One Blog to Cover Them All

Posted on June 11, 2015 | 5 comments

I’d get it translated into the dark tongue of Mordor, but… Well, once upon a time I could actually pronounce the whole inscription from the One Ring, from memory, but Lord of the Rings stopped being one of my favourite books a long time ago. I won’t deny that Tolkien was an influence on me, particular in his desire to create a complex world for his stories, but you could say the same for the people who created a lot of the RPG settings I used to love like Thieves World, and the Forgotten Realms, and the Traveller universe.

I think I’m getting off-topic. I’m migrating all my announcements and posts to this blog. As previously indicated, the other ones will continue to exist and I’ll put pointers from there to here. I’ll continue pushing posts out to Twitter and Facebook, and all the other social media sites, for all of the blogs for a couple of months. If you’re subscribed to those blogs directly you’ll keep getting announcements from WP, but you may wish to shift over to this blog. Personally I would recommend either Twitter (@Tharcion) or Tumblr, both of which give quite good notifications. If you’re in it for the picture posts, Tumblr is definitely best because you get the preview. 🙂

Oh, yeah, and I’m sure there probably isn’t a Mordor word for ‘blog’ anyway… Even if there really should be.

PS. I’m an idiot, Tumblr, not Instagram, in case you saw that. Link’s above.

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Posted in Aneka Jansen, News, Thaumatology, Ultrahumans

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Fantasy and Sci-Fi – The Problem

Posted on June 4, 2015 | 79 comments

I’d like you to meet Ysayn…YsaynYsayn stepped out of a sleepless night a couple of days ago, and the rather dazed day which followed. Ysayn is a sorceress/magician/witch sort of character who lives in a fairly epic fantasy world with a bit of the Game of Thrones about it as far as life is concerned (though this is me so expect the characters to have a genuine good time at least some of the time). I feel like writing Ysayn’s story once I’ve wrapped the current book I’m working on, which happens in the next few days. here’s the problem…

My sci-fi sells more than my fantasy. Steel beneath the Skin was the book which exploded (and I kind of mean that) and gave me the chance to view writing as more than a hobby. The Aneka books consistently outsell all the other releases. I’m writing another sci-fi character at the moment and it’ll be interesting to see how she does when she appears on the electronic shelves. Whatever, science fiction seems to be a far more economic target for me to write than fantasy. I would love to know why.

My initial thought on why Steel took off the way it did was that there is simply less sci-fi being written than fantasy. I suspect that a lot of sci-fi is also less accessible, focusing heavily on esoteric physics and high-minded comments on modern society so a good, old fashioned space romp caught people’s attention. (Hell, Thaumatology 101 has more physics in it than Steel.) Then again, maybe it’s the urban fantasy bent of the Thaumatology books. Ysayn is more high/epic fantasy. Would Ysayn be more popular?

I would really like to hear people’s thoughts on this stuff. Sci-fi fans, tell me why you jumped on Steel. Fantasy fans, this is your chance to persuade me to do more fantasy. People who like both… uh… good! But why?

79 Comments

Posted in Aneka Jansen, Opinion, Thaumatology, Writing

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Patreon

Posted on May 5, 2015 | 10 comments

Patreon is a site a bit like Kickstarter, but based around the old notion of artistic patronage. You can subscribe to a Patreon producer’s site, helping them to produce more of whatever form of ‘art’ they create. You can give per item produced or on a monthly basis and so help the struggling artists of the world to make more glorious stuff for us all to look at/read/play/etc.

I am not a struggling artist, but I do have a Patreon page now. I’m looking at this as a way of getting some extra money in to do additional projects. The main one is audiobooks, which I’m not sure are really economically viable, but were a real pleasure to do, but there are some other things I’d like to try. And I thought “I have loads of concept art people would like to see and I could post that as a reward for subscribers.” You can find details on the page.

In other news, Shadows and Reality Hack are both going to see the light of day before summer is out (and probably before it’s very far gone at all). That’s a new Ultrahumans book and something entirely new. Keep your eyes on this space for more news.

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Posted in Digital Art, News

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Is It Friday Again?

Posted on April 9, 2015 | 4 comments

And the answer is “no,” by the way, in case you’re reading this on a Friday.

This is one of my First World Problem problems: every day is Friday. Yesterday it felt like Friday, today feels like Friday, and tomorrow will feel like Friday. (On the plus side tomorrow is actually Friday so that’ll be good, unless it feels like Tuesday…) Basically, I now have more or less no structure to my life so all the days seem the same, and they seem to have settled on Friday. Could be worse; every day could be a Monday.

I’m hoping that this settles down as I get used to the idea that I’m self-employed and writing for a living. It isn’t like I’m treating this as an extended holiday; I am getting work done. But I can now do anything in any order (more or less) so it’s hard to decide what to do next. It’s like being in a sweet shop and being unable to decide what to buy because there’s too much choice. It’s also really hard to believe that it hasn’t even been two weeks yet. Time flies when all you have is Friday.

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Posted in Opinion, Writing

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The Great Adventure

Posted on March 28, 2015 | 4 comments

A little while ago I discovered that Google Play had a bunch of remastered Ultravox songs and several went in my playlist. One of those was “Love’s Great Adventure,” which I recall having a cool video. Anyway, this isn’t the start of a new relationship, but the ending of an old one, and it seems like a good time to finally start using this blog for the purpose it was intended.

Yesterday, March 27th 2015, was the last day of my computing career and the start of my career as a full time writer.

I am, obviously, a little worried that this won’t work out, but I am currently in the delightful position of being able to kick the day job into touch and go into writing as a primary career. It was with a bit of sadness that I walked out the door of the office for the last time; I’ve been there for 6 years and, while I’m not the most social person in the world, there are people there I would classify as friends, not colleagues. But, if nothing else, I have to at least try to make this work. I’m not much for following dreams, but this one seems like one worth following.

Striking out on my own will let me work on some side projects as well as my “main line” of books. I’ll have more time to write, as well as more time to pursue a few other things. This blog is here to be more of a personal journal, while the Steel and Thamatology blogs will remain to support the book lines.

Watch this space.

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Posted in News, Writing

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