Hello, all!
Checking in once again to say that things are progressing swimmingly. I'm tidying up the final draft of SotMR, with proofreading/final edits being done over the next month. Cover art is almost ready to reveal, and the map is currently under production. Total word count for this first book is going to land at around 150k. It'll be available in every form: ebook, paperback and hardcover. I'll also be sending out signed copies for the first 100 orders of paperback and hardcover that are done through SpacePunk's store. If you're reading this, then keep your eyes peeled, because I'll be posting about an exclusive sale a week prior to release. Depending on how the book does over the first year, I'll consider looking at an audiobook version, as well. I cannot express how excited I am to finally deliver this experience, and look forward to welcoming everyone to the Shine. See you all very, very soon. MB
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Hello, y'all!
Here to update my progress toward release of book 1 and talk about publishing. Firstly, draft 4 is over halfway done, and I'm looking to blaze through the final layer of polish with draft five over the next two months. As a whole, with as much as the density of the story and characters has increased from draft to draft, the tale has only continued to grow darker. It is not needlessly brutal, profane, or bloody without purpose. But it is going to be, without a doubt, the most metal thing hitting shelves in 2021 (disclaimer: my opinion is both biased and fueled by shots of double french roast). Shadow of the Mad Reaper is going to start the first trilogy off with an absolutely horrific splash, and things are only going to get more twisted from there. I did have to move the current target for release to September (it still needs a high-quality map, some branding and a few visual details to sprinkle across the page to give that extra dash of magic when you get it in your hands), but I can't imagine it spilling over any farther than October. So, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's bright and full of teeth and gore gods and mutilation magic and undead planets-- just wait and see. As for publishing, an indie publisher by the name of Spacepunk Publishing will be putting this monstrosity into print. I am the first author, and this is the first book released by Sacepunk, so I'm pretty amped about the debut. The company launch for SP is going to coincide simultaneously with the release of Shadow of the Mad Reaper. Though the physical copies will be mostly print-on-demand, they will be available from any retailer, and the e-book will likewise be everywhere. There will be a promo with the release, so I'll shout out the date when it's firmed up. Until then, I leave you with the following. For those who participate in #PitMad, or for those who want the shortest, most boiled-down smack-in-the-jaw rundown of the premise, here it is: "A doomed man makes a deal with an ancient worm to escape death and save his wife, soon finding himself in the middle of a deadly game played between space wizards across all of time." Hello, all. Been a long, long while since the my last post. And that's because I've been hitting the grindstone hard. I'm already a good chunk of the way into draft 3, and expect to wrap things up for book 1 in the July-September window. I couldn't be more excited. The quality improvement between draft 1 to 2 was substantial, and the fine tuning that's going on between 3 and 4? It's a story I'm absolutely dying to share.
Since I've been working on this monster, however, some things have changed. Firstly, the length. Fuck me, but it's gotten LONGER. Where draft 1 clocked in at 350k words, draft 3 is looking like it's going to hit 450k. Now, that's just too big to be a single book. To remedy this, and get the story out sooner, with greater polish and a helluva lot more flavor in each third, I'm going to be releasing Definitive Host as a trilogy: Shadow of the Mad Reaper, Skin for a Demon, and A Game of Gray. Each will be about 5-700 brutal pages packed full of horror, magic, scifi and a pinch of psychedelic strangeness. Really can't tell y'all how excited I am to be this close to opening this universe to the world. That is all for now. I'll be back in a few months to start ramping up for the release of book 1! Until then. Hello, all! Checking in again. Wrapping up chapter 68 with total word count being about 350k. Current plan is to finish draft 1 at chapter 70, not including a very, very short epilogue. Then it's on to draft 2! And 3. Ironically, being stuck at home 5 days out of the week due to the corona virus pandemic has left me with less time to write. But I am still face-planting into the grindstone, and being this close to the end of draft 1 has me revved up to blaze on through draft 2. Finally, I just wanted to point your attention-- should I be so lucky as to have it-- over to something I spotted today. If you're as thirsty for space-magic-ey stuff as I am, then this psychedelic cult cartoon might just hit the spot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr56uMIohC8 1977 WIzards is absolute madness, and it has the dark, bizarre, magical quality I'm always looking for. The link above is the whole thing on Youtube. Let that hold you over in these intra-apocalyptic times. Hello all! Chapter 52 check-in. Currently sitting at over 200k words. Conservatively looking at June for completion of draft 1. Sooner, if I can hack it. Glad to say, as the draft has continued, so has the descent into darkness. From the offset, things are pretty grim. The general premise in a (wildly boiled down) standalone sentence? "Siro, an outlaw dataminer, hunts down a way to raise his wife from the dead by following in the footsteps of a madman." It's basically downhill from there. I'm tossing in a little bit of the ride with today's update. The following, from chapter 52, is a taste of how dark things get:
The north wall was a black slash of Darkfield through concrete. It jutted into the long room like the bow of a crashed ship. Security cages of beaten wire mesh stood behind rows of surgical tables on the southern wall. Of those, one was occupied. The thing that hunched within was a small, shadowy lump poised with vacant eyes on the black bow. Siro stopped floating near when he realized who it was. He couldn’t bare to get any closer; couldn’t draw his attention away. What have you done, Boltz? Dear God, what have you done? There was hardly anything of Rhea left. Her arms and legs were gone. Most of her hips. She sat on the lopsided remains of her upper torso, supported by thin, bony projections that grew searchingly from her wounds. A black tuft was all that she still had for hair, the rest of it gone with what Boltz took from her face and head. Had he, failing to stop the infection, resorted to amputation? Siro had seen the Darkfield's spores up close; the way those golden slivers darted about, hungrily seeking hosts... what they did to tissue couldn't be undone. But Boltz had tried. And tried and tried. The medical part of his brain-- that stable doctor that formed a safe niche in his psyche-- had taken over. At the expense of the humane, the sane. Thanks for reading! Until next time! When I was around the age of, say, 8 to 11, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to hear my dad watching TV down the hall from my room. He always waited until I went to sleep to watch movies like Alien, Dark City and Event Horizon. You know, the grownup shit too scary for little kids. I'd look through the cracked door into a dark room to glimpse things that gave me a sense of wonder, fear and mystery like nothing else. It became a habit, when he was away or the TV was unattended at 3 in the morning, for me to sneak into that room and put forbidden VHS tapes into the player. Soon I had seen every movie in the closet. But it wasn't enough. I needed more of that storytelling that made it seem like magic was hidden somewhere just outside my grasp, hidden in a dark cold place that would open to me if I could just peer into it more deeply. So I read books. I grew up searching for that one thing that ticked all the boxes.
I delved into science fiction. Into fantasy. Then I found scifi-fantasy. Dune, Starwars, Destiny, maybe even the Matrix falls into that category. They were so close to what I wanted. But still, something was missing. It was like I was reaching, stretching but failing to scratch an itch. The lore behind Destiny came close. It was the first time I'd seen scifi-fantasy with hints of horror, but it held itself back and became confused with what it was or was trying to say. I needed something coherent. Direct. Sharp. And ultimately darker or more brutal than what is currently out there. That's why I started writing. Like many authors, the reason I write is to read what I've always wanted. To experience that universe where things are just as bizarre, terrifying and magical as they seemed when I was a little kid watching movies with my nose pressed up against a doorjamb. When doing the world-building, I kept those things in mind. Where it led me was a place that's ancient, deadly and alien. Where the only source of light comes from synthetic stars formed by an information-hoarding Cult. In a short while, I will be introducing one of the most powerful forces in that universe: Lensing. More philosophical than magical, it is a power that allows the user to manipulate reality by forcing their will upon it. The risk? Well. I can say that Lensers don't meet with the prettiest ends. Reality, as it turns out, loathes being tampered with. Until next time! Another quick update for y'all. I'm currently sitting at 150k words. A little over a third of the way done with draft 1. I have a feeling that draft 1 will end up being around 450-500k words, but that will easily trim down to 350-400. Working with a group of writers has been an immense help. The quality of the work has improved markedly. There has been a lot of interest in the parable that comes at the beginning of the book. The intent is for it to be read before and after the book. It's by no means necessary to read prior to the narrative, but it is an added layer of flavor to the universe. Enjoy and see you soon!
(The Analects of Khotgr-Os, Metanoia 4.21-28) Seeing that the people still did not understand, the Khavyrym gave them the parable of T’Suul and D’Zuul. The God Maw spoke, saying: “When the first banners were struck, all but one Luminary Sovereign were Yv Zalga. T’Suul, who was a great and virtuous man, held fast to the tenets despite being not long for the Shine. In his old age, he could not father children. Overcome with sadness, T’Suul lived alone in his estate until the Khavyrym, having seen his sorrow, bore him an Yv Zalga son whom he named after his father D’Zuul. T’Suul was pleased and afforded his son all of the things that might bring him joy. But D’Zuul was an evil and corrupt man. He abused his father’s power to consume Shygor and Yv Zalga alike. When T’Suul learned of this he banished his son from the Shine. D’Zuul wandered into the shadows beyond Ondyr Syur and consumed all he came across. Feeling the sting of loneliness, T’Suul sent messages after his son to beg him to return, but D’Zuul cut out their tongues and sent them back. Over time D’Zuul noticed that the sky shrunk down as the land rose up. Eventually he had to crouch just to move forward until one day he came upon an old, hunched-over man holding a music box from which the Shine itself seemed to spring forth. ‘I knew you would come,’ the familiar, withered face said to him. ‘Enter, and escape the Shine.’ Seeing that he had nowhere else to go and that the old man was but skin and bone, D’Zuul allowed him to live and entered the box he held. Inside, he found the Shine. Not as he knew it, but not unlike it either. In that Shine, beyond the Tower, he found a man named D’Zuul who bore striking resemblance to himself. The two men struggled until D’Zuul overpowered and consumed his doppelgänger. Hearing the sound of music, D’Zuul followed it as the sky and ground pressed together. Soon he came upon a similar old man, holding the same music box he had entered before. ‘I knew you would come,’ the old one said to him. Once again, D’Zuul entered the box and found yet another Shine, D’Zuul and old man holding a music box. Time after time, D’Zuul repeated the events until he was in a place so foreign that he began to age like a common Shygor. Having spent his youth in evil, D’Zuul changed his ways and became an honest man. Before long he was a Luminary Sovereign in an alien land. But to his dismay he could not father a son. Then, as if by answered prayer, the Khavyrym birthed him a son whom he named T’Suul after his father. But T’Suul was a wicked son, and used D’Zuul’s influence to consume Shygor and Yv Zalga alike. Outraged, D’Zuul banished his son from the Shine. Only after T’Suul had gone beyond Ondyr Syur did D’Zuul remember how his own father had treated him. Filled with regret, he sent messengers after his son, but they returned with their tongues cut out. Going forth to reconcile with his son, D’Zuul rushed beyond the Tower to where he knew T’Suul would finally arrive. When he found the old man and asked about his son, the man replied, ‘He has already gone to a place you cannot follow in your old age.’ Blind with madness, D’Zuul killed the old man and took the music box. Holding it in his hands, he laid down to die and offered his soul to the Khavyrym in penance for the actions he had taken in life. Disappointed at hearing his cry, the Khavyrym granted D’Zuul an everlasting life that could only be taken by his own hands. In this manner, D’Zuul realized the truth of the Shine.” Hello, all.
Here again to update you as to how things are carrying on. In brief, well. I'm sitting at just over 130k words with a goal post set at 400k. It's difficult to boil down the plot of something that length in a single sentence, but if I was want to do so, it would be this: "An outlaw tries to raise his wife from the dead by following in the footsteps of a madman." Straightforward though that may sound, I can assure you that nothing is as it appears on its face. There are lies. Lies told by the Amydrahl, a universe-ruling Cult that hoards technology, knowledge and the bodies of its followers. Lies told by our heroes, who are on a mission to stop the Cult reformatting reality. And lies the man caught in the mix, Siro Kull, has told himself as he tries to navigate the bizarre universe called The Shine. Below is a short snippet from a recently written chapter that encapsulates this. Three silver oceans that reflected nothing. Stillness so absolute, they seemed frozen in time. Depths behind glass that escaped form. Where they met, infinity began. Eigengrau shimmered with pale dots and swirls slipping through myriad mirrors. Instinctively, Siro raised his hand even as his HUD adjusted to the incoming wave of light. It screeched towards them like the front of an exploding star flattened into the sides of a prism. Spinning glass sang behind it, their pirouettes performed without string or hinge. Ever-gasping Void inhaled through them, carrying the light into utter emptiness with a sound of clipping scissors. In its wake, collisions of colossal hammers beating like drums. The end of the triangular tunnel continued its lazy rotation around a metallic heart as they followed Muruu on. Siro had been looking for a chance to ask him about his birth since walls had parted on the inner hull. He opened a private channel when they stopped to rest at the bulkhead to this tunnel, but closed it when the words stuck like tar to the lining of his throat. His was the position of being caught between curiosity-tortured ignorance and truth-inspired dread. In the same thought, he’d assure himself that knowing would complicate his situation more than improve it and remind himself that such answers had the potential to solve his most deep-rooted questions. The closer they came to the Tower, the more he was sure that everything was connected. Glimmer. Gloom. The Shine. And somewhere in the middle, him. He fucking hated that. Why treat him any differently? Nature-- be it ruin country, outer space, or the rotting swaths of rock festering with Lensing residue-- respected no organism. Death pushed everything forward. But not him. He lived. The last standing from two mission failures. In his mind, the cause of both. That he was caught in the undertow of some sick plot carried out by absentee gods or disembodied values brought to life by collective thought-- it made him want to eat lead just to spite them. He had only ever wanted one thing. To be worthy of that woman who gave life substance. But keeping that promise… It was like trying to squeeze coal into a diamond. All it got you was dirty hands. Looking forward to showing you all some more in the future. For now, it's back to writing. Best, MB Out now in the Amazon bookstore is the first glimpse into the universe of Shine Amysgal. It's currently available for $6.99. However, from Sunday April 14th until Wednesday the 17th, it will be at the promotional price of $0.99. If you happen to be subscribed to Kindle Unlimited, it is free.
I'm already well into the process of writing the first book of the Will of the Weavers trilogy. Really looking forward to introducing you to the MC, Siro Kull, as the Shine dissolves into lunacy around him and the characters he meets. I'll be posting updates here, with little sneak peeks along the way. The first of these is, as you may have noticed, the update to the website banner. Taken from the cover of the first book, "Will of the Weavers: Definitive Host", it was masterfully done by Mark Cooper. He's an absolute wizard. I could not have been better taken care of. If you haven't seen his work, I urge you to head over to his website and take a look. It's definitely worth your time. That's all for now. Standby for future updates. MB Just finished up with the final draft of Khavyrym's Memories: Stolen Excerpts, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, considering it's the first book I've written. Very glad I took the time to write this as an introduction to the universe of Shine Amysgal before starting the Will of the Weavers trilogy. It will be released on Sunday.
The site will be getting redesigned and the artwork for WotW Book 1 will be shown/announced as well. Looking forward to it. Finally, KM:SE is very different in format to the PotP trilogy. Where KM:SE is a standalone set of side-stories in the same universe, WotW is an epic-fantasy-style science fiction fantasy with elements of horror. That's all for now! Look for Sunday's update. MB |
AuthorHailing from Seattle, Magnus Blackwood is a metalhead, amateur strongman, cape/cloak advocate and microbiologist who's been writing sci-fi since 2013. His stories focus on weaving horror and occult elements into futuristic hellscapes with a magical twist. Archives
December 2022
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