Hey, hey!

I often make a joke/observation that lands about 10 percent of the time, but I like it so much that I don't care.

Molecules are more expensive than electrons.

It means that publishing on paper costs more than ebooks.  And I've found that lots of my readers prefer to pay for that premium to have the physical book for all kinds of reasons.

To sniff when it's brand new.  (What?  That's just me?  I think not.)  To dog ear, to flip back to earlier parts and front matter.  To physically see your progress with an official or improvised book mark.

All great stuff about having a physical book to read.

And now, the Players of the Game series is available not just on Amazon, but also Barnes and Noble and Bookshop.org. 

If you have a local bookstore you want to support, totally do it.  Just swing in and have them order from Bookshop.org.  Or order online.

PLUS!

I'm experimenting with some Amazon ads with a new Repenter Collection. exclusive to ebook.  It collects the Repenter and Brigands novels.  Along with The Hidden Chapters and The Favor bonus novellas.

It's also available wide on Apple, BN, Kobo, and the rest.

I'll be altering its description, price, and possibly the cover as time goes on to see what praises the almighty algorithm the best.

Here's what it looks like now with the faux boxed set, but things shall evolve as I work on various initiatives to expand my audience.

The links on the images below currently just lead to Amazon, but like I said, it's available wide.

Avril Enzali sets in motion much in the Players of the Game saga.

And it all starts when she embarks on a quest to find her biological father, Ashe Stelfire, in his remote tower on an island in Sufrinzon's Ocean of the Lost.  With a companion who has an agenda of his own.

Svithe.  Broker of All Things Rare.

But Avril possesses much of her own resources.  She wields Nixer, a sword that leaves ethereal and everlasting harm on anyone it stabs or strikes.  Her Krian helm, symbol of her order's leadership.  One she took on from her adoptive father.

Both her most potent asset is her determination.  It drives her to become the best in swordplay and myriad forms of mancy.  But despite that, she still cannot master the one thing that will free her goddess from her prison of unbreakable ice.

Channeling Flames of Tumult.

She needs Ashe Stelfire for that.  And nothing will stop her from recruiting him to her cause.

Whether they can actually return to Trojis to accomplish that goal is another matter entirely.  A goal Svithe will stand against.  Or get others to do in his stead.

Read more about Avril's early struggles, starting in Repenter.

And check out her image below without her helmet with her forehead's Kri's Eyes tattoos.

Lots of plates spinning right now.  I launched the expanded availability of paperbacks.  And the ongoing experiment with the ebook collection.

And the Secret Fronts bonus novel chugs along.  I've reached page 392 with 111,200 words.  That's 46 pages and 13,200 words for the month.  Pretty good. 

I will almost certainly have less productivity in May with some various personal stuff on which I'll be helping.  But any words on the page are a plus.

I'm still looking to release The Breakers sometime in the summer, likely in July.  So that's also exciting.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:

“You want me sick," Jarah said. "Never well.”

Corsis shot back with an immediate reply.  “Never stopping.”

She looked at him with eyes glistening. “Never loved.”

He didn’t answer for a long stretch of moments. “Love is beneath us.”

“Beneath us,” Jarah whispered. “As it always was."

Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Final Architecture Trilogy is rad.

I enjoyed this second entry in the series as much as the first.  Hugh (The Council of Human Interests) and the Parthenon should be getting along now that the Architects have returned.  Just as they did in the war in the distant past.

But they aren't.

Factions within Hugh with the Magda families have a warped agenda.  One that sees a great deal of threat in the vat-grown Partheni sisterhood.

And Idris Telemmier and the crew of the Vulture God are caught in the middle of everything.  A middle that includes a frantic fire fight against Magda ultra thugs on a planet as a trio of Architects unmake it.  Or plunging into Unspace on a planet of radioactive super flora.

So good.  Highest possible recommendation.

Thunderbolts*

I have a soft spot for the original Thunderbolts team from the 90s with Baron Zemo as the fake hero, Citizen V, leading a team that was secretly the Masters of Evil.  Much of the team ended up becoming conflicted as they grew to like their lives of lies.

This movie has none of that, taking much more from the era when Norman Osborn led the team in the aughts.  Though Norman is not part of this team.

It focuses on a group of anti heroes who must team up after events conspire to end their lives.  And they encounter a seeming civilian named Bob, who becomes central to the conflict of the rest of the story.

Yelena (White Widow) is the main character, who's carrying a lot of emotional damage from doing wet work throughout her life.  Red Guardian is great comic relief as the washed up Red Guardian and Yelena's father figure.  Bucky and John Walker (US Agent) are also great in their roles.

I love how the movie's stakes are more emotional with some trippy super stuff thrown in, rather than a villain who wants to blow up the ocean.  (Blue Laser Commander deep cut for all you Homestar Runner fans.)

It's the best Marvel movie in a couple of years.  Good stuff.

That's all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim