A curse of optical haptics, an upcoming Sci-Fi story

 I went ahead and commed the cover of a Science Fiction story I have been starting to work on, and the artist known as TheStreetDog23 went far beyond my vision and produced the most gorgeous cover ever. I still need to get a full-fledged typography for the cover. That is going to be tricky, which is why I don't have an official goodreads profile for the book yet.

I am still tinkering with the blurb, so that isn't ready either. Someone online commented ACOOH might be a bit similar in a few aspects to a book called Murderbot Diaries. I have not read this series, so I have no idea. Usually my books can't be comped with other work. Half of the time, readers have no idea what to comp them with and mention they are a teeny tiny little bit like The hobbit or LOTR because there are fantasy elements. Which is true, but so vague that I always return to square 1 and have no idea how to market my stories.

As for A curse of optical haptics, I was taking a course on computer science and that word popped out. And I instantly knew I NEED A BOOK WITH THAT WORD IN THE TITLE. So everything surrounds the concept of tactical technology that is vague Sci-Fi material, but the story is so wild since I am going pretty unhinged with it that I am unsure what genre it really fits into. The only thing certain is that Leenx takes no bullshit from anyone.

I have written around 18,000 words of the story. More elements of the worldbuilding are cooking in my mind. There will be weird alien races in them and other random stuff. I think one of the few normal scenes is seeing a net appear from a ceiling and taking someone away.

Quite frankly, I would be shocked readers will not find the book to be absolutely weird, wild and scratch their heads after reading it. I already know how it ends (no, I will not spoil it), it's now the voyage where I need to get. I tend to be an overwriter, but I will hope this book stays at 80,000 words tops. I will go nuts if it suddenly balloons into 100,000 word territory. Oh please don't be so long, pleaaaase!

Anyways, even though I probably spoiled things a bit because I didn't do a fancy book cover reveal (I am working on a shoestring budget and feel too shy asking for blogs for those fancy showcases). But here is a cut-up low resolution version of the cover. I might print it and paste it on the wall to inspire me to cook up those chapters quicker and finish writing it. With some luck, it will be available in 2024.

Savior on the zenith, the sequel book is FINALLY finished

 Bit of a late announcement, but at approximately 94,000 words (including a long ass glossary and brief story recap), I finished writing the sequel and finale of the Fragmented Fates duology a few days ago. It is being read right now by a trusted beta reader.

Now, why did I end up dividing this book into two halves?

1) I didn't want to release a 160,000 word book. I am an overwriter and new information about characters pops up as I chaotically write the story. 160,000 word books are a very hard sell, but 80,000 word stories are easy bite-sized treats. The final chapter of Talgel's monologue was written after I sliced the books in half to make it feel like an actual ending of act 1, which is why it is so short.

After finishing the sequel that without other filler is around the same length, it would have been a titanic feat to have churned the entire story in 120,000 words. I would have had to skip too many scenes. Both books expanded as they are barely offer time for downtime at all. The extra 40,000 words gave the sequel plenty of extra time to expand some connecting scenes that makes the time skips far less jarring.

2) I just wanted to get A book published in 2023 and was not writing sufficiently fast enough to get the job done.

Savior on the zenith follows a much darker path from its more cheerful 1st half (a titanic feat given readers all agree it is a very dark story). Tioja starts living among harlequins in an underground city and interacts with his rambuctious younger half brother Gulraj.

Book 1 spends an inordinate amount of time having Talgel move the chess pieces in position and now she gives the reins of the story to Tioja. As part of my plan for the cover, it will be a mirror of book 1 in a way with a darker pallette to exemplify the more serious tone of the story.

Will there be more action?

Yes, certainly. Readers hurting to experience harlequin society firsthand will get their chance here. And yes, we get fights, quite a few of them, in fact. Tioja will grow a lot in this story.

Now that I have finished the book, I feel a sense that every protagonist has made their trip and returned home. There is still plenty of potential canonical story left between the finale of the duology and the begining of the Ominous Book series, but chances are I will never write it because I want to focus on other projects. It was still a fun story to write, challenging at times because I had to envision a totally different and youthful Tioja.

Until next time!

The equivalency exchange principle of demonic phantom beasts

 Chances are most people that have stumbled into my blog have not read any of my books. Those few people that have read Fragmented Fates might have noticed Talgel's body is posessed by a evil spirit so to say that taunts her and lets her see visions of inane future events that only waste her time.

The demon does this on purpose out of spite and also because it is only using Talgel for its own agenda. An interesting concept I mention in the end of the book is how the demon explains to Talgel that harlequin elf phantom beasts are the manifestation of the secret innermost desire of the summoner.

Talgel wanted to obtain the power of Absolute Truth to know if she would have a Happily Ever After with her love interest Jarahad (readers can easily guess this will be a no given she rejects his hand in marriage the whole novel for no apparent reason).

And one of the characters that ends up summoning an uncontrollable phantom beast later in the story secretly wanted the power of Absolute Destruction. Which I dare say is quite a nifty ability given how versatile it is. The character later on discovers as the years pass that the ability is not just destructive. It can read all sorts of seemingly invisible traits of whatever object is within the area of view of the ability. The summoner can see the true blood ancestry of anyone standing within their beast's line of sight, magic tuning element and if they posess other sources of obscure magic that can't be seen by regular means. A person disguising as a human won't be able to hide their harlequin or elf ancestry. This magic skill will prove pivotal in the Fragmented Fates sequel that I am close to finishing.

Jarahad later in the book also obtains his own phantom beast which manifests as a semi-transparent green armor. His innermost desire is the power of Absolute Protection, which makes sense given all of the hardships he endures ever since he was born. The armor can be moved with his mind, rearranged into various positions. He can use it as a means of transportation, and can even fly short distances with it.

Given most demonic beasts are invisible psychic abilities, Jarahad's armor beast is of the more unusual kind that can be easily visible.

Are there other characters that will summon their own demonic beasts in the sequel?

The answer is a huge YES!

Fragmented Fates hints a character that isn't born yet named Gulraj will have his own beast. It will prove to be pivotal in the sequel, even though he seldom uses it.

Some of the halflings will have beasts. Nurran can summon a gooey phleghm that changes the property of metal. This will become useful in the future as he spends his time constructing semi magical weapons that don't have all of the pitfalls of true harlequin steel. Sadly for my readers, this beast won't be shown in action in the book sequel.

Another character will obtain a beast that gives him telepathy, which suits him very well. The downside is that the ability of Absolute Communication will inevitably drive him towards his self-destruction sometime in the future. I hint about the character's death in future books but never reveal their name. In case anyone is wondering, this is the character that dies using their beast at inopportune times.

Well, I am getting sleepy, so I will finish this rant that will be left for posterity so that obsessive fans 20 years from now have semi-officialñ confirmation of ther theories surrounding some of the Easter Eaggs I spread around in my books.

Happy searching!

Fragmented Fates is now available on preorder!

Welcome everyone, I am proud to announce the long awaited book Fragmented Fates by Nancy Foster is finally available on preorder on Amazon. This prequel has been a pet project of mine for the past 3 years, and I hope to finish the second half of this exciting duology in the next few months.

So, if you enjoy this book, please give this book a chance, feel free to write a review and if you enjoyed it, please spread word of mouth.

So, without further ado, please click on the cover of the book below and visit the website on Amazon and preorder today!

 

My book is competing in the #SPFBO9 competition. There are zero guarantees my book will reach semifinalist status because the competition is insanely fierce, but there are already several people that are interested in giving my book a chance. The ebook isn't even out yet and I already have my first 5 star rating on goodreads! Yahoo!

Oh, this is the goodreads link. Click HERE.

Thanks!