Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to my 70th monthly newsletter! Pull up a chair, let’s chat! In this month’s newsletter: updates on publishing, reviews and news. Let’s take a look at this months’ “stuff”!
First of all, I have no idea how I somehow managed to do it, but I did – I forgot to post my monthly newsletter for October! It’s already the 13th – and I humbly apologize! 
September was a weird month and we both struggled a bit with allergies and the like over several weeks and felt a bit poorly. Mostly I took it slow and easy to avoid feeling worse or prolonging it. I still have a lousy postnasal drip that’s causing a lingering cough – and everyone looks at me funny as if they suspect it’s Covid! Nevertheless, writing is never far from my thoughts, and since I haven’t been much up to writing lately, I’ve been squirreling away all sorts of creative ideas for future use.
During September I spent a little time pruning and fine-tuning my social media and internet footprint. I’ve closed my LinkedIn account and a few others that were taking up space and cluttering the works. If I’ve been on certain writing, publishing or script-writing sites for more than 2 years and they haven’t benefited me in some way, then I think it’s time to clean out the fridge, right? I wish I could realistically do the same with my Facebook “friends” list sometimes – I mean, seriously! Close to 5000 “friends” who either never see my posts thanks to Facebooks deliberately narrowed algorithms, or who couldn’t be arsed to respond or interact in some way!
Moving on, I also wrote three lengthy informative articles about some of my series – Galaxii, Quantum and Panic! Horror In Space. I did this because I thought some readers might be interested in finding out where and how these series came about, and also what inspired me and so on. The links are further down in the newsletter FYI.
News About Writing & Publishing:
Carrying On, Regardless
This is the current state of things:
- Spoken Realms: This is the platform which Darla Middlebrook has been looking at uploading recordings of Panic! Horror In Space to, but again, she has encountered difficulties with the site’s proprietary software. I have no further updates yet.
- Outstanding royalties: These are royalties earned between January 2022 and the present, which have remained unpaid due to the death of Brandon Mullins at Moon Books Publishing in February. At latest report sometime in July, Elizabeth, his widow, is still working on tracing the accounts involved. No updates yet.
- Audiobooks on ACX: Elizabeth is also negotiating with ACX to transfer the existing audiobooks with Moon Books Publishing to their authors ACX accounts. At latest update on 12 October, this is apparently quite a lengthy process and ACX is apparently busy with it – but I still have no idea how they will treat my audiobooks specifically as yet, due to ACX’s bizarre failure to accept South African writers and allow them to contract with narrators. I will keep you updated.
I also managed to do quite a lot of writing during the last week (10-13 October) – “Underground Movement” Book 7 in Quantum is already at over 37,000 words! At this rate it could be out by Saturnalia! That is, if nothing else comes up to distract me! 
In the meantime, I also made and started sharing these lovely memes made from poems I wrote years ago:
Publishing
Currently Available Titles:
My books are available as eBooks, Paperbacks, and Audiobooks, and you can find them everywhere. Click the links in the slideshow below to view titles available in these formats.
If you’re still wondering where to find them in the format of your choice, you should read “Where To Get My Books – Specially For My South African Readers!” (recently updated).
New Titles:
These are recent titles published in 2022 (some are re-releases) via Smashwords and my new KDP account:
New Releases!
My most recent new releases for 2022 are “Christina Engela’s Strangely Compelling Scifi” (September 5, 2022) preceded by “We All Fall Down” (July 27, 2022) and “Sentinel” (May 07, 2022).
Sentinel – Book 4 in the Galaxii Series:
The starship I.S.S. Munray is a ship crewed by a lot of ill-disciplined misfits barely one step away from another court-martial – and the Captain’s the worst of the lot! When the opportunity presents itself for Vice-Admiral Beens to rid himself of the troublesome, malingering Wynne Polluk, he jumps at the chance to introduce a new broom, in the form of one Sonia La Belle.
In order to meet the deadline, she must deal with all the obstacles in her path; an old rundown ship whose engines lie disassembled, an uncooperative senior staff, and negative hopeless crewmembers who’d probably be more at home in the stockade than running a starship! The Munray and her crew resume their life of routine space patrol – which is soon interrupted when the ship is diverted to pursue a pair of dangerous fugitives who’ve escaped from a max-security facility – one that was supposed to be escape-proof! This turns out to be an exercise which will push ship and crew – and the Captain – to their limits!
Can they overcome all the obstacles they face, track down the Corsair fugitives, and do so in time to prevent the destruction of Earth?
…Ashes To Ashes…
Stuart Flane, Captain of the starship Mercury is called in unwillingly, kicking and screaming, to investigate the mystery of the ghost-ship Amundsen, which has just pitched up out of the black after being missing for 63 years. On top of that, Flane must also race to a mining colony where strange preternatural fuckery has resulted in six missing children and a series of inexplicable related events had left the subterranean city in a state of panic. What dark, aberrant secret lay behind the tangible terror of Caverna?
How would Flane’s skeptical superiors react to his next report – and above all, how would he word it? The word “carefully” always came to mind. What was he supposed to do – lie? Well, if he didn’t use apparent trigger words like “ghost”, “haunted” or “undead”, that’s pretty much what he’d have to do! Trouble was, some high-ups at Fleet HQ were starting to ask pointed questions about his reports – and sooner or later, Flane worried, someone was going to turn up demanding answers.
The astute Captain’s fears are realized when the Mercury is ordered to Starbase 43, where Commodore Link is waiting to ask a few questions about Flane’s reports. The Commodore, a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic and heavy-handed disciplinarian, makes it his business to interrogate and intimidate crewmembers referenced in Flane’s reports – at least, the ones who aren’t dead yet. Flane grumbles as Link’s investigation progressively turns his life into a bit of a miserable hell. Then, as if by coincidence, the Mercury is redirected to a nearby industrial colony to investigate disturbances at what – much to Flane’s acute embarrassment, turns out to be one of the most haunted hotels in the outblack.
Read more. Strange Is Only A Suggestion.
That set the theme (and the title) in stone, and thus it was that Christina Engela’s Strangely Compelling SciFi was born! I set out to look for stories which fit these parameters – sci-fi which celebrates the weird, embraces the unusual, seeks to unscrew the inscrutable… and is also… strangely compelling! If that’s what you’re after, you’ve come to the right place!
This anthology contains eight strangely compelling sci-fi stories by a group of four talented, imaginative fellow writers: H.G. Emert, Thomas M. Malafarina and Major Roxbrough – and me!
This particular title was originally published by Moon Books Publishing, but as Brandon Mullins sadly passed away in January of this year, his widow Elizabeth returned the rights to the book to me. It’s now available in its second edition format via all the usual places.
Audiobooks:
I have 15 audiobooks available on Audible and Amazon! Click the links in the slideshow below to view titles available as audiobooks.
New Audiobooks:
You can view my audiobooks here.
Coming Soon!
When complete, these next three audiobooks will be released via Spoken Realms! 
Feedback & Communication
Reviews:
You can see all my previous reviews here.
Interviews:
What The Readers Say:
All my reader comments are linked to from this page.
Mentions:
- I came across an article by Geoff Ryman from 2017 called “South African Writers I Did Not Interview“. I thought it unusual that someone would (presumably) interview one or more South African writers and then go to the trouble of listing the ones he didn’t interview for his article, but at least I got a mention.
- Speaking of mentions, according to an update I recently received from Academia.com, I have just reached the milestone of my 100th mention. What this means is that the name “C Engela” was mentioned by other academic researchers in their own academic papers, and that they’ve used one or more of my own papers as references (or citations) in their own. Of course, they won’t tell me which papers unless I actually pay them for a “Pro” account!
Videos:
You’re welcome to browse through the videos on my YouTube video channel! I’m not really the performing seal type, but I do my best! 
Latest Articles:
Below are links to a few of my most recent posts or articles since my previous newsletter:
- Galaxii – A Journey Into The Uncertain
- A Peek At My Week! #72
- Quantum Spice – The Story Behind The Series
- Don’t Panic! (Just Read It Instead!)
- A Peek At My Week! #71
- A Peek At My Week! #70
- A Peek At My Week! #69
- Writing Advice: “Is my story worth finishing?”
- A Peek At My Week! #68
- A Peek At My Week! #67
- Christina Engela’s Monthly Newsletter: #69 September 2022
In Closing
Until next time.
Thanks again for all your support, sharing, friendship and interaction!
As always, feel free to email or message me via Facebook if you have any comments or questions!
Cheers! 
All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2022.