Happy [insert day of the week] to you.

You might remember me talking about the 15-day story challenge. Turns out, that’s next week. WHAT HAVE I DONE?! I feel sick, but excited!

This week:

• A few details on the story I’m minting;
• The plans and schedules;
• Me vs. Aeon 14; and
• Free beer.

Rattle and roll.

The Story

Tyche’s Progeny, in particular Tyche’s Ghosts and Tyche’s Angels, features Algernon as a part of the cast. He’s a sentient machine, a survivor of the human-AI wars that resulted in the Mercury Accords.

People really liked Algernon. I got a lot of email about him because he’s funny, but also because he spends about 70% of his on-screen moments mocking October Kohl. A few people requested a team-up: they want a book with Algernon and Kohl, cruising the stars, and generally being badasses.

My 15-day story challenge will be this tale. Algernon and Kohl embark on an epic journey to recover a relic promising eternal youth. Rumor has it, the machines made it before the fall.

A side note: if you’re a member of their lists (sign-up here: John, Kim, Tee, and Nova), you’ll get their stories free. All talesfeature an “eternal youth” element. You get to see how we tackle hunting for this prize. For Algernon and Kohl, it’s among the stars. More next week.

Plans

Plans never survive contact with the enemy, and I suspect this to be no different! I’ve gone and planned anyway. Next week, the five of us pick up our keyboards and hero-rush the endzone.

If you want to come along for the ride, we’re planning:

• Facebook Live videos. We’ll be testing the technology Sunday 2nd December, 4:30pm PST. We’ll be hanging on Skype, then trying to duct that into FB. This will be either very simple or impossible: if you want to find out how it goes, head to my page at the designated time.
• During the process, a couple of us will be in Discord. I’ll probably post pictures of my beard’s progress as I forgoe hygeine in favor of finishing the story.
• You’ll also get a wrap-up from me, and archives of our weekly wraps in podcast form (he says, daring technology to fail).

What could go wrong?

Aeon 14

Y’all probably know about MD Cooper and his fantastic Aeon 14 universe. What you might not know is he thought it’d be fun to open the gates to fans, letting us mint stories.

I wrote him one, then promptly forgot all about it because obviously Cooper doesn’t need my hack prose. Imagie my surprise when I saw this cover:

My name is on an Aeon 14 book. I feel all grown up.

His editor had a good time with my story. If you pick it up, I’d love to hear what you think. Do you want to see more of Sean Spiller and the crew of The Promise?

Free beer.

I lied. There’s no beer.

I hear a lot from people who want free books though. Working for free hasn’t panned out so well for me, but I’d still like people who are cash-strapped to get a good story without having to murder someone for their wallet.

If you do feel the urge to murder someone, please don’t. I know this time of year is stressful, but Vicodin is a better solve.

Anyway. There’s a service called BookSprout you might have heard of. The deal is simple: you get a free book in exchange for a review. If you’re feeling the Christmas Hammer at the moment, I’ve got a huge chunk of my catalogue up there, waiting for reviews.

Like this as a concept? Head on over to BookSprout, grab the app, and get in there. You’ll need to search for me once you’ve got it on your device, but I’m confident you’re up to the task.

That’s it from me. I hope your week’s been excellent, and your December plans are full of friends, and maybe, people willing to give you free beer.

R