Ed Burnhelt can reach the horizon well within a second. But he can’t outrun what awaits him.
He’s grown a beard in an attempt to hide the scar that Corsis’s Lizard avatar gave him at the end of The New Players. But that doesn’t really work. The claw marks on his cheek light up with blue flames when he uses his hyper powers.
That’s the least of his problems. The Holy Alliance is staging another invasion. And a focal point is again in the beleaguered frontier city of Findenton. And even if he and his friends fend off disaster. There’s the matter of a Skin Bot named Vermillion.
The Grellish spy discovered secrets vital not only to the battle against the Holy Alliance but also to the Game itself. Vermillion is being held and interrogated in the pico realm of Inparadis. Locked behind many, many layers of security.
Find out if Ed and his friends can reach Vermillion in time in The Breakers.
Art by Ringasure. This is an older version of Ed’s armor that has way more plating and silver, rather than its streamlined mesh and blue revised appearance. But this rendering still looks rad with his pose, face, and swords. So I wanted to share it.
Other more current versions of Ed will show up in future installments.
Lots of family events of the May Pomp and Circumstance variety. Plus a bunch of other fun visits. And then there’s all my writing and author comings and goings. I’ll get into more of the details of all that in the WIP section below. But the headline above aptly tells you the tale.
I have a dance card that is nigh out of room.
A quick Gemini search pretending to be a Google search told me that the term comes from 18th Century Europe and ballrooms. And yep. Exactly what I expected. Something you’ll find on popular streaming shows that I don’t watch.
However, one might expect that I’m feeling spread thin. And I’m not really feeling it. I feel adequately activitied. Whelmed, if you will. There are miles of difference between a not quite full dance card and one that runneth over.
Pretty sure the key to my inner equilibrium is the things I’m not doing. I’ve not said yes to everything that’s come my way. And I think that’s helped me creatively thrive and feel more engaged at the events I am attending.
Speaking of which.
Jim in the World
I teamed up with Concierge Marketing and a bunch of other local authors at Junkstock on May 1st.
It’s an Omaha-area massive craft fair out on a farm in the Waterloo suburb. Or maybe it’s an exurb. Some kind of urb.
And it’s still going on at the time of this writing. May 1-3 and the following weekend, May 8-10.
Check out all kinds of quirky crafts and grab some books from Concierge Marketing’s stall in Sycamore Stables. Including a few of mine.
And say it like Fred Schneider in the B-52s Love Shack:
Junkstock, Baby.
It will delight me. And only me.
Players of the Game Works In Progress
Here’s a rundown of all the writing nigh-full dance card stuffage.
Secret Fronts’ second draft is still very first-draft flavored as I fill in more of the initial “wire frame”. It’s clocked in at page 448 with 46 pages for the month. Better than last month’s 25 pages.
There was some rewriting of old scenes, but a lot of it was new writing for fleshed-out passages. So I’d call that pretty decent output.
And my producer and I are still plugging away at Repenter’s full-voice cast audio book with the AI voice clones from Spoken.Press. It’s sounding really cool. We’re about a third of the way through the book.
There’s A LOT of work in making the deliveries sound good. The UI does indeed have a button you push to narrate it. But that first output needs plenty of massaging to get everyone sounding correct. Lots of little things. But diz-amn does it come together nicely once we’re done.
High-quality, high-effort artisanal AI creativity abounds.
As I mentioned last time, I think I’m pivoting to high-quality hardcovers as well. Rather than using Ingram Spark’s process, I think I’m going to wait for Book Vault to set up shop in the US, and order a limited number of their expertly crafted hardcovers, and just sell those at in-person events as the high-end fancy option along with the paperbacks. So hardcovers are on the back burner for now.
And the cover refresh is inching closer to its reveal. Just need to get the new covers for New Players: Origins and Breakers, and I’ll share them all once they’re done.
Jagged Pieces is looking more likely to be published in early 2027, but I’m not for sure on that yet. I want to see what I can do to be better about advanced promotion prior to release. It still might squeeze into the end of 2026.
I’ll keep you posted on that and everything else.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Tiff Shalai: “We’ll keep the rest away from you. Please slice out their gonads for me.”
Gath: “Only because you said the magic word.”
Recommendation Corner
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
I liked this last installment of The Broken Earth Trilogy. But it didn’t quite land for me.
There are several interludes with the Hoa character that show the decadence of the dead civilization in its prime that were incredibly difficult to fully immerse myself. I couldn’t really get a sense of place with all the talking heads stuff until much later.
I eventually got into it. And it was interesting to see the “original sin” of the dead civ’s attempt to harness the Earth’s magic, which led to the moon’s altered, millennia-long orbit and the Evil Earth’s eternal grudge against humanity.
But I’ll be honest. I groaned every time one of those countdown interludes popped up. Especially when I realized it was a countdown to zero, rather than one.
So why am I still recommending it?
The stories of Nassun and Essun remained compelling. The former with her broken Guardian who’s loyal to her, but at the cost of massive pain caused by the Evil Earth. And the latter with her adopted com’s exodus to the empty city of their petrified enemies. The mother and daughter’s paths at last converge.
But both of have changed. And let’s just say that Essun’s prickly behavior is not fondly remembered by her child.
Worth the read, despite the momentum-sapping interludes.
Dan Murrell on YouTube
My wife and I have been watching this guy for six years. And I figured he’s overdue for a shout-out.
He was originally on Screen Junkies, writing Honest Trailers. But his Charts With Dan show migrated to his own channel. He goes over the box office numbers and streaming rankings.
I’ve always enjoyed seeing how movies are performing, going back to the quick segment on MTV’s Big Picture. Dan generally keeps his analysis pretty neutral. Though he’ll let rants sneak into his live shows.
Just search for him talking about Hereditary and his fury for Toni Collette not getting an Oscar nom. Or even better, his antipathy toward the enduring popularity of the Minions.
He’s very earnest and anti-click baity. Which is what I gravitate towards on YouTube. And everything else, for that matter.
Check out his recent video on the largely under-the-radar but disastrous opening US box office for the Saudi-funded Desert Warrior.
The Cetari sea ranger pilots a submarine named the Toff that can withstand immense pressure. Which the Breakers will need when events conspire to make them take an indirect route on the way to Inparadis.
Ed Burnhelt derives immature and copious enjoyment out of the Toff’s full name.
The Pistoff.
This immediately endears Ed and the rest of the Breakers to Kixie. The dolphin-hybrid humanoid becomes their staunch ally against her distant royal family members’ skullduggery in the subterranean sea nation of Yintu. Plus, her galley has the BEST fruit.
Kixie will also show up in later books in the series. And at the risk of slightly spoiling things. Let’s just say she brings more to the table than just a fun sub.
(This newsletter was originally sent out in early April 2026, but I spaced posting it on the website until May.)
Howdy!
I’ve pulled the trigger.
The POTG series is coming to audio!
I’ve been working hard with a producer named Tory through an outfit named Spoken.Press. It uses AI voice clones of actors who get a cut of the production fees, along with voices from Hume and ElevenLabs.
And I’ll be using a bunch of them for a full voice cast with a voice-cloned narrator and specific voices. You’ll get to hear the various accents and timbers that make the characters stand out. It’s really immersive.
But it doesn’t happen automatically. Tory and I are working incredibly hard to refine it. It needs lots and lots of mini edits to fix wonky deliveries. But, man. When a chapter is done, I am thoroughly blown away. It sounds fricking epic. I’m pretty psyched about it.
Hate the robits? I hear you. Some of the stuff with AI is indeed weird and disquieting. Please feel free to keep reading the books in ebook and print if digital voices aren’t your bag. And there just might be a separate human-read version down the road, depending on how the planets align.
For those of you who are interested in hearing more, I’ll be offering a sample chapter in the coming months for Repenter. I’ll let you know when that’s ready.
As this has come together, I’ve found listening to the voice cast really compelling. It’s helped me catch a few pesky typos too.
And it made me realize something about the pronunciations of two main characters’ names. I need the digital voice cast to pronounce the names the way a reader would pronounce them. I’ll get into the exact moment of this revelation below.
But the headline is Ashe Stelfire’s is pronounced as Ash. I had for a few decades pronounced it with a hard A, as Aesh. No more. I shall not be “um… actuallying” my readers. I shall pronounce it as everyone else reads it. And so shall the AI cast.
I must have a thing for hard A’s, because I had a similar conversion for Avril. I’d been pronouncing it as AeVril when most folks pronounce it with a soft A as AvRil. So I’m joining the crowd.
So say goodbye to Ashe Stelfire and Avril Enzali. And say hello to Ashe Stelfire and Avril Enzali!
That… doesn’t sound any different in print, does it?
Jim in the World
I represented the Nebraska Writer’s Guild for a few hours back on March 7, 2026 at the Constellation 15 Convention in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Here’s a pic of me at the NWG table with my POTG books.
Repenter Got a Shoutout on the Bad at Magic Podcast!
I post on the Bad at Magic Reddit thread a bunch, and it came up that I’m an indie author. And one of the hosts, Ben Rich, asked me for a digital copy of my first book. So I sent one to him, not expecting much. But he totally mentioned it!
He made it in a few chapters at the time of the recording and said he enjoyed it so far. But even if he ends up not liking it, I was still most happy for the shout-out.
He pronounced Ashe’s name as Ash as part of his review. And that is what made me realize I need to pronounce the name as a reader would. Thanks to Ben for inspiring that lightbulb moment!
Here’s a link to the Bad At Magic website, and you can follow the links if you want to play it on your preferred podcast app. The Repenter call-out is on episode 172 at around the 1 hour and 40 minute mark.
Welp. Two factors impeded my second draft productivity this month.
There’s this little audiobook initiative I’m working on. I think I mentioned something about it above. Pretty sure at least.
And I had a lot more of a loose “wire frame” in part of Secret Fronts’ first draft. So I have to do a lot more first-draftesque creation from nothing for a good chunk of the next several chapters. All something I knew I had to do.
But my productivity stats took a hit. I’m on page 402 with 25 pages for the month. Much fewer than last month’s 89 pages. But I’m still at it. The next few months might have a lower output with these two factors in play.
But words are words, so I’ll take what I can get.
The cover refresh continues. I’ll share those in the near…ish future. And hard covers have taken a back seat to the audiobook efforts. I might end up going the boutique route with the hardcovers through Book Vault instead of IngramSpark. We’ll see where that goes.
Jagged Pieces is still aimed for release at the second half of the year, but I’m not going to rush it out with all the other plates spinning.
I’ll keep giving updates as time goes on.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Gath: “Dear gods, I need a drink. Oh, wait. We have a bunch of them right over there.”
Recommendation Corner
The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2 by NK Jemisin
The second-person narration still somehow continues to work now that Essun’s distant past and more recent past merged with her present at the end of the first book. It shouldn’t, but it does.
The saga’s middle installment remains most compelling with the slow-crawling cataclysm of the ash fall from the emerging fifth season, one that will span millennia. All the dead civ remnants continue to pop up with disquieting attention on the separated mother and daughter characters.
Nassun, the daughter with whom Essun could not reunite, is taken by her homicidal father to “cure” her of orogeny in a remote com(munity) in the Stillness continent’s Antarctics region. Nassun encounters a lot of hatred for her power to manipulate geology. Again, it’s framed by the reality that people often get “iced” if Orogenes aren’t careful. She encounters someone from Essun’s past who’s gone through his own transformation. And it’s unclear if that’s a good thing for Nassun.
Essun continues to barb with her new com located in a colossal geode. She’s emotionally damaged, and Nassun’s flashbacks reveal she was not gentle or kind to her daughter. Her former lover, Alabaster, is slowly turning to stone after he triggered the latest season. All in a gambit to bring the moon back into a regular orbit after it entered a millennia-long, deep space elliptical orbit, which triggered the fifth seasons by the enraged Father Earth.
And Alabaster wants Essun to finish his work. Bring back the moon. End the seasons. But she must first survive the marauders at the geode com’s gates.
I like it.
Project Hail Mary (The Movie)
I recommended the book a few years back. And the movie is just as good.
The main character might be stranded in another solar system with no way home, but at its core, the story is an optimistic sci-fi yarn.
Without entering into spoilers, there are two big themes in the story. A celebration of the partnership between science and engineering’s critical partnership in solving big problems. And the power of being open to very different people.
Ryan Gosling did great as Grace in both the Earth flashbacks and the Hail Mary ship’s present. His resourcefulness and humorous mannerisms are endearing.
And hey, wait. The Hail Mary. It’s got one person in its crew. One might say it’s full of Grace.
Okay, I’ll stop now.
I loved the new scene with Stratt at the karaoke. It was fantastic in showing a different side of her character.
And I, of course, loved everything with the spoiler character. Just as charming as the book. I’ll quote that character to give you my succinct thoughts:
