Choice of the Deathless Archives

Posts Tagged ‘Choice of the Deathless’

Steam Releases and Other Recent Affairs

Greetings Internet! It’s been a crazy summer, and an especially crazy August, on this side of the keyboard. My thoughts are so fragmented today, following a weekend of sun, biking, and theater, that I’m having a hard time composing them into a single monolithic SuperPost of Ineluctable Justice. Let’s go line-by-line.

Choice of the Deathless, my necromantic legal thriller, went live on Steam this Labor Day weekend, which is VERY EXCITING! If you already own it, still click through the link so you can see the closest thing anyone’s ever made to a trailer for my books. If you’re not a game-playing person, this may not mean much to you, but Steam is the main electronic distribution platform for computer games these days. This means my demon lawyer interactive fiction is now available for purchase on the same service as big triple-A video games like the Mass Effect series. We’re doing very well over there at the moment, which is great! My favorite quote from a brief scan of the (overwhelmingly positive) reviews (not that I read my own reviews what are you implying): “I helped a Goddess, encouraged a Demon to become an artist, died….ended up as a skeleton and still got the girl!”
NB, there’s a pretty broad range of romantic options in CotD, and you don’t need to romance anyone. Just to be clear.
The Great Gatsby joins the long, long list of books I missed in high school that I think I appreciated much more upon ultimate reading as a result. I skipped most of the American Lit curriculum in my youth by, basically, reading lots and lots of Shakespeare, which I think may have worked out for the best. Going back to works like Huckleberry Finn and Gatsby, I’m impressed by their subtle viciousness. I can think of a handful of sentences in Gatsby which don’t sit like a knife-blade in the palm. Almost every statement drips with irony. Having not read the book in high school I can’t say how I would have found it then, but I expect I would have arrived at the standard “American Dream” interpretation, which is not at all what I got out of this pass. I read from a copy that had survived a charmingly gormless highschooler’s annotations—there’s a big WHY??? next to Tom breaking Myrtle’s nose. More thoughts later. For now: Nick definitely has sex with the photographer, the green light’s a cooler image in full context than when taken as a general stand-in for American Dreaminess, Jordan Baker is still the coolest (even if she cheats at golf, though we only hear allegations about that), & I’ll now start referring to all my Bay Area people as midwesterners.
Yes, I just read The Great Gatsby for the first time.
Honestly, you don’t have a classic of world literature which you haven’t read?
I’ll admit it’s kind of embarrassing I let it go this late, since it’s only a hundred eighty pages. But what a hundred eighty pages.
Also read this year for the first time: Mrs. Dalloway!
On the literary analysis front, the latest Feminist Frequency video essay about feminism in video games is out, and makes for good watchin’ if you’re interested in the application of critical techniques to video games. I’m glad the Games: ART??? debate’s dead enough that we can start treating games as art: transcending candy-like consumption to regard games as a focus for critical analysis, through which we can understand ourselves and our culture. Ms. Sarkeesian’s punching hard, especially in this most recent essay, which focuses on video game representations of violence against women. Hard is how you’re supposed to punch. That’s why we call it punching, not acupressure.
One more piece of Guardians of the Galaxy thought: the Howard the Duck tag is a not-so-subtle nod that Disney’s doing the new Star Wars movies, isn’t it? Howard the Duck, for those of you who don’t know, is a Marvel character. His precise nature is not important for this argument. He was, however, made into a famously horrifying movie which was, and here’s the kicker, produced by George Lucas. In fact, Howard the Duck is Lucas’s first-live action producer credit after Return of the Jedi and Temple of Doom. So, we have a big overwhelmingly cool space opera which, as Michael Underwood’s been saying on Twitter, is the best Star Wars film in thirty years. And at the end, where Marvel / Disney typically leave their “next big film” tag, they’ve referenced a property famously associated with Lucas—and which Lucas has handled, um, let’s say less than perfectly. They couldn’t put lightsabers in the tag without including them in the universe and inviting a call from Patton Oswalt’s lawyers, but Howard the Duck? Easy. I read Howard the Duck’s appearance as a sly note to the audience: “Hey, you guys like this film? Think about what we can do with Star Wars.“
I may be overthinking that last bullet point. But that’s practically my job, so, you know.
In divine necromancy news, it looks like Detroit’s bankruptcy is entering its final stages.
Whaling is deeply weird. More on this at a later date. In the meantime, I leave you with the notion that at one point not too long ago on a historical timescale, the global economy, and all forms of machinery, depended on human beings going out into the deep ocean in tiny boats for four years at a time to hunt things that looked like this, only TWICE AS BIG:

And that’s all for the moment! More, deeper thoughts next week. Maybe about Gatsby. Or whales. Or whatever strikes my fancy in the meantime.

One Year behind the Keyboard

It’s been a TARDIS of a year: fast-moving, far-traveling, yet much bigger on the inside than I would have expected back in Jan of ’13.

Three Parts Dead came out a little over a year ago; I didn’t know what to expect, and like a genius started writing my next book the day before Three Parts Dead hit shelves. Because Essays! Travel! Reviews! and Airplanes! are all perfectly conducive to the germination of a novel. I put fingers to keyboard, sure, but I threw out the first 20,000 words I wrote, and the next 20,000 too. But the third 20,000—those stayed up.

Mostly. I still deleted half of those and added another 10,000 or so, but the point is, they worked for a start. The ensuing book was one of the hardest drafts of my life, but eight revisions later, I think it’s the best book I’ve written yet. Different, but then, so’s everything.

Meanwhile Three Parts Dead was very well received, for which thank you all. The book was nominated (or got me nominated) for a few awards, including the John W. “NOT A HUGO” Campbell Award; I thought I’d been to cons before but there’s no con quite like WorldCon. I can’t wait to go back this year.

(Three Parts Dead, by the way, is now $2.99 on various e-Book stores—if you’ve wanted a copy for the e-reader of your choice, no time like the present!)

So, yeah. Tours. Awards. Two Serpents Rise hit shelves back in late October, and people seem to like it as much as Three Parts Dead. Excellent.

In terms of creative productivity, last year I wrote a bunch of stuff:

The next Craft Sequence novel, Full Fathom Five, coming July 2014.
The Craft Sequence novel after that, which I’m tentatively calling Last First Snow—this one isn’t under contract from Tor yet, which is completely fair since they have two unpublished books of mine under contract. But I’m really excited about Last First Snow, and can’t wait to share more of the plot with you. It’s a return to Dresediel Lex, yes, but to the DL of the past.
Choice of the Deathless, a novel-length choose-your-own-path type text adventure game available for iOS, Android, the Kindle Store, the Chrome Store etc. etc. Reviews for this one have been very positive, and the title’s been a bestseller for the publisher. If you haven’t played this yet, it’s only $2.99—follow this link to find the game on your platform of your choice.

I also wrote a number of blog posts, including this one about how the humans of Star Wars are actually ginormous bees. I even received threats of fanfic written in Giant Bee Star Wars Universe. No such fanfic has materialized, but I go to sleep every night with my fingers crossed.

‘Tis the season to make long lists, so let’s talk standout artistic experiences from 2013. (If you don’t really care what art I spent this year consuming, just skip to the bold text at the top of the next paragraph!) I wrote a lot this year, which means I spent a lot of time listening to music, specifically stuff with beat and without intelligible lyrics. Nomad, by Tuareg guitarist Bombino, was a huge help; I wrote an entire novel while listening to Clint Mansell’s soundtrack for The Fountain. Not to mention the Pacific Rim soundtrack—perfect for fight scenes. As for video games, 2013 was the year I became a Mass Effect-er (approved term?), and also the year in which I started forcing people to play through the first 20 minutes of Saints Row IV, because fun. I played catchup on reading for much of 2013: Wolf Hall, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Witches Abroad, Bleeding Edge (in which Thomas Pynchon decides that Neal Stephenson’s been horning in on his territory enough and decides to horn back). Elizabeth Bear’s Range of Ghosts is the Mongolian fantasy novel that I’m so glad exists , and I have no idea how I’d never read Barry Hugharty’s Bridge of Birds before. Movies and TV… Well, if I pretended I knew what I was talking about in this realm I’d look like an idiot. I saw the first episode of Breaking Bad over Christmas? Um. Oh, and I loved Iron Man 3, in which Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Shane Black fused with A Long Kiss Goodnight Shane Black and absorbed some superhero DNA. And The Raid, oh my god. Comics-wise—if you like comics and you’re not reading Hawkeye and Saga and Chew, please, why? Do you have a reason? You should have a reason.

So that’s enough plugging. Here comes 2014! What does that mean for me? A few convention appearances, on which more soon. I’ve spent the last two days breaking story for a self-contained novel and am STOKED—both by the novel and by the breaking process. After I write that book I have another Craft book in mind (really I have another 10 or so Craft books in mind, but one’s front-runner), and Choice of Games is interested in another game from me. I have a comic project inching toward completion, and I really would like to try my hand at a screenplay this year, to stretch my legs. With luck this’ll be a growth year for me. I’d cross my fingers but they’re still crossed for Star Wars Bee fanfic.

And speaking of growth, I’ve been debating what to do on this site. I’ve tried many times to adopt a 3x or 5x/week posting regimen, and what tends to happen is: I start, I’m going strong for a week or three, and then I disappear for several months until I return for some crazy neat announcement. This is a Bad Practice. Not fair to y’all, really, and psychologically problematic for me, since I keep thinking “damn Gladstone you should post something to your blog” at inopportune times, like in the middle of a fencing bout, while cooking dinner, or—and this is the real killer—while I’m trying to write a book. That ‘post’ button hangs overhead like the Sword of Damocles, which is not comfortmaking. So here’s my plan. This year, I’m going to post on my blog once a week. Every Wednesday afternoon, I’ll have something here. Might be a cool essay. Might be an announcement. Might be a video. Might be a magic trick. (Probably won’t be a magic trick.) I’ll have ’em up noonish, so you can go watch the week’s Zero Punctuation, then drop on by. That way you get stuff to read, and I can use this blog as an outlet for everything I think about that isn’t wizard-lawyer-related, while at the same time robbing the “Max you really should post something to your blog” gremlin of its guilt-ammo. Gremlins are helpless without their ammo.

So that’s me, and that was 2013. Awesome year. Thanks to everyone who moved through it with me. And—onward into the new era!

Choice of the Deathless—out TODAY!

Do you want to be a skeletal law wizard? Of course you do. Who doesn’t? Well, today your wish comes true.

I’ve written a choose-your-own-path type game set in the world of the Craft Sequence. As a junior associate in the international necromantic firm of Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone, you may:

Explore a fantasy realm with a rich and evolving backstory, based my novels Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise.
Play as male or female, gay or straight, dead or alive (or both).
Build your career on carefully reasoned contracts, or party all night with the skeletal partners at your firm.
Navigate intrigue and mystery in a world of scheming magicians and devious monsters.
Depose gods! Battle demons! Raise the dead! Catch falling stars! Get with child a mandrake root!
Okay, no actual mandrake roots in the game. Sorry, Donne / DWJ fans. But still!
Look for love in at least some of the right places.
Balance student loans, sleep, daily commute, rent payments, and demonic litigation—hey, nobody said being a wizard was always fun.

The game is out TODAY for iOS and Android, as well as in-browser. It’s $2.99 for the full game; on Android or in-Browser you get to try the first bit of the game for free! I had a lot of fun making Choice of the Deathless. It shows a ton of new facets of the Craft Sequence world, including the actual inner workings of necromantic firms, what’s the deal with demons, and the disturbing luxury of travel-by-dragon.

What are you waiting for? Check it out!

Choice of the Deathless—in time for Christmas!

UPDATE: The game is out! Download it here!

Unlike MC Lars, I have not been touring everywhere to give this world joy. To the contrary, I’ve stayed put with my nose to the grindstone for joy-generation purposes. It’s been a fun grind though and fortunately I have nose to spare.

Here’s why I’m excited: this Friday we launch Choice of the Deathless, the Craft Sequence adventure game. Take on the role of a young Craftswoman or Craftsman in Tara’s world! Deal with demons! Depose gods! Make partner! Pay off your student loans! If you dare.

This is your chance to see how the undead half lives. I mean, it is technically possible to make it through the game without becoming an undead skeleton wizard, but why on earth would you want to? You might miss glandular emotion a little, but let’s be honest here. Unstoppable law-lich or fleshy human being with a chance of achieving love and redemption? I know which I’d choose.

Especially since skeletons can still drink coffee.

Some specifics: this is a text-based choose-your-own-path adventure of the “You wake up naked in a trackless desert with a hangover. You: (a) hunt for water (b) arrange stones into the shape of an S.O.S. (c) Call upon the Dark Gods and sell your soul for passage to safety (d) wait can you run option c by me again?” variety. Each choice you make affects your character’s statistics, which are then checked to determine success or failure. Some of you may remember game books in the Lone Wolf style—this is sort of in that vein only with necromancer lawyers.

The game goes live Friday, and don’t worry, you’ll be hearing plenty about it from me on that day. But I wanted to give y’all a heads-up. If you want an email reminder, may I suggest my (very infrequently used) mailing list, or the more commonly updated but less Max-specific list over at Choice of Games?

Some other news:

For those of you who want a more Tabletop-friendly game experience, I have good news. A couple weeks ago at Anonycon in Connecticut we ran a number of Craft Sequence tabletop games, in Dogs in the Vinyard, Fate, and D&D Next. Excellent times were had by all. I should have some system-agnostic information about how to game in the Craft Sequence soonish, once I figure out the best way to represent the Craft itself…
Tabitha of My Shelf Confessions loved Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise—and today she finally succeeded in tying me up for an interview. Read our chat-slash-torture session over on My Shelf Confessions!
SIGNED BOOKS: If you want a signed copy of Three Parts Dead or Two Serpents Rise, but didn’t make it to any of the signings, you’re in luck! I’m working with Porter Square Books to sign books by mail-order—order from them and we’ll make sure a signed copy gets your way!

That’s it for now—but I’ll be back in the near future. I have more chaos to inflict. I mean. Um. News! News. I have more news to… provide. Possibly. Also chaos.