Category: Reader Group Archive

James McGowan Reader Group- Grateful Travels

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Yo yo!

I sometimes recall my utter deflated feeling during the Covid lockdown and social distancing a few years back.  Coupled with the enduring hope that I’d be so thankful when I could get back in the world, see people again, and just enjoy.  

Enjoy everything.

I’ll admit I don’t always clock that in my day-to-day comings and goings.  But I definitely noticed it over the past couple of weeks when I went to the biggest city in South Dakota and days later the biggest city in Illinois.

My wife and I went out to Sioux Falls to crash an author fair at the downtown public library.  I wasn’t able to participate in it due to a late submission on my part. But I was able to see my author friends, Emersyn Park, Chris Poore, and Scott Johnson.  We had a fun dinner the night before with our significant others.  

At the fair, I met Randy Faustino, a comic book writer who had a cool fantasy-horror comic, Kosmotrope, which I’ll discuss more in Recommendation Corner.

But a recommendation you don’t have to wait for is Pizano’s in Chicago.  I went out to the Windy City for a work trip and was on the hunt for some local cuisine.  As my Chicagoan coworkers told me: Deep dish is for tourists.  If you want actual Chicago-style pizza, get the tavern-style thin-crust pizza.  Much more crusty/crackery than New York-style thin crust.  Good stuff!

And goodness abounds in my gratitude to experience all the new places and familiar haunts.  I’m writing this missive the day before Thanksgiving in the US.  And even though you’re reading this in a post-gobble-gobble, full-on holiday time o’ year, take a little time to be thankful for the positive things in your life.  Big and small.

Things like meeting up with friends at an out-of-town destination.  Or seeing a big @$$ building that the locals still call the Sears Tower, complete with a misty diffraction effect with its top lights.

And especially returning to a loving home.
Bookfest Omaha 2025- Saturday 12/13/25
Chris Poore and I will be selling our books at Bookfest Omaha 2025.  It’s free to the public.  Come out and visit us!

WHEN: Saturday, December 13, 2025, 9:00 am-3:00 pm​

WHERE: IBEW Hall, 13306 Stevens St #101, Omaha, NE 68137 (near Millard Avenue and 133rd) Tap on the image above to find out more details on their website.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
One drawback of all my travels was a bit of a dip in my productivity on the second draft of Unseen Scars.

I’m up to page 94, which is definitely not nothing.  It’s much easier to add setting and character descriptions, edit dialogue, and basically clean up all the metaphorical scaffolding with words that are already on the page.

The rewriting part of writing is just mentally smoother.  Though the charge of creating something completely new, as frictional as it can be, always beckons to me.  I’ll be glad to get outlining Book 6: Back to the Dark, hopefully inside of a year.

In 2026, I’m going to explore what’s needed to get a table at a regional comic con, or some other sci-fi fantasy con.  I might also partner up with Junkstock, an Omaha-area craft show.

More as it develops.

Players of the Game Out Of Context Quote of the Month:

“Cienne. Been a few.” Frulgrath kept his body language casual, as he always did in her presence. Casual, but ready for trouble. Usually of the verbal variety, but not always.

“More than a few.” Cienne grinned at him, but it came nowhere near her eyes. “Hatchet Man, eh?”

“Picked up the nickname in Sufrinzon. It stuck.”
Recommendation Corner
Kosmotrope by Randy Faustino and Ashley Mortensen

This comic book from the Sioux Falls-based Bamboo Panel Studios would probably get categorized as an urban fantasy, even though half of it takes place in a forest park.

With a park ranger who is secretly a wearbear.  

He’s called in by his colleagues to investigate the latest in a series of murders that have left the victims mutilated and twisted.

Meanwhile, a psychic doctor who can see ghostly images of his patients’ ailments also encounters other horribly transformed victims.

I anticipate that the ranger and the doctor’s paths will cross in future issues.

Randy told me that Kosmotrope and Bamboo Panel Studios are on Instagram, so check them out there if you’re interested in some fantasy-horroresque comics.

The Witcher Season 4

Is Liam Hemsworth a better Geralt than Henry Cavill?  No.  Is he worse?  Also no.

I’m sure my opinion is not universally held, but I think Hemsworth has done a good job in the unenviable task of taking over the lead role.

This season takes place during the events of the Time of Contempt novel.  Geralt, Siri, and Yennifer (love the character, hate the name) are all separated on their own adventures.

I’ll admit that I find Siri’s storyline with the Rats less engaging with her attempting to lie low as a brigand/bandit.  It’s true to the plot line in the novel, and I wasn’t in love with that either.  Yennifer’s assembly of the surviving magic users is more of a slow burn, but the interpersonal drama keeps her part of the story from dragging.

However, Geralt’s new friends: a sort-of Dryad, a group of Dwarves, a former Nilfgardian enemy knight, and a mysterious herbalist healer are the most engaging part of this season.  And Jaskier/Dandelion is always fun.

Lawrence Fishburne is the standout this season as Regis.  I liked the character in the book as well.  Fishburne does a great job of capturing the character’s disquieting kindness and benevolent but unsettling assistance.

I like all things Witcher.  Books, shows, comics, video games.  And this season scratches the itch.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

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James McGowan Reader Group- Ends of Eras

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Hey hey!

A few years back I wrote about returning to a couple of social activities following all the lockdown terribleness.  An Ultimate Frisbee pickup group and a bar trivia team.

Things have ended and evolved, respectively.

The Frisbee group is still playing with a bunch of younger and/or more industrious acquaintances, but I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of injury and greater frequency of aches and pains.  All of my good friends have also stopped playing.  Bottom line: We got old.  

I even updated my author bio earlier this year and redacted the mention of playing Ultimate Frisbee.  The season of disc-tossing seasons has passed for me.  

And that’s fine.  

I still exercise with various weights and body-weight repetitions along with a high-intensity workout video on YouTube that I’m reasonably sure I’ve watched/followed greater than 1500 times.  My wife and I also go for walks, though that’s tougher when it gets cold and dark as we get further into fall and winter.

The bar trivia isn’t necessarily tougher, but it also recently changed.  Our taproom venue went out of business due to some decisions involving debt that didn’t work out for them.  It also didn’t help that their beer was so-so at best, which is why I’m respectfully not naming the defunct company.  I seldom partook of their products, though I was in the minority there.

Our trivia league still has a lot of other locations in the city, but it’s not quite the same without our usual table, our friendly bartender who often gave me free lemonade, and our misanthropic, prickly, troll-jokey, but also begrudgingly endearing host.

We might end up at another taproom with the same host, but that remains a hazy prospect.  So for now, Team Beerpaw is slumming it at other bar and grill locations.  It’s all fine, but not the same atmosphere.  And the new venues remain good spots to hang out with friends and chat about all manner of inane and fun topics between the questions.

We shall adapt.  And we shall prevail.

Luckily, none of this has affected my author endeavors.  And I’ll talk about a few such fun items right now.
The Council Bluffs Library Book Fair
Here are some pics of me at the Council Bluffs Library Book Fair from October 19th, 2025. 

One photo of me at my table. And two more of me on a panel with my author friend, Chris Poore, and another author named Tim (I missed his last name, but a real fascinating guy). 

The pictures were courtesy of my wife and our other author friend, Emersyn Park. 

I sold a bunch of books with my in-person 7-books-for-$20 bargain bundle that I sell for marketing purposes.  Including five sets to a couple who wanted to use them with a start-up indie bookstore.  I haven’t heard back from them about it yet, but either way, the books are out there.  

And hello to all the new subscribers who signed up for my author group newsletters at the book fair!  I hope you enjoy.

Getting out and seeing readers is quite fun.  I’ll be doing it again in December.

Read on!
Bookfest Omaha 2025- Saturday 12/13/25
Chris Poore and I will also be selling our books at Bookfest Omaha 2025.  It’s free to the public.  Come out and visit us!

WHEN: Saturday, December 13, 2025, 9:00 am-3:00 pm​
WHERE: IBEW Hall, 13306 Stevens St #101, Omaha, NE 68137 (near Millard Avenue and 133rd)

Tap on the image above to find out more details on their website.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
The ends and beginnings theme for this month’s missive continues for my writing as well.

All of it good.

I finished going through the edits of The Game War and then ran it through ProWritingAid.  So Players of the Game Book 5 is in the hopper along with Book 4.5.  I’ll release the bonus novel sometime in 2026.  And the main novel in 2027.  As long as I can keep far enough ahead on the writing, I hope to release a main novel or bonus novel each year.

A few other items of note this month.

I tried out ElevenLabs.  And I largely liked it, though it has a little ways to go before I’ll devote time to loading my series on audio books.  The version 3 alpha doesn’t yet allow for inserted pauses.  Which you wouldn’t think is a big deal, but totally is.  Paragraphs run together if you can’t craft them with pauses.  

However, version 3 is what I want because it allows you to give more direction to the digital narrators.  I picked out a male and female digital narrator that I’ll plan to use for male and female POV scenes respectively.  I’ll share more on all of that as things develop.

And I’ve just started the second draft of The Game War: Unseen Scars bonus novel.  I use “YY” notes for myself as I’m writing the first draft to track down all the spots that need attention.  And they’re everywhere.  Which is typical.  As I’ve said before, a first draft is always a drooling, sloppy mess.

Now it’s cleanup time.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:

Hekati then clasped his wrist with her mad gaze fixed on Corsis. “All the Burnhelts. Celsis Kri. Tamona of Muné. Everyone they love. I want their heads on jagged lances.”
Recommendation Corner
Peacemaker Season 2

John Cena continues to provide evidence that he’s a national treasure.  I’m not really a wrestling guy, but I’ve liked everything I’ve seen him in.  He can pull off comedy and dramatic pathos with equal poise.

Peacemaker’s latest misadventures lean into a bunch of background tech from last season that now takes the forefront.  Chris Smith and the rest of the 11th Street Kids engage in dimension hopping where things turned out differently for Peacemaker’s family and the world.

And Chris isn’t so sure his world is the one he wants to live in.  Especially after he accidentally kills his alternate self.

Fun fact I didn’t know until recently.  Comedian from Watchmen is an homage to Peacemaker.  Chris Smith was originally a Charlton character from the 60s before DC bought the company in the late 70s.  Alan Moore switched to analogues early in the crafting of the Watchmen story.  Blue Beetle with Nite Owl and Question with Rorschach had always been the higher profile characters to me.  No longer.  I think it’s safe to say that Peacemaker with Comedian has now surpassed them.  

Interesting factoid.  To me at least.

Tim Meadows’s character was also most amusing with his “bird blindness” disability.  His reference to Eagley as a parrot was comic gold.

Violent and over the top.  But also earnest and genuine.  I enjoyed it.

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This sci-fi yarn focuses on two women of a far-future, space-faring civilization’s “special projects team.”  Both are highly motivated to not be put back on ice in cryogenic storage and prove their continued worth.

This all goes horribly wrong when an accident forces them to crash-land a rover pod on Shroud, an Earth-sized moon of a gas giant.  Its incredibly thick atmosphere possesses the pressure of Venus and the global temperature of Antarctica.

They have to figure out a way off the moon and endure lethal misunderstandings of the shell-covered, slow-moving alien life that has no visual senses.  But all have an acute sense of sound and radio waves.

These aliens are kind of similar to Rocky from Project Hail Mary, except they’re more ant-like with a collective intelligence that fades the farther they get from their communities.

I’m about halfway through and I’ll be interested to discover if and how the humans and the aliens ever figure out a way to communicate.

Captivating stuff. 
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

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James McGowan Reader Group- Next!

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Yello!

There’s a sketch on Tenacious D’s first album called “One Note Song” where Jack Black impresses himself by coming up with a song with one note plus a “little bendy thing” with the guitar string.  And in self-deluded grandeur proclaims that he’s ready to move on.

“Next song!  Next song!  NEXT!”

Well, that’s where I’m at now.  The Breakers is out in the world.  I went to the Get Lit Conference a few weeks back and sold some bundles to folks.  Including Jeff Koterba, a local “Omaha-famous” cartoonist and DJ for an Omaha classical radio station.  He bought my books for his grandson, because he’s also into “Brando Sando” (Brandon Sanderson), which aligns very much with my audience.  Jeff’s presentation was by far the best part of the conference.

Here’s a pic of me at my Git Lit table with my books, including The Breakers, and my “on Jim McGowan brand” wild shirt with tropical AT-ATs.
Pretty rad, in my humble opinion.

But now, with hopefully less self-delusion, it’s time to move to the next thing. Next thing!

NEXT!

I’ll be going to the Local Author Fair in a few weeks at Council Bluffs. I’ll go into the details in its own section below.

I think I’ll also do a Bookfest event in Omaha in December too.

And there’s all the writing projects, also in their own section.

Plenty o’ fun for the near future.  And because we must obey the rule of threes, the following all-caps proclamation is inevitable:

NEXT!
Council Bluffs Public Library Local Author Fair
I’ll be at the Council Bluffs Public Library Local Author Fair on Sunday, October 19, 2025 from 2pm-4pm.

If you’re in the Omaha area, come and say hi.

Tap the link above for more info on the Council Bluffs Public Library’s website.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I went through the edits to The Game War and agreed with most of them.  I plan to keep using this new editor, Lori with First Editing.  She’s quite good.

I’ll be doing another pass with ProWritingAid and maybe try out their AI Beta Reader to see if it has any valid feedback.

Following that, I’ve made the judgment call.  I’m going to try out ElevenLabs for digital narration.  If I like it, I’ll release Repenter through whatever outlets that allow it, and depending on how it goes, the other books too.  Sadly, Audible only allows their own inferior digital narration product, so it won’t be available there for now.

For those who aren’t fans of AI digital narration, or AI in general.  I totally get it.  Much of it was built on scraped training data.  

I just ask for your grace as I try this out.  

These products are not going away.  I can’t afford $5-10k for a professional human narrator.  If I don’t have my novels in audiobook format, I am missing half or more of the market.  My books have almost certainly been scraped as well.  And I’m frankly fine with it.

I’m leaning in to being human and dipping my toes in to being an AI artisan author, to steal Joanna Penn’s term.  I don’t use AI for the actual writing, because that’s not fulfilling to me, and AI-generated text will not replicate my authorial voice even if I did use it.  But my literal voice is not up to the task of reading hours upon hours of my stories.  I’m prone to laryngitis, and I’m not looking to strain my vocal chords with a whole lot of talking.

So I’m starting this ElevenLabs experiment.  We’ll see where it goes.

I also tried out Google’s Notebook LM again and reloaded the POTG novels as text files instead of PDFs, and that worked much better.  It’s now at an 85-90% accuracy rate, which is fine for what I need it for.

I actually used it for this newsletter.  I couldn’t remember if Thebes first called Frulgrath as Hatchet Man in Repenter or The Brigands.  Yes, I could have done a find-search in both books, but it was handy to just use Notebook LM to track down the info.

The faux podcast thing is still kinda spotty with its accuracy and more of a gimmick, but asking the text portion to tell me about characters and story events yields decent results.  I shall add this to my writer’s tool belt.

I’ll get back to Unseen Scars and start on its second draft after I do the audiobook thing.

ABC: Always be creating.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:

Vurg to Vick: “Yes, I fortified our defenses. But they failed. That’s the hard lesson of the Weird War’s aftermath, lad. Sometimes, to protect, you must attack.”
Recommendation Corner
Blood Squad Seven by Joe Casey and Paul Fry

This is a very “inside baseball, except it’s comics” recommendation.  So I realize this might not be for everyone.

This series is based on analogue characters from a team of superhero celebrities who were big in the 90s.  And now some of the original characters are back to try it again with other younger characters who are either their kids or some other legacy aspect.  

In real life, the team from the 90s was called Youngblood originally published by Image, but lots of legal madness over the ensuing decades has made that basically impossible to publish it with the original characters and that name.  So we have a retconned team called Blood Squad Seven with analogues.  Kind of similar to what Watchmen did with the old Charlton characters.

The hook of the series is that it’s both a modern look at how superheroes would absolutely be celebrities in the modern era.  And they have a legacy to older characters from the 90s, not unlike how some of the JLA (Justice League of America) members in the 60s were legacy characters to the original versions in the JSA (Justice Society of America) from the 40s.

I like the tense dialogue, and I like the art style as well.  Very esoteric and not for everyone, but I dig it.

One Battle After Another

And it’s another recommendation on which I’m guessing others’ opinions might diverge.

It’s a Paul Thomas Anderson movie set over a 16-year span of time with a Weather Underground-esque group that’s doing revolutionary/terrorist attacks and liberation missions of immigrant detention centers.

Not diving into the culture war aspect of this stuff, but honestly, that’s more of the background to the movie.

Without spoiling too much.  It’s more about a family that’s dealing with the fallout of a lot of violently unwise or lustfully unwise decisions that were made in the past, and come back to haunt them when a certain child reaches her 16th year.

Leonardo DiCaprio does a great job of conveying a former revolutionary who flames out and is doing a so-so job of raising his daughter.  A daughter who Sean Penn’s relentless, unhinged, and also pathetic army colonel will stop at nothing to capture.  It also has a lot of cool long-take action shots amid riots and desolate car chases.  The score was noticeably well done too.

I run hot and cold on PTA movies.  I despised Magnolia.  But I enjoyed Punch Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood.  This is a movie that’s still sticking with me after I saw it.  So it must have done something right.  For me at least.

Give it a try if you’re feeling like something challenging and unique.

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James McGowan Reader Group- Get The Breakers Today!

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Hey, Hey!

It’s that time.

The Breakers: Players of the Game Book 4 is available on ebook and paperback.

The stakes have risen. Ashe Stelfire and Avril Enzali have come out of the events of Repenter (Book 1) and The Brigands (Book 2) in one piece. But the cost of their struggles lingers on their spirits. The loss of those who died still weighs on them.

But they navigate that emotional damage as best they can. They are at last in Trojis. Ready to liberate Avril’s goddess, Celsis Kri, from an extra-dimensional prison of unbreakable ice. Their hard experiences also taught them something else.

They will need help.

Which is fortunate, because others also have business in the ice dungeon. Emerging from the events of The New Players (Book 3), Ed Burnhelt and his friends have only just fended off the threat of Corsis’s mind-warped, body-twisted horrors in the frontier city of Findenton.

Celsis Kri is not the only one trapped in the ice dungeon. The Titan hero from another age. The Skin Bot spy. The Taurus Man mercenary. The secretive Keeper Captain. And the corpse of another goddess who might one day rise again. All of them yearn for freedom.

And Ed’s cohort must liberate them.

Lending help goes both ways.

And it will start where it recently ended. In Findenton. Where the flashpoint of war reignites.

Find out more in The Breakers.

Get The Breakers Today!
Advanced Praise for The Breakers
“An electrifying blend of high fantasy and futuristic warfare… Ambitious, gritty, and emotionally charged.” The Prairies Book Review

 “Wielding sharp, varied battle scenes, political plots that fit together with intent, and characters whose choices resist simple labels of right and wrong, James McGowan has created a layered war where every alliance comes with a cost and every victory changes the game board.” IndependentBookReview.com
I’ll be at the Get Lit Conference September 12th and 13th
I’ll have a table at the Get Lit Conference with copies of all my Players of the Game books.  Including The Breakers.

If you’re in the Omaha area, check out the Get Lit Conference site below and buy yourself a ticket for September 12th and 13th.

Swing by my table and say hi.  I’ll have some fun stuff to give away too.
Get Lit Conference
Starting with The Breakers or Need a Refresher? I Have You Covered.
Want to know the score fast? Select Quick Recap, and Corsis will detail all his jerky skullduggery in just a few minutes.

Want to know the nitty gritty? Select Detailed Recaps to jump in with both feet and learn all the big events and character moments of the Players of the Game saga.
Recaps Tab on Stelfire.com
Want a Closer Look at the World Maps? I Can Hook That Up Too.
I’ve just added the map of Subterranean Jeea to the Stelfire.com.

Check it out, along with maps of Jeea and Sufrinzon on stelfire.com/atlas. 

All can be viewed in magnified detail. Mobile users can tap on the map image and select “Download image” to zoom in on a map.
Maps on Stelfire.com
Players of the Game Works in Progress
So, on top of all The Breakers excitement, I finished the first draft of The Game War’s combined bonus novels of Unseen Scars and Secret Fronts.  

Huzzah and exultations!

The book that became two books’ first draft final numbers came in at 499 pages with 144,400 words.

Next, I’ll be going over the editor’s draft of The Game War.  I’ll either jump into the second drafts of Unseen Scars and Secret Fronts from there.  Or I might kick the tires on directing an AI-narrated audiobook version of Repenter.  That subject is very squishy on multiple fronts, so we’ll see where that goes.

And since this month has both the launch of The Breakers and the completion of the double bonus books, I’m going to supply a reading order of the POTG series existing books and upcoming books, rather than a WIP out-of-context quote.
Players of the Game Saga Reading Order
Book 1: Repenter

Book 1.5: Repenter: The Hidden Chapters

Book 2: The Brigands

Book 2.5: The Brigands: The Favor

Book 3: The New Players

Book 3.5: The New Players: Origins

Book 4: The Breakers

Book 4.5: The Breakers: Jagged Pieces – Coming Soon

Book 5: The Game War – Coming Later

Book 5.5: The Game War: Unseen Scars – Coming Later

Book 5.7: The Game War: Secret Fronts – Coming Later

Book 6: Back to the Dark – Coming Later

I plan on writing ten main novels and ten to twelve bonus books.  So I’m about 40% there with the published books, and about 55% there with the various WIP drafts.

I have a high-level outline for Back to the Dark, but that one is still baking in my mind.  It will undoubtedly take years to complete.  And then there’s the rest of the series, on which I have even rougher outlines and thoughts.  It will emerge from the ether in time.

I’m in it for the long haul, folks.

Marathons, not sprints.
Recommendation Corner
Triangle Strategy

A tactics video game.  Recommended by me.  Shocking, I know.

This one is a slow-burn gem with very strong Final Fantasy Tactics vibes.  Which makes sense, as Square Enix is the publisher.

It is not perfect.  I nearly stopped playing it with the literal first hour of world-building cut scenes.  But I gave it another chance, and the gameplay and characters ultimately engaged me.  The geopolitics of salt are interesting in a pre-industrial world where the compound is rare.  And the voice acting for the characters is pretty decent as well, especially for Benedict, the pragmatic and cold-blooded strategist and advisor to Serenoa, the young lord main character.

The characters are locked into their jobs, so you can’t customize that aspect of them.  But you can focus on what powers and abilities they use, and also customize your deployment of units for any given battle.

I don’t often replay games, but I did so with this one because there’s a lot of diverging story paths that lead to entirely different battles and character interactions.

Either skip the cut scenes at the beginning or just grab some popcorn.  It’s a stellar tactics game for gamers like me who love the niche.

Lucky Devils by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne

The guys who made the Curse Words and Eight Billion Genies comic book series are back with another absurdist comedy with dark undertones.

A nurse and a schoolteacher are stuck in terrible careers and life situations.  They keep doing the ethical thing, and get nowhere for it.

They have a pair of unseen devils on their shoulders, Collar and Rake, who both decide to reveal themselves to the hapless humans.

Silly good intentions paving ensues.

And the two devils think the whole hell underworld where they live when they’re off shift needs to be upended too.  They have ambitions.  And they’ll likely run afoul of many worse denizens as the series progresses.

It’s on hold for right now because the artist, Ryan Browne, recently suffered a minor stroke, so he’s focusing on recovery.

I wish him the best.  And hope they’re able to finish the story at some point.

It’s fun and compelling.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

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James McGowan Reader Group- Countdown to The Breakers

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Hey, all!

LOTS of news this month, so I’m going to jump right in with the style of a 90s-era Marvel Bullpen Bulletin that they’d use as in-house newsletters.

I loved seeing the all-caps ITEM subheadings in the middle of a random Spider-Man or New Warriors comic, so I shall shamelessly copy that format now.
ITEM: The Breakers is Available for Pre Order on Kindle Now!
That’s right!

The Breakers is releasing on Thursday, September 4, 2025.  And if you’re so inclined, you can pre-order it on Kindle now with the button below.

Do you prefer paperbacks or another ebook service besides Amazon?

Fear not!

The Breakers will be available for paperback purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org.  And other ebook versions will be available on Apple, BN, Kobo, and many others.  They will go live on the actual 9/4/2025 date.

But if you are a Kindle reader, go right ahead and use the button below to get in line.
Pre-Order The Breakers on Kindle!
ITEM: The Breakers Paperback Proof
Here’s a proof copy of The Breakers.  It clocks in at 586 pages.  

It.  Is.  Epic.

You should totally grab a copy of your own in a month. All the Players of the Game goodness!  None of the “Not for Resale” stripes.
ITEM: Advanced Praise of The Breakers
“An electrifying blend of high fantasy and futuristic warfare…”

-The Prairies Book Review

I hope to have more editorial reviews to share with you in the coming months.

In the meantime, check out the full review with the button below:
The Praries Book Review – The Breakers
ITEM: I’ve Embraced Goodreads
In the past, I had a paltry presence on Goodreads, as I found its user interface too annoying.

I’ve changed my stance.  Its UI is… fine.  

And more importantly, it’s one of the best places to learn what actual readers think about their favorite books.

I’ve also linked my blog from Stelfire.com to it, so it already has a robust selection of entries.  Many of which will be familiar to long-time reader group members.

So, if Goodreads is your bag, please follow me on that platform with the link below.
Follow Me on Goodreads
ITEM: Check out the Stelfire.com Recaps Tab
New to the Players of the Game Saga or need a refresh before you jump into The Breakers?  I’ve got you covered!

Check out the Recaps tab on Stelfire.com with the link below or the tab above.

Want to know the score fast?  Select Quick Recap, and Corsis will detail all his jerky skullduggery in just a few minutes.

Want to know the nitty gritty?  Select Detailed Recaps to jump in with both feet and learn all the big events and character moments of the Players of the Game saga.
Recaps
ITEM: I’m All Out of Items
Well, that’s not true at all, as the rest of the post below will confirm.

But we shall now return to the typical topics I cover in these reader group emails.  

Translation: I gots ta share my usual artwork, WIP status reports, and geeky things I like. Starting with an image of Ashe Stelfire above that many of you have seen, but I wanted to share anew.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this earlier.  But The Breakers is available on September 4th, 2025.  I could have sworn I had talked about that topic somewhere.

Kidding aside, I’m excited to get it out in the world.  But I shan’t be resting on my laurels.

I’m creeping toward the end of the first drafts for Book 5.5: Unseen Scars and Book 5.7: Secret Fronts.  The initial combined draft sits at 137,600 words with 482 pages.  That’s 14,000 words with 46 pages this time around.  It didn’t feel like I did better this month, but that’s double last month’s so-so output, so I take the W.

Once I’m done with the combined draft, I’ll take a look at The Game War’s edits from my editor, and run it through ProWritingAid again.  Then on to slicing and dicing books 5.5 and 5.7.

And maybe make use of Eleven Labs to see how AI narration sounds.  I’ve been kicking around using that where I’d direct the performance of a virtual voice.  Sadly, I cannot afford a voice actor for an audio book.  So it’s either AI-narrated audio or no audio.  I’m still determining what I want to do there.

A quandary for a later time.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month

Corsis and Frulgrath:

Corsis considered Frulgrath, maybe with an eyebrow raised from behind his mask, maybe not. Finally, he said, “Self-delusion sneaks up on the best of us.”

Frulgrath stood away from the wall, still unsure if Corsis leveraged only intuition or something more invasive. He supposed it didn’t matter either way. “Hrh. You gotta be you. And I gotta be me.”
Recommendation Corner
Superman (2025)

I adored this movie.  

Superman is so easy to get wrong.  But this felt like picking up a random issue and jumping in with both feet.  Some folks won’t like the “toss into the deep end” approach to reintroducing him.

I am not among them.

It’s the best comic book movie I’ve seen in years.  

The pacing is fantastic. There was no part of this movie that felt slow. Luckily I had an empty bladder, as there were no slow-pace expository/transitional scenes where it felt like a good time to step out.  I’ve seen it twice, and I remained impressed by its story structure.

Mr. Terrific, Lex, Lois, and of course, Krypto, were the other standouts. I teared up at the father-son scene between Clark and Pa Kent. 

Its take on the original John Williams score was very hummable, which is job one of any movie score in my reckoning.

A very positive and earnest movie.  Highest possible recommendation.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

The best cinematic adaptation of Fantastic Four.  Not as good as Superman.  But the more I pondered the movie, the more I liked it.

I was initially on the fence with whether I’d be on board (pun partially intended) with the Silver Surfer swap from Norrin Radd to Shalla Bal.  But the angle they took with it worked for me.  This interpretation of the Surfer made her and Johnny Storm sort of love interests.  They sort of flirted with tentative curiosity about each other.  It turned tragic as Johnny figured out a cipher for her language while Reed, Sue, and Ben were busy with figuring out a way to beat Galactus.

Speaking of which, I love how they leveraged Reed’s brains and Sue and Ben’s hearts as part of their drive to not sacrifice Franklin to Galactus’s designs.  Dare I say it?  I thought it worked better than the comics’ Ultimate Nullifier macguffin in the original story.

Sue’s drive to keep Franklin safe was very relatable.  Vanessa Kirby really excelled in showing her strength when she confronted a crowd of haters.  The Invisible Woman is rightly up there with Storm and Wonder Woman as an exemplar of a female super hero.

And Pedro Pascal did a good portrayal of Reed Richards, but (nerd quibble alert) he wasn’t stretchy enough. All the others’ powers were spot on.

Some people had an issue with Ben Grimm not having a gravelly voice. But I liked his soft-spoken, understated, pensive demeanor. I also like that they dialed into his Jewish background.

Herbie and the Fantasticar were also spot on with the retro-future aesthetic.

And this score is up there with Superman and the Avengers.  Especially the verbal part.  I’ve been singing “FANTASTIC FOUR!!!!” to my wife for days. It’s a fun earworm and I get to tease her. A true double threat.

Also recommended.  Like I said earlier, Superman is better.  But FF: FS is totally worth seeing in the theater too.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- The Backlog Dilemma

  By

Yo, yo!

I do believe most readers have a backlog. A stack of reading material that you intend to get to at some point. But if you’re like me, you end up stacking more on top of it. Not just books, but a manner of reading material like magazines. Or if you’re even more like me, comic books.

Months upon months of them.

I need to move them to the frontlog. Reduce the piles. Retake sanity. Okay, maybe not that last part. But catch up on things.

Honestly, part of why I’m writing about this is to force a little accountability for myself. I waste a decent chunk of time looking at YouTube videos about educational topics and tactics role-playing video games. None of it awful, but also none of it fantastic either. I know I’ll feel better about the stuff I put in my mind if I’m more deliberate about it.

And the stuff I put in other folks’ minds.

I’m also making the publication of Breakers part of my frontlog. Sometime in the first two weeks of August, likely on a Thursday. I don’t quite have a specific release date narrowed down, but it’s getting closer.

Fun stuff to add to your own aspirational reading pile.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I had a few life curve balls and bouts of slogging through mental molasses this month. So my productivity is lower than I would have liked. I reached page 436 of Secret Fronts with 123,600 words. That’s 28 pages with 7600 words for this round. Better than last month, but I’ll strive to do more as the summer weeks tick away.

Also, as mentioned last time, I’ll be splitting this bonus novel in two. Book 5.5, which focuses on the fallout of the events of Book 5, will be called Unseen Scars. And Book 5.7, which focuses on other realms affected by the Game, will be called Secret Fronts.

I’m liking where the story is going, despite the manuscript mitosis. Plus there’s the above referenced August release of The Breakers, so that’s exciting too.

I shall keep walking the path.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:

“Brunch.” Ed shook his head. “This is what maturity feels like.”

Fernallus turned his attention away from his friend. “Simply horrifying, isn’t it?”
Recommendation Corner
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

I always enjoy the dark humor of Abercrombie’s grim-dark worlds. And this dark setting is brand new.

A lost princess who grew up as a scumbag con artist finds herself in the middle of a succession crisis as events conspire to murder her horribly as the politics of nations and the church also conspire to put her on the throne of a Constantinople analogue.

And she can’t stop being a conniving, opportunistic coward.

Luckily, or more accurately unluckily, she’s protected by a suicide squad team called the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, led by a very weary knight, a rogue with far too much experience, a weathered vampire, an arrogant necromancer, a low-key elf. And a filth-minded werewolf who can’t tell friend from foe in her wolf form. Only that she has to eat the “good meat.”

I’m only part way through it so far, but I’m enjoying it a bunch. Steven Pacey’s performance is top-notch with his wry delivery.

Good stuff.

Murderbot on Apple TV

If you’ve been reading my newsletters for any length of time, you’ll know that I love the Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries novella and novel series.

The Apple series does a fantastic job of bringing the violent and absurd world to life. The banal evil of the various intergalactic corporations. The inane researchers who are way too touchy feely in their interactions with each other. All of it seen through the eyes of an android who would much rather sit by itself and watch its TV shows. Especially the ludicrous Sanctuary Moon.

Alexander Skarsgard does a great job of portraying the introverted Sec Unit with the secret name of Murderbot in all the android’s awkward glory. And the writing is very similar to the novels’ not-quite-comedy action as the humans ignore Murderbot’s advice and it has to continuously save them.

I think I still like the books a little more. But this is still an A-tier adaptation.

Check it out.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view in the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- Cover Girl… and Guy

  By

Howdy, all!

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!
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- Molecules and Electrons, Baby!

  By

Hey, hey!

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.
Paperbacks! Click Here for the Whole POTG Series
PLUS!

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.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- Paper, Please

  By

Hey, hey! 

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.

Give it a watch.  It’s good stuff.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- Previously in POTG…

  By

Hey, hey!

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.
POTG Recaps Tab
Players of the Game Works in Progress
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.

And nothing will stop him from getting it.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.