I know we don’t normally do posts on the weekend, but Mod R is off anyway, and if I do it on Monday, our newsletter will eat the post. We can only do one post a day or it loses it.
Hidden Legacy in Dutch.
Love Books has collaborated with So Many Pages to release this beautiful special edition of Hidden Legacy in Dutch.
Verschijningsdatum: 17-07-2025
Pre-order actie: bestel dit boek bij So Many Pages en je ontvangt automatisch de artprint ‘Baylor Sisters Portrait’ van Luisa Preissler bij je pre-order! Zo lang de voorraad strekt, exclusief bij So Many Pages en exclusief bij de pre-order.
Romantasy must-read! Een verslavende slow burn van internationale bestsellerauteur Ilona Andrews.
The Inheritance Release Date
As of now, we are aiming for July. We are desperately trying to finish, but last week was just difficult for many reasons. We will have ebook and print. The audio will come out later. We are in talks for the split narration audiobook, that will feature a woman reading Ada’s parts and a man reading Elias’ parts. We can’t announce anything more concrete until all details are finalized and the contracts are signed.
The length will be around 50K, which is shorter than Magic Claims but longer than Magic Tides.
As always, while most of the story will be released on the blog, a chunk of the finale will be held back for the official publisher version.
I need to reach out to my CEs to see if anyone has an opening.
This Kingdom Needs an Astronomer
We have three moons. They are at different orbits and positions so they are not always in the same phase. Does anyone know of a calculator that would let us ballpark the moon phases and calendar? There has got to be some sort of tool where you can plug in your month length and calculate things for a hypothetical planet, right?
First? Is this because it’s the weekend and no one is looking?
I’ve never posted before!
😀 you go, Linda! I firmly believe (as in, want to manifest hereby 😉 ) that this means you’ll have an awesome month coming your way :-)))
CONGRATULATIONS, Linda!!!
*tosses edible confetti while dancing in delight*
happy first post day! 💃
I get to be in top 5.
because of weekend.
I found some suggestions for the 3 moons on Reddit. People have created their own excel spreadsheet with the math done.
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/4zd87e/moon_cycles_and_a_world_with_three_moons/
Thank you!
I am an astronomer. I was going to suggest https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/exoplanet-calculator but I think your suggestion is better for this purpose.
Try this calendar generator, it has an option for multiple moons: https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/calendar/
OMG!
this is the one i use all the time. Love it!!
love the suggestion! BDH members are awesome!
Wow
The request for 3 separate moon orbits reminded me of this scene from Pitch Black! One of my top tier movies 🙂
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bc3RATh3snI
Love that movie!
Great movie
Dnd players use those types of tools pretty often. Here’s an older Reddit post that lists out a few tools and reviews them: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/88q78v/the_fantasy_calendar_generator/
fantasycalendar.com lets you pretty much do exactly that, and it’s also free. You can add as many moons as you like, and then customize how long the phases are etc. It can be a bit clunky to use, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes really easy (as most things do).
I use it for GMing (in a fit of insanity, I decided on 3 different calendar system for my homebrew world), and I like it, it also generates stuff like random weather for you if you want.
Calendar generator for imaginary planet with three moons? I read that, and I just knew that the BDH would come through (with multiple suggestions, no less!) I just love being a member of the BDH!
🥰💕💕💕
Also glad to see Sam’s mention of DnD…my daughter is very much into DnD and that was the first thing that came to my mind. I was going to ask her when she gets home from work, but now I don’t have to remember to do that. 😁
If I didn’t know why but saw that there was a real book called This Kingdom Needs an Astronomer I would be on that like a shot to check it out (regardless of author). Cool title.
+1!!! Sorry HA, now the BDH needs to read this book! … maybe we’ll settle for a novella? We are totally p*tient and understanding, after all 😉
Same, same….. I saw that title and thought OMG that is going to be an awesome book!
Love the look of the special edition! I would buy it just for display, if my family wouldn’t kill me.
What does CE mean please?
Hope you’re keeping cool over there this weekend! I’m in SF Bay in California, and people from Sacramento & San Jose are coming here to escape the heat advisory!
I think CE stands for copy editor!
Love The Inheritance. Thank you for your hard work and dedication!
+1
July release date for the Inheritance blog serial is awesome news. I buy in both print and ebook.
Would any American publisher do a special edition of Hidden Legacy? I can’t read Dutch but that Dutch special edition is gorgeous.
My thoughts exactly
What a gorgeous editon! Too bad I would not be able to read it.
I mistakenly thought The Preorder button was for The Inheritance – oops!
Drinking mint tea and practicing pat*ence, with a side of challant.
Happy weekend and astrocalendaring!
Click happy LOL
“astrocalendaring” what a great word!!
That edition is GORGEOUS! I can’t wait for The Inheritance to come out! I get so excited. It feels like the most specialist of birthdays when your books are published. Thank you for sharing your stories and your talent with us plebeians! 😜
Hee hee 3 moons, what if they got full moon all at the same time, ROFL. Imagine what it would do. 1 full moon = a bit crazier than usual, 2 full moons = okay, people DO go crazy with the full moons, and all 3 moons full = Batten Down All Hatches, stay home, huddle in the crazies are full on crazed, no telling what they’re going to do!
Plus tsunamis.
Where everyone goes sea bottom picking before seeking shelter in towers for when all the water comes back.
For sure in the emergency department, where a full moon on Friday on payday is all hands on deck!!
Not to mention how crazy the tides would get with 3 moons. King tides are bad enough with our one moon. I can’t imagine how high tides would be with 3 moons.
Yes! loved that book.
Hello,
Off topic but…
Elisabeth Wheatley fanboying Ilona Andrews yesterday: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKRub2psToB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
I really really want to read “This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me”
Yes, it’s also on her YT channel as a “short”. Apparently “This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me” is already Book Goblin Approved…
Should we have a Book Goblin / House Andrews cross over hang out ? 🙋🏼♀️
+1000
On the Moons thing, there’s always the moons of Krynn from the Dragonlance setting as an example:
https://dragonlancenexus.com/moon-tracking-chart/
Not that you need to stick to the orbital durations, but take the principle of the multiple rings, with the inner ones needing less days for a full cycle.
If your regular CEs are booked up, I am a freelancer with decades of experience who would MAKE room for HA! 😍
I’ve asked a group of friends including people who work for the Vatican Observatory.
Ill let you know.
If you are going to use three moons, for the calendar that donjon site looks great, but please remember to have the moons obey Kepler’s Third Law! (Period is proportional to the radius to the 3/2 power.)
Better and better. Love this book. A whole new world! Lol. Hopefully a series. I always want more of your genius. Gordon, feel better. Mod R, enjoy.
Ask and the BDH provides! So funny, who knew that 3 moons is actually a thing.
Have you tried chatgpt?
You could try
https://fantasy-calendar.com/
Good luck! I’m so excited. 🙂
I’m very excited for Inheritance whenever it comes out, especially the audio!
Good luck with the 3 moons problem!
One of may favorite books of all time is Nightfall by Asimov. The system has 4 suns and 1 (unknown) small moon, because the sky always has at least one sun in it. Then they experience a total eclipse on a Dobos only day. Amazing short novel that examines the relationship between science and religion. Your three moon problem reminded me of that story.
I run a dnd game and I ran into this issue, I use Donjon Fantasy calendars, it lets you plug in up to 8(?) moons and how many days and how synced up they are.
I feel like there are enough factors involved in moon phases that you could probably just make it up and no-one could say that it was impossible, says I, a person with little to no astronomy knowledge.
Cause you’d have to factor in the planets orbit around their sun as well as the moons orbit around the planet, and you’d need a significant distance between the moons orbits or gravity might cause them to collide, so maybe 1 of those moons wouldn’t even be visible most of the time?
Phases might also be affected by the moons own rotation, we don’t know what it looks like to live on a planet where we can see the moon rotate, because earth’s moon rotates in a way that just manages to match the earth’s, so we can only see 1 side of the moon, all the time right?
So theoretically, a moon could rotate differently enough that ppl on the planet might see a different side of the moon at the same phase, but at different times of the year?
Yes, our moon is tidally locked with the Earth so we only see one side. We never knew what the back of the moon looked like until the space program.
I was wondering if Alamac writers might be able to help you with the moon phase question. as alamacs often have all of the phases for our own single moon on a month to month basis. so if someone could let you know what the angle variable would be that you need to keep in mind, maybe you could use those to get the different phases across a hypothetical 3 moons….or find an astronomer who has been studying this for Jupiter or Saturn and can use those existing multi moon planets as a reference:)
Try the below link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/4zd87e/moon_cycles_and_a_world_with_three_moons/
The calculator is further down the page – the link for it seems to work and is below.
https://www.calctool.org/astrophysics/orbital-period
Good luck!!
Fascinating, as always. And though I am eagerly (desperately?) awaiting ‘The Inheritance’ I’m always voting for the slow and painstaking preparation.
I’m now laughing at myself … I’d started to put something in the above post about how there must be some such astronomical calculator out there. But then thought about it, and realized that there probably was already some such thing in the comments. And posted without such, only to find that my post came after exactly that. LOL
The Edition Looks gorgeous.
Bring one out in German, too, please?
Big puppy eyes.🐶
That Dutch addition is gorgeous. Congratulations!
I can’t wait for The Inheritance to come out. I decided to hold off reading it so I can munch the whole book in one sitting. It will be a glorious devour!
I clicked on that preorder button so quickly… I’m an English native speaker (and prefer to read in it) but a gorgeous Dutch version of a book I already love and can read in my second language is irresistible. Yay!! Also yay for Inheritance! I’m enjoying it a lot. This all makes Sunday a little nicer.
Me as a Dutchy AM IN LOVE !!!!
About the moon/celestial bodies calculator…
I don’t know if this works for you or not, but the REBOUND software works on multiple platforms and they have samples on their website that you can use for a basic “Three Moon Problem.”
It is probably more for astronomers and physics geeks, but it might be a place to start.
Here’s the link:
https://rebound.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Cheers!
There is finally a translation of Burn for me in bulgarian.The cover is gorgeous and it has sprayed edges too. Hopefully the translation will be up to the original feel. Will gladly send you pics.This is the first book of yours translated in bulgarian ever.
Here you go – another one:
https://www.yourmoonphase.com/pages/find-your-moon?srsltid=AfmBOoowVLtQupvDRFAF04bNpUfFRQVofJrpUhAODjXmG4p8ZFxV9CHy
I’m glad you are doing a traditional audio book. One or two people reading your book. The audio performances are fun, but I much prefer an actor reading your words!
Thank you!
Congratulations on the Dutch edition – beautiful!
Thank you for the depth of research and subsequent details you craft so the Horde can devour! May your devotion to such detail be surpassed by joy the actual writing brings to you and Gordon!
Eagerly (and p@t!ent1y) w$&@ing for the preorder button!
May your health be continually improving and ModR’s time away restful!
Send peace, health and safety to all!
Check out the website for Earthsky.org . They have a contact link at the bottom of the splash page. If they can’t help you, they can probably put you in touch with an astronomer who can.
Funny you should ask that. “The three body problem” is a great sci fi read and tv series.
Haven’t used it, but this might help: https://fantasy-calendar.com/
Astronomer thought: might be easier for you to do in reverse, decide what you want your calendar to look like, just keep in mind they need to be in different orbits, further out will likely be longer calendar. different speeds can account for different calendars as well, if you keep those things in mind, shouldn’t mess you up too badly. also even at different orbits they will all go in the same direction and on about on the same plane, can have a little wobble but not much. otherwise things could get dicey, starts to make the whole survival thing a bit tenuous.
I found a Reddit thread from 3 years ago asking something similar. The person who answered talked about specific math.
“moon S will repeat a lunar phase every 48 days. Moon R will repeat a lunar phase every 31 days, and moon B every 25 days.
This means moon S will repeat a phase on every day which is a multiple of 48 (for example, day 48, 96, etc.). Similar logic applies to the other moons.
Therefore, if the moons have the same phase on a given day, they will repeat that triple phase on the next day which is a multiple of 48, 31, and 25. In math this is the LCM, or least common multiple. The simplest way to do this would be search for an LCM calculator on google. Using your numbers on one of these calculators, I got 37,200. This means after your triple new moon epoch, another triple new moon will occur 37,200 days later
Unfortunately, this number also represents the number of possible phase combinations of your three moons, meaning you will go through EVERY possible combination before reaching three new moons again, including three full moons.
A side note, if you don’t like how long it will take to to reach a repeat phase, you can test numbers in the LCM calculator to find a length you like.”
In answer to your question, I asked ChatGPT, and this is what it came up with. Plus it sounds like it can come up with the things you need on its own, rather than using a calculator. Worth a shot, I would think. 🙂
🔧 Online Tools and Simulators
Sky & Telescope’s Moon Phase Calculator (Adaptable Conceptually)
While it’s Earth-based, you can conceptually adapt its logic for other planets.
Site: Sky & Telescope Moon Phase Calculator
NASA’s Dial-A-Moon (for inspiration)
Not customizable, but shows how phase data is modeled over time.
🧮 Customizable Moon Phase Calculators / Scripts
If you’re willing to use a bit of coding or scripting:
Phases of the Moon JavaScript Simulation
You can adapt simple scripts (or I can help you write one) where you define:
Length of the synodic month (e.g., 28, 35, 50 days)
Total length of a year
Start date / alignment
Output a calendar with phases (new, first quarter, full, last quarter)
Python-based Custom Calculator
You can input:
Custom month length
Custom year length
Number of moons (if desired)
And generate a calendar output (text or visual)
🛠️ Want a Ready-Made Tool?
I can build a basic interactive moon phase and calendar simulator for a hypothetical planet. Just tell me:
Length of a year (in days)
Length of a month / synodic period (in days)
Do you want Earth-style weeks/days?
One or more moons?
Output style: table/calendar, list, or chart?
Would you like me to make this in a web-based tool (HTML/JavaScript), or just give you a spreadsheet or Python script?
Wow!
This is soooooo cool!
A fantasy celestial body orbit calculator is the bomb!
Let the BDH know if it works because there are probably a bunch of people/writers who could use it/buy it.
Cheers!
A recommendation – please do not use ChatGPT in a professional environment. Meaning the same computer you work from and the business server. This Open AI is not preferred for Corporate Business Solutions. ChatGPT has also had catastrophic failures as early as last March.
Use Microsoft Copilot. Searching and inquiry does not put your business out on the web. I can give examples, but this blog doesn’t necessitate that much detail. 😊. I do not want to bore people, as well. Thank you. This a personal opinion.
Smiles and good morning, and a couple things — first, Dutch !!!! How amazingly fabulous. Congratulations!
Second, I know that you are interested in finding new voices for your audiobooks, and I recently experienced a perfect alpha male voice, whew, stopped me in my proverbial tracks, and had to hit repeat to make sure it was real.
You can hear Yung Gravy’s narration on Audible, in the free book “The Last Adventure of a Coquette”, he’s the sole narrator. Please, please go listen to his voice. I’ve found several other songs by him, but the audio book shows the best of his voice. You definitely need his contact info in your potential narrator list.
Hello
Thanks for giving me a reason to read my emails beyond bills due. Here’s a moon phase calculation tool from JPL / NASA. They have lots of cool free things on the JPL website and might even have a contact to provide more help.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resources/project/make-a-moon-phases-calendar-and-calculator/
“This Kingdom Needs an Astronomer” — bumpersticker? words to live by? I know I would rather live in a kingdom that has an astronomer than one that does not.
My birthday is July 25th — looking forward to my House Andrews birthday present 🙂 thanks in advance for “The Inheritance” — I know I love it already!
Peace & joy to one and all
You are so right! Bumpersticker!!!
Yes! Bumper stickers are good!
Like:
“Magic Clams”! <— Love it!
“There will be Ripper Cushions” <— I bought the coffee cup
We need more swag… please?
Cheers!
Sadly, I have no personal knowledge here. I have no doubt your trusty BDH will be all over the internet searching, however. Have you considered reaching out to author Larry Niven, who wrote the Ringworld series and The Mote In God’s Eye (which you probably already know). You are famous, I imagine he would be tickled to hear from you about such a thing.
Cool news all around! Thanks for the update. Can hardly wait for the ebook preorder, myself!
Oooo three moons. Maggie gets more just more interesting the more tidbits y’all drop.
Whodathunk there would be a Saturday Blog post?
Anyways, gives me a chance to congratulate you two for the very pretty new photo at the top of your blog.
Very NYT Top of the Best Sellers List -looking.
https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/calendar/
how many souls can we offer up to get a copies in english😅🤣, its so beautiful!
Another possible idea re. the moons is to select three of the moons of Saturn and use ~live NASA info on them.?. “Saturn has 274 confirmed moons in its orbit, far more than any other planet in our solar system. In March 2025, astronomers confirmed the discovery of 128 small moons around Saturn — adding to the already large moon count.” from https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/
Well, what a surprise, a book in Dutch!
Tried to pre-order, sold out. 🙁
Till now only two of your edge books were released in Dutch.
This new book would have been a great gift for my sister, but a day after your announcement it’s already sold out.
She usually reads ebooks, so I hope this already translated book later gets an ebook release too.
The book can be ordered again, I did so just now.
Thank you!
Not sure if this will be any help but there is a site called https://app.fantasy-calendar.com which will allow you to design your calendar with multiple moons. One friend of mine uses it for some D&D campaigns.
“The Kingdom Needs an Astronmer” sparks joy. No context required.
Thank you for The Inheritance and for all the things you publish, both here and elsewhere.
I think the moons might have to be done one by one, after youve figured out size and promity to planet and sun for eclipses and effect on tide (the bigger and closer to ththe planet the worse the tides. When all three are closest to the planet at th same time this will cause the worst tides and maybe some other shennagins in the story if you wish. I dont know too much about it. But create a cycle for each moon (dont forget the planet is cycling the sun as well) per month and relate that to how much the planet rotates and circles the sun per day and year. Figure out numbers for each moon then compare the data to know for all three.
I am trying to decide if I can justify shipping to the US. That book is gorgeous, but I’ve been studying German not Dutch.
listening to graphic audio of Magic Rises and wondering if I just can’t remember or if we dint know why Kate’s last name is Daniels?
Voron chose it for her, a name bland enough to not raise any suspicion 🙂
Hi!
As a reader from Belgium- So happy with a Dutch translation 🥳 thank you!
I’m curious if the puns and jokes are as hilarious in this version! And sooo glad for Some ‘extra leesvoer’ (direct translation = reading food😄) .
With kind and warm greetings,
Wendy
This quora topic may give you some useful info:
https://www.quora.com/If-we-lived-on-a-planet-with-several-moons-would-they-all-be-in-the-same-lunar-phase-or-could-one-be-full-and-the-others-not
AfaIu, it’s really up to you to decide how fast the phases of each moon change, b/c you’re the one deciding how they orbit the planet. As long as you don’t make mistakes about where in the sky each moon is, in relation to what phase it’s in. Though I have to say, I’m mystified as to how you’d define a ‘month’ on this planet. Maybe use one cycle of the slowest changing moon?
My astronomer friend/colleague got back to me. Here is what he suggested:
Hi Susan,
Having a pocket Larry Niven to ask questions of would be a great boon to us all haha.
Here is a couple ways I can help:
Here is a quick video describing calculating the orbital period of a moon (and what you’d need to know). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06XV6qqXtwM
And here is a calculator to determine the orbital period of an object if you know the mass of the central planet and the distance to the moon. https://www.satnow.com/calculators/orbital-period-calculator
A casual recommendation I have would be to make sure the moons are a reasonable distance from each other so you can make some logical handwaving arguments that the system is stable. It might also be interesting to have the moons connected to the time system of the world. I.E,. If a moon was close enough to go around 1/day, and another 1/week, and another 1/month. The phases of each would determine the hour of the day, day of the week, and day of the month, etc.
But your friends may also want to look up the Roche Limit too.
Just a thought,
Will
I hope this helps! LOVE you both!!!
hi Ilona. I hope this reaches you. I’ve never done a blog thing. nor even sure of what it is; but anyways I digress. im a simple man who drives a long distance to work & back every day. to feel that void with something worthwhile i listen to audio books. to me it’s far better than the same music every day. I came across the Kate Daniels univers by chance & finished it today. I just wanted to tell you it’s one of the greatest stories I’ve ever enjoyed across all platforms. & I dab in all of them. thank you soooo much.
I’m so happy you loved Kate world! There are some blog exclusive extras you may be interested in 🙂 https://ilona-andrews.com/free-fiction/
Thank you so much, Jared. I am so glad!