False Readings - Pre Release Spiel

The tides of inspiration are a mystery to me. When I look back through the records of this blog things seem to move in waves. At times I'm generating new ideas with astonishing fluency and sometimes winters raisure doth erase all.

There is no stability.

It seems currently the False Machine has entered Winter Mode, null-fields have been activated, windows polarised, etched-titanium storm shields are in place, tektite periscope down and gauss machines retracted and stowed in their upright position.

Outside the frozen leaves of nitrogen snow scatter against our eye-embossed iron hull and Moon Apes scratch in futility against the moon-bronze doors.

Presumably the situation will change, it always has before.

The general quality of OSR-DHD* blogs at the moment seems pretty high so you are in safe hands while I am dormant at least.


ANYWAY

That was my apology for not blogging but here is my message about a thing that has been made.

I got tired of waiting for numerous other already-written but slow-moving projects to be completed and spoke to Paolo about putting together a book.

(Ages ago Paolo had offered to publish my old 'A False Machine' book of collected blog posts but I ended up gazumping him on that to make money for birthday presents. Since then I have taken down 'A False Machine' as I wasn't very happy with it. Perhaps it will reappear in some form in the future.)

This book is not one of collected blog posts, although some things in here have appeared on the blog before, instead it is a book of fiction and fiction only.

More importantly for the prospective consumer, it is a book in which only HALF of the contents is finished and coherent, the other half is not.

A better title might be "Stories AND FRAGMENTS by Patrick Stuart."

"WHY" I hear you ask, "why would you dump on us Patrick, a book much of which is not complete?"

And the answer is; "Well in case you were into that."

A fuller answer might be; "As long as I tell you what's in it and you know before you buy, I can't see any negative to the consumer. As well as that, most of these things have something interesting about them."

Here is a list of stuff in the book:


The Possessing Verse - Complete story. Experimental second-person tale of a woman with a poetic brainworm in her head, told as a continual conversation between them with one half of that in verse. I'm still pretty sure that no-one has ever done this before.

The Isogyre - Sword and Sorcery story designed to be an exact number of words and therefore rather compact.

Knights of the Snail - Sir Bird Spiralling, Sir Duno Chrime. The Knights of the Sail is intended to be my answer to Mallory (Thomas, not Ortberg), 20 Snail Knight stories linked into a gigantic Saga, illustrated by Matthew Adams. It's true that I have only done 2 so far, as soon as BFR is done (probably in the new year) I will try to do the next three. After that, only 15 till completion! These stories do work on their own however and I consider them artistically complete even when separated from the whole.

A Map to Hell! - Someone asked for the story of how Ghar Zaghoun got the strand to his bow, well here is one fourth of it! Planned to be the first part in a four story sequence, this one nearly broke me. If people really want the rest and show an interest then I will probably try writing the second part but I will definitely be charging you for these as they are a nightmare to write.

I'ts 'Fiddlin' Joe Cooper vs Ghar Zaghoun in the towers of Jukai city with the story being a swapping first-person pov between the both of them.

Thieves in the Empire of Glass -  This was going to be the first part of a SAGA. Well it was too long. Prose takes me ages to write and even this much was a harassment. Still there is some decent writing and imagining and some good prose in here. As well as that you get to find out a bit more about the world and characters of The Possessing Verse and The Isogyre.

Biter - Underworld saga from the point of view of the Monster. Again, some decent writing. Again, unfinished.

I Kill A Man On Every Page - Strange semi-poetic super heroic action series, only a small fragment present but some ok writing.

A Traitor in Time - This is something you might be interested in. It was an experimental play in verse about time travel based on an old game idea by (I think it was) Brian Hollenbeck. This was one of the first game books I ever picked up in my adult life and I became obsessed with writing a play in iambic pentameter based on its premise. It peters out in the first act and you can kind of see the structure go wrong as I write but bits of this are pretty good and original.

On The Borders of Night - An attempt to do a literary multiple choice adventure book in iambic pentameter (or more general verse forms), some decent writing here.


The Death of the King of Ants - This is one of the earliest things I wrote where I didn't hate the writing. Its a classic old-school fantasy series based in... The Warhammer World!!!

A world which, appropriately enough, no-longer exists. Like everything else at the arse end of the book its unfinished and tails off but some of the writing, the description of the monsters in the surf and the attack of the Fire Fish, is pretty Ok I think.

.......

So there you go. If that seems like something that would be interesting for you to own then buy the book.

If you care about finish, appearance and minor details like spelling and punctuation, (if you care about grammar than its already way too late, no editor has been able to impose sane grammar on me) then good news, since it was put together by Paolo, unlike 'A False Machine' it doesn't look like a four fingered child made it in a refugee camp under threat of drone strike.

In fact is looks Quite Nice. Like a real grown-up book you don't have to feel ashamed being seen reading.

The front and rear covers, as by our ancient tradition, are by the wonderful and illimitable Scrap Princess.




*Old School Rennaisance - Doucebag Hipster Division