7/25/2023 - 2nd Chance at “Talk About Your Book” Workshop, plus Cover Reveals for SciFi Thrillers and a New Puppy

Hello,

(If you saw “New Puppy” and clicked, I won’t keep you in much suspense. A couple quick things first.)

Last week, I hosted a workshop to help people get more comfortable talking about their books, and it went really well, enough so that I’m hosting another in two days—approximately 48 hours from now—on Thursday 7/27 at 8pm Eastern. If you’re curious what you’ll experience, check out the Facebook Event description and the agenda posted in the discussion. https://www.facebook.com/events/963132774960480

Otherwise, in this newsletter, I’m excited to show you the covers for the upcoming scifi thriller releases, Dead of Night and Murder on the Barge Inn. I’m still looking for some more advance readers for both of those stories, and I plan to send out eARCs for Dead of Night this coming weekend. Along with that, I have a couple of book recommendations from other authors to share.

And now, the Puppy

Everyone, meet Ty.

If you’ve seen previous dog pictures (and parrot pictures) and wondered how many furred and feathered companions we have, I’ll say that for a while, we’ve only had the one permanent parrot, Lutra. Any other posted dogs were dogs we boarded. One of the nice things about working from home in academic and fiction writing is that it’s very convenient to care for other people’s dogs, and it gets me out of the house for regular walks.

I didn’t think we were going to get a dog anytime soon, but then we met this little pup. We adopted him just two weeks ago, and after brainstorming many names, we returned to the original: Tiberius, for James T Kirk (of any rendition of the series), but more often called Ty-Guy or just Ty.

Ty, like Lutra the Parrot, has become a writing companion, quite content to curl up at my feet while I rattle out the words on the keyboard while mumbling to myself. His preferred method of car travel is on my shoulder (not kidding). There is a high likelihood that I will be sharing many more Ty pics.

Next, the cover reveals

Two murder mysteries on space ships, coming out soon. Let me know in a reply if you would like an advance electronic copy of either or both. Essentially, if you’re on the launch team, I’m asking that you read the story before launch date and if you enjoy it, leave a positive rating and review, preferably on day one.

Finally, recommendations, including a new release

New release from author Jen Bair: One Good Eye, a pirate prequel to the Misplaced Adventures series.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Good-Eye-Adventures-Stormheart-ebook/dp/B0C7STC9PZ/

If you’re looking for humorous adventure fantasy (even if you’re not familiar with the rest of the series by Kevin Pettway), this looks like a great one to check out.

Also, I’m a little bit late to the game, but I just finished reading Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, and I loved it!

A couple of disclaimers before getting into commentary:

1. This is a very self-aware, highly meta parody of a D&D style adventure while still being a D&D style adventure.
2. This series falls into the LitRPG/GameLit genres, which includes a game-style format and character leveling mechanics, but it is NOT a computer simulation.
3. This story includes gore, language, and crude humor. (Many of the negative reviews of this and future books are about it being too bloody or vulgar—which the author laughingly screenshots and reposts.)

I have been a tabletop roleplayer for about half my life, mostly as a GM/DM (which probably doesn’t come as a shock). And yet, I usually struggle to get into game lit novels because I often don’t believe the characters’ motivations or internal consistency—and I’d often rather run a game myself than read about someone else playing one. Dungeon Crawler Carl absolutely hit all the buttons I needed to stay intrigued and entertained. A big part of why it works so well for me is [minor spoiler] the gamified apocalypse is triggered by super advanced aliens repossessing planet Earth, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy style. That took care of a lot, and the main character’s inner monologue and (again) internal consistency handled the rest.

So if you’re the right audience for R-rated D&D-inspired content, I highly recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BKGYQXW

That covers it for me today. I need to get back to work on upcoming releases and events, including the Kickstarter for Murderbugs, which will premiere in about 6 weeks.

As always, happy reading!

Mike Jack Stoumbos