Machiners!
We have entered Winter, officially speaking, but the weather is hardly frightful and our spirits are so delightful. What a day!
First and foremost, my congratulations to Tony Valdez on reaching 250 pre-orders for his comedic SciFi romp Dax Harrison! Meaning books will be on the way! This is really well deserved. Great concept, awesome writing, hard work - check all the boxes. Also, amazing to see how the Inkshares community really banded together to push a colleague toward the finish line. Love it.
OnThe Last Machine front the beat goes on and such a groovy beat it is.
The Review-a-Thon this past Saturday was fantastic. Thanks to A.C. Weston for coordinating which undoubtedly took much time and effort. It yielded some amazing reviews for the novella, which I am very thankful for. Some of them I have been able to reciprocate already. Others I haven't gotten to yet. But I will. I promise. Thanks to Michael Valdez, AR Patterson, Jason Pomerance, Dave Barrett, and Byron Gillan for their wonderful words. It really does mean a great deal.
We've now surpassed 80 readers!! Thank you to all the new followers and supporters. Because we hit 75, I've conducted a clandestine raffle of unknown scope and substance....
And the winners are Melissa Berg and Peter Birdsall. You have each won a signed copy of Alter Ego No. 91 from January 2010. It's a super cool magazine and has an epic interview covering basically every topic possible with my friend and The Last Machine artist Jack Katz. Here are a couple of images for you:


We're at 81 readers so we might as well shoot for 100. Yeah, why not? Maybe we can do that by Sunday? Let's try. More cool stuff to come if we make it.

Good morning, Dax fans!
DAX COUNTDOWN: 5 days, 15 orders to go!
In my foolish, sleep-deprived state, I previously forgot to mention a few thank yous in my last update...
Dax received a plethora of amazing reviews during Saturday's Review-A-Thon event. Yes, a plethora, which gave me a big lump in my throat, made me a little weepy eyed, and generally left me about as happy as El Guapo on his birthday...
You know, before the Three Amigos crashed the party.

Thank you to Vincent Lim, Amanda Orneck, Andrew Wood, Jamison Stone, G. Derek Adams, Jason Pomerance, Shannon Saldin, Paul Inman, Landon Crutcher, Thomas J. Arnold, Alan Tucker, Steve Soldwedel, Jim McDoniel, and Chris Robinson.
I've tagged each of their names with links directly to their respective projects, because they deserve your support too! To post all of their kind words about Dax here would be far too self-serving. But I at least have to share G. Derek Adams's epic review, as it is a bit of a hilarious work of art unto itself:
G. DEREK ADAMS
"Comedy is harder than drama. Drama is open to interpretation, discussion, analysis -- everyone knows funny. And you can't force funny via interpretation, discussion, analysis. It is either funny or not funny. The Grand Binary. Dax Harrison is funny. Tony Valdez is funny. I love the setting and the crazy-ass Buck Rogers pastiche, I am 100% on board with the aesthetic and the plot arc I see developing in the first excerpts. Interrogating heroism, public perception, duty - I am HERE for all these grand concepts explicated through a patently silly premise. But what's really exciting me is that this book is funny. The punch lines land, the asides are light and bouncy, it never stops and alerts me that 'THIS IS A JOKE'. This is a rare thing. A precious thing. A shiny, shiny unicorn who wants to take you to McDonalds and talk about Macross continuity. Recognize it and treasure it. Sidebar - if you can watch Tony's video and not make a pre-order then you are a mean person who can't feel joy and puppies hate you."
Sci-fi & Fantasy author Amanda Orneck also posted a lovely review of Dax on her author blog, Immersive Cursive. READ IT HERE!
And last but not least, another big thanks to Amanda and Inkshares team member Avalon Radys for organizing a guest post for me on the official Inkshares blog! READ IT HERE!
Stay tuned, gang. We're in The Final Days of Dax, and we're going out with a BANG!
-Tony
I forgot the map! Here's the map!
Matthew Isaac Sobin has brightened this Winter Solstice. Not only has he pre-ordered a copy of The Investigations of the Para-Usual, but left a glowing review. Thanks very much for reading and commenting Matthew and a Merry Xmas to all Inksharers. Paul