I just thought I would write a quick note to say thank-you to everybody who has supported me through 2018—thanks to you, this has honestly been one of the best years of my life. This was the year in which I published my debut novel, The Way Home. It managed to reach #1 on several charts.
As a special thank-you, the e-book of The Way Home is available for a mere 99 cents at online retailers worldwide until 24 December 2018.
The novel would not have succeeded without you—when the book was released, I had no idea whether it would find any readers, but people really took the story into their hearts. I am in no danger of becoming the next J.K. Rowling, but at least once a week I get a message from somebody letting me know how much they enjoyed the book. That means the world to me. The Australian publishing industry is small but thriving, and I’m glad to be a small but thriving part of it.
Words cannot express how much I appreciate everybody who has taken the time to review The Way Home. Authors basically live or die on their reviews, and writing an honest review is the best thing you can do to support an author.
I’m particularly grateful to the hosts of my favourite writing podcast The Bestseller Experiment, who were instrumental in helping the novel succeed. Over the past six months or so hardly a week went by in which I didn’t hear my name mentioned on the show. At the invitation of friend and fellow author Mark Stay I ended up recording several episodes about craft for the show, and just recently I was a featured guest on the show. I chatted with Mark about The Way Home, epic story-telling, ancient myths, YA literature, Animorphs, small presses, the Australian publishing industry, koalas with boundary issues, and the horror that is Thomas the Tank Engine… You can check it out here.
I’m really, really looking forward to 2019, which will see the release of my series of Tooth and Blade novellas and hopefully the second Ashes of Olympus book.
Just in time for Christmas, the e-book for my debut novel based on Greek mythology, The Way Home, is less than a dollar! If you’d like to experience a swashbuckling adventure from a world of gods and magic, the e-book can be yours for the princely sum of 99 cents! On Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, and all the major online retailers at a reduced price until December 24, 2018.
Why has the price been set so low? The idea is to connect with more readers. It’ll help me with something I mentioned in a previous post:
I want to reach a community of readers who find something to enjoy with my work. There is great satisfaction in cheering somebody up who is having a bad day, and I think novels are the perfect form of escapism. And if readers get something more out of it, I’m glad.
I sincerely doubt the rewards will be financial, and that’s okay. Reducing the price for a week will help get my work into the hands of more readers—if the low price means I can give more people a story to enjoy over the holidays, then it’s worth it to me.
I have another cool thing to announce this week, but in the meantime, I hope you’ll join me for the journey. The Way Homeis available now for all devices. Grab for a bargain while you can!
Until next time,
Valete
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I have the house to myself tonight. My wife is going to her work Christmas party. Okay, more specifically, I have some time to myself after I have fed my boys, supervised their nightly ablutions and put them to bed. Then I can watch a movie I’ve been meaning to see: Independence Day: Resurgence!
Honestly, I meant to see it at theatres when it came out a couple of years back, as I have a lot of fond memories of the first movie. But, eh, I never quite got around to it. Babysitters not being forthcoming, my wife and I knew we’d only get one shot at seeing a movie together at the cinema that year. Resurgence was the fifth choice in 2016 after Finding Dory, Rogue One, The Jungle Book and Warcraft. I had seen the trailer for Resurgence on YouTube and didn’t really care that much, but maybe it might recapture some of the feels from the first movie. And I was kind of curious what had happened after the alien invasion. Kind of.
Yet somehow, Finding Dory won out as the date movie of choice that year, and I eventually snuck out to see Rogue One on my own. I managed to pick up a second-hand blu-ray of Warcraft really cheap last year and watched it when I was home sick from work, and it was the definition of okay. I did enjoy The Jungle Book, but don’t recall when I saw it. Anyway. I wasn’t exactly going to burst into flames if I didn’t see Resurgence, as the story was pretty much done in the first film. But on a whim this afternoon I picked up Resurgence along with the first film at supermarket for 10 bucks. This seems like a fair price and not a terrible way to spend an evening.
Should be okay. I have vague memories that this is an alternate history where the alien tech has been retrofitted to 90s tech and spun off from there. That actually could be cool. And, hey, they managed to bring back the original director.
How bad could it be?
8:56pm
Okay, the boys are asleep and I’ve finally managed to put my phone down. Time to movie!
9:05pm
Sort of weird that the world is now united. Something tells me that’s not how it would go down if there was some kind of global disaster or alien invasion. Also, there are third world countries that now have access to vastly superior alien tech. How would that affect the balance of power? What would capitalist societies do with the technology? Actually the world looks pretty much as it does today, only with more flying stuff and ray guns. Didn’t the aliens have biomechanical armour? Didn’t they control their technology telepathically? Didn’t their ships have shields? Why haven’t humans exploited that technology? No sense of wonder. So many missed opportunities.
9:06pm
The moon has earth-like gravity. Huh.
Oh, stop it Julian. You’re over-thinking it. The first was a big, dumb action blockbuster and so is this. You’re not normally this nit-picky these days. Just sit back and enjoy it! The effects are pretty at least.
9:16pm
Wait. Will Smith isn’t in this one, is he? That’s, um, oh. Okay. There’re a few characters from the original, but mostly new characters. Hang on. They’re meant to be the kids from the first movie. My bad. They are still pretty much new characters though. And no Will Smith. Apparently, his character died on a test flight. Hmm.
9:18pm
The new characters… Who ARE these people? I don’t just mean in terms of their bios—who are they as characters? I don’t really have any sense of what they are like? There’s the hotshot pilot, his wise-cracking sidekick, the first daughter (is that the term? Probably not), the son of the hotshot pilot from the first film… But they’re all kind of cardboard cut outs I’ve met a million times before. It isn’t necessarily a problem that it’s formulaic—but formulaic and lacking personality is criminal. The first film is formulaic and cliché, but the actors brought a lot of energy and charm to the parts. The characters shared a chemistry. You knew who they were in the very first scenes—the characters don’t need to do super heroic deeds to be memorable. It can be something as simple as a shared joke or a way of walking. Everyone here looks tired. Like they don’t really want to be in the movie. Everybody is world-weary, even the young players. That isn’t a good sign.
9:34pm
Oh good, the aliens are here! Time for the movie to start.
9:36 pm
My wife is home! Gosh, that wrapped up early. I happily hit pause and we chat about the Christmas party.
9:45pm
Back to movie. The aliens’ new gravity weapon is actually pretty cool. Weaponised gravity is a genuinely terrifying concept. But couldn’t they just wipe out the entire planet in one shot? Actually one of the characters makes the point that this gigantic ship could just smash through the planet. But, erm, it doesn’t for inexplicable reasons.
10:12pm
I’m sleepy. That’s kind of interesting—the other night I watched Die Hard and despite being physically exhausted the film was so engaging that I didn’t feel like sleeping at all.
Resurgence is not great. I didn’t really think it would be– I went in with low expectations. It’s not terrible either. It’s just not a whole lot of fun.
There are aliens smashing stuff and humans scrambling to survive and I just am not feeling it because there’s no one character to care about. There’s Jeff Goldblum, I guess. We are halfway through the movie and nobody has really done anything.
I could stay up, I suppose. Is this movie worth being tired tomorrow? Is it worth sacrificing a bit of sleep to see how this turns out?
10:15pm
I put the remote down and stagger to bed. I’ll finish watching it tomorrow.
Probably.
It’s okay, I think as I pull back the covers. I got the first movie on DVD at least. And it comes with the second film as a bonus feature I’ll probably never watch again.
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I am thrilled to announce that in addition to the second Ashes of Olympus, next year I will release three novellas in a series based on Norse mythology. The title of the series is TOOTH AND BLADE.
For now, here are the cover and the blurb!
They call me Peace-weaver. Warmaker. Beast.
My name is Dóta, and I am alone among my clan. The blood runs hot through my veins, though my mother’s touch gives me shivers. The gods of Asgard whisper to me in the night. I am a child of men, a monster unto monsters.
Sixteen years I have dwelled in the shadows beneath the earth. To discover my heritage, I must take up my bone knife and step into the light above. Secrets await me there—beauty, terror, the truth of who I am. Soon I must make an impossible choice, or the nine worlds will be devoured in fire and war.
A monster sheds no tears.
Norse mythology meets historical fantasy in the first novella of the TOOTH AND BLADE series. Step into a realm of haunted meres, iron and magic.
I hope you’ll join me for the journey. Part One of the series will land on Kindle in April 2019. I will eventually have a wider release for the box set of the series later in the year.
