We’re nearly there! A third [and my wife hopes final?] raffle drawing will fire off when we reach 250 readers! I’d thought perhaps I would finish it all right there, but I’ve just now spontaneously decided to hold another drawing when we get to 300. That’s right, I’m hitting the reset button on this goal of mine and moving it back. Why not? (Please don't tell the wife!)

As lost as I’ve been in the campaign for “The Animal in Man,” I haven’t been able to take as much time to really dive into the wealth of great stories on display at inkshares.com. Until recently.

Jason Pomerance’s “Women Like Us” completely blew me away. Normally I stick to fantasy and sci-fi, but his writing truly drew me in and didn’t let go. I left a review and several comments on this amazing book. Worth your attention and your credits.

And while it’s only in a Draft phase of production, Peter Ryan’s “Sync City” has crashed through the windowpanes of my psyche and left itself in a bloody glorious post-apocalyptic Mad Max fuel for survival kind of mess on the floor of my brainpan, in the best way possible. I highly urge you visit his page and let Peter know you feel the same way I do, with less gore if you like.

And finally, my fellow Sword & Laser contestant Edmond J. Wedge has a very intriguing first book in a nine-part series he’s planned called “Ocean Black: The Noble Exiles.” I found his mix of genres and settings and atmospheres very engaging. I hope you’ll toss some of your money his way and help get his book published. 

Look, everybody… Full disclosure, many who are receiving this update might only be following my book. It is to you - not the other inkshares authors - that I am sending this message. Inkshares has been good to me. It is good for me, for my dream of getting “The Animal in Man” into your hands. And these three gentlemen are just like myself in that regard. Do what you can to get their stories told. You will not be disappointed.

(Final shout out to Vincent Lim, author of “The Cora Chronicles”, for raffling off a sweet wall poster for his book, which I shall gratefully receive, sir. And to Byron Gillan, author of “The Children of the Forest”, which is hitting me in all my nostalgia and love for Final Fantasy, Princess Mononoke, and even The Banner Saga with that amazing artwork. To you, sir, I will have a full review of your chapter soon!)

Peace! (....I hope all these links work!)

Continuing to run a day late. First up, I'd like to remind everyone that we're now down to only 25 days left in my own funding period, so hopefully you'll preorder my book before then.  On that point I'm going to start modifying my recommendations slightly to highlight some of my favorite reviews posted for Exile, Magus.  Without further ado, here's my Sunday recommendations on this Monday day (links embedded in titles and author names as always).

"Exile, Magus" by Me:  I couldn't recommend ordering this more... okay, so I'm horrible at self-promotion.  Instead I'll post up my favorite review, this one from John Robin, author of Blood Dawn - "Exile, Magus, brings out the grand voice of high fantasy. Thomas Arnold brings together echos of Gulliver's Travels, Terry Pratchet, and Tolkien with his witty, scholarly narrative voice, strange races with strange names, and sense of a rigorously-thought-out world. I expect from what I read to enter something amusing, thoughtful, and intriguing all at once!"

"Annabelle's Dream and Other Stories" by A.R. Patterson: Simply an amazing powerful narrative. It succeeds in not only drawing you into the events Annabelle experiences, but also into her psyche and emotional turmoil as she endures them.

"The Children of the Forest" by Byron Gillan: With a riveting action sequence for an opener, The Children of the Forest quickly draws you into a world of airships and legends of wolf-riders. In the first four chapters currently up you get an enticing glimpse into what is obviously fully developed world and its varying cultures, as well as those who people it. The writing style engrosses you in both the characters and the world, so much so that I'm impatient to read the full book.

"Prophecy of the Stars" by Melissa Berg: I love the amount of depth given to characters in such a short time. Add to that what appears to be a highly developed mythology/structure of this world's magic as well as a very engaging narrative style, and Prophecy of the Stars quickly becomes another must read for me.

I have finally caught up a bit on my recommendations(which is why I slowed to only 3 this time), with all of the above having ending dates in February if my math is correct(except for my own which ends on 1/22). Even though you have two months or more on all of these, you shouldn't delay if you're interested. That's all I've got for recommendations today. Now I'm going to return to trying to figure out what I want tomorrow's blog post to be about. Long fiction is easy, I tend to get such writer's block only when it comes time to figure out to write short things. Enjoy the rest of your day, and hopefully you'll be hearing from me about my blog post tomorrow.

With only 19 days remaining in my campaign, it is crunch time for certain. If you haven't ordered Storm of Fury yet, please, please consider doing so now! If you're having doubts about this book, check out what some of the critics are saying about Storm of Fury:

"A wonderfully immersive example of what epic fantasy should be. Whether describing the fury of a divinely created storm, the horror of monsters and titans, or the love of pastries shared by father and son soldiers it does so in a fast paced but highly detailed way. It will leave you wanting to know more about what are both highly developed characters and a highly detailed world. I can't wait to read the entire book." -Thomas J. Arnold, author of Exile, Magus

"Excellent world-building, great characters, a strong voice, and an engaging story make this one of the best Fantasy epics currently available on Inkshares! Highly recommended for any and all fans of the genre." -Bryon Gillan, Author of Children of the Forest

"Well-written and intricate, this book puts the Epic in Epic Fantasy. The characters leap off the page, you feel the power of Fury, and each sentence is a skillfully crafted masterpiece that makes this book a contestant in fantasy for well-known works like Eragon and The Belgariad." -Tabi Card, author of Scribbles

"The world Andrew Wood takes us to with this story is superb and believable. It's a tough act to establish a storm as an antagonist, but Wood does a great job of creating real extensions of this storm that give it a tangible, menacing presence, a la George R. R. Martin's White Walkers or Jordan's Myrdraal. In fact, the mood and tone very much conjured the familiar world of Wheel of Time, where instead of a dark one we have a menacing storm that is just as terrifying. This is fine epic fantasy and I very much hope to see this book in print so I can read it in its entirety." -John Robin, author of Blood Dawn

"Storm of Fury has a gripping beginning and an awe-inspiring setting . A young man must face god's fury unleashed on mankind in the form of a supernatural storm with nothing more than a bow and arrow and his courage and faith. The author's writing is reminiscent of a young Brandon Sanderson, especially his Way of Kings series. A good book for both adults and younger readers. If this were on the shelf of my bookstore, I would buy it." -Lisa Shumaker

A huge thank you to these great people who have supported my book and left behind such kind words. (I strongly recommend that you take a look at their work as well; its fantastic literature!) And also a massive thanks to those of you who already ordered Storm of Fury! 

Please, consider ordering Storm of Fury very soon. We're over halfway there and we can't stop now!

Blood Dawn is DONE!

Greetings wonderful people, 

I have just posted a new shiny book trailer made up by Yicheng Liu. Take a look and see what you think. I personally am really impressed by the results and I hope you are too. 

Also we have reached to 35 sold goal. I will be posting chapter 12 very soon and a re-polished chapter 1 hopefully soon after that (still working on it)

I hope everyone's had a jolly happy Christmas and a good New Years to come. If you've liked what you've seen so far don't forget to pre-order. If you already have thank you so much for your continuing support. 

Humans!

I would like to announce the newest proud owner of a "limited" edition fully customized (only 1 in circulation) GENESIS poster!

Hello Everybody! It's been a long, long time since there was a Monkey Business update but I figured you guys could use a little break. I mean, monkeys are exhausting. So what's happening? Monkey Business is in production as (I think) the first Quill publication from Inkshares. Yay! It looks like it will be shipping in May and that's great because it's a perfect summer read.

Updates will become more frequent as we near release date and we've got some fun stuff in the works to ramp up for that. So I'll get back to you about all these things as they come along.

In other news I just wanted to say thank you to the following folks for their kind reviews during A.C. Weston's Review-A-Thon. And by the way, thank you Cara for making that happen. You're awesome!

Stephen Carignan, Yicheng Liu and Tony Bony Valdez. Thank you all so much for the reviews. I really appreciate them!

And lastly, not to single my man out or anything but I want to hard-pitch Tony's book Dax Harrison. This is one of my two favorite books I have yet discovered on Inkshares and I want you all to order it immediately. Here's what you do, go read the samples and just imagine Nathan Fillion as Dax Harrison... you will be made happy:

https://www.inkshares.com/projects/dax-harrison-2276?recommended=true

I'll update you guys again soon. Take care little monkeys and enjoy your New Year!

- Landon