I’ve had this image for a couple of years. I even gave a cropped version of it to my cousin. (Hey, Nick!)
I think it looks amazing.
It shows Ashe Stelfire and Celsis Kri in the middle of a fight with a bunch of Fethelither demons. I love the sense of frantic action.
I might end up changing the titling design with my name on the bottom, instead of being squeezed at the top. But the image will stay as is. It was made by Ringasure. You can check out his stuff on DeviantArt and ArtStation.
I’m still narrowing down the launch date for it. Probably end of July or sometime in August. I might even set up preorder on the various platforms to see how that goes.
Halfway through the year, and after many updates with the incremental crafting of various works in progress, I am ready to share the Breakers’ cover.
Take a look at it above!
Players of the Game Works in Progress
As predicted last time, various personal matters, which have thankfully turned out well, ate into my productivity. I’m up to page 408 with 116,000 words on Secret Fronts. So that means I only wrote 16 pages with 4800 words. I don’t feel bad about this at all. The past month has driven home that there are more important things in life than productivity goals. I’ll ramp back up next time around.
And I’ve come to a realization with this bonus novel WIP. It’s actually two bonus novels.
One focusing on the fallout from the events of Game War, and one showing a previously unseen long siege with other characters who will meet Ashe, Avril, Ed, Harry, and the rest in the sixth main book in the series. I had outlined a briefer exploration of the long siege, but the story of Gathiner and especially Nadia’s struggles against Corsis’s cruelty took on a lot of life as I wrote it, and demanded more story real estate.
So much so that the aftermath story and the long siege story each need a separate book, rather than a single bonus novel.
Right now, I’m guessing I’ll be designating them with Book 5.5 and Book 5.7. I still need to figure out a new title for the split bonus novel, but Secret Fronts will probably be the name of the latter one.
Onwards!
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Ashe and Crystala:
Crystala bent forward with one hand on her knee and the other raised with her forefinger extended upward. Pitch blackness danced at the edges of her vision. “Give me… give me a ten count.”
Ashe Stelfire crouched to meet her gaze. “Nuul Light is roiling around your eyes. You need more than a ten count.”
She huffed out a laugh. “You might be on to something there.”
Recommendation Corner
Dark Deity II on Steam
You thought you could escape mentions of tactics video games in my monthly missives, but you can’t. Grid-based game reviews are as inevitable as the passing of the seasons.
Dark Deity II has more of the same Shining Force/Fire Emblem-esque game play. Fun weapons, skill, and character class customizations. Too many characters, so you end up ignoring half of them. Though that’s better than ignoring 2/3 of them from the first game.
The voice acting is good. And the writing is mostly okay, though it gets a little wordy and melodramatic when they’re confronting the bad guy boss characters.
The tactical progression through the battle maps is the big selling point of the game. And it does that part quite well. So I’m happy with it.
The Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Final Architecture trilogy ups the stakes throughout this third installment.
Idris discovers lots more about the nature of the universe. Specifically, the unspeakable thing in unspace that drives sentient minds insane and suicidal. And the masters pulling the strings of both it and the moon-sized, crystalline Architects. But he’s so mentally broken and twitchy that he has a hard time convincing the others of this bigger picture.
I don’t generally like whiny main characters, but Idris was compelling. And Solace, Kris, Havaer, and Olli were thankfully more assertive in each of their own ways.
But first the characters need to deal with Magda super thugs and their unexpected allies. And a weird empire that’s hung around the periphery that gets VERY pissed off with all the human factionalism and other more esoteric concerns, though their chosen means of multiple layers of interpreters gets in the way of communicating that.
One minor quibble. I wish more time had been spent with Idris and Solace’s quasi romance. It was mentioned in passing throughout the series, but never shown very much aside from a few interactions where they leaned on each other for strength. I didn’t really get a sense of actual intimacy between them.
But that’s not enough to hinder my enjoyment. I loved this book. And the whole series. Read it with your ears or eyes!
Avril Enzali sets in motion much in the Players of the Game saga.
And it all starts when she embarks on a quest to find her biological father, Ashe Stelfire, in his remote tower on an island in Sufrinzon’s Ocean of the Lost. With a companion who has an agenda of his own.
Svithe. Broker of All Things Rare.
But Avril possesses much of her own resources. She wields Nixer, a sword that leaves ethereal and everlasting harm on anyone it stabs or strikes. Her Krian helm, symbol of her order’s leadership. One she took on from her adoptive father.
Her most potent asset, however, is her determination. It drives her to become the best in swordplay and myriad forms of mancy. But despite that, she still cannot master the one thing that will free her goddess from her prison of unbreakable ice.
Channeling Flames of Tumult. She needs Ashe Stelfire for that.
And nothing will stop her from recruiting him to her cause.
Whether they can actually return to Trojis to accomplish that goal is another matter entirely. A goal Svithe will stand against. Or get others to do in his stead.
Read more about Avril’s early struggles, starting in Repenter.
And check out her image below without her helmet with her forehead’s Kri’s Eyes tattoos.
I often make a joke/observation that lands about 10 percent of the time, but I like it so much that I don’t care.
Molecules are more expensive than electrons.
It means that publishing on paper costs more than ebooks. And I’ve found that lots of my readers prefer to pay for that premium to have the physical book for all kinds of reasons.
To sniff when it’s brand new. (What? That’s just me? I think not.) To dog ear, to flip back to earlier parts and front matter. To physically see your progress with an official or improvised book mark.
All great stuff about having a physical book to read.
And now, the Players of the Game series is available not just on Amazon, but also Barnes and Noble and Bookshop.org.
If you have a local bookstore you want to support, totally do it. Just swing in and have them order from Bookshop.org. Or order online.
I’m experimenting with some Amazon ads with a new Repenter Collection. exclusive to ebook. It collects the Repenter and Brigands novels. Along with The Hidden Chapters and The Favor bonus novellas.
It’s also available wide on Apple, BN, Kobo, and the rest.
I’ll be altering its description, price, and possibly the cover as time goes on to see what praises the almighty algorithm the best.
Things shall evolve as I work on various initiatives to expand my audience.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
Lots of plates spinning right now. I launched the expanded availability of paperbacks. And the ongoing experiment with the ebook collection.
And the Secret Fronts bonus novel chugs along. I’ve reached page 392 with 111,200 words. That’s 46 pages and 13,200 words for the month. Pretty good.
I will almost certainly have less productivity in May with some various personal stuff on which I’ll be helping. But any words on the page are a plus.
I’m still looking to release The Breakers sometime in the summer, likely in July. So that’s also exciting.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
“You want me sick,“ Jarah said. “Never well.”
Corsis shot back with an immediate reply. “Never stopping.”
She looked at him with eyes glistening. “Never loved.”
He didn’t answer for a long stretch of moments. “Love is beneath us.”
“Beneath us,” Jarah whispered. “As it always was.”
Recommendation Corner
Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Final Architecture Trilogy is rad.
I enjoyed this second entry in the series as much as the first. Hugh (The Council of Human Interests) and the Parthenon should be getting along now that the Architects have returned. Just as they did in the war in the distant past.
But they aren’t.
Factions within Hugh with the Magda families have a warped agenda. One that sees a great deal of threat in the vat-grown Partheni sisterhood.
And Idris Telemmier and the crew of the Vulture God are caught in the middle of everything. A middle that includes a frantic fire fight against Magda ultra thugs on a planet as a trio of Architects unmake it. Or plunging into Unspace on a planet of radioactive super flora.
So good. Highest possible recommendation.
Thunderbolts*
I have a soft spot for the original Thunderbolts team from the 90s with Baron Zemo as the fake hero, Citizen V, leading a team that was secretly the Masters of Evil. Much of the team ended up becoming conflicted as they grew to like their lives of lies.
This movie has none of that, taking much more from the era when Norman Osborn led the team in the aughts. Though Norman is not part of this team.
It focuses on a group of anti heroes who must team up after events conspire to end their lives. And they encounter a seeming civilian named Bob, who becomes central to the conflict of the rest of the story.
Yelena (White Widow) is the main character, who’s carrying a lot of emotional damage from doing wet work throughout her life. Red Guardian is great comic relief as the washed up Red Guardian and Yelena’s father figure. Bucky and John Walker (US Agent) are also great in their roles.
I love how the movie’s stakes are more emotional with some trippy super stuff thrown in, rather than a villain who wants to blow up the ocean. (Blue Laser Commander deep cut for all you Homestar Runner fans.)
It’s the best Marvel movie in a couple of years. Good stuff.
As part of the Krians, he led an invasion of Grelland in the conflict that resulted in the Eruption. In its aftermath, Eric regrouped the sect of warriors following Celsis Kri’s imprisonment by Starm.
And time has not been kind to the immortal warrior’s organization. The Krians have diminished. All of his children and many others died in futile attempts to free their goddess.
Eric and those below him will never reclaim their former glory unless they can liberate Celsis Kri. That’s the hope.
Hope that just might be kindled by the infant Avril.
Her arrival in the hands of the Peddler of All Things Rare bodes ill, however.
The Krians remain weak. While they are fierce warriors, they are vulnerable in their diminished state. Even if they get help from the Grells against common enemies.
Find out Eric’s fate in Repenter and The Brigands.
A few months back, I lamented the fall of Game Informer, a cherished video game news magazine. Well, it appears that they’ve risen from the ashes. Another outfit bought the IP, rehired all the staffers, and is planning to restart the publication in a few months.
Yay!
I haven’t mentioned this bit of geek news earlier, mainly because I didn’t know how it would shake out. The main comics distributor, Diamond, declared bankruptcy earlier this year. They had mismanaged much and a series of events following lock down really hurt them. Other distributors had picked up the bigger publishers, but things were going to be most annoying for my local comic shop. Thankfully, a separate toy distributor is poised to buy them. I’m hoping this makes things less dicey for this other cherished print medium. It looks cautiously optimistic.
Additional yay!
And I also have paper announcements of my own.
The Players of the Game series paperbacks will have updated spines and back covers in a few weeks. They’ll be wide. Not just at Amazon. You’ll be able to order them through Barnes and Nobles and any book store that orders from Ingram.
Triple yay!
Take a look at these proofs.
With my fingers making a guest appearance to steady the spine view.
And after a long delay, the first two bonus novellas will join the third in print. Both The Hidden Chapters and The Favor now have expanded back matter sections.
Again with my fingers making a steadying appearance for the spine view.
These pics are from the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing proofs with their lovely “Not for Resale” stripes. I’ll be getting the Draft2Digital proofs soon. Once they’re ready to go, I’ll release them.
PLUS: I’ll also be releasing the Repenter Collection later this month too. It collects, Repenter, The Hidden Chapters, The Brigands, and The Favor in one ebook bundle for just $1.99.
Here’s its faux boxed set image.
I’ll send an update with links once everything is ready later in April.
The paperbacks will ultimately get wraparound images that will cover the spines and back covers, so this color-coordinated variety are limited editions.
I’ll have you covered if you’re looking for snazzy molecules (paperbacks) or economical electrons (ebook collections).
Exciting stuff!
Players of the Game Works in Progress
As part of my season of intentionality, I have a bunch of other initiatives in the offing.
With Secret Fronts’ first draft, I’ve reached page 346 with 98,000 words. That’s 42 pages with 11,700 words for the month. Not quite as productive as last month, but not bad.
I think I’m on track to release The Breakers by June or July of this year. I’ll be sharing more info and cover artwork with that release in upcoming newsletters.
I’m jazzed to get this one out in the world.
I’m also exploring Eleven Labs to see if either a voice clone of me or one of their other voices makes sense for putting out audio books.
I’m kind of on the fence with that, but I’m leaning yes. Producing an audio book with a voice actor is sadly out of my price comfort zone. And I personally do a whole lot of my story consumption by audio books.
So it makes sense to put my series in that market.
Right now, I’m leaning toward making another bargain bundle with The Repenter Collection. I’d want to make sure it sounds good, so we’ll see where that goes.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Avril: “Did I become the Demonic equivalent of a baby queen bee?”
Solneena: “Maybe. But you’re much prettier if that helps.”
Avril: “I hate you sometimes.”
The Human-guised Sphinx kissed the air in Avril’s direction with an exaggerated smack of her lips.
Recommendation Corner
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
This is my favorite sci-fi space opera in a good long time.
I enjoy stories where humanity is one of many species, rather than the one alien race versus humans that we often get. I prefer more of a cosmopolitan setting that mixes antagonistic and sympathetic aliens and humans.
This series has that in spades.
A race of vat-grown warrior women. Swarms of cyborg insects inside robot exoskeletons. Crab-like creatures with billboard advertisements on their arms. Unkillable symbiote hybrids that can literally come back from getting ripped to shreds. Giant clams with multiple tentacles that demand worship for their indifferent patronage.
Oh, and moon-sized planet destroyers called Architects that rip apart planets into atomically rearranged abstract art.
And Earth fell victim to that nearly a century earlier.
The Architects withdrew after the mentally altered Intermediaries managed to communicate with them and tell them: “We are here.”
Idris, one of the main characters, was one of them. He’s a twitchy wreck who’s haunted by the past. He doesn’t sleep and hasn’t aged. And he can navigate Unspace. The haunted in between that allows for FTL travel and drives people mad.
There’s something lurking in it that people insist is imaginary. But Idris doesn’t believe it.
The various nations and criminal organizations all want him working for them. Which is why he keeps a knife-wielding lawyer on retainer. And the threat of the Architects looms large, even if everyone else pretends its history.
I LOVE this book, and will gladly listen to the other two books in this trilogy. I wish there were more.
The names of the ships are great too. TheVulture God, the Dark Joan, and the Pythoness being among the most notable.
Highest possible recommendation.
Mickey 17
I’m so glad they can’t unmake movies.
This flick was expensive and didn’t do well. I think it’s already on streaming.
And I loved it.
Mickey escapes a loan shark by joining a voyage to another planet as an expendable. His mind gets continually loaded into a series of clone bodies that are used as guinea pigs for alien atmosphere toxins, radiation, and even more ignominious fates.
Until some aliens spare him when his crew assumed he got killed. And his 18th clone and the 17th now both exist at the same time. Which is forbidden for a very hilarious reason in the backstory.
The Alamo pre-show revealed that Robert Pattinson based Mickey’s voice on Stimpy, the lovably dumb cartoon cat from the 90s. And his delivery is fantastic. Though Mickey is much more dejected than Stimpy’s confident stupidity.
Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette are also great as unhinged religious/political leaders. They have an unhealthy obsession with sauce.
The caterpillar pachyderm aliens are also interesting and way quirkier than their monstrous appearance would have you believe.
He’s a Long Lived mechmancer who melds both ethereal arts and bleeding edge technology in his wares. Be it his multi-functional pistol, his modular Battle Engine aircraft, the blood-stained power armor he can’t bear to don, or even the vast wall encircling the island of New Grelland that shields his homeland from the unnatural inferno of the Fire Well.
Bennet Burnhelt, his father, may lead the Grells. But Vick’s many designs give the nation its edge.
But some problems are more intractable than others. The Game ruined the world, and Vick does everything he can to keep it from getting worse, knowing it’s not enough. It’s why he and his wife imbued their sons, Ed and Matt, with hyper powers. Hoping that the next generation can help forge a better future.
Corsis has other designs.
The Master of the Game has a vendetta against the Burnhelts. He does whatever he can to ensure the women of the family meet terrible ends. Vick’s wife died protecting Ed and Matt. Her dried blood still covers his unused power armor. Vick keeps his long simmering romance with Een under wraps out of fear that Corsis might harm her too.
Vick also works with others outside of New Grelland and the realm of Trojis itself. Sufrinzon in particular. He becomes a covert ally of Ashe Stelfire, Avril Enzali, and their allies.
He has minor appearances in both Repenter and The Brigands. His presence then expands in The New Players.
We all need refreshers from time to time in the media we consume.
Alamo Drafthouse often does that during its kitchy pre-show videos for various super hero movies. Streamers will do that for new seasons of their shows with a “Previously in…” preview.
So I shall do the same for the Players of the Game (POTG) saga.
I cannot claim full credit for this idea. A beta reader friend (Hey, Abe!) recently told me it would be really helpful to include such a wiki-style recap of the events of the prior POTG books. Just to refresh the reader’s memory of the characters and the overall plot.
So as we edge closer to the release of both the Repenter Ebook Collection and Players of the Game Book 4: The Breakers later this year, I’ve made a new tab on my stelfire.com website.
Recaps.
The Quick Recap list option has a few paragraphs where Corsis recounts the events of the last three books. I’ll also be including it in the front matter of The Breakers and make updates to it with each subsequent book in the series.
The Detailed Recaps list options have each book with in-depth bullet points that go into greater detail with the plot and character developments.
Warning: Spoilers Abound in this new section.
This is a great resource for returning readers to brush up on the saga with either a quick refresher or a more involved return to the series. It’ll also help folks that just want to start with the newer books, and read the earlier entries later. And for people who don’t mind spoiling the plot before they read a book.
I know a few loved ones who read the last few pages of a book first to see if they’ll like it, so this helps that type of reader too. Even if I philosophically and respectfully disagree with that story-consuming practice.
This new section will serve all my readers before, during, and after they read any books of the POTG saga.
Again, with spoiler alerts blaring in full, check out my website’s new recaps tab with the link below or on the tab above.
This month’s writing production of Secret Fronts’ first draft lands at page 304 with 86,300 words. That breaks down to 47 pages with 13,600 words.
That’s a pretty good chunk of wordage. The key will be keeping up the output to get this draft done sometime this year.
That’s one of my three big writing goals for 2025. Releasing The Repenter E Book Collection and The Breakers are the other two.
Assuming no curve balls, I’m think I’m on track for all three.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Ed: “Where do you want these, Cassandra?”
Cassandra: “I hate it when you don’t call me Cassie.”
Ed: “You hate it when I do call you Cassie.”
Cassandra: “Don’t call me that!”
Recommendation Corner
Live Suit by James SA Corey
This was a quick novella read in the Captives War series. And it presented a different galactic civilization of humanity. One that didn’t get steamrolled by the aliens like the characters in the first book.
It focuses on a former paramedic who volunteers to be one of the Live Suit soldiers. The armor is never removed, functioning as a second skin with a helmet that hides the user’s face. It repairs all harm inflicted on its wearer.
However, its effects on the wearers’ sense of reality soon show themselves. Forgetting little moments with loved ones. The fanatical resolve to beat the aliens at any cost.
And the war is so vast that the soldiers fighting it have no clue if they’re winning or losing.
It’s a cool glimpse into the bigger conflict of the series. And while the story is bleak for its characters, it shows that the aliens still have a long way to go before their ultimate victory.
Jefferson Mays does a great job as usual with the audio narration.
Vicious by V.E. Schwab
This is a bit softer of a recommendation, but the characters were compelling enough to make me listen through large chunks at one go. So the author was doing something right with this yarn.
It takes place in a world where people with superpowers are urban legends who hide on the fringes. Extra Ordinaries. EOs.
It focuses on two former friends who hate each other. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. They have a tragic origin that’s gradually revealed in flashbacks as they amass allies in secret to combat each other.
Neither are heroes, though one professes to be one. Even as he becomes a serial killer of other innocent EOs.
They are both flawed and damaged people. Victor is the book’s protagonist. He is cruel and self-centered, but also quite compelling in his quest for vengeance against Eli.
Four thousand years ago, Bennet Burnhelt saved the world. Smiting down the King of the Weird Ones. Gaining a vastly extended lifespan. Honing his considerable ethereal might. Crafting a world order with the other victors. The queen granted him his title, Benefactor, as a jest. But the name stuck.
He seldom speaks about any part of his early life.
Because Corsis helped him save Trojis. And that had a cost.
Now his world and many others suffer as part of the Game, though few know it. Benefactor didn’t see the danger his old ally posed. He didn’t realize Corsis had amassed the conquered Weird Ones’ vast powers until it was far too late.
Benefactor now strives to end Corsis’s reign in the background as he publicly leads New Grelland. A role that burdens him.
But he isn’t alone in standing against the Game. His son, Vick. His grandsons, Ed and Matt. And even that group of Brigands in Sufrinzon. He will guide them as best he can.
Benefactor Plays the Game because he must. And he intends to win.
Find out more about Benefactor’s plans starting in The New Players.
There’s a particular feeling I often strive to achieve whenever I’m creating stories. Where the ideas transcend words, and I just go with whatever the characters are doing.
Entering a flow state.
Sadly, I can’t always achieve that. The mental gears grind more than I’d like. And honestly, I think that’s also fine. For me at least, I think grinding is needed to make the times when words flow all the more rewarding.
It’s my philosophy on other up and down phases of life. Post holiday winter drudgery makes summer vitality and extra daylight seem all the better.
Of course, that’s just me. Certain loved ones in my life would prefer to skip to fall.
A meandering way to say that I always try to value the whole process, easy and hard. And know that when times of grind present themselves, I push through them.
There’s always more flow state creation on the other side.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
This month’s writing productivity comes in at Page 257 with 72,700 words for Secret Fronts’ first draft. That’s an output of 46 pages and 13,100 words for the first month of the year.
Pretty good, all things considered. I’ll see if I can keep up the momentum.
Plans are still afoot to release a Repenter ebook collection of the first two novels and first two novellas. And also The Breakers following that.
All good stuff.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Gath: “Is that misanthropese for yes?”
Quandric: “Yes. You disrespectful @$$hole.”
Gath: “You love me anyway.”
Quandric: “I really don’t.”
Gath: “Then I just have to love you that much more.”
Recommendation Corner
Radiant Black by Kyle Higgins and Marcelo Costa
This one is a recommendation due to its sheer ambition alone. I heard the author Kyle Higgins talking on a podcast about his Massive-verse through Image comics. His log line hooked me.
Power Rangers with adult problems.
It’s in the “tokusatsu” transforming hero genre with others like Ultra Man, which I have fond memories of watching as a kid. I read the catch-up 16 page comic on www.radiant.black (best use of a non dot com ever), and decided to give it a whirl.
With the 6th trade paperback. Halfway through the Catalyst War story line. I do that sometimes.
I didn’t quite understand the objectives of the invaders, or what their win condition was.
But I really dug the dual timelines where the Marshall character went dark and amassed power and the other where he was powerless and his friend, Nathan, was Radiant Black instead.
This is not for everyone. But I think I’m going to dive into the back catalogue on this.
I love discovering new comics series that I enjoy with a ton of back issues.
Icons Unearthed on Amazon Prime
The Nacelle Company of Toys That Made Us fame has a bunch of limited series on Prime that dive into the back stories of a bunch of movie series.
Some are better than others.
The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars ones had some interesting tidbits of which I wasn’t aware. Anthony Daniels recollections of working on the original trilogy are especially compelling. BTW- His name is pronounced “An-tony” without the “H”, which was news to me.
The Batman one was okay, but it really threw the old 60s TV show under the bus to prop up the Burton movies. Basically saying it was worthless. I think it has value as a comedy. And they spent next to no time on the 90s animated series, which is probably the best version of Batman in my reckoning.
So your mileage may vary. Still, if you’re into multi-part docu-series, you could do worse.
