Welcome back to my newsletter!

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Writing and Publishing

Looking Back

Inner Demon released on July 2nd, and, according to my Kindle Direct Publishing statistics, I made two sales on that platform in the month of July. Woohoo! If you’re interested in helping me bump up that number, click here for the Amazon page and click here for all other options (ebook or physical).

In addition to releasing Inner Demon, I updated my website (mostly with Inner Demon stuff) and I finished my first round of heavy edits for Halfwhisker Part 1 (Whiskerroot). I haven’t gotten feedback from every test reader yet, but here’s a quote from the survey I sent out:

I really liked viewing the world from a mouse’s eyes. I think you did a really good job with making your different characters feel distinct. Thorn’s perspective chapter was great for totally shifting my perspective of him. I did think his ear pockets were hilarious. I think your female characters were really well written as well. I was impressed by that.

~Lydia

I’m glad that initial reception is pretty positive. That’s helping drive me forward as I continue into Part 2 (The Man-colony). But more on that later.

I did note in my last newsletter that most of Inner Demon‘s audiobook work was likely to happen in August, and that’s exactly how things are shaking out so far. My audio guy got back to me and let me know that most of my recordings turned out really well, but he had a handful of lines that he strongly felt should be re-recorded—hopefully I can get that fixed up Monday…

Looking Forward

… and then I might even be so lucky as to have the audiobook go live before the first full week of August is over!¹

Beyond that, I hope to have Halfwhisker Part 2 (The Man-Colony) edited up and sent out for feedback before the end of the month, but we’ll see if audiobook stuff messes with that plan—or if the extensive travel plans my wife and family dropped onto my schedule this month do!

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The Blog and Etc

In July, I published reviews on Chloe’s Kingdom: The Lost Colony, two books in The Bartimaeus Trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand and The Golem’s Eye), and, releasing at the same time as this newsletter, a review on Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. Check ’em out if you haven’t already!

• Chloe’s Kingdom: The Lost Colony: Beginning almost exactly where Chloe’s Kingdom ended, book 2 of the Stellar Heist trilogy maintains Chloe’s Kingdom‘s blinding pace while upping the stakes and adopting a grimmer tone. Fans of Mojito rejoice—the little raccoon gets two viewpoint chapters this time.
• The Bartimaeus Trilogy: Alternate history? Check. Mouthy djinni “servant”? Check. Young, likably-unlikable protagonist with way bigger problems than he should be able to handle? Check. The Amulet of Samarkand and The Golem’s Eye are a good time—and easily disprove the idea that anyone should exclusively read recent releases.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: An anime about an elf mage notably set after a grand adventure has reached its conclusion, Frieren has a lot of interesting meditations on relationships, time, and change. Oh, and some excellent fights where demons get slaughtered. What’s not to love?

As for what’s upcoming, I hope to have reviews on Travel by Star and the core rulebooks for the Cosmere RPG before the end of the month (at least, for the Stormlight setting), but that’s a lot of reading and I’m not the quick reader I once was. (Or, more accurately, I don’t have seemingly infinite summer afternoons to devour libraries with anymore.) I might finally throw out a detailed review on Coromon, I might finish that article comparing Theft of Fire and Blindsight (despite having lost all momentum on that project), and I really hope to host a guest article about men, boys, and reading written by my friend Tanner.²

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What Am I Reading?

I am still reading Travel by Star (Paul Scott Grill). This book is not at all what I expected—which, ultimately, is a good thing, but has required me to reset my expectations. It’s also not a book that’s easily read in my spare moments—I feel this book is best read when I intentionally set aside a minimum of thirty minutes of undistracted reading for it, which can be difficult with two littles.³

Since Travel by Star isn’t the kind of book that works (for me, at least) to be read in a spare five or ten minutes, I’m filling up my odd moments with the Cosmere RPG—starting with The Stormlight Handbook and most likely ending with the second core rulebook for the Stormlight setting, The Stormlight World Guide. Oh boy, I have thoughts on these rulebooks, including high praise for the rules and mechanics in a vacuum, skepticism at the Cosmere being a perfect fit for a TTRPG, and scathing criticism for some of the sexual identity politics woven into this game.

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Anything Else I Recommend?

Rivals of Aether 2 is a darn good platform fighting game. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, this will: it’s a lot like Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros, but better.

That’s right, I said it. This is so much more than just Smash Bros at home. This is an indie studio punching way above its weight limit and solidly landing most hits. Rivals of Aether 2 looks gorgeous, plays fluidly, and has an already-large cast that expands with four new, free character every year—in addition to other features. (Party modes are going to be a thing starting next year, which I’m really excited for—giving more for casual players to enjoy will make it a lot easier for me to share this game with my friends.)

And the best part—which is a sad thing to be praising, but this is the reality of the video game industry right now—is that the game costs less than $60 and still provides all content for free. Sure, there are purely cosmetic items that you can pay for if you want to, but there’s not a single pay-to-win or pay-to-complete-the-experience element in the game. A breath of fresh air.

What made me want to share this game? Extreme hype for the most recently revealed, to-be-released-in-October, Galvan, who looks crazy fun!

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1. I will not be offering Inner Demon on Audible. I get that I’m a tiny minnow in a huge ocean, and I get that Audible is the vast majority of the audiobook market (at least in the States)—Audible regularly cheats authors, most notably indies (who haven’t the resources to defend themselves or cut big-name deals). I’d rather avoid risking being sucked into an abusive relationship. ↩︎
2. His Substack, Crafting the Good, has some pretty good articles on it. I also commented on one of his earlier articles in this blog post. ↩︎
3. I commented on X about the different types of reading patterns that different books demand—inspired largely by my experiences with Travel by Star and The Lost Colony. If you’re curious to hear my thoughts, here’s my original post, here’s some passionate commentary by Gregory Michael, and here’s Michael F Kane throwing in a more balanced take. ↩︎