Nre’fa-o… good dancing!
The cover for Inner Demon continues to evolve. The story is YA fantasy, but most of the feedback I got was that the cover looked Middle Grade—a bit younger an audience than I’m going for. So I’m working with my artist to see what we can do about that. We’re pretty close to the point where I’ll upload the manuscript and cover to various publishers so I can get test copies of the book, and I look forward to sharing those here.
Also, I have audio recorded all the way through chapters 28 or 29, depending on what day this post finally goes live. (This has been sitting in my drafts folder for… half a month now?!? Where does the time go?!?)
The Courage in a Small Heart graphic novel script adaptation is going well! I’m workshopping it with my writing group, which is helping quite a bit with polishing—whether or not it ever ends up in graphic novel form, the script itself is quite fun. (I don’t know how much page space, effort, and cost the length of this script will translate to in graphic novel form, which will be the make-or-break of it.)
Halfwhisker has not seen any progress, as my other projects have taken all of my writing time—although I’d like to get back to it sooner rather than later. Which, as of this blog post, translates to “I really don’t want to wait any longer than the end of April…”
Bloggyness Review—Tailchaser’s Song
Tailchaser’s Song is a fantasy novel about a cat named Tailchaser who sets off on an adventure to find his beloved Hushpad, who—along with many other cats—has mysteriously disappeared. Along the way he makes a pawful of friends, a tail’s length of enemies, interacts with cat deities and malformed abominations, and maybe even discovers the meaning of life… from a cat’s perspective, anyway.
Tailchaser’s Song was Tad Williams’ debut novel; having read his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn books, it’s interesting to see just how Tad Williams the man was from the very beginning! This book is wildly creative, with a deeply fleshed-out world of cats and cat culture (lightly overlapping with our human world, not that us M’an ever notice the magical happenings of wild cats). This book also features a great deal of walking, as well as a conclusion that didn’t involve as much protagonist agency as I would have preferred, but that’s easily made up for in a pawful of epilogue chapters that just… Wow! They hit hard and they hit good.
I would recommend Tailchaser’s Song. It’s not a “Abandon your current read and hurry up and get to this book!” sort of recommendation, because it can be a bit of a slow read in parts, but it’s still absolutely worth your time.
And now, tangents!
First, reading old stories and seeing just how much the world has changed since they were first written can be very interesting. Tailchaser’s Song had several parts that made me chuckle specifically because of how unlikely it is that they would be written today—at least by Tad Williams, if my understanding of the man is correct.
Tailchaser’s Song is one of those stories that features a whole lot of characters sitting or walking together and sharing myths and legends with each other. I quite enjoy that in fantasy (when done well), and this book was no exception.
One such myth—unexpectedly timely, forty or so years after publication—was told by the cat Squeakerbane roughly halfway through Tailchaser’s Song. In it, Firefoot (one of the cat-gods of this world) found a beautiful, slender feline that he quickly fell in love with, and he decided to give this cat company until a romance blossomed. However, while following this cat around he noticed a very subtle “tomcat” smell and wondered if he was not the only suitor chasing tail. One day he broached the issue and the other cat explained that, despite appearing much like a beautiful fela (the cat word for female), it was actually a tom that had its “tomhood” removed by M’an (humans) as a child—as such, it lacked almost all of the traits of cat-masculinity, despite still not being biologically a fela. Horrified and disgusted, Firefoot immediately forsook the company of the “half-fela” and swore enmity between wise cats and M’an forever after.
Published in the 80s, Tailchaser’s Song obviously wasn’t written with the sex-and-gender insanities of 2025 in mind, and it shouldn’t be judged by modern standards (despite it critiquing many modern viewpoints amusingly). I think it all but impossible that Tad Williams was making commentary on transgenderism in his fantasy adventure novel about cats, but, regardless… it’s interesting to find this nugget of ancient, timeless wisdom born of pure common sense that goes completely contrary to the views screamed by many today. It made me think hard about how the world has changed, for the better and for the worse.
I had a similar experience watching She’s the Man with my wife a short while ago—rewatch for me, first time for her. That movie really only works because it was made in a time where people generally understood the meaningful differences between the sexes, allowing the movie to play on those differences to hilarious effect. If it were made in modern Hollywood, it would, unfortunately, likely involve a lot of preaching about men and women being the same… and all possible humor would have been sucked right out of the script.
Now, for the second, and last, tangent on Tailchaser’s Song, I spent a little bit of time scrolling through Tad Williams’ X feed to see if there was anything interesting that might connect to this post and discovered something that suggests Tailchaser’s Song may have made a bigger splash in the Spanish–speaking world than the English-speaking—perhaps? The article Tad Williams links is little more than a summary of the book with art—but what are the odds that I read a random book from the 80s, one that, to my knowledge, isn’t well-known anymore, and just a month earlier someone speaking a language foreign to me, across the world, has also decided to read and comment on it?
If anything I would have expected this book to find unexpected success in Japan, given their stereotypical love of cats.
Bloggyness Review—Tower of Silence
The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior is one of the best, most underrated epic fantasies of my generation. It’s genuinely a crime that this series isn’t better-known, and that’s all the review I need. As the fourth book in the series, I could spoil some events, describe the adventures Ashok and Thera go on—how Javed somehow made a complete one-eighty from a character I hated to a character I loved—but you’d be better off just going and reading Son of the Black Sword and starting the series from the beginning.
Here’s the overall gist of the series: All of known humanity lives solely on an island sub-continent, their culture rigid, caste-based, and atheistic. From birth to death, their entire lives are dictated by the Law, as managed by the judges and arbiters of the First Caste in the distant Capitol—although the direct power of the Capitol varies depending on which of the Great Houses one finds himself in. Life is tense, with the houses regularly warring amongst themselves and the constant threat of nigh-unkillable demons rising from the ocean and slaughtering every living thing they come across until their thirst is sated.
In this setting, Ashok Vadal is nearly the Law incarnate—until he learns how deeply he has been lied to his entire life and is forced to betray everything he holds closest to him in service of forgotten gods that he won’t allow himself to believe in.
There’s magic, intrigue, fascinating worldbuilding, excellent pacing, and so forth. Larry Correia became known for his military fiction (or whatever Monster Hunter International can be described as), but he’s got very wide range—and this series makes me wish that he had decided to specialize in pure fantasy from the start, because it is exceptional.
Discussions—Letting Go
I’ve got really mixed feelings about Jon Del Arroz. On the one hand, he’s found himself an effective niche to get his name out there and sell his books, and good on him. On the other hand, I wish news and reporting could be just that—news and reporting, rather than a method to sell books.
Plus, the clickbait titles to his articles—and his sometimes exaggerated points, and his tendency to needlessly preach or pontificate on the moral failings of the people he’s reporting on—rubs me the wrong way. He may often be right, but the abrasive way he sometimes operates makes it clear to me why he claims to have so many enemies.
What’s more accurate is that Jon Del Arroz does commentary, not pure newscasting—despite describing himself as the source for science fiction and fantasy news. Unfortunately, pretty much every source of newscasting nowadays is more commentary than anything else, so maybe I’m actually just disappointed with the state of information dispersal.
Anyway, the gist of the above article is Jon discussing the fallen state of beloved IP Dungeons and Dragons and the condition of the company that owns it, Wizards of the Coast, particularly focusing on ways that Dungeons and Dragons can be “saved.” If you want all the details, listen to the YouTube video, but for what I have to say I’ve just shared everything that’s important. Which brings me to my commentary on his commentary.
… Why save Dungeons and Dragons? It’s not ruined.
I’m not saying I agree with the direction the current stewards have taken the game in—quite the opposite, in fact. Like so many other intellectual properties (Star Wars, Warhammer 40k, everything Disney, etc), much of the original magic in Dungeons and Dragons has been intentionally desecrated in its newest edition—immediately ending the high of a golden age. It’s unfortunate, but whether it’s the result of activists infesting cultural institutions like virulent parasites or just misguided pandering to the nonexistent “modern audience,” this same pattern is visible all over the place.
These ill-received changes have resulted in many long-time fans discussing how DnD can be “saved.” Suggested strategies largely feature a new edition being published with major rules changes, preferably helmed by this or that person (depending on the commenter’s favorite game designer), and so forth. But I think there’s two key things people miss in these kinds of discussions.
First, the things you love can never be destroyed—not unless your memory utterly fails you, anyway, and unless they are completely wiped out of existence you can continue to interact with them in the forms you most appreciate. If you don’t like Dungeons and Dragons 5.5e, don’t play it—older versions of the game still have thriving communities and you can still buy PDFs (and sometimes hardcovers) of older rules. Once you own a copy of the rules yourself (outside of a service like D&D Beyond, anyway), no one can take them from you, and you can ignore the company that produced it forever afterward.
The same applies to any other franchise and media. Amazon’s Rings of Power was utter horse crap. But I still have The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on my shelf, and I can enjoy those whenever I want. (And there’s still the movies—for The Lord of the Rings, anyway—that are verifiably excellent and still available to watch.) Similarly, Amazon’s Wheel of Time was trash, but readers will still always have the books; most of Disney’s remakes stank worse than a dead skunk lying in the sun on Dead Fish Beach, but anyone can still procure the original cartoons and watch them, should anyone care enough. The upcoming Harry Potter HBO (MAX?) series, and the upcoming Netflix Chronicles of Narnia series, are giving us every reason to believe that they will be terrible, but that doesn’t mean they are capable of harming the original works we fell in love with. Same goes for the upcoming live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. (Wow, this list of sabotaged IP really just keeps going…)
Setting your heart on solely what’s new is just asking to be hurt—and it leaves you without a foundation. Appreciate what you have. Don’t set it aside so easily. Yes, it can be frustrated when something you love is updated or adapted by people who obviously don’t understand it, or are intentionally disrespectful, but the best way to handle those situations is to walk away. Don’t give them your time or money. Let them bankrupt themselves of goodwill, cash, or both.
Second… it’s okay to move on and find something new. It’s good for a story, game, franchise, or anything to have a natural lifespan and eventually end. You can still remember it fondly, even share the good stuff with your kids, while discovering new things that will eventually become as beloved.
So what if modern Dungeons and Dragons kinda sucks? In addition to still being able to continue to enjoy the versions of it I’ve always enjoyed (unrevised 5e), I can move on to spiritual successors if I want something that tastes similar but it legally distinct. One such option is Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition, which is essentially just DnD 5e plus a few extra features. My preferred successor, Shadowdark, scratches the itch Dungeons and Dragons used to scratch far better than DnD has in years and years, despite having a fairly different ruleset.
Again, the application of this principle is extremely broad. I was disappointed when Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy began to lose some quality, but then I discovered other epic fantasy series, like the aforementioned Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, which remind me that this torch was never carried by a single person. In fact, there are many such torches out there, carried by a plethora of authors and other creatives. Maybe they aren’t as easy to find as established names, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth finding. (Plus, as hipster as it makes me sound, I’d argue that most of the best stuff is only found when breaking away from established voices and IPs anyway.)
There is real value in familiarity. Hearing that the new Chronicles of Narnia is going to recontextualize Aslan as a female guardian of Narnia, rather than literally Jesus Christ as He chooses to represent Himself in that world (which CS Lewis made painfully clear), hurts in part because I have a preexisting relationship with the Narnia books and I don’t appreciate seeing them disrespected. Once upon a time, seeing the name “Narnia” was a quick way to get my attention, because I used to be able to trust that things associated with Narnia were going to be good; back then, this familiarity could be used to good effect by various creatives and companies, as it was done so responsibly.
Well, that familiarity is now being abused by uncreative storytellers without anything worthwhile to say. They know that their own stories and ideas won’t succeed, so they hollow out established worlds and fill them with their own crappy ideas; zombies shuffling around in skin suits. It’s gross, it’s off-putting, for good reason.
It really hurts to let go of something that’s precious to you. But if it’s being used to mock you, the best thing to do is move on, sometimes. But moving on doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning that thing entirely. It could just mean swearing off modern iterations while retaining the old; it could mean seeking out spiritual successors that evoke similar feelings in you. Do what works best for you.
But don’t waste time and effort fussing over how to fix modern iterations of things owned by people who couldn’t possibly care less about you. To bring this back in a circle to Jon Del Arroz’s video, he makes the argument that that putting Alexander Macris in charge of Dungeons and Dragons would save the game, because Macris has already made a game called Adventurer, Conquerer, King (ACKS) that evokes similar feelings and proves he can make solid rulesets; but by making that argument, Del Arroz misses the point that no one needs Macris to save DnD—they already can play Macris’ version of DnD!
Caring too much about the brand or label slapped on something is kinda silly, nowadays. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, after all—or, in Disney’s case, in Amazon’s case, and so many others, call it a turd, call it feces, call it s***, it still attracts flies.
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Well, that’s it. Subscribe to my blog somewhere on the left—or, I think, up top if you’re on mobile. Hopefully catch you sooner than next month.
Boo Ludlow 
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