Hi folks.

Another crazy day in the multiverse. The Armageddon tango twirls on, ever escalating.

So, aside from civilization ending in Iran tonight, what do you have going on?

I finished the first draft of The Red Palace over a week ago. Been sitting on it, letting it very briefly rest, because I don’t want to delay this book any more than necessary.

It’s a book about what happens when rulers lose sight of their people, take them for granted, mistreat them, and never expect blowback.

It’s about the delusions born of wealth, power, privilege, and how they can lead to fatal miscalculation for entire nations. And for those who suffer from the delusions.

It’s about what happens when abuse meets its inevitable backlash and when delusions meet and are broken by reality. I deliberately did not do three categories there so you know I’m not AI. FFS.

It is also an experiment. 90-100 pages long (45K words), the first 70+ pages all dialogue. Between five people, though one doesn’t say too much.

I could pack more into it, have it hit more beats, more talking points, but fuck that, as then it becomes a laundry list. It is what it is.

And it is still very much a fantasy novel. Magic exists, prophecy matters. It might not be a direct commentary on today, but it certainly rhymes. In the multiverse iteration we inhabit I’d like due process, in my novel things end bloody. No surprise to anyone who has read my previous works. High drama requires catharsis, baby, the ancient Greeks didn’t end Oedipus with a family court date.

The Red Palace is coming.