Alright, So As My Post Yesterday Mentioned, I’m Taking A Main Title Design Course, Taught By Ash Thorp

Corner Pocket.

“Low-Earth Diadem.”

Rift.

(Or Chopstick.)

London Bridge is Burning…

NONE OF THIS IS REAL

It’s always nerve-wracking submitting writing for review, especially with the understanding that not every book is for everyone. Not to mention, some of my favorite books I didn’t finish the first time I picked them up. So yeah, reviews are very subjective.

So when I got my first critic review last week for Color of a Mirror from Kirkus Reviews, I was prepared for it to be some mixture of bad and good—and hoping for more of the latter. I’m so stoked to say that their final verdict was “Get It,” even going to on to call this unusual noir sci-fi story “Intricate, next-generation cyberpunk with a head-spinning finale.”

Just wow. Talk about head-spinning.

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A little about the book for those of you who may be new to this project: it centers around a cybernetically-enhanced musician who just wants to be a rockstar—which is apparently too much to ask. When one of her songs is used as the soundtrack to a viral homicide, she’s catapulted into the spotlight, only not like she’d imagined. Instead of following an action-heavy plot, the story is more focused on the interior dilemmas and relationships of the characters, as they strive to make it in a world that will crush them without a second thought.

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Check out the full Kirkus Review for a really good, spoiler-free write-up.

Sample the original soundtrack on Spotify and other major platforms.

And if all this makes you think you’d like to read the book, drop by my site here.

skull tears

Yesterday, I took delivery of the first printing of my novel, COLOR OF A MIRROR. It’s hard to believe that I wrote a book, that it’s finally a real thing… even more surreal that people are beginning to read this story in so many different places.

Books are in stock now on my website, including the brutalist “ArtificeLux Edition” deluxe hardcover (shown below). Be sure to check it out if you want an unconventional, dark cyberpunk novel to keep you company this winter!

(And listen to the dark ambient soundtrack while you read! Available on Spotify and other streaming services, or on vinyl in limited quantities on my site.)

The Big Reveal.

Beginning of a Totally Unrelated-to-Anything Scene

The place was called “Executive Hotel”—it took a conscious effort to keep from thinking what sort of low-life executive would choose to stay in such a pisspot.  It looked more like a prison compound than the “Most Comfortable Stay,” as the sign out front bragged.  Sleeping beneath an overpass might have been better.

White paint peeled from the exterior walls, streaking the dingy surface with scars of brown.  Either it was the paint peeling to reveal half-rotted wood beneath, or it was mildew caused by some awful roof runoff.  I was certain to stay far enough away so the distinction couldn’t be made.  And the cars parked in the lot were in much the same condition, nearly every one of them a beater joint fit to throw a piston and clatter to a stop at any moment.  Paint jobs all dull tans, beiges, and sickly olive greens—or at least they had been, before the rust had begun to corrode the old steel frames—did nothing to improve my already low opinion of this fine establishment.

It was enough to make a man rethink the choices he had made in his life.  And as the shoddy suspension of my loaner car—only earlier that day, I had saved it from the scrapper with a quick exchange of five, crisp one hundred dollar bills—bounced over the broken cracks of the uneven lot, rolling like a drunken mule into the space outlined by two non-existent yellow stripes, I found myself doing exactly that...