Harry

HOW NOT TO DO IT: WHY I’M NOT MUCH OF A PUBLISHER

Friday was the release date of my newest novel, The Iron Gate. It was my return to the Twenty Palaces series, the books that landed me a publisher and a fanbase, and it’s the first new novel in that series since 2011.

And I have really borked the release.

Did you preorder a copy of the book? Did that preorder never show up?

That was my fault.

Let me back up.

After I ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 for The Great Way, I told myself I was never...

The Iron Gate, ready to download

Welp, today has been weird, but it's a genuine happy moment for me to be sending this link to you:

The Iron Gate, a Twenty Palaces novel:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bqREem4t3M6RVOJC8l52FIwIPkhUmHpa/view?usp=sharing

I hope you enjoy it.

Please post a review, if you can.

Thanks,

Harry

The Iron Gate post

Let me throw that cover art into the mix again:

Now, let me post the back cover copy that turned out to be too long for the actual back cover:

So, let me make something clear:

You, the Patreon backer reading this, will get this ebook for free when it releases on ...

Update re: The Iron Gate

Be sure to let your email load images.

That's the front cover. 

Here's the description of the book: 

---

Stormy Bay is a dying town nestled against an eerily placid ocean, and Ray Lilly is trapped in it. He can barely remember his name let alone his mission for the Twenty Palace society. Worse, he realizes that for some time now he’s been living as a puppet, his bo...

WHO CARES ABOUT BARB HOLLAND: NOTHING CHARACTERS AND FICTIONAL DEATH

In my previous post, I said I was going to start trying to write shorter blog posts, which I would be able to finish in a reasonable length of time and which would then, with luck, actually be posted. That’s preferable to writing long, complex posts about six related topics that need to be reorganized four or five times and therefore never actually get finished.

Also in that previous post, I pointed out some errors in a particular review of Stranger Things 4, arguing (once again) that...

SCROLLING THROUGH YOUR PHONE AND VACUUMING: A GUIDE TO CARELESS REVIEWING

It has been a week since the second volume of Stranger Things season four has come out, so it’s probably safe to talk about it now. But I won’t. Not yet.

I find myself starting blog posts all the time, and because I seldom write in this space, I find that I often try to make up for the number of posts with the number of words in a post, and that long-ass season would need an awful lot of words.

So, instead, I’m going to try to post more often but to cover less each time.

Behold the Hairdo of Vecna: Predictions for Stranger Things 4

Okay, so the full trailer for Stranger Things 4 has finally come out. Here it is. (Sorry, no embeds in Patreon, at least in this type of post)

As a followup, the Duffer Brothers did an explainer video, where they talk about the context for many of the clips, drop a few mild spoilers, and generally hype the show.

So, in keeping with my tradition ...

“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS AN ANTI-WAR FILM”: POWER FANTASIES, GRITTY SUPERHEROES, AND THE BATMAN

Yeah, this post is full of spoilers for The Batman. The good kind, but still.

It’s probably not the case that Francois Truffaut explicitly said that it was impossible to make an anti-war film, although the sentiment is often attributed to him. He did said that he decided not to make a movie about Algiers because “to show something is to ennoble it”. He also said, in an interview published in the Chicago Tribune, “Every film about war ends up being pro-war”.

Because it ju...

The 2022 SPFBO Finalist Sale

Today is the last day of the 99 cent sale of SPFBO (a contest for self-published fantasy novels) finalists which includes my own novel, The Way Into Chaos.

You can find out more at this page for the sale, which gives the cover and genres of each book.

Indie cover art has gotten so much b...

A HOLIDAY POST AND A THANK YOU

First of all, thank you for all the kind words about my sister. I’m grateful for every kindness at a time like this.

Second, I plan to cook up a little treat for my family so we can have a little something while we open gifts on Christmas morning. Since my original copy of the recipe is not holding up all that well, I thought I’d post a(n altered) version of it here both for posterity and to share with all of you.

The original recipe called it...

THINKING ABOUT MY SISTER AT THE END OF HER LIFE

I’m typing this on a plane as we board a flight to Philly. I’m leaving Seattle because a doctor told a family member that my big sister is likely to die today or tomorrow, and I’m hoping to see her one last time.

Let me tell you what my sister means to me.

One of my earliest memories–not my absolute earliest, but still–was of me trying to convince my parents that my sister and I were twins. I believe I understood on some level why that wasn’t really possible, but I kne...

A FINISHED DRAFT OF A NEW TWENTY PALACES NOVEL, AND MORE

If you’re a Kickstarter backer for the two new 20P novels, you’ve likely already received the announcement that the zero draft (aka: the vomit draft) of The Flood Circle is done. That means both this new book and The Iron Gate are ready for revisions, and since they sort of tie together, it’ll be good for me to tackle them together. So, Yay for that, and also I wish I wrote cleaner first drafts.

In other pleasant news, my months-long plan to say “Or we cou...

THE TEEN ROMANCE SUBPLOT IN STRANGER THINGS SEASON ONE (HAPPY STRANGER THINGS DAY)

First of all, I know this is (::checks word count::) Way Too Long. This is very much an Overthinking It-style analysis, and maybe it would be better if I cut it way back, or focused on only one of the characters, or even if I broke this up into a couple of installments, but fuck it. I’ve been itching to write something like this, because so much of the critical focus on Stranger Things is about nostalgia and movie references, but little attention is paid to how the show undermines t...