I know this is a little out of the blue, but the fourth novel and the end to the series has arrived! I thought I’d have time to prep this space, but my cover art came back at the same time as edits and I put myself into overdrive to get it out and call the series done.
You guys have no idea (well, maybe some of y’all do) how it feels to have the whole story out there, all four books worth. I was blessed to be able to work with the incomparable Micaela Dawn as cover artist across all four novels, which added all sorts of big words like synchronicity, verisimilitude and uniformity to the whole set. And check out the back!
Normally, this is the part where I advertise the book but all of you who are up on the first three don’t really need me to sell it… it’s the dramatic conclusion that we’ve all been waiting for! And those of you have yet to check it out, what are you waiting for?!
The Pendulum Breaks is on sale in digital and paperback editions right now at Amazon here. For those of you who want an ebook from a different vendor, I’m afraid right now you can only preorder here. I set the publishing date for August 11th (my birthday) as an aspirational goal and it wound up being more future flung than the reality. But now that you know more of my vital stats, why not pick up a copy to celebrate my birthday?
Thanks to all of you who love the series and rock with it. I hope you enjoy the conclusion. The writer from the trenches is out!
Logging into the admin site of the blog felt like opening an old, neglected storage shed. I could almost see dust motes dancing in the air as I browsed through pages, comments that I hadn’t checked on, posts I forgot I had posted. Damn, it’s really been over a year since my last post.
I live a fairly isolated life, so I can forget quite easily there are people in different corners of the world that are actually checking for my content. So lemme catch you all up on the goings on of the writer in the trenches. First and foremost, I finally finished the Pendulum Heroes series. Hold on… before you go checking Amazon for the fourth installment, finished writing it isn’t the same as finally published it! I’m still waiting on cover artwork, beta reader feedback, and making meaningful edits that will make this whole journey pop with resonance. No, I meant RESONANCE. Yes, the tone that just kinda echoes with completeness. Don’t worry, I’ll send notice when it’s live, since I’m actively active now and all.
That was the main reason for my absence. Investing that much time in a story is a far different cry than writing a flash piece. After three books, this thing had to finish right… I couldn’t just cliffhang characters in someplace awesome like the last books. The whole thing was riding on this wrap up. The ending’s critically important… anyone who still feels the sour taste left by the Game of Thrones ending knows what I’m talking about. So, I obsessed about my own series ending for months as I wrote and stalled and abandoned it to come back and write more.
I think the obsessing and self-derived pressure paid off. I love how it wraps up. And now that the heavy load of writing out a fantasy series has wrapped it’s probably a good time to return to the business of writing, to tell the world I wrote a thing and that I’m still out here. I’ve always been a bit neglectful of the business side of writing, preferring the actual writing over things like promo, making ad campaigns, sending out mailers, etc. Luckily, the blog’s like this nexus space where I’m just being me in between beats where I’m trying to make characters and plot threads renting a room in my head make better sense or getting the folks out there in the webz to know that I got juicy story content for them to check out.
I don’t even know if I updated the bibliography over here. While I was obsessing over FINAL BOOK I did move a short story or two. I’ll likely spend some time on it, letting you all know which stories out there are free to view and separating them by genre and things like that. Before now it was kinda of a running list/active count with me trying to collect new pro publishing sites as I show off my bona fides. The unintended consequence of having written out four novels is a sense that I’m kinda over proving the worth via publishing creds and I just want my previous works accessible.
Basically, what I’m saying is that after all the hard work that went into the series, it’s nice to be standing tall at the end of it. It feels like a new day breaking.
The title kinda says it all, right? Folks, I’m so happy that the third book of Pendulum Heroes is finally seeing the light of day. This novel took me a dog’s age to write only to be beset by the terrible production delays and setbacks that was 2020. Nevertheless, The Pendulum War is finally available for all of you wanting to see what comes next.
Since there’s not much else to say but I hope you check it out, as is my thing I like to show off the cover art, provided by the supremely talented Micaela Dawn.
Here’s the front:
And here’s the back:
And here’s the link to get The Pendulum War (digital only, print version coming in a day or two). Or if you haven’t gotten around to getting neck deep in adrenaline fueled fantasy adventure, here’s the link to start the series. Either way, I appreciate you riding with the writer in the trenches!
No Police = Know Future: Stories of Alternative Futures of Alternative Justice is a truly special volume, both a visualization of the recent call to defund the police and a roadmap to navigate towards a true system of justice. We over here at Amazing Stories want to celebrate its launch with the world. We’re having a Book Release Virtual Launch Party and you’re invited. The Editor-in-Chief James Beamon (yep, that’s me) will be there, chatting with several contributing authors which include:
PT Mackim
Bronte Christopher Wieland
Stewart C Baker
Holly Schofield
Jared Oliver Adams
Ira Nayman
Lettie Prell
Anatoly Belilovsky
Ryan Priest
The virtual launch party is scheduled for Sunday, December 27 at 4:00 PM EST (1:00 PM Pacific). Join us via Zoom by clicking here. That’s tomorrow as of the time of this post… no it’s not short notice, like you really would’ve remembered if I said this before Christmas!
If you’re already read No Police = Know Future, come on by and talk about your favorite stories with the authors who thought them up. Or maybe you’re curious about how a future without police might look, the processes of SF thought experiments or just want to spend some time with SF authors, editors and fans. The room is limited to 100 participants, so be sure to come early.
fictigristle 