The 1st Act of the Next Book is Written

...and solidifying the plans going forward from here

I’ve progressed quite well on the main story for the next book. The first act is now written. I will do a proofing, editing, and beefing up process before I start the next act. This is typically how I do my first readthrough and editing stage - work through and massage each act, and then when its all written, redo that for the entire body of work.

I’m having so much fun writing this book, more so than any other if I am being honest. Even more than Fenrik 1984, which was a fucking blast to do! Something about this book is just tugging on my soul in a way that the others have not. While I like writing Erzulyn stories equally with the Fenrik ones, hers feel more special and personal to me because I tap into horror more deeply with her. I think writing horror is where I excel most, even though I think I’m pretty damn good at high-octane action fantasy/sci-fi.

With this story, I am tapping into Lovecraftian lore more deeply than I have, thus far. Which, due to the characters in this book, is also allowing me to connect to the larger Lovecraftian sphere by also pulling from Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, and Clark Ashton Smith. It is also the true start of an idea I have been building towards which asks the question “How would biblical devils and eldritch things mingle in the same space?” It’s something I have wanted to explore for years, and began to in a very long, terrible book I never finished two decades ago when I was young and not ready.

As far as the presentation of the next book, I think it will be a Side Quest as opposed to an anthology. Even if this falls short compared to other Side Quest stories in length, I really just want to tell this story and then the Killer short story that immediately follows An Axe to Eat the Gods. That short sees Killer go off alone, betrayed by his friends, in a solo quest for vengeance against Khadaris, the goblin wizard.

The next saga book will have a seven year time jump, and originally I thought that an anthology might be best to fill in the gap. However, the other characters’ lives during the time gap will be told somehow in the next numbered saga tome, which I already anticipate being kinda beefy. I also sort of want the reader to feel just as Fenrik does after returning home 7 years later to a vastly altered world - one that has fallen into complete demonic darkness.