Neural Wraith 2 - Cover

I imagine this wasn't the cover you were expecting to see, given I posted a preview of this book's cover months ago.

Well, with the shift in this book's plot I swapped the intended covers of books 2 and 3 to fit their themes. Helena's cover was intended to represent her role helping Nick with the Altnet and acting as his interface between the electronic and physical worlds. But that doesn't really happen in the new plot, so I went with the Ezekiel cover.

And, yes, this is Ezekiel, the last of the (known) prototypes. She's technically undercover here but gives off the vibe I want. The gun, the pose, the casual bloodshed, and even the passive-agressive "HI" on her shirt. If you want an image of what Chloe or the other Mark 3s look like, Ezekiel is basically it (although she has longer hair than them).

As always, this is a full jacket cover, so there's more art on the back for physical copies and I'll post the full version when the book is released. I'll also probably start posting textless versions, as there's not really any point avoiding it (with AI art generators, it's probably trivial to erase the text anyway for nefarious purposes, so I'm just punishing people for no reason).

In other news, I'm back from Japan and will finally focus on the novel. I learned a lot of about what does and doesn't work for writing (mostly what doesn't). Namely, I can't really write on trains and planes and I need a desk. I have been through a lot of planning and ideas, plus got some other stuff done, however. Neural Wraith 2 is probably due closer to Christmas, but I'm wary of giving a date as always. Chapters should start coming shortly.

There will also be a compilation/box set of the first four Spellblades coming out in December (should be up for pre-order within hours and thanks to everyone who gave cover input). I planned to release this next year, but I've reflected and decided to just put it out now. There's no extra content in it (other than the various edits and corrections since release), but if you want to give the series a reread, doing it through KU on this version is a great way to do so. Given how awful I am at short stories as is, my idea to add some interludes to the box set seemed like a way to just  delay actual books for something I won't do.