Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time book series had a huge influence on my story crafting techniques and the importance of research and world-building. Here I reflect on my personal memories of rereads, and also of meeting the influential fantasy author in person.
Here’s my old Wheel of Time fan site.
The Torth universe has a hard magic system, similar to superpowers. Here I walk through the power chart I created as the basis for the system in my 6 book sci-fi fantasy series.
Our entire global economy is bent around people’s passion for becoming creators. Strip away the financial and tech bro jargon, and this is the truth laid bare, as Abby sees it.
00:00 The global economy is driven by creative content (producers and consumers).
02:30 Not just professionals, also hobbyists.
03:02 Creatives are motivated to become influencers.
03:58 Creatives buy expensive computers and graphics cards and software and digital ads.
04:23 Students, midlife crisis adults, retirees… people underestimate the vast numbers of dabblers.
06:02 And then there’s the self-help gurus and scammers incentivizing creatives. 06:31 Examples of how amateur creatives prop up the megacap companies.
07:32 Everybody wants to be a creator. Is this sustainable?
Book fans hate the show with good reason. The Wheel of Time TV show could have been SO MUCH BETTER.
It’s embarrassing to listen to a sex scene I wrote, narrated in George Newbern’s irreverent tone. Not sure I will ever write a sex scene again.
That scene is in the audiobook edition of the final Torth book, which just launched today.
These books were a massive undertaking, with the whole series totaling 1,000,000 words after I discarded 2,000,000 words or so. The books were published at a far faster pace than it took to write them.
I began working on the Torth series when I was in my early twenties, expressing my worldview and diving deep into an exploration of freedom versus slavery. It was partly inspired by The Wheel of Time in terms of interpersonal power dynamics, and Star Wars in terms of universe scope and aliens, and lots of other things. I went to film school. I’m a reader.
My goal was mainstream trad pub, otherwise known as the Big Five (MacMillan etc). After two rewrites and years of bending over backwards in a futile effort to please literary agents, I finally realized this isn’t the 1990s, and they just aren’t looking for heroic doorstoppers anytime within the next decade or two.
It was hard to let go of the Big Five dream. If you want the sordid details of how and why it took me so many years to switch gears, feel free to ask. But I did, eventually, seek an audience online. That was what motivated me to pick up where I had stalled (right after Book 2) and finish the whole epic.
Wattpad gave me my first readership. That was the first place a reader asked me, “Where’s your Patreon so I can read ahead?” Hugely motivating. I wrote new chapters and posted one or two per week from 2017 through 2023.
As I was posting the final chapters on Wattpad, I relaunched the whole series on Royal Road. I figured my 500 prewritten chapters would enable me to gain notice quickly with a rapid launch pace. Three chapters per day turned out to be insane, since I was editing as I went. And then I went through cancer and had a hospital stay and chemotherapy. I lost a few readers when I reduced my pace to three chapters per week. It was necessary. Even so, my series went to #1 on the Sci-Fi Rising Stars chart and topped out at #4 on overall Rising Stars. That was partly due to the supportive community of authors and adventurous readers who hang out around the web serial community, particularly in litRPG and progression fantasy.
When my series hit the front page of Royal Road, I got an offer from a publisher and interest from another. I signed a six book contract. That publisher, Podium, put a lot of time and effort into producing my series as high quality audiobooks, ebooks, and print editions. I’m grateful.
There’s some advice floating around implying that a book series with great read-through equals a cash cow. That hasn’t totally been the case for mine. Readers who pick up Book 2 of mine tend to read through all the way to Book 6. The ones who get to the end are some of the best fans anyone can ask for. They get what I was going for, and they were on board every step of the way. I love the reactions. I’ve had some very touching letters from readers. That alone makes everything I wrote worthwhile.
Financially, though? Sales figures-wise? I think I have an intrinsically hard sell on my hands here. It’s not Romantasy, Cozy, litRPG, Isekai, Cyberpunk, or Cultivation (the hot sci-fi and fantasy subgenres that sell well on Amazon). It’s dark. It’s complicated. It’s big. It’s weird. It’s unique. This isn’t something that pops up in a quick search or in also bought lists.
I’m vending at in-person events in and around Texas, such as Comicpalooza. It’s nice to escape the trials of online book marketing and talk with readers face to face. I wish my series had more visibility, but there are thousands of new books published every day on Amazon. It blows my mind that so many people’s hopes and dreams go unread, unnoticed, and buried. We live in strange times.
My series is dystopian sci-fi with elements of progression fantasy and a hard magic system. It starts with MAJORITY and is available in Kindle Unlimited and Audible+.
In honor of the late Vernor Vinge, I read Rainbows End.
What a wonderful visionary. In Vinge’s future (which is now), machine learning and internet search engines have made everyone smarter instead of stupider. Social media has made everyone kinder and more understanding of different cultures. People are living their best lives. The global economy is booming, and rich people sponsor bioengineers to make custom-tailored cures for their diseases, which has led to huge breakthroughs in medicine. They can cure Alzheimer’s and cancer. Also, kids constantly play games and education is fun. Everyone wears AR/VR contact lenses, no visors required, and there are touchy-feely haptics.
Doesn’t it sound nice? I want to live there.
Anyway, the plot is sort of a cross between A Man Called Ove and a 1980s feel-good movie. The main character is a grouch with a boomer attitude, and he needs to get off his high horse and team up with some kids in order to progress as a person. It’s great.
There is some silliness to the story, which might be a Vinge trademark, but my admiration for his work remains strong. Of all the sci-fi authors of that generation, he is my favorite.
Vinge is best known for A Fire Upon the Deep, which I discussed on a podcast with other fans of his work.
Also, I’ve surpassed 1300+ books read on Goodreads. Someday, maybe I’ll receive as many reviews as I’ve written, heh.
Colossus Rising
Available now on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited, Audible, and as a print paperback, this is a sci-fi odyssey you won’t want to miss. In the gripping second volume of this electrifying sci-fi fantasy series, the battle for survival reaches new heights in the unforgiving depths of space.
A ragtag group of escapees hurtles through the vastness of space, pursued by armadas, saboteurs, and kamikaze armies. The Earth they once knew is blocked by the relentless Torth Majority who now threaten all of humanity.
Among the escapees is Ariock, a powerhouse of a gladiator with illegal superpowers, a legacy from his legendary great-grandfather who defied the Torth. Ariock is determined to follow in his footsteps. Then there’s Thomas, a brilliant supergenius, physically challenged but gifted with a mind that’s both awe-inspiring and enigmatic. His resilience is shrouded in mystery, even to his foster sister Vy.
Their common thread is fear of the unknown. Crash-landing on a distant, toxic planet, they discover it’s the ancestral home of the Torth, their galactic enemies. The remnants of the Torth era of origin still haunt this poisoned wasteland.
As they face mutant horrors and relentless galactic foes, Thomas envisions only doom and despair. But for Ariock and the streamship exiles, it’s a do-or-die struggle for survival—a quest to uncover light in a city trapped in eternal night.
With over 750,000 views as a web serial, the Torth series begins with Majority. Superpowered mavericks and supergeniuses vie for galactic dominance against a collective armada composed of 38 trillion personalities. Higher stakes than Red Rising or The Expanse. One of the 100 Best Indie Books of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews.
If you read these books, please rate them or leave a review!
Goodreads: Majority | Colossus Rising
Amazon: Majority | Colossus Rising | World of Wreckage
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Meh.
Okay, I need to explain my reaction. The production value of Rings of Power is top notch. They have a stellar art department, music by Bear McCreary, great actors, incredible costume design. The only thing that isn’t awesome is the writing/story. And it’s not bad. It’s just…
I don’t even blame the writing team, because I think their hands were tied. They had to work on a major IP with tons of investment money and not take storytelling risks. When you tell stories by committee without taking risks, you’re gonna get some bland storytelling. I think they did a great job, given the constraints they had. They did their best. And it wasn’t bad. The writing here is certainly a thousand times better than the travesty that was the Wheel of Time adaptation.
Judging by media buzz, few people guessed who Sauron was. Really? Is that true? Because it seemed obvious to me by episode 2.
And I guess people were wowed by the stranger with Nori, and didn’t see that ending coming? I saw it a mile away. The final episode “I’m good!” scene was still fun and satisfying to watch, but it was extremely predictable. I think most viewers guessed who the stranger is, in Lord of the Rings lore.
I enjoyed watching the elves, the dwarves, the harfoots, and the Numenorians. But I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters. We all know Galadriel and Elrond survive, so there’s very little tension to those scenes. I guess a lot of people were charmed by Nori, but I found her charm to be very crafted/scripted. Didn’t care about Isildur. He gave off a spoiled Nick Cage vibe. Theo, son of Bronwyn? He seemed like was about to go bad at any second, but turned out to going through a simplistic moral struggle that didn’t really seem cogent. Durin & Disa were cute as a dwarf royal couple, and I did really enjoy their interactions with each other and with Elrond. But in the end, there isn’t much character conflict there, either. Durin’s conflict with his father is classic and predictable.
Every character in this show is going through bland, diluted, classical, predictable struggles. Galadriel thirsts for vengeance. That is all her character is about. Elrond is torn between friendships and duties. Meh. Durin has to obey his father. The Stranger is worried that he might be a peril, aka evil. Nori wants to wander instead of following the path. Arondir is torn between loyalty to his elven people and his love for a human (who is much younger than him, but that is never addressed). Etc. These are all very simple characters with simplistic, bare bones interactions.
The dialogues between Galadriel and Halbrand at the end? Those were okay, but not exceptional in the way that Game of Thrones (seasons 1-5) was. To me, it felt like it had to go through a lot of committee approval processes.
With everything else about this show being so exceptionally beautiful, it was hard for me to watch it wasted on mediocre storytelling. Those elven halls! Numenor! It was so gorgeous!
I wish Hollywood would dare to take risks on non-safe IPs again.
I just marathoned the audiobook editions of The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba, one of the largest web serials ever. I am agog.
10.1 million words, so far.
2.5 million of it is in audio, so far. That’s like 200+ hours of listening material.
The TWI series is actually bigger than my Torth series, which is a measly 1.1 million words in its entirety. TWI has more main characters, a larger world, and a bigger word count. It’s bigger than Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time combined. The author is still putting out 2 chapters every week. They (no idea what gender the author is) have an active fan community, 4,000+ patrons on Patreon, and they (or their publisher?) hired the most talented female audiobook narrator I’ve ever heard.
And the series is awesome. I really got into it. Fair warning: The first book suffers from some amateur storytelling, including a main character that is hard to like or connect with until later on. I nearly quit a few times. But I’ve learned that my favorite series have problematic beginnings, so I pushed through, and I’m really glad I did. I’m ranking this one right up there with my all-time favorites. The author gets better and better, and the series is pure fun. It has the magical ingredient: Really outstanding interpersonal character dynamics.
It’s interesting that it remains addictive even without any majorly oppressive grimdark plot thread. Like Beware of Chicken and He Who Fights With Monsters and other SFF web serials that took off, TWI is light rather than dark. It’s fun rather than grim.
By comparison, I’m worried about how my series will fare on RoyalRoad. Mine just isn’t that light. It has a majorly oppressive galactic empire that needs to be defeated. One of my main characters goes super dark in Book 1, and spends the rest of the series on a redemption arc. Readers love that character–but only if they get past the beginning “gauntlet” of evil oppressive crap that he gets involved in.
I do have length on my side. 450+ chapters ready to go. But mine is finite. It has an ending.
I want a career like Pirateaba’s! They are incredible. They are the Brandon Sanderson of the web serial world.
You know what else? I think this whole web serial phenomenon speaks to the state of the publishing industry. The Wandering Inn is just as good and just as much fun as The Wheel of Time. If this was the 1990s, it might be the new Wheel of Time. Yet here in the 2020s, it’s an underground fandom instead of a trad pub juggernaut.
I think that’s due to the way algorithms are causing readers and literary agents to overvalue trends and books that are already popular, while also tamping down emergent stuff with unrealized potential. Pirateaba’s series has great word-of-mouth, which is allowing them to break out of the underground niche a bit and realize some of their vast potential. I’m sure 4,000+ patrons has enabled them to write full-time and hire an assistant and all that. But they only got there by writing an addictive series with millions of words and consistently adding new chapters. And even with their success, their fandom is still quite underground.
We live in unfortunate times for the arts, I think.
I’m really glad to have discovered Pirateaba, even if it was through underground channels where adventurous readers hang out. I think they have a great career ahead of them.
