James Osiris Baldwin

Spear of Destiny: Revised Ch. 1 (Draft 4)

The self-styled Emperor of Archemi was a lot bigger than I remembered. Close to seven feet tall, dressed in silvered armor that reflected the desert sun with a radiant aura that made him seem even larger. His face was shielded by a greathelm that resembled an eagle’s beak, complete with piercing jeweled eyes. He looked like a paladin out of legend, someone to inspire awe and terror. 

Like most other things about Baldr Hyland, the appearance of heroism was a lie...

Brute Force: When the Boy meets the Girl.

The girl stared at me for several moments, warring with herself. Finally, she bought her hands up and began to sign again. "My name... you can call me Whisper. What's your name?"

That was a very good question. I still didn't remember, so I signed the first word that came to mind. "Noodles."

Whisper blinked a couple of times. “… What?”

“M. T. Noodles,” I said, finger-spelling the first two letters. “The Fourth.”

She flashed me a look of naked disbelief. 2020-08-08 12:23:16 +0000 UTC View Post

Spear of Destiny Sneak Peek: Ch 1, Part 1, Rough Draft

Spear of Destiny picks up exactly where Warsinger left off. Please forgive any clunky dialogue, my lack of formatting or any errors. I'm very interested in your first impressions: whether or not it looks to be a satisfying start to the next book.

I didn't have to turn my head to see my nemesis in all of his towering dickheaded glory. In fact, both of us could have stood back to back facing away from each other and still glared at each other with shameless loathing. The self-sty...

Archemi Hardbacks Are Coming

Almost there...

I've been working on these puppies for the last week. Check out that long list of layers! There's a reason these things take time :)

Brute Force Opening: Draft 3

I've been working on Spear of Destiny and Brute Force, a new LitRPG series, at the same time. Yes, I am insane. But I'm enjoying this story so far.

There's been drafts of this published here before, but the story has evolved considerably from my first ideas of it. I'd be interested to know what you all think.

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I woke up with a mouthful of sand.

"KhhhCK! HhhhACCK!” I flailed out with all four limbs, spat and coughed. My body felt massi...

Patreon and sales tax, update on paperbacks/hardcovers

 Hi everyone,

I wanted to give you an update on some changes that we’ll be seeing which may affect some of your pledges. Due to new laws passing in several countries and US states, Patreon will be required to start charging sales tax on some pledges starting July 1st. 

Less than half of all patrons will be charged sales tax, and for most, the amount will be very small. For example, sales tax rates in the US range from 4% to 11%, so on a $5 pledge, that...

Brute Force: Chapter 1 (Revised)

Tell me what you think!

Chapter One

I woke up in Hell with a mouthful of sand.

"Pff! Pfffpt!" I flailed upright. Spat and coughed. My body felt three times too large, like a sausage stuffed into an over-tight skin. The sun beat down on my back. Sweat stung my eyes. 

I was on a beach.

To my left, the ocean hissed and burbled. Humid coastal wind slithered over a rough outcrop of mossy rock bluffs to my right, vanishing into the de...

Character Notes: Angkor

I have a lot of characters running around in my head between all my various projects. Angkor is the first Korean character I made, with Hector being a distant second. Ang is someone I might write science fiction novels about some day.

If you have read Strange Fruit or Zero Sum, or the short story Those Who Breathe Under the End, you'll have met Angkor in the context of one or more stories before.

Race: Human

Age: Appears to...

Brute Force: System Notes #2

More work on the system underpinning my next big LitRPG project, Brute Force. You're all the first to see this: not even my wife has read this yet!

==Basic Concepts==

- Post-Mortem Virtual Realities are commonplace as of the 2070s. They are officially called PMVRs, but are often referred to as EdenFRAMEs (named for the company who developed and still runs most bespoke PMVRs). Eden is the 2070s Microsoft for dead people, holding a virtual monopoly on afterlife sims and bra...

Brute Force: System Notes #1

These are some of the system developmental notes I've been writing for my next LitRPG project (to be written simultaneously with Archemi) - Brute Force, a LitRPG trilogy set in a survival/arena type game.

One of the things I learned from writing Archemi is that your system has to be water-tight before you start writing.

==Combat==

There are three combat modes: single PvPvE, in which the player fights monsters or other players usi...

Patreon Meoweons

Do you want to have your voice to be in the Kingdom Come audiobook?

Well, here's something fun: we need people who can scream like angry cats.

And by that, I mean Soundbooth need YOU to record your best angry Meewfolk warcries.

Yes, really.

If you'd like to add your voice to one of the Archemi audiobooks and can make noises like an angry 7ft tall cat, your time has come! Record your best kung fu Meew screeching and send it to me by email: author@jamesosiris.com. You wi...

Warsinger: Complete!

Hello, my lovelies - after much blood, sweat and tears, Warsinger is ready!

Here is the download link: https://BookHip.com/LASWDM

The service I'm using (Bookfunnel) will guide you on how to install the book on your device. 

I noticed today that some of you have been my supporters for between 24 and 12 months. That's freaking incredible, and every day I log into this site, I am grateful for your support. ...

Warsinger Updates! TL;DR: Patrons get the whole thing tomorrow

Sorry for the pause in updates - I had last-minute some editing to do in the second half of the book before it's uploaded for release :D

In good news, I will be making the entire 150,000 words available to all relevant tiers tomorrow. I'll also continue to serialize it here - but the edited ebook version is much cleaner and has some important balance and plot things added/refined in the first half. Such is the peril of posting chapters from an alpha reader draft.

Also - hardcover...

Warsinger: Ch 36

The stairs to the Undercity were the worst part of the trip. Suri was right - there were a couple of Fireblooded toughs waiting at the bottom for us. They asked for three silver Dinars, and Suri was able to use her street cred here to get it down to two. Then we were on our way, slogging along a muddy dirt path through a cramped, dark town that reminded me of a giant subway tunnel, complete with rats, piles of trash, and the ammonia reek of old piss. Houses were built out of anything and ever...

Warsinger: Ch 35

4 Days later: Dalim, Dakhdir

As we came in over Dalim, the City of Bridges, I finally understood what Suri had meant when she'd told me the nobility of Dalim never walked on the ground. The city was a geometric artwork from the air, an intricate flower of white marble and brilliantly colored tile blooming out of the desert, surrounded in three directions by a patchwork quilt of awnings and adobe rowhouses and slums. It reminded me of Vegas, in the way that it was plunked down i...

Warsinger: Ch 34

Karalti and I went to bed in my bathtub, nestling down into the soft sand. Neither of talked about what had happened earlier in the night. The stress of dealing with the assassin had wiped us both out, and even as we curled around one another, there was an awkward, unspoken tension. I was having to admit to myself that there was a reason I’d kept my virginity into my twenties, and it wasn’t just for lack of opportunity. No matter how hard I’d rebelled against my dad’s toxic ideas abou...

Chapter 33

The six of us gathered around Vash’s bed in a state of silent shock. It had been less than twenty-four hours since Rutha's testimony... the one in which she'd given incorrect information as to Baldr's next move. It was timed so perfectly that there was no way he hadn't intended for it to play out this way.

"Did Rutha lie to us?" Suri asked me, as astounded as everyone else.

“No. No way." I sat there, silently cursing myself for missing such an obvious sequence of events. "Thin...

Warsinger - Chapter 32

Fuck text numerals.
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Twenty minutes later, I was recovering in the hospital on the bed beside Vash’s. Masha was gingerly palpitating the enlarged black void on my shoulder. The triangular patch of dead pixels had been an unchanging bit of weirdness since my first week in Archemi, the place where a piece of wood had glitched through my shoulder. Now it looked more like a starburst, and was about the size of an apple. The surface of it was solid, but ...

Chapter Thirty-One

The plot thickens. Other things also thicken.

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Karalti was silent through the short flight, teleportation, and landing. I could sense she was eager to get Suri and Rin off her back – and me, for that matter. The dragon stamped and pawed as I got down, and once Rin and her turrets were on the ground, I felt Karalti’s mind press into mine. “When you’re done, take my saddle off, please.”

“Unequip it?�...