Welcome, new folks!

Hi, there. If you've joined the mailing list recently, I want to make sure you get your free Frosthelm book, Traitors Unseen. If you haven't gotten it, you can get it free here (the site will ask you to sign up for this newsletter, which you're already getting) or here from Smashwords. It's also on Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Please, enjoy with my compliments.

A good couple weeks for Kenai

With help from the Escapist Book Company, I was able to run a blog tour recently with my latest sci-fi novel, Kenai. If you're interested, here are some of the stops:

• A fictionalized interview with the main character of Kenai, Jess Amiko
• A Q&A interview about my writing at the FictionFansPodcast blog.
• A review by Jamedi at JamReads
• An interview about my writing at Charli's Book Box
• A review by Bookworm Bunny at Bunny's Reviews
• Cool Instagram pictures by inveterate_reader here and Layla here.

Beyond the book tour, Kenai has also started making its way through the SPSFC (the Self-Published Sci-Fi Competition). It's been assigned to a team of judges calling themselves the Peripheral Prospectors. They've had a look at eight books so far, and only two, Kenai and one other, made it through their initial cuts. More information and their comments on their books are here. There are about 220 books in this competition, and we're still in the very early stages. Daros advanced to the semifinals of this competition back in 2021.

Making a game at ludicrous speed

If you want to see how I spent my weekend, you can check out my entry in Ludum Dare #54. Ludum Dare is a recurring 48-hour computer game event. You get the theme Friday evening and have to turn in a completed game (code, art, sounds, everything must be new and made by you) 48 hours later. This time the theme was "Limited Space," so I went with a game about an island slowly falling into the sea. Not because of climate change, but because the island itself is getting eaten by hostile whales. Because that's a new thing to worry about, I guess?

Ishmael (the game) is playable here!

It's a little rough around the edges, as you'd expect from a 48-hour game. My thanks go to my ever-tolerant wife, whom I neglect pretty hard whenever I do this. If you like my book chapter titles, there are more of the same terrible puns in the level titles here (Eye Pods, Prints of Whales, I Want to Be Cetated).

Writing update

I spent September trying to figure out what to tackle next (and also playing more Starfield than is probably healthy), and I've settled on finishing the first draft of my second thriller, which follows an out-of-work former professor in small-town North Carolina. I definitely want to do more fantasy and sci-fi, but with the success of Got Trouble, which just crossed 100 reviews at Amazon and has a 4.7 star average (my best average other than The Woeling Lass, which has a 4.8 average but far fewer reviews), I thought finishing up the second thriller might be a good idea, especially because I'm close to done with a first draft there.

I'm busy rereading and editing what I had before (at page 110 of 145 in my Word document). What I have is about 77,000 words, almost to the big climax at the end. After finishing this editing pass, I've got an eye towards writing the ending of the story in the next couple of weeks. The storyline and characters in this book have nothing to do with Got Trouble, but the tone and setting are somewhat similar, so hopefully it will be a nice follow-up. After I'm done with the first draft, there will be lots of sharing, beta reading, and editing to do before it's ready to release.

Some stories to try

I'm part of several author collectives, and we share each other's work to try to help all of us reach more readers. In many cases, the books we share are are free or discounted. Sometimes, they ask that you sign up for a newsletter like this one. Here are some new books I have to share this month:

First, here's The Unseen Curse by Zachary Jeffries. A teen investigates a magical mystery that turns out to be more than meets the eye (as you'd expect in such cases). Well-reviewed on Amazon, and on sale for 99 cents.

Next, here's a fairy-tale retelling, Broken Contracts by M.J. Kaestli. This book is completely free, and if you like it, there are more related books in M.J.'s Broken Crowns series.

Next, here's a sample of Susan Draper's sci-fi novel Into The Sun which is both a very bad course to set and also a spicy alien abduction thriller, something that cannot help but be either or both of weird and hot depending on your preferences, but interesting either way. You can have a look absolutely free.

Here's a set of fifty-four novels and series available to read for free if you're in Kindle Unlimited. These are from all different genres, although there are no naked-man-chest books among them, which may or may not make you happy depending on your man-chest preferences.

Finally, here's a set of ten free speculative fiction novellas, all entrants in a spec-fic novella competition called SFINCS. Lots of shorter fantasy and sci-fi to try here.

Thanks

Thanks so much for reading my newsletter! I really enjoy sharing little bits of my life here, and I hope they're of some small interest. Let me know if you're doing anything interesting, or especially if you have comments, questions, or ideas for new books!

I hope you and your friends and family are staying healthy and safe, and you're finding fun books to explore as we head into the closing months of 2023.

May the Bloodmother watch over you - 

Dave