Intro Text


Welcome to the current home of my writing. Since my provider decided that the internet wasn't the place for personal homepages I had to find a new home for the stories. This may be a temporary home, or it might not. We'll see how it goes.

At the moment this site will be hosting my writing. There're some full-length novels in the stories section all in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. This content will be being fleshed out as I get around to transferring them and doing some formatting work to get the previews presentable. They're also up for sale on Amazon, so if you enjoy them you might want to consider buying as well.

Thursday, December 23, 2021

 That took longer than I wanted.

I''ve been poking and prodding at Lies in Red Leaves for a couple of months, trying to polish the ending to a suitable standard. Still not quite there, I think, but I wanted to get this out before Christmas. So... Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and enjoy the final part of the penultimate installment of the Life of Riley, now available in the local stories section. There's one book left to come, tentatively titled Stand in Endless Circle, but that might be... some time away. In the meantime, I want to catch up on some unfinished business in some different universes.

21 comments:

  1. It's a Christmas miracle!!! I can't wait to dig in!!!

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  2. Well, it's not how I wanted it to end but I can see how it would end that way. I hope we'll see that character again in the final book. Thanks for all your hard work and giving us a wonderful present.

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    1. Oh, they'll be back. Along with some old friends. Don't worry: Michael won't be stuck with a Mediator.

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  3. Ok merry christmas and happy new year.Very glad to read it.I have my hope in CTK too.

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    1. Tempting. But I think I have to get the rest of the prequel done first, so that I know what happens in CTK!

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    2. Understandable,yet you may go a little further as thing unfolding in the past until any serious connection made with each other.
      Looks wery new and fresh.
      Keep up your stuff !

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  4. Congratulations on finishing it :) I look forward to finding out whether the cook did get his raise in the end.

    Meanwhile, something I've been wondering... you've been writing and posting stories online for a long while now, here on your personal blog. Have you ever considered putting them on a public web novel platform?

    There are websites like royalroad.com, which exist specifically for authors and readers of original web novels and serials. You could take your finished works, like for example Light on Shattered Water, and start posting it there a chapter a week or so. It could easily multiply your audience a hundredfold, if not more, and funnel people who do not want to wait for the next chapter towards buying the full novels.

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    1. Thanks for that. I hope to resolve the cook issue in the eight novel in the series :)

      I have considered going to something like Paetron, or another publishing site like Smashwords, which is a little less grabby and more up-to-date in their payment policies (cheques, Amazon? really?). But I haven't really heard anything about Royalroad. I'll have to look into it a bit more, but it certainly doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

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  5. Dude I wanted to say how much I love you first two books in the Life of Riley Series. I’m like 77% into the second book now. If I can ask have you considered publishing? I know its on kindle which is a good step but I would love to see this book at barns&Noble or books-a-million. And getting it published could mean eventually getting an audiobook, which I would die for lol. Such a fantastic story you created

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    1. Also my only criticism with you books is sometimes it’s difficult for me to follow which characters are speaking and which aren’t. But that’s about it. I think if you get it published you can have a proofreader help with that maybe? Idk anything about publishing books but that’s my only negative criticism I have.

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    2. Getting commercially published would be awesome. However, the final decision on publication in entirely up to the publisher. And their decisions are influenced primarily by money. They have metrics they balance, but a really long novel by an unknown author that's already available for free online probably wouldn't impress their accountants. I could try submitting a copy for their evaluation, but I wouldn't be optimistic about the chances :(

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  6. Yay! Maybe I'll pick up lies in red leaves again (been a good dozen updates), but I'm really looking for updates to the stories involving space and aliens.

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    1. I'll have to get some of those finished off. I've already done too much on the next Life of Riley installment.

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  7. For a long time, I worried you were dead and so much would be left unsaid, you were my earliest, and highest, author in this field of literature. I'll continue to be patient, you just continue to set the bar higher, sir.

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  9. At the recommendation of someone on another website, I've now read through the Life of Riley.
    I definitely wouldn't have gone about some things the same way Michael did. Like his aversion to gasoline firmly rooted in the context of our world. For some reason he thinks it is better to stick with coal rather then get them "dependent" on oil even though an infrastructure built on coal has exactly the same problems of exhaust and limited sources that need to be dug out of the ground, only worse.

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    1. Hey, when creating an industrial revolution, I'm sure everyone would go about it their own way. Michael is just using his experience and foresight. Coal and coke would be necessary evils to start with - the locals already know about it and use it; it's absolutely required for steel production and industrial use; and even if you had access to a petroleum oil source, you'd still need it for refining. He's just trying to sidestep the whole combustion cycle that his world was trapped in for too long.

      Stand in Stone Circles already goes into some detail on it :)

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    2. The way I figure it, it is a matter of flexibility rather than a specific fuel source. If you set up a system in place so strongly, with an industry so powerful it will rebel against any change for any reason even when the situation changes or alternatives would be beneficial, it's likely to cause problems regardless of what is powering it.
      You are right in that there's an initial leap to overcome in terms of acquiring and refining oil, so there are practical concerns, rather than philosophical ones.

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    3. Speaking of Stand in Stone Circles, I personally am checking for an update more frequently than I care to admit.

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    4. Other practical concerns would be a people who have a much greater sense of smell. Coal and coke are already deeply unpleasant to them and more sources of that would not be welcome. They do have advantages in that they aren't a democracy, so the kings and queens can dictate policy. The US did manage to bootstrap its industrial revolution while avoiding the worst of European industrial filth. It wasn't perfect - the technology was stolen, there was rampant pollution - the Erie canal caught fire a few times - but they didn't have nightmares like industrial Manchester or the Great Stink of London. Given a bit more warning, and controls on rampant capitalism, there might be a chance to make a better go of things.

      And Stand in Stone Circles will be a big update. I could post it up now, but there are still a few things that need adjusting.

      *Post sooooooon meme here*

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