Welcome, first round of followers! First off, I want to thank all of you for helping support this project. I’m already blown away by the positivity of the community here on Inkshares, and I look forward to discovering some of my new favorite authors here.

As some of you know, my novel "The Cradle and the Sword" is already a complete book - not a work-in-progress - which means there won’t be too many status updates apart from the preorder campaign itself. Even the cover and map are already designed! All that’s really left at this point is to edit and polish the existing draft, and build up enough followers to launch the campaign.

That said, I’m going to continue posting excerpts here, so you’ll begin to get a fuller sense of the scope of the book’s world. I’ve just posted a new excerpt called "A Dream From the Abyss," which I think you’ll enjoy.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to tell you a little more about the nature of the book. It’s not exactly a novel, nor is it precisely a short story collection. It’s a series of interlocking adventures spiralling backward into the distant past, charting the courses of cultures and kingdoms from the Greco-Roman period all the way back to the dawn of civilization - and beyond. 

If you have any questions about the book, you’ll find I’m more than happy to go into detail.

Looking forward to meeting all of you,

--Ben