Hey! It’s exactly 1 year since the end of the first Sword & Laser contest. A year to the day from  when I realized three fundamental truths at the exact same time:

• I love you.

• I have to finish the draft of Asteroid Made of Dragons in 2-3 months. (I only had about 18-20,000 words done at that point.)
  
• This:

A year into this enterprise! Wow! WOW! (wow)

AMOD is out, and we’re starting to leave the initial ’honeymoon’ period and sales spike - what now? What now? What now? I guess I should write something else, huh?

Thank you all again - I know I’ve said it over and over, but ANNIVERSARY OF THANKS.

Don’t forget to put up yer reviews and nominate me for shiny awards.

Hello friends,

Remember last update? Sure you do! I talked about a bunch of stuff. Asked you to review The Life Engineered on Amazon. Discussed the future of A God in the Shed. We had a blast! Do you remember me talking about the latest Nerdist contest and how I wasn’t going to participate but had something special I might be doing instead? Well, here we are...

Probably the best thing to have come out of the whole Inkshares experience is the community of writers that I now have the privilege of hanging out with. These are driven and creative individuals who love nothing better than to tell stories, so when the theme was announced, video games, many couldn’t resist. 

So while not directly participating in the contest, it’s my honour to announce that I will be contributing to ’Too Many Controllers’, an anthology written by fifteen Inkshares authors who love video games. Each of us is passionate about video games in our own way and are bringing a story under that umbrella to the table. 

I’ve read some of the synopsis and they look amazing. To be honest, I came very close to declining the invitation because I couldn’t really come up with an idea that lived up to what was already on offer, but then... it hit me. Something that’s very much in the same voice as everything else I tend to write and I’m getting extremely excited for it. Go check it out. This thing is going to be a blast. 

Cheers, 

JF

Hey all! I’m in the thick of it with chapter 8 on Deus Hex Machina, and things are getting CRAZY. Mechs and Goldfarmers and hexing, oh my!

But I want to talk to you about what I’m working on after DHM. I’ve joined an all-star writing team to put together an anthology all about my second love (after writing) -- video games. It’s called Too Many Controllers, and will feature stories from me and 14 other writers from Inkshares. I am SUPER DUPER excited about this guys, and have been itching to tell you about it.

Today the project went live and I’d love if you checked it out and backed it. Here’s a link: https://www.inkshares.com/books/too-many-controllers?referral_code=302fcf04

If you have any questions about the project, I’d be happy to answer them. I’ll give you a hint as to what my story will be about: It takes place on the Grid. Want to know more? Preorder today and find out!

So a resentfully, sober dwarf, an uncontrollably, honest goblin, and the world’s ugliest human walk into a dungeon... 

Want to know more? Check out Too Many Controllers (https://www.inkshares.com/books/too-many-controllers?referral_code=cd07e0a9) an anthology of some of the nicest and most talented authors I know that I am lucky enough to be included in.

Apologies for the lack of snazz in this update. It’s the curse of mobile!

I’m about 40% done with the first rewrite of The Punch Escrow. Also, t-shirts and mugs have been ordered for all those who won them, shipping information should be available sometime next week because I’m a logistics dinosaur. There’s some amazing Geek & Sundry news coming up too...

But that’s not what this update is about. It’s about a new anthology to which I’m contributing a very cool science fiction story about Alan Turing’s legacy. It’s an 8,000 word tale concerning Turing’s final gift, in death, to the love of his life, Christopher Morcom. Alan created a game that could only be run on a "thousand Colossus computers" - knowing full well that kind of computing capacity would not be available until long after his death. It touches the topics of forlorn love, the singularity, and the nature of spirit.

The anthology featuring this new story is called Too Many Players, and it’s available for pre-order today. It features 15 stories from the creme-de-la-creme of Inkshares authors; many of them contest winners. It’s simply an amazing collection well worth at least ten of your duckets.

Good morning! 

Trekonomics is OUT!

Dear all, 

Thanks to your support the book is out everywhere on the internet and in bookstores. 

I wrote this for John Scalzi, author of Red Shirts, honorary dean of American science fiction and former pillar of Tiki’s Lounge in Hyde Park (those of you from Chicago will know what I mean). 

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/05/31/the-big-idea-manu-saadia/

Please tell share what you think of the book. If you get the chance, write a few words at Amazon. 

Tomorrow I am taping an interview with NPR’s Marketplace at their Downtown LA studios. This should be most interesting.

In the meantime, thank you again for your help and encouragements. This would not have been possible without you all.

Live long, and prosper.

Manu