This is a short but very important update, so please take a moment to read it:

Because of some complications owing to particulars involving the unique glue required to bind the amazing foil cover we’ve designed for The Punch Escrow, I won’t be able to sign the books in time to get them to you before the July 25 publication date. So, I need to know if you guys would rather have the books early and unautographed or slightly late and autographed. By "slightly late" I mean I’ll be signing them on July 24th and Inkshares will ship them out that day, so you’ll still get your book on publication week, just not on publication day. But it’s up to you. And by "you" I mean the collective "yous." We’re going to make this democratic with a survey. You can fill out the survey here, and whatever the majority decides 24 hours from now will be the way we do things for everyone who pre-ordered the autographed books.

Here’s the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/ZBBDCQF

More news soon!

-Tal

Hi there friends,

Tony here. I know you haven’t heard from me in a good long while. You may have even completely forgot that you helped crowdfund a book nearly 2 years ago and have yet to see it. For that, I apologize. I assure you that these long delays have been out of my control. And more importantly, NO THIS BOOK HAS NOT BEEN ABANDONED, and YES, IT IS STILL COMING.

"Why the long silence, Tony?"

Well, frankly, I grew a bit tired and embarrassed of sending updates with no real news to speak of. I’m sure you may have grown tired of it as well, so I figured I’d lay low until I could come back with something real for you.

"Why the delays?"

Inkshares is a small publishing team with limited resources, and business decisions resulted in my book being put on the back burner for a very long time. It’s been unfortunate and frustrating, but there it is. The plus side is that I’ve had plenty of time to edit and revise. So the book you’ll be receiving is better than the book that would have been published a year ago.

"So what’s going on with the book now?"

As of a few weeks ago, I was assured by the Inkshares team that they should be able to get my book published and into your hands "by the end of summer". I have submitted the updated version of my manuscript to them and am currently waiting to hear back on the next steps of production. The book has been polished with the aid of beta readers, a professional dev editor, and my own neurotic nitpicking. I even added  a bonus prequel short story while I waited. Inkshares will assist with copy editing (sentence structure, punctuation, making sure things make sense, etc), formatting, slapping on the cover art, and it’s off to the printers. Again, hopefully, in an expedited fashion from here on.

"So when exactly is the book coming?"

I wish I had an official date to give you rather than "by the end of summer", but that’s all I got for now. I will let you know as soon as I have more.

"How about that cover art?"

Not that anyone asked, but I am excited to say the final book artwork is in progress. And if the concepts I’ve seen are any indication, it’s going to be something special. So whether or not you enjoy my writing, you will at least have a very pretty book to display on your shelf. ;)

All right gang, that’s all for now. Thanks again for your patience. I hope to have an official date and/or some art to show next update. See ya!

-Tony V.

Dear sentient machines,

Did you guys know that my debut novel, The Life Engineered, prequel to Arch-Android, was recently nominated for a Kobo Emerging Writer Award? It was!

What’s better is that Kobo was awesome enough to send me a Kobo Aura reader. Just like that. But I already read all my ebooks on my iPad. So instead of letting this neat little device gather dust, I decided to give it to you fine creatures. (a 100$ value)

Well, one of you anyways.

So here’s how this is going to work. I will be raffling off the Aura to those who pre-order Arch-Android before the end of the funding campaign.

• Each pre-order at the ’ROBOT’ and ’CAPEK’ levels gets you one ’ticket’.
  
• Pre-orders at the ’ARCH-ANDROID’ (3 copies) level gets you four ’tickets’.
• Every pre-order of any level that is a result of a reference you made gets you one more ’ticket’.

To make this prize even more unique, I will draw a Capek on the back of the device and sign it.

So if you haven’t pre-ordered Arch-Android already, maybe it’s time to get on that. Share your referral link with all your science-fiction loving friends too. Win that eReader!

Thank you my awesome friends,

JF

(here’s a Capek I drew. It’s Eremiel from The Life Engineered)

Hey!  Long time no chit chat.  I said I wouldn’t abuse this method of communication and I meant it.  So, a short update.

For those that missed it, Rise is on Audible and you can get it at tiny.cc/risenovel . If you have it already, I hope you enjoy.

A lot of you have gotten back to me about reading it, but reviews are still a bit low.  If you have the time for a short word to encourage people to (or discourage them from) reading the book, then please head over to that link above and leave a review on Amazon.  If you have time beyond that, Goodreads could use it as well.

Last part.  Fall is done.  I’ve said that before.  It needs edited, but it’s written.  I’ve already started Shatter and am about 1/3 of the way through.  If you want to read the sequel, you need to go follow it here tiny.cc/fallnovel and, when it goes live in the coming few months, preorder it.  Why?  Because you literally will be getting it sooner if you do.  Remember, I don’t make a dime off of preorders.  So, the more of you that order it to get it into production, the less I make.  That’s not important.  I want you to read it.  And you will have the chance to make it happen.

Yes, I am still alive.  And yes, I am working on this project concurrently with the third book in the Rise series.  I had a mix-up in the process of transferring things between iPads and computers and lost most of what I had written.  I pretty much only had what was here on Inkshares.  So, I’ve taken advantage of it to rework the plot, add some elements, remove some others, and the result, I think, is a much tighter, better novel.  As a taste of what I’ve been working on, here’s a character bio for Casey Adler, detective.  I will be sharing more snippets like this on my Patreon page (found here https://www.patreon.com/brianguthrie sorry, iOS breaks the editor on Inkshares) where you can continue to support my writing as it expands beyond just the Rise series and After Man.  Enjoy! 

Casey Adler grew up with just an archaeologist mother, her geneticist mother who carried her having died when she was an infant to a work accident. She wants to know what actually happened to her mother, not the story the government put out. This desire is the most formative influence in her life, guiding her to choose a career investigating the all but extinct violent crimes. She’s convinced foul play was involved and that the center and government covered up what really happened to save face. Her mother never discouraged her from her pursuit of the truth, but also never encouraged it. Casey never needed encouraging when it came to finding the answers. Despite this, she doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with their society. The system works, but it has some rough edges. She joined INTERPOL’s Unique Crimes Division (UCD) to help protect civilization and smooth out the rough edges she sees, like the one that took her mother’s life. Her pet project becomes a bit of a White Whale for her, as she never really makes any progress on it. She continues to work on it, despite the efforts of her closest friend and colleague, Vee.