Corrupting Power
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Weekly Update - 4/26/23
🕑 Added 2023-04-27 01:13:00 +0000 UTCSo stuff that may or may not be tied to DayJob life has continued to be severely complicating my week, and I can only apologize for that. I'm hoping to have the first of two Brewster's Brood chapters up late tonight, but it might well be tomorrow. I'm going to try and get a second one out this month, but I still need to do the chapter of CARP for the You Decide (currently scheduled for Friday), as well as all my commissions, and that's quite a bit of writing for a relatively short period of time.
Now, on the plus side in terms of deliveries for the rest of the month, some of the commissions tend to flow very fast once I start writing them, but I still have some that just don't flow quickly. I assure everyone, I'm working on stuff as fast as I can, but I'm just going to have to do my best to get as much done as I can, and if I can't get a second BB out this month, I can only say I'm sorry and I'll try and do better next month.
The other thing is that I will have content to drop over the next week or so, because when I send commissions out to their commissioner, I typically post the last chapter, which means once I finish getting chapters of some stuff, I'll have last month's commissioned chapters to post. That means there's still a Devil's Details and the first chapter of the brand-new Quaranteam: Aisling's Antics that'll be posted before the end of the month.
I will also bang out the profile for Nicolette for Tier 3s and up over the weekend. I found it funny that there was a tie between her and Alexis, and yet, I realized after I threw the poll up that I'd already done one for Alexis. And I checked, it was indeed posted and everything. Heh. I was so tempted to just post it again, but y'all deserve better than that. (Those of you who are tier 3s, you can find that profile at the bottom of this old poll...)
One of the things I'm thinking about doing for next month's You Decide (available to subscribers T4 and up), is that I don't include options that were chosen in the previous month. This means that we'll give a bit more variety to seeing other stories and let new things creep in. That would mean that CARP and Morgana's Gift wouldn't be viable choices for next month, but that I'd also possibly include new ideas or other things, in addition to the stories that haven't gotten updates. Haven't decided on that, but it's under consideration.
Hopefully everyone enjoyed The Fertile Grove Ch. 1 that I posted last weekend. Originally that was intended to be a one-shot story, but the commissioner liked it so much that they wanted to spend more time with the characters, and see more of the storyline unfold. It took me a while to wrap my head around how to do that, because I felt like I'd closed it off pretty well, but once I found the path in on how to space it, how to tempo it and what more to do with it, I found a way that didn't make it just feel like a vestigial tail. There'll be another chapter of that sometime in late May, with monthly releases intended for a bit to come. Also, hopefully the first FG bought me a little bit of leeway with the hectic month considering it's basically three times as long as a standard drop. (We'd been working on it for what felt like ages, so I'm glad it got such a positive reaction.) Currently FG 1 is scheduled to hit public sites in late November, where I think it'll be a big hit as well.
To tell you how absolutely swamped I've been this last week, yesterday the latest novel from my favorite author ("Tsalmoth" by Steven Brust) arrived in hardcover, and it's been sitting on my desk, completely unopened, and I won't start in with it until I've gotten as much as I can done for the month.
Anyway, I don't want you to think I'm complaining too much. Being busy is certainly better than the other option. Other than not being able to get to my Brust book, life's pretty good, the weather's warming up and I've been able to start taking destressing walks again. The next few months will be wild, but I'm glad I've got you folks around enjoying the content I'm putting out.
The public release schedule for the next month or so looks like this: 4/29 - The Threadbinders 5, 5/6 - C.A.R.P. 2, 5/13 - A Pack Of His Own 1, 5/20 - Quaranteam 2:1, 5/27 - Morgana's Gift 13, 6/3 - Seven Secrets Of Mr. Magpie 3.
Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print, and I hope you're all taking care of one another and having a good time in life. As always, I'm around on the Discord, and signed copies of the first book are still available if you're interested. I'll see you in the next one.
Comments
Anthony Samora
A refund for what?
Admiral Ale
Yes, yes, the real world? Perhaps you should refund part of the highest teirs monthly payments.
Alex Borders
Thanks. I was a big fan of the first two books. I've looked at the covers often over the past years, and never pulled the trigger - I might try again now.
Anon Donner
The first few Taltos books date back to when stories about anti-heroes were much more rare, and the fresh theme combined with the quality of the books were enough to help my generation of friends to get hooked. It took a while more for my son (though my reading performance of Phoenix Guard at a younger age probably helped :) but he has now reread the series at least twice that I know of. I have come to love the author ambition of how Brust changes the style for each of the later Taltos books. The narrators are unreliable, the time period jumps back and forth, and the gods and politics are murky. I understand this is not a comfortable liner story, and some books seem radically different. But many of us have found the effort worth it.
Corrupting Power
I absolutely *love* the Vlad Taltos series. In my opinion, they're one of the best and most fascinating series in print. With that said, Book 6 (Athyra) is a MAJOR misstep in the series, and can easily be skipped without missing too much. The thing about the Vlad books is that they can sort of hop between themes and concepts, and each book is often doing its own thing. They aren't for everyone, but I desperately love them. If you do decide to pick them up again, you'll find book 7 (Orca) to be one of the high points of the series, and like I said, just skip book 6. You won't miss all that much.
Alex Borders
I'm curious what is your overall take on the Vlad Taltos series? I dropped off around book 4 or 5; it felt like it was looking for a theme and not finding one.
