote your material in any way!!!!
Hey Nathan,
Just had to say I love these stories too, and can’t wait for the next ones to come out. I’ve listened to the Share series at least twice so far while at work, and am going to be on my second time listening to South coast as well. Like others here, there is something refreshing about having sci-fi without having the explosions and guns at every turn. :)
But a thought occured to me earlier this week while finishing up Double share again… after Cape Grace, Captain’s Share, and I’m guessing Owner’s Share… have you thought of maybe pursuing Pip’s story post Full Share? Or maybe some more back story on Alys Giggone? Just wondering if you have plans for after Ishmael’s story is through I guess…
I have, yes! There are so many stories to tell here.
– the story of the original Lois McKendrick
– Pip’s back story
– the asteroid miners’ story
– Francis’ back story
And I’m sure there are a ton that I haven’t thought of.
For any of you using Shelfari (http://www.shelfari.com, now owned by Amazon.com) to track your literary consumption, I have created book entries for Quarter Share, Half Share, Full Share and Double Share. I have also created an author page for Nathan:
http://www.shelfari.com/authors/2627768/Nathan-Lowell/summary
If you get a chance, sign-up for an account and add his books to your shelf to help spread the word!
-jason
I too would like to say that I am enjoying your “share” series VERY MUCH. It is refreshing to get sci-fi without huge battles and military themes (they are fun too, but not every time). The character development is great, you really make the reader (listener) care about them, in my case maybe too much. Keep up the good writing and best of luck with your day job. You have another fan and evangelist!
Recently finished South Coast. What a great father-son story!
Hello,
Like many others I’m listening to the books a 2nd time. I’m listening to Double Share now and a thought
just struck me. I was wondering if there is a blog post or something discussing how Ish ended up
paying for his 4 years at the academy?
Just Curious,
David
The same way any student does. Savings, loans, and slowly paying it back.
There actually WAS a section in Double Share where he reviewed his financial arrangements but it was so boring I took it out.
Waiting on Cape Grace and Captain’s Share. Any updates?
You’re obviously not reading the comments in other threads.
The text of Captain’s Share has been completed. I’ve started recording. The first episode is at Podiobooks for QC checks and I expect it to be released within a few days.
Nate, you have quite a talent. There is something intriguing about the stories that just fit together so well. I gave you a donation at podiobooks because it’s so unfair to pay over 10 dollars for 2 hours of mediocre film, while an audiobook can fill a couple of days. I’ve recently reread them after listening last year and enjoyed them just as much.
Just finished listening to Captains share and I must say it is as excellent as all the other books in the series. I am hoping to hear more of the story of Ishmael and want to know if there is any plans for another part of the saga. Will there be a “Owners Share” in a year or two?
Nate,
I’ve been a big fan since Quarter Share came out and I have to say your writing and narration has spoiled me. I’m able to listen to the radio while at work so I consume a LOT of audiobooks (TY public library and podiobooks!). In the process of my own writing, I have come to the conclusion that Sci-fi is a very difficult genre to write well, mainly because an author has to explain just about everything in his or her universe right down to how a light bulb functions. However, with that being said, your writing is like a breath of fresh air and light years better than many well published authors. Unfortunately the bar has been raised so high that I now am gritting my teeth at other authors that droll on and on explaining how their universe works like it was some sort of college text-book.
I don’t frequently go back to stories I already read but yours are an exception. Your writing and narrating work hand in hand together and I wanted to let you know that its great work. If anything I eventually make is even 1/10th as good, I’ll consider that a big win.
Thanks for hours of truely entertaining storytelling in a marvelous universe. I know you got lots of stories to tell but “Double Share: The First Mate Years” or “Double Share: The Second Mate Years” would be welcome additions to that list ;) ;)
Thanks again,
Steve
Nathan, thanks again for the hours of great entertainment that you have provided with your tales of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper. Just finished Captain’s Share and like others who have become addicted to your stories cannot get enough of them. It was just as good as the others. Like Steve I would like to see the some of the missing years filled in, but I understand that it takes time and effort. I am sure that you could spend all of your time and build on this universe. I am happy to follow your stories whenever you are able to put out a new one. It is stories like this that keeps me looking forward to the future of our society. Science Fiction of this type gives one a positive view of the future.
Nathan,
You tell a good tale full of humor and sorrow and more importantly, heart. I love each of the stories of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper and our good friend Ish. I just finished Captain’s share and was inspired to start all over again with half share and go threw it again. It is still fresh and crisp and compelling to listen to, a real great story to learn from. Your Plot is always interesting especially when delivered in a real narrative format. Your scene execution is superb and your characters seem to jump out of the narration. I have grown to admire and respect as a friend our hero Ish. Please keep him supplied with more tales for the discerning listener.
Thank you.
Merritt
Merritt-
I’m not sure if that was a typo in your comment when you mentioned staring at the beginning with “half share” , but just in case it wasn’t I don’t want you to miss out on the greatness that was “quarter share”. Quarter Share was before Half Share and I still think it might be the best (although Captain Share is a VERY close second).
This is a great story from first audiobook to the current one. I surely hope that you continue to tell us the saga of Ishmael and his life. I am looking forward to hearing about Ishmael’s salvage share from the dead ship…..maybe he meets up with Pip again to invest in a partnership of another ship…….and the trials of the new crew member…..maybe she finds the home she needs and becomes the undisputed master of running the co-op for all’s benefit…….
Thanks for the great stories!!!!!