Eric Goebelbecker's Blog

Hi,

I’m visiting family in North Carolina this weekend and normally I’d leave your inbox alone. But, it’s the final week of Locus Magazine’s annual kickstarter-style fundraiser and they need your support.

I’ll let Cory Doctorow tell you how important Locus is to the SF&F community:

Right now you have the chance to help out this important magazine and score some nice goodies at the same time. I’ve already signed up for a chance to for a virtual cup of coffee with Ray Nayler, one of my favorite authors. I can’t wait!

Check it out here, and have a great weekend.

Spring dropped in, then remembered that it left the stove on and ran back home. But, I got a nice bike ride in and met this guy:

Goose's human had accidentally locked them out of their apartment without even a cellphone, so my friend and I loaned them ours so she could call a couple of locksmiths and finally get one to come help. I kept Goose company, because I am a hero.

Rumor has it spring will be back for the weekend. We'll see about that.

Yesterday, Artemis II took off for Man's first trip to the Moon in fifty years. It'll make a quick pass around Luna, then come home. If all goes well, NASA may send a manned mission to the surface in 2028.

I'm just old enough to remember our first trip to the Moon's surface, but only because of where I was when Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed. It was on Sunday, July 20, 1969 at exactly 20:17 UTC. (Neil Armstrong’s famous first step was several hours later.) My family was on a ferry on the way back from the Statue of Liberty with visitors from Germany.

The tour company announced the landing over the public address system and everyone on the boat cheered. I asked why, and my Dad explained that men had just landed on the Moon. My nearly five-year-old self didn't quite understand just how huge that was, but it's still a moment I remember very well.

Artemis II's launch is a big moment for science and science fiction enthusiasts. We're going back to the Moon! But I have to confess it's one that I find it hard to get too excited about, given what else is happening around the world.

Looking for your next out of this world escape?

Look no further! I've gotten together with a bunch of bestselling authors to offer an exciting selection of FREE sci-fi, fantasy, & paranormal books. Take a look, and load your e-reader with your next spring read!

I’m sending this email out in the middle of the week because Shadows of the Past is on sale through tomorrow. You can pick it up for .99 cents wherever fine ebooks are sold.

My favorite store is mine, right here. You can get all my books, in all available formats, directly from me. But, if you prefer another e-shop, here’s a complete listing of every online store that has it.

Last Friday I sat for an interview with Writers With Purpose. You can watch the discussion over here on YouTube.

It was a great opportunity to explain the Great War of the Worlds and where the idea for the series came from. At the same time, I realized that many of the newer subscribers to this newsletter aren't familiar with the origins of the series. So, here's a quick review.

H.G Wells' War of the Worlds ends with the Martian invaders succumbing to Earth's microbes: they dropped dead from the common cold. This story, which I first encountered in Classics Illustrated as a kid, left me with two questions.

First, did all the Martians really die? People react differently to viral and bacterial infections. Do aliens? Were some merely left debilitated and did they have the wherewithal to hide and plan a second offensive? What did the Martians back on Mars do? Were they monitoring the invasion? Did they come up with a new strategy?

Second… Now what? Look at how World War II and 9/11 changed the world. What would the impact of an alien invasion be? Especially in the 1890s, when Germany's Kaiser and Russia's Tzar Nicholas were active and the United States was still a sleeping giant?

These ideas were still rattling around in the back of my mind when I started research for a book about my grandfather. He had a hell of a life.

The German Army drafted him as a young man. He went to war and fought in the brutal Battle of the Somme, where he became an accidental hero. Later, the Fench captured him, and he eventually returned to a Germany that quickly became engulfed in the chaos of the Weimar Era. In 1929, he fled the United States after tangling with fascists in his hometown. (My aunt implied he was involved in that 1925 shooting.)

My grandfather's story felt too big for me to take on as a first book. (Honestly, it still feels like too much now, after writing three.) But as I was sitting in a research room in the New York Public Library, I had another idea. What if Wells' Martians showed up on the Somme? And what series of events might make that happen? What would the Battle of Somme look like in a post-Invasion world? And, of course, how would the United States have reacted to an alien invasion?

I dove in, and here we are three books later. I’m not done with the series, although I’m taking a break to start another.

I wrote more about the origin of the Great War of the Worlds in a series of posts in 2023. You can read them here, here, and here.

And, of course, you can watch the interview here.

I mentioned Beasts in the Garden by C. Gockel a few newsletters back. It's the first book in a series that will wrap up in July. The second book took the series to a new world and I am eagerly awaiting the third.

What does this have to do with free books?

Well, C. Gockel organized a free book giveaway this month and I'm fortunate enough to be part of it! You can get one of her short stories, along with an enormous selection of other great tales!

Check out these great reads over here!

March is already around the corner, and so is the AWP Conference & Book Fair! I’ll be there on Saturday morning, March 7th.

For those of us who live and breathe books, AWP is a conference you should experience at least once. For me, signing books there is a milestone. AWP is where emerging and established voices meet under the same roof, where small presses sit next to the big five, and where readers wander the aisles hoping to discover something unexpected. I’m grateful to be part of this event and look forward to meeting people who care about books as much as I do.

If you’re in the area, it’s not too late to pick up a pass and drop in. I’ll be there Saturday morning signing books from 10 to 11 and then hanging out and adding to my TBR pile for a few hours.

In more conference news, I’ll be selling and signing books at Shore Leave in Lancaster, Pennsylvania this July!

Shore Leave is a three-day conference with celebrity meet-and-greets, a bunch of amazing activities, and a huge vendor hall. I’m looking forward to meeting a few of my favorite authors and some new readers, too. If you’re a fan of Classic Trek, Babylon 5, Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica, this is the conference for you. You’ll also find a wealth of science fiction authors on the guest list!

Check it out here.

It's still 2026, so the All-Year Giveaway is still going! Many of you found this newsletter via the promotion, but a some of you might not have visited this buffet of free stories yet.

This giveaway has books from a wide variety of different genres, including science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, and military fiction. Take a look and grab a few!

Writing is fraught with peril. Coffee stained shirts, stubbed toes, missed naps, and whooshing deadlines are just a few of the perils that I hope you never have to face. But there’s no menace, no danger, no pitfall, greater than the dreaded research rabbit hole.

I’m fighting one of them this very minute. The first book of Project Alemanni will involve the deadly witch trials that gripped Europe (and eventually the Americas) in the late Middle Ages and early modern era. They’re a fascinating topic on their own, but good alternate history doesn’t just call in the crazy local preacher and a few innocent women from central casting. Most historians put the number of women killed in witch trials at 60,000. It’s a phenomenon that has spanned centuries and a good account takes at least a shallow dive into some details.

As soon as you scratch the surface of these murders, you discover the Malleus Maleficarum (the “Hammer of Witches”) and the conspiracy theory it supported. The history of this book is cloudy and not all the sources I’ve found agree on the details. But I’ll summarize the bits that drew me in.

In 1486, Heinrich Krämer, an inquisitor and member of the Dominican Order, published what would eventually become the “manual on witchcraft.” If you’re like me, when you see a “manual on something” you probably think it’s a guide. A book with instructions on how to fix a car, write computer programs or how to be a witch. You probably don’t expect instructions on how to identify and burn mechanics, programmers, or witches at the stake.

But that’s exactly what the Malleus Maleficarum is.

It’s a screed, based on ancient folklore and a healthy portion of just making stuff up, with detailed instructions on how to identify, torture, try, and kill worshippers of Satan. Most of them are women, of course.

Right from the onset, theologians didn’t like Krämer’s how-to guide at all. He’d already been removed from a church position in Innsbruck because of questionable practices. He’d gone after a woman for witchcraft and the “case” was a mess. Even a superficial reading of the situation makes it clear he either just didn’t like women that “talked back,” didn’t like being turned down, or both. Even the local bishop allegedly called Krämer “senile and crazy.”

His book wasn’t any better. The theologians criticized the Malleus as disagreeing with current doctrine and for recommending procedures that conflicted with church rules.

But that didn’t stop the Pope from endorsing it and its author. He gave Krämer a license to prosecute his crusade against womwitches.

At the same time the Malleus Maleficarum saw wide circulation, primarily because Krämer had finished it right as the printing press was taking hold in Europe. Printers needed books, and a lurid tome about women worshiping Satan was just what they needed. That’s right, even back then publishers were more concerned about the market than ethics.

So all kinds of religious folks got their hands on this useful guide to persecution.

But the Malleus Maleficarum didn’t just kill thousands of women because it contained instructions on how to win friends and convict witches. It also portrayed witchcraft as a pagan cult. Witches weren’t just women that wanted to sleep with demons, curse men that rejected them, or ruin the current crop out of spite. They were heretics perpetuating an ancient religion that had survived Europe’s conversion to Christianity.

You see, witchcraft was a global conspiracy with its members hiding in plain sight.

The more things change…

The 'Aliens Undercover' Story Bundle ends tomorrow!

I’ve been amazed by the response so far, with over 270 bundles sold so far and more than 95% of buyers opting for the entire bundle.

It's a curated selection of great books on a theme. This time the theme is aliens among us.

All the books are DRM-free, so you can copy them to any device you own. A portion of the proceeds go to charity too.

With StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of three books:

Welcome to the Occupied States of America by Peter Cawdron

The Gunn Files Book 1: Culture Shock by M.G. Herron

Shadows of Divinity by Luke Mitchell

If you pay the bonus price of just $25, you get those books, plus TEN more for a total of 13!

Kelvoo's Testimonial by Phil Bailey

Eclipsing the Aurora by Peter J. Foote

The World in My Hands by Nick Snape

Return of the Martians by Mark Hood

Invasion by Joshua James

Alien People by John Coon

Shadows of the Past by Eric Goebelbecker

Sleepers by Darcy Pattison

Contact Us by Al Macy

Dissonance Volume 1: Reality by Aaron Ryan

This bundle closes tomorrow. So steer on over to https://storybundle.com/aliens to pick it up now.

Today is the last day of the BookBub special for Shadows of the Past. You can see the BookBub promotion and pick up your copy over here.

That’s all. Back to normal in a couple of weeks.

I’m breaking into my regular schedule for an announcement.

Shadows of the Past will be a BookBub Featured Deal this week. It'll be available everywhere for 99 cents from the 28th through the 31st.

These featured deals are notoriously hard to get, and landing one feels like a bit of an accomplishment.

If you're a BookBub user, following me or leaving a review for one of my books would be a huge help. If you're not a BookBub user, check the site out. It's like Goodreads, but if Goodreads hadn’t suffered more than a decade of benign neglect and allowed links to booksellers other than Amazon.

Alternate history is my favorite genre, that's why I read and write it. But I still like to step out into other areas, especially with different sub-genres of science fiction and fantasy. I recently came across C. Gockel and her latest release Beasts in the Garden.

When John Miller signs up for the rescue mission to the Proxima Centauri outpost, he expects to find his former lover, Hana, the brilliant physicist behind the invention of near light engines, dead.

Instead he and his team find Hana missing and a large part of the outpost destroyed.

John's team suspects suicide. John knows Hana would never give up so easily.

It's a great read! Gockel's dialogue sparkles, and her take on time travel is intriguing.

I listen to a lot of music, wandering between genres including but not limited to, progressive, metal, ambient, classical, punk, post-punk, and grunge. But I always end up back at one artist: Peter Gabriel. I think his stuff is timeless.

I was really excited to hear of a new album with a schedule similar to that of I/O in 2023: a new track released on the date of each full moon.

So far he's released two mixes of Been Undone, a song that is fitting in many ways. I prefer the Dark-Side version.

By all the forms that you get from the Mandelbrot set
I've been undone
By the recursive slaves in the home of the brave
I've been undone
Though I want to observe, it keeps touching a nerve
And I've been undone
By the past that you trace, by a moment of grace

I have been undone

You can subscribe to Peter over at Bandcamp and get new tracks added to your collection a few times a month. He releases tasty remixes, demos, and the occasional pre-release.

Despite 2026 already feeling about 40 weeks long, we're still in January and the All-Year Giveaway is still with us. I’m sure a bunch of you found this newsletter via the promotion, but maybe a few of you haven’t visited it yet.

This giveaway has books from a wide variety of different genres, including science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, and military fiction. Take a look and try a few titles out!

Apple TV's Pluribus launched back in November and wrapped up Christmas Eve. It received immediate and universal acclaim. I checked it out while trying to get over the viral malady that's been making the rounds. And well, the word of mouth was right. This show is phenomenal.

The main premise is clear from the ads and reviews: with the exception of a few people, something joins all humankind into a communal mind. Carol Sturka, a snarky and misanthropic writer (I know, I know, that's redundant) is one of the few people left out and she's not having it. Not at all.

The problem for Carol is that the rest of the world is happy. They like the change. (The trailer makes this part of the story clear, so I don't think it's spoiler territory.) They don't want to change back. In fact, they're so pleased they want to share the experience with everyone, especially Carol. They want her to join the hive mind so she can be happy, too.

Pluribus tackles an ambitious premise, especially when you consider where Europe and the U.S. are right now. Does the "right" to be an individual outweigh the needs of the group? If your answer is "no," how far do you want to go in suppressing the individual? A passing glance at the "hive mind" brings to mind a communist world where the individual is placed a distant second to the greater good.

But another interpretation lurked in the back of my mind, and it was during a scene toward the middle of the series, where I thought I might be on to something.

Carol wrote romance before the event and it's clear in the first few minutes of the series that she not fond of her own work. She's very dismissive of her books and has another, more personal novel that she wants to finish but hasn't been able to.

In the fourth episode, Please, Carol, she's speaking to Larry, a member of the hive mind, and asks him (them, really; talking to one means more or less talking to everyone) about her books:

Larry: Oh, we love your books.

Carol: What do you love about them?

Larry: Everything. Your books are an expression of you. And we love you.

Carol: Mmm. Need you to be more specific. Character arcs. Plot turns.

Larry: Oh, yes. Yes. We love the character arcs and the plot turns.

Carol: Which ones?

Larry: All of them.

Carol: No offense, Larry, but, uh, I think you’re bullshitting me. Sounds to me like you haven’t even actually read my work.

Larry: Oh. But we have. Gosh, where do we even begin? In your first novel, uh, we greatly admire the description of Lucasia’s gown on page two. “Gossamer threads of the finest Shang silk shimmered like spun gold, as if the sun itself were showering Lucasia’s shoulders with resplendent kisses.” That made quite a few of us tingle.

Carol: Okay. Ha. How would you say my work compares to… Shakespeare?

Larry: Equally. Equally wonderful.

Carol: You love my books as much as… Macbeth? Or Much Ado?

Larry: Yes. And Henry VI, parts one, two and three.

In this world, joining everyone together means getting the sum of all human intelligence. But it also means the lowest common denominator of all human opinion. It's an eager to please slush of appeasement and weasel words. A smooth, soft, flabby core with no genuine emotions other than "please like me."

In other words, the hive mind is an LLM.

You're tired of hearing about the evils of AI. I am too, but I have come to loathe the technology and how it's being crammed into any app or device that sits still long enough to be molested.

But I'm hardly the only person to notice the comparison to Pluribus. The New York Times' TV reviewer saw it, too:

"There is a lot here that resonates with the modern lure of A.I., which promises to deliver progress and plenty for the low, low price of smooshing all human intelligence into one obsequious collective mind."

Carol is struggling to remain herself while a hive mind is working to absorb her. So are we, and the people doing the absorbing have convinced our political leaders that the economy relies on allowing them to continue stealing our personal info and vacuuming up our art and turning out slop.

Pluribus is about more than this, of course. It piles on more emotional and ethical issues as the first season progresses, and while it's just as much a dark comedy as a science fiction show, it's clear that the creators are fans of the genre.

Apple has already order another season. Here's hoping that we don't have to wait too long.

Last week I told you why I'm not a fan of Kindle, so it's up to me to give you alternatives. Here's a great one!

Storybundle is, well, a bundle of stories. I'll let them explain:

We take a handful of books-anywhere from six to nine-and group them together to offer as a bundle. Then you, the reader, can take a look at the titles we've chosen and decide how much you'd like to pay. Think of us like a friend that scours independent books for undiscovered gems, then bundles these titles together for one low price that you decide. Yeah, we mean it; you get to set the price that you want to pay!

On top of letting you set the price, you can also decide how much of the proceeds go to the authors, and how much to give to charity.

They also offer a handy send to kindle function, so even if you're not technically inclined you can get them to your device.

And it just so happens that I'm in the latest bundle.

When anyone could be an alien or an alien sympathizer, who can you trust?

That's the question at the heart of one of science fiction's most enduring tropes. From Invasion of the Body Snatchers to The X-Files to Men in Black, we've long been fascinated by the idea of extraterrestrials hiding among us.

The genius of this concept lies in how it transforms the familiar into the strange. Your coworker, your neighbor, your best friend—could be something other than human. And if you can't trust the people closest to you, can you even trust yourself?

This is a StoryBundle, so you decide what you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you get the basic bundle of three books in .epub format.

Welcome to the Occupied States of America by Peter Cawdron

The Gunn Files Book 1: Culture Shock by M.G. Herron

Shadows of Divinity by Luke Mitchell

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $25, you get all three of the regular books, plus TEN more books, bringing your haul to thirteen!

Kelvoo's Testimonial by Phil Bailey

Eclipsing the Aurora by Peter J. Foote

The World in My Hands by Nick Snape

Return of the Martians by Mark Hood

Invasion by Joshua James

Alien People by John Coon

Shadows of the Past by Eric Goebelbecker

Sleepers by Darcy Pattison

Contact Us by Al Macy

Dissonance Volume 1: Reality by Aaron Ryan

The day job shuts down from Christmas to the first Monday after the New Year, giving me time to catch up on things like reading and television. It's not that I don't do these things year round, but I save a few things that I think might be worth some extra attention for when I can focus a bit more. This year, one of those shows was Andor, the Star Wars series that serves as a prequel to Rogue One.

There was a two and a half year gap between the first and second seasons, so I watched both and wasn't sorry. One thing that makes Andor's writing the best in the franchise is the details. Every scene, if not every line of dialogue, contributes to plot, character development, or both. Tony Gilroy, the show's creator, has referred to the two seasons as individual novels, and his assertion holds.

Rogue One is the story of how the Rebellion stole the plans that made the destruction of the Death Star in the movie formerly known as Star Wars possible. It's an entertaining film with stunning visuals and impressive effects, even if you, like me, feel that the digital recreations of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher were distracting and unnecessary.

While Andor is the prequel to the prequel, it stands on its own. This is at least partially because Disney took the unusual step of allowing it to. Rogue One had to have A Star Wars Story slapped on its title. You know, just in case the pictures of X-Wings, Imperial Cruisers, and the Death Star, and silhouette of Darth Vader on the poster weren't enough of a hint. Sometimes I think Hollywood Execs all think we're as dumb as they are.

But the prequel series has none of this. It's smart, and it assumes you are, too. It's about life under the Empire and how some people resist it while others attempt to thrive within its confines. How did the Empire build that thing? And how did a bunch of teenagers figure out how to blow it up? What does it take to succeed in a fascist state? What happens when you fail?

I'm going to be honest. I'm burnt out on Jedi. I've written before about how exciting it was to be a young teen when the movie formerly known as Star Wars came out and how I desperately wanted to learn more about that world. But now we've seen nine movies about the same dysfunctional family, with a villain that's more often found standing in the background cackling than actually doing anything. Even the sequel trilogy, which initially appeared to be a welcome story about outsiders, pulled back and decided to make the protagonist not just a creation of Darth Cacklepants but an adopted Skywalker. (Which, depending on who you believe, is redundant.)

Star Wars is at its best when it looks past the same handful of characters and shows us the rest of its world. Give me more of that kid force dancing with a broom at the end of The Last Jedi. Tell me what they drink in those wretched hives of scum and villainy. Give me a show about happened to Cloud City after Lando turned back after his initial heel turn. You might see these stories in the novels or the comics, but you sure don't in the films. The studio started to with Solo and Rogue One, but fumbled the ball when they felt the need to squeeze in too many winks and Easter eggs. Even the Mandalorian couldn't resist turning into the Jedi reunion hour in its last season.

But Andor breaks the mold. It's a deep dive into the rebellion that eventually overthrows the Empire. Check it out if you haven't yet.

Book leases? Is that something new? No.

Nearly every month in 2025 featured a new call to boycott Amazon. There's a litany of reasons, and I agree with most of them, even if I think a boycott is unrealistic.

Amazon sticks it to authors, vendors, employees, and consumers. I avoid buying from them whenever possible. It's not easy. I've even purchased items directly from vendors only to have my merchandise show up in an Amazon box. I’ve have made my books available "wide" from day one and make sure that readers know they can buy them almost anywhere online.

When you "buy" a book on a Kindle, you're agreeing to a lease. You can only read it on Amazon's apps and they can change the book or even take it away whenever they please. Mark my words: it's only a matter of time before books disappear from people's collections because of a contract dispute with a publisher, similar to what Sony tried a couple of years ago with video.

That said, I understand why my sales on Amazon outnumber all other venues by more than five to one. Buying stuff, especially ebooks, on Amazon is easy. People call their e-readers "Kindles", regardless of whether they have one of Amazon's crippled tablets or a superior product like Boox, Bigme, or Tolino, that has access to Android app stores so you can read anything you wish.

So rather than tell you to stop buying books from Amazon, I've made buying books directly from me as easy as possible. I've moved my personal store over to Curios. They make buying a book and transferring it to your e-reader just as seamless as Amazon, and you can also buy books (and other digital media) from a growing list of independent creators.

When you buy direct:

Authors get a larger percentage of the sale. Amazon's royalty structure is nothing short of abusive. They also pay three months in arrears, control how we can set our prices, and bias their search listings toward the authors that participate in Kindle Unlimited, which requires an exclusive deal.

Authors know who you are. None of the online bookstores provide us with names or contact info for readers. (You might prefer it that way and that's fine, too. But Amazon sure knows who you are.) Indie authors rely on repeat readers, and the first step to achieving that is knowing who they are.

You weaken the tech company's monopoly on what we can read, hear, and see. This is getting worse as the same people who think it's okay to steal art to feed their crappy AI buy or steal everything in sight.

Stepping off the soapbox now.

The Great War of the Worlds bundle is on sale for the first two weeks of the year! From today until the 17th, you can get all three books for $7.99! Check out the special here!

Looking for some more free reads to start out the New Year?

Check out these giveaways here! This one has thrillers, sci-fi, and horror!

Murder in Soft Words is complete and available as an e-book. You can buy it, and all my books, over at my new storefront on Curios. If you prefer to purchase it at one of the "major" stores, this universal book link will take you where you want to go. If you're looking for paperbacks, they're still available at my site here.

Curios is a great site for purchasing books, audiobooks, and video. You get DRM-free art that you can use on any device. Creator get to keep 100% percent of the sale and know who their supporters are. (Amazon, Apple, Kobo, etc. don’t provide use with names or emails of purchasers.)

So, my prices are lower on Curios and you get DRM-free copies of books, instead of a "license" to read (or listen) inside someone's app.

The paperback for Murder will be available in a few weeks.

So, with Murder done, it's finally time to start on the first book in the new series I'm currently calling Project Alemanni. While I plan on returning to the Great War of the Worlds in the future, I need a break from that world.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard published authors say that ideas are easy, it's execution that's hard. Back before I wrote my first few books I thought they were wrong. I believed ideas were rare and that once you had one, a book would spring into the world fully formed, like Athena bursting from the forehead of Zeus.

But those writers were right. I had to fail to finish one novel and take a couple of years to finish a second to learn my lesson. Or to be more accurate, live it.

I'm haunted by ideas. Dogged by them. I have a collection of notebooks filled with characters, scenes, plots, and worlds. Every week ends with an assortment of unread emails to myself, each filled with one or more incomplete sentences describing another cool concept. Sometimes they're about my current work in progress. More often, they're tempting me to set the current project aside and move on to another, shinier, thing.

Fortunately, I've been able to ignore their siren calls and finish one story before moving on to the next. Switching mid-book is a great way to never finish anything. Chase two rabbits, catch none.

But let's get back to ideas versus execution. Imagine you want to tell a story with two timelines. One is the present day, in a world very much like ours. The other is Europe back in the 1500s.

Cool, huh? All kinds of opportunities for juxtaposition. Marvel at how things have changed. Sob quietly as you notice that more haven't.

This setup is easy to describe, but difficult to flesh out into a cohesive tale. Let's say you want to have your characters on the run for a few scenes in the second act.

Hey! You could do that in both timelines! Your little idea factory says. In the present, they're on the run from a government teetering on the edge of totalitarianism. (I wonder what that looks like.) While in the past, your heroes are fleeing from the soldiers of a tyrannical city-state. It's not just a recipe for dramatic tension and insightful commentary, it's efficient, too! You're a coder. You love efficient!

Is it, though?

Staying hidden today is nigh impossible. Go ahead, ditch your phone, use cash, and head for the woods. But you still need to avoid cameras on everything from doorbells to gas pumps just to get to the woods. And many of those devices are connected to cloud providers that will happily turn over footage to the police, who in turn funnel those images right into facial recognition databases. Oh, and you need to flee to the trees without triggering all those Flock cameras, too. And, even if they don't get a license plate, they might be listening to your conversations.

Meanwhile back in the Renaissance, it's the opposite problem. Walk or ride out of town. Keep going. Wear a hood. Grow a beard. Cut your hair. Stay away from, uh, portrait artists with photographic memories? Done and dusted.

So in one case, you need to create a believable way for your characters to make any kind of run for it at all. How do you create dramatic tension when, by all rights, your character shouldn't be able to make it across town? In the other, you need to create a reason for your characters to not just ride right out of your book.

To be clear, this isn't a lamentation about how tough it is to write a book. Solving these problems is fun and just writing these couple of paragraphs already helped me come up with some answers.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you're here, you like reading. So how about some holiday deals on books?

Shadows of the Past, is available as part of the Smashwords 2025 End of Year Sale! This is a chance to get my book, along with books from many other great authors, at a promotional discount.

You can find the promo here: http://smashwords.com/sale

Smashwords is the OG independent online bookstore. Like my shop, books you buy there are yours. You get DRM-free copies that you can read on any device you want.

And, if you wouldn’t mind lending a hand to me and the other indie authors taking part in this sale, you can share this promo with your friends and family. Just forward this email to anyone who would love a chance to find their next favorite book!

What's better than "on sale"? Free!

The Jingle Bells and Magic Spells giveaway is on right now, and there's a ton of great reads in there! Grab a few over here to read over the holidays, or as gifts for your favorite reader!

Happy Holidays! See you next year.