{"id":16523,"date":"2012-07-15T08:13:01","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T13:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?page_id=16523"},"modified":"2022-06-29T20:52:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T00:52:41","slug":"books","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?page_id=16523","title":{"rendered":"Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a novelist, occasionally the duty falls on me to stop playing videogames long enough to bash out some kind of book type thing. If you’re looking at my writing here and thinking, “Man, this would be so much better if it was 100,000 words longer,” then reading books is for you. Some are in print. Some are on Kindle. Some are even free.<\/p>\n

Mass Effect Retrospective<\/h3>\n

\"Mess<\/a><\/p>\n

A book examining the Mass Effect series of videogames and the various writing mistakes that led to the unpopular and controversial ending.<\/p>\n

It also contains a great deal of writing advice on how to construct fictional worlds that pull the audience in.<\/p>\n

You can get the print edition of Mess Effect on Amazon here<\/a> or the Kindle edition on Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Other Kind of Life<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nTHE THING THEY SAID COULDN’T HAPPEN, HAPPENED.
\nFresh out of jail, Max finds himself drawn into the mystery of what’s gone wrong with the robots in his city. He’s forced to rely on the help of Jennifer\/Andrew, a body hopping robot driven to solve the case before her product line is recalled.<\/p>\n

They need to figure out what went wrong while staying one step ahead of the corporations, gangsters, and crooked cops that are hunting them across the city.<\/p>\n

Get it the print edition of The Other Kind of Life on Amazon here<\/a> or the Kindle edition on Amazon here<\/a>. You can purchase the e-pub<\/strong> directly from me by putting money here:<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"\"<\/form>\n

The Witch Watch<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nA young lady with a head for invention, a boy with a gift for sorcery, and a rotting corpse with a dry sense of humor all find themselves fighting against a strange new threat in Victorian-era London.<\/p>\n

The book is focused on Gilbert, who has two problems. The first is that he died. The second is that he didn’t stay dead. Now he’s hunted by the Church, the cult that revived him, and Her Majesty’s Department of Ethereal Affairs. Gilbert must keep his head long enough to save London, the Queen, and his brassy and opinionated mother from the forces of evil and good alike.<\/p>\n

Get it on Smashwords<\/a> or on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Free Radical<\/h3>\n

\"Free<\/a>
\nThe book that began my novel-writing career. I’ll level with you here. This is fanfiction you’re looking at. Videogame<\/em> fanfiction. In my defense, many people have praised the book and said that it is not just a good piece of fanfiction, but a solid book in its own right. In fact, I became an author more or less on the overwhelmingly positive reaction to this thing. Give it a try.<\/p>\n

You can read the whole thing on the website<\/a>. Or you can get the ebook version<\/a>. If you want a hardcopy, you can get one at Lulu<\/a>. (The price is only to cover the cost of printing.)<\/p>\n

How I Learned<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWhen I turned 40<\/a>, I began a series of blog posts called the “Autoblography”. It followed the course of my life from birth to adulthood. I know this sounds exceedingly dull. Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are to find out people loved the dang thing. They loved it so much they demanded a print version. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m grateful.<\/p>\n

You can still read the original version here on the blog. It begins here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the series ended I cleaned it up, added a couple of extra chapters, and turned it into a book. You can get it in print or ebook formats from either Smashwords<\/a> or Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fall From the Sky<\/h3>\n

The book that ran aground<\/a>. I began this book in 2011. I loved the project. I had fun writing it. Then one day I got up and found I couldn’t work on it anymore. I had fifty thousand words and I couldn’t do a thing with them.<\/p>\n

For the curious, I’ve made the book available for reading. Some bits are interesting, but without a completed story it’s mostly an exercise in world-building. Here is an HTML dump of the book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’ll return to it someday. Maybe not. But it’s there if you want to bear witness to my failure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a novelist, occasionally the duty falls on me to stop playing videogames long enough to bash out some kind of book type thing. If you’re looking at my writing here and thinking, “Man, this would be so much better if it was 100,000 words longer,” then reading books is for you. Some are in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16523","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16523"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54601,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16523\/revisions\/54601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}