This blog has been failry quiet this year. Part of it was just the usual Covid burnout. Having to sit with Ronan in virtual class, while interesting, did take up a lot of the day in the first half of the year. Finally getting to play Skyrim after finishing my Domains series also ate a lot of time. Still, I used to fill these pages once or twice a week with great regularity no matter how bad things got; so you can can be forgiven, dear reader, for wondering what I have been doing all this time.

And that leads us to the big announcement, namely this:

Earlier this year, I was approached by person of great taste and flawless character who was interested in republishing my Domains of the Chosen series with full rebranding. At first I was skeptical, there are a lot of sharks out there trying to take advantage of people with big dreams. I listened though, and to my surprise at the time, the offer turned out to be earnest and good. It even included a plan for audiobooks, which is a market that I had yet to break into.

I had corresponded with Luke Chimilenko back and forth in 2018. He actually introduce me to the idea of LitRPG with his Ascend Online series. LitRPG is a kind of genre fiction (usually fantasy) where the protagonist is playing a game or sucked into a gameworld. At the time I was amazed that such a thing even existed. I was always taught to keep gamey stuff out of writing to keep the narrative pure, you see. And yet Luke, and others like him, were combining the elements of games with writing in a way way that respected both.

When I first started writing the Domains of the Chosen, I purposefully downplayed a lot of the gamey elements of the work. Understanding that many readers like the comobination of the two would have given me more confidence in bringing the systems of magic and training in the Domains out of the background. I always wondered why my readers kept pking me to make the characters gain more power every book. Talking with Luke, and later some of the people I met through this new opportunity, helped put that in perspective.

Luke and I, along with some mysterious (but awesome) people decided to rewrite my original work as Progression Fantasy. LitRPG is a subset of this genre which is characterized by the protagonist training, gaining power, and continuously pushing beyond their limits in order to achieve their goals. LitRPG is progression fantasy, but so are some very old forms like Xianxia (which I just learned about), and the first two works of the Domains of the Chosen.

So that is what I have been doing for most of this year. Book one, which used to be called A Gladiator’s Tale, is now called Death and Glory ogf the Immortal’s ascent series. It has been great expanded, edited to the nines, and has already been recorded for audio. it will be released on January 25th in both audio and ebook. Book two is mostly done as well.

It should be familiar enough to those of you have read it before, but instead of toning the powers and training down, everything is amped up. I have to say that I have really, really enjoyed rewriting it. Puting action in that belongs in a great game, a stunning Wuxia/Action film, or a vibrant anime has really helped me make the series what it always was down deep. I fucking love it.

And so will you.