Eric Goebelbecker's Blog

I recently joined Tim at Pop Culture Addicts to discuss The Great War of the Worlds. We discussed how my background in radar technology and systems programming influenced how I built the GWOTW post-invasion world. We also touched on what I read and why I read it.

PCA has one of my favorite podcasts for a while now, and being a guest was a true highlight for me. If you love deep-dive discussions on sci-fi tropes, technical worldbuilding, and what comes after the apocalypse, give it a watch/listen.

You can watch my appearance on YouTube (and subscribe) here:

Or, you can add PCA to your favorite podcast app with this link or, if you prefer Spotify, this one.

Last week I visited Grovers Mill, the setting for Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds radio show in 1938.

The village has a memorial to the show, as well as some fascinating history of its own.

You can read more about it over on my Patreon. The story is available at the free level.

“Listen With Lee” is a radio show over in the U.K. Lee Benson conducts interviews, accompanied with music chosen by his subject. I was lucky enough to be on the show earlier this week. Give it a listen here.

That’s it. Short and sweet this week. See you soon.

In 1911, the Telefunken radio company broke ground on a transatlantic radio station in Sayville, Long Island. It was suspected of relaying messages to the German government during WWI, and seized by the U.S. military in 1915.

It also played a critical, but quite different role, in my re-imagining of WWI in Shadows of the Past. I added a second tower, made the radios more capable based on the Martian technology from the first invasion, and made the espionage a bit more violent.

The station was decommissioned long ago, so I’ve never been to Sayville, even though it’s only about fifty miles from home.

Until this weekend!

I’m going to be at the Sayville Fan Fest this Saturday. You can learn more about the event by clicking on the banner above. It’s going to be quite an event, with live music, food trucks, local authors and artists, and plenty of nerd-friendly entertainment.

If you live in the area, stop in!

Integrating the Sayville Wireless Tower into Shadows, and returning to it in Murder in Soft Words was a part of my effort to build a fully realized alternate history in the Great War of the Worlds books.

The fact that you subscribed to this list means that you like that kind of worldbuilding.

So here’s a chance to check out some more!

There’s a ton of exciting books in this offering, including King Arthur Returns: The Guns of the Luftwaffe, which looks like an interesting take on alternate history.

Hi,

If you're looking to pick up some new books while directly supporting writers, take a look at the Direct Sales Book Fair hosted by C.L. Cannon.

Instead of sending you to Amazon, this event links straight to indie authors' personal web shops.

A few things you’ll find there:

Signed paperbacks and limited hardcovers

Discounted ebook box sets and series bundles

Book swag, including art prints, bookmarks, and stickers

If you want to browse the titles and grab something new for your shelf, you can check out the catalog here:

👉 Browse the Direct Sales Book Fair

Thanks for supporting independent authors!

Best,

Eric G

Quick note: lots of selling lately, with the release of MiSW audio and now this. I’ve been under the weather for a couple of weeks and am just now recovering. I promise I’ll get back to more fun stuff next week.

It’s been too long since my last email, but I come bearing gifts…

Murder in Soft Words is now available in audio, and you get early access!

Stuart Gauffi, who also narrated the first two books in the series, completed the recording two weeks ago, Spoken Realms finished their quality checks, and the book is ready to go!

So, it’s available in my store right now, even though you won’t be able to pick it up at Audible, Libro.fm, Audiobooks.com etc. until mid-October. And keep in mind that when you buy the audio book in my store you get the files without any copy protection in being locked someone’s listening app. (But if don’t want to handle the files yourself, you can use Bookfunnel’s app for free.)

I’ve also set up a bundle with all three books for you completists. (Because I’m one of you.)

That’s all for now. Talk to you again soon.

The audiobook for Murder in Soft Words is well underway. I’ve already listened to the first ten chapters, and it sounds great!

It’s up for pre-order over in my store. Order it now for $9.99. You’ll get a set of DRM-free mp3s on September 15th. I can also arrange to send you FLACs if you wish.

I’ve also set up a pre-order for a bundle: all three audiobooks for one reduced price. It’s set up as pre-order because Murder ins’t ready yet, of course, but if you want the first two books right away, buy the bundle, send me an email, and I’ll get them to you!

And if you want to get an idea of how the audiobooks sounds, since up for my Patreon! I’ve been sharing a chapter from Shadows of the Past each week for free over there.

Here’s the blurb for Murder in Soft Words:

The Martians are back, and if they succeed they’ll seize the United States without ever firing a shot.

After helping her fiancé thwart a plot in early 1915, Susan Wilson believed her life as a clerk at Edison’s radio laboratory had finally returned to normal. But she couldn’t have been more mistaken. When an attack strikes Edison itself, Susan is thrust into the heart of the crisis.

Working against curfews, betrayals, and the looming specter of alien tripods marching on the East Coast, Susan must decide whether to live a lie or become the lone voice that exposes the truth before the world is silenced forever.

Teamed with a war‑weary marine captain, a grizzled Old‑West veteran, and the relentless reporter Carl Urich, Susan darts between luxury Park‑Avenue suites, hidden warehouses, and the smoke‑filled newsroom of The Spectator. Her journey is a tale of resilience, identity, and the cost of survival as she learns that courage isn’t just about confronting external threats; it’s about facing the inner wars that define who we become when the world falls apart.

When the Martian menace first fell on Earth, H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds left humanity scarred—and hungry for answers. Murder in Soft Words picks up the story decades later, delivering the third, pulse-pounding chapter of the Great War of the Worlds saga.

See you next week!

Last week I shared Apple’s Free Series Starters sale (which is still going) and mentioned how indie authors have to mind their P’s & Q’s with the online stores. It’s easy to get suspended or banned when the house always wins. It’s hard to make money when the house skims quite a bit off the top.

So, I’m always looking for opportunities to sell directly to readers. Selling books from my store means I control my own destiny and, most important, know who’s buying my books! None of the online stores supply authors with information about their readers.

I can understand why some readers might actually like that. But Amazon, Apple, Kobo, etc. could offer buyers a checkbox allowing them if they’d like to join an author’s email list would be nice. But that’s a fantasy; they want to control everything.

So I jumped at the chance to join Buy Direct from Authors when I discovered it a few weeks back. They offer a bunch of benefits for indies, including their site:

You can use this place to search for authors by name or genre and head to the stores for ebooks, physical books, and audiobooks.

Check it out!

It’s time for another collection of free fantasy and science books. I lost count at around thirty books over there, but I can highlight one of them:

C. Gockel’s I Bring the Fire series features a delightful version of everyone’s favorite trickster, Loki. I enjoyed that seriously a lot, and here’s the first book for free. Check it out, and the rest of this huge collection of SF&F!

Check this out:

This is the cover for What Fire Cannot Take, the first book in the newly renamed series A Thousand Lives Too Many.

Just in case, it's not AI. I don’t use AI to write, and I won’t use it for art. (See item #8 from the artist.) I came up with the idea of Johann standing in both the past and the future and did my best to sketch it out. The artist at miblart made it real.

The paperback covers wraps around in a pretty nifty way, if I say so myself. You can see it over on Patreon. (Yes, that is a transparent attempt to get you to sign up. You can see the cover, and read chapters, over there for free.)

Apple is running a “free series starters” sale until the 11th. But here’s a little secret…

Lowering your prices at only one store makes the others very unhappy and can get your account suspended. So Shadows is free everywhere right now. Including over at my store where everything is always a little less expensive anyway.

Last week, Helping the Brave release the podcast interview I sat for a few months back.

Ed does a lot of great work helping veterans, and it was privilege to appear on his podcast.

But wait, there’s more!

My interview on the FAFO podcast hit the ‘Net Friday, too! It’s right here. Audio only.

Have a great week!

I’m always down for a They Live reference. Especially when it’s from someone who truly understood the point of the film.

Check this masterpiece out:

If there’s a group that embodies the aliens in John Carpenter’s second best film, it’s the Kardashian clan. They’re also the perfect spokespeople for productized corporate surveillance, since their brand is exhibitionism and conspicuous consumption. Spying is what you want when people are paying to watch your tedious life and you can afford to lawyer up if things get too intense.

And if there’s a #2 company when it comes to missing the point of science fiction, it’s Meta. Their eyewear-for-complete-weirdos project is yet another step in Silicon Valley’s quest to create the Torment Nexus.

But Eric, you’re asking, if Zuck & Co are #2 (yes, they certainly are) who’s on first? Who’s the best at misunderstanding sci-fi?

The primary target of the folks that created that wonderful billboard: Elon “Galaxy Brain” Musk.

The group called Everyone Hates Elon (EHE) is a reliable source of amusement for me. They’re the folks that hung a picture of the Andrew formerly known as Prince in the Louvre.

They also staged stirring welcomes for J.D. Vance and Donald Trump when they visited the U.K.

But, returning to that billboard, this isn’t the first time the cosmetics mogul and nepo-baby has been compared to They Live. Back in 2017, LitReactor published a column about the film. The essay’s opening refers to another ad campaign she did, that time for Pepsi. It seems like Kylie’s got a bit of a tin ear.

The column compares the film to the short story it’s based on. It also covers the comic, which Marvel’s Epic line did a few years before the movie.

The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy published the original short story by Ray Nelson, Eight O’Clock in the Morning in November 1963. It’s not easy to find. (But I might be able to help you out if you asked...)

If you’re interested in old-school science fiction or are a fan of the movie, it’s worth a look. But the writing style and the way the character conducts himself, are very much a product if its time. The LitReactor review is pretty much spot on.

You can read more about the billboard and EHE here.

If you are looking to expand your digital library, check out this month’s Free Books Friday promotion. This curated collection offers a wide range of indie sci-fi and fantasy stories and they’re free. You can dive into intriguing titles like Flashing Blades by J.T. Evans, or pick up an expansive fantasy collections like the Moon Over Marisol Omnibus Vol 1 by Dennis Santaniello. Whether you prefer space operas, military science fiction, or epic magical quests, this giveaway provides a quick, painless way to download your next favorite read directly to your preferred e-reader device.

Well, I'm back from Shore Leave (words an Army guy never thought he'd say) and I had a great time. I'm not normally a convention person (crowds are scary) but this one really made me feel at home! (Even though I came home with a nasty head cold.)

I'm also not great at taking photos, but here's a couple of decent ones. I think.

New Patreon Benefit
It's been a few months since I started sharing What Fire Cannot Take on Patreon. I've appreciated an opportunity to share a story with people that explicitly came here to see it. But part of promoting the Patreon has been keeping the chapters public for a few weeks.

So, I've decided to add something extra for people that actually join the group. Starting this week I'm going to share a chapter from the Shadows of the Past audio book every Wednesday. It will be available to both free and paid members, but you’ll need to be subscribed to see them.

This title was professionally produced and narrated by Stuart Gauffi. It sounds pretty good, if I say so myself.

So, if you haven’t joined yet, jump on over and click the button.