After a hiatus where the rights reverted to me but I wasn’t able to work on them, the Ree Reyes books are returning this summer with new covers AND publishing in paperback for the first time!
Here you can see the first of the new covers, this one for Geekomancy!
I absolutely love this new cover. The giant d20-as-magical orb makes me so happy.
PLUS, the Deranged Doctor Design team also created an animated version of the cover:
I’m still working with people on production of the ebook and print versions, but when they are done, I will let everyone know the re-release date and share the pre-order information. Plus, there will be new cover reveals for the other books soon!
This weekend I’m attending Flights of Foundry, presenting on panels and teaching a workshop. Flights of Foundry bills itself as “The world’s biggest multi-disciplinary, round the clock, international virtual convention” with guests of honor such as L. D. Lewis, Jana Bianchi, and Tobias Buckell, an intensive workshops series, and activities to fill the whole weekend, there’s something for everyone and more than you’ll make it to.”
Registration is donation-based, so you can attend whatever your economic circumstances!
My schedule (all times EDT)
Friday 3pm – Reimagining TTRPGS 9pm – Workshop – Power & Politics in Worldbuilding
Saturday 9pm – Building an Actual Play Podcast
Sunday 3pm – Synchronized Storytelling: Collaboration and Co-writing
Tonight Speculate! (the actual play show I co-host with Brandon O’Brien and Gregory A. Wilson) is kicking off a new series called “Fractal Spire”, playing Girl by Moonlight, a Forged in the Dark RPG forthcoming from Evil Hat Productions.
In Fractal Spire, a group of dream travelers in a dystopian world fight both the State and a sentient dream conspiracy. After losing their leader and the person that bound their group together, the remaining four must find a way to patch up their wounded hearts and fight on, together.
Watch the series premiere of “Fractal Spire” Sunday, Feb 6th at 7pm EST at Twitch.tv/ArvanEleron.
I’ve decided to attend Worldcon virtually this year, given *waves hands at state of the pandemic*. I’m hoping to go down to DC for some very limited in-person socializing and meetings, but that’s still TBD.
But thanks to the programming team, I do have a full suite of programming:
All times EST (Eastern Standard/Eastern US time)
Wednesday 7pm – Breaking a Story, Hollywood Style (Older – Virtual)
Thursday 4pm – Building an Urban Fantasy (Older – Virtual)
Friday 2:30 pm – The Best Video Games of the Last Ten Years (Older – Virtual)
Saturday 5:30 pm – New TV: From Foundation to Squid Game & Beyond (Older – Virtual)
Born to the Blade, the magic swordplay + diplomacy series I created for Realm and co-wrote with Marie Brennan, Cassandra Khaw, and Malka Older, is now available on all podcast platforms!
When it was released, it was only available to buy or to subscribers at Realm (formerly Serial Box), but now the series is being released as a weekly podcast to listen for free (supported by ads).
I’m very proud of the work we did on Born to the Blade and I’m excited for this chance for it to find a new audience thanks to a very low barrier to entry for listeners. Two episodes are live right now, with new episodes coming every Friday.
You can find Born to the Blade on Apple Podcasts here and (hopefully) by title on all other podcast platforms!
I’ve relaunched my channel “TurboTango” on Twitch, which I’m hoping to use to stream both video games and some future TTRPG actual play.
In last Sunday’s re-launch stream, I played a run on Trials of Fire, a fantasy post-apocalyptic roguelike deckbuilder. It’s a recent favorite of mine, and I’ll be playing the game again (with a new scenario) this Sunday!
My current streaming schedule is as follows:
Wednesdays and Sundays, 1-4pm EDT – Games With Mike (Video games, mostly roguelikes and/or deckbuilders)
To get reminders when the streams go live, you can follow my page at Twitch.tv/TurboTango and turn on notifications.
The class will be held on April 8th at 1 pm Pacific (4 pm Eastern) Daylight Time. The class will be two hours long and costs $99 USD ($79 if you have taken other classes at the Rambo Academy before).
Here’s the course description:
Characterization and the emotional arc of a novel don’t step aside when the blasters start firing or people start throwing punches. The best action storytelling uses chases, misadventure, and fight scenes to foreground emotion, to show characters making big choices based on their feelings. Instead, the best action stories include the audience in the emotional rollercoaster of the characters. This class will talk through techniques for using action scenes to advance the plot and the emotional journey of your characters and how to make sure that the scenes are far more than choreography and flashy explosions.
This class draws heavily on the experiences I had writing Annihilation Aria and what I’ve learned as a reader in the past few years as well as through analysis of some of my favorite action scenes in media over the past decade.
After a long break while other projects took precedence (from Born to the Blade to Annihilation Aria to drafting my next novel) and the world was especially hard (2017-2020), I’ve finally released a new novella in the r/fantasy “Stabby” Award-finalist series! The Wasteland War picks up a few months after the conclusion of season one and takes the team to the Wasteland region of the Post-Apocalypse.
Patrons at $3 and up get the book as part of their backer rewards, and the book is coming to retailers this Friday, March the 5th.
The cover for Genrenauts: The Wasteland War. A single butte in the open plain, with scattered clouds in the distance.
If you’d like to pre-order The Wasteland War on ebook retailers, here are some handy links:
The Stabby-Award finalist Genrenauts series returns with a new short adventure across the worlds of narrative!
Exiled team leader Angstrom King has spent the past three months tracking the mysterious world-hopping gang that cost him his job. When an alliance goes sour in the Wasteland region of the Post-Apocalypse world, he may have found his chance.
Things get more complicated when the story breach attracts his former team, now under the stern command of a former friend. Can King help his team, solve the mystery, and keep off of the High Council’s radar? In a world where hope is more precious than water, he’ll have to fight for every chance to redeem himself—or die trying.
This short novella (~18,000 words) continues the beloved Genrenauts series of interdimensional adventures for fans of Leverage, Planetary, and Quantum Leap.
I’m very pleased to be participating in another SFWA bundle with StoryBundle. This time, Annihilation Aria is available alongside seventeen other books as a part of the Expansive Futures StoryBundle. You can get eighteen books for a contribution of $15 or more, and your money goes to paying the authors a well as benefitting SFWA, which has done great work during the pandemic to support authors in need!
