Ask Chaos Anything!

[Chaos he/him]

8 hours ago, The Stick said:

Continuing on from that, if water was used a something that acted as the absolute position for the relative position of another object, what happens.

Secondly, what would happen if something underwent a phase change as either the object being anchored, or the object a position is being anchored relative too. I am thinking of really cool doors that can only be unlocked by changing the phase, and therefore size and relative position of things.

Well, now I feel like I'm Brandon and I'm asking deep mechanics WoBs! (It is pretty cool though.)

I think the relative anchor would just break. Best case scenario, a water droplet is anchored onto, say, your coat and follows you around for a bit. I feel like you couldn't apply that much aether to a water droplet, so the anchor would probably snap very quickly. Same as if you anchored a dust particle. It's solid, but it's not going to stay in the air long.

As for phase change doors, I don't think that'd work, both magically and practically. I feel like the only substance that would be conducive for that is ice, and so you'd have to keep the ice cold. Once the ice melts, whatever it's anchored to will snap for the same reasons as above.

You can just make a regular, heavy door and anchor it shut. You'll see something like this in the book.

[BlueWildRye he/him]

I know it's been some time... How's the book coming?

[Chaos he/him]

12 hours ago, WildRye said:

I know it's been some time... How's the book coming?

Hey, not a worry. Thanks for asking!

Book is going awesome! At the end of May I finished Part Three (of five). This summer I have not quite gotten as far as I wanted, because I had so many work projects as well as our honeymoon to Australia, but I am 78% done, and I am two chapters away from the start of the big Brandon Avalanche. I just need to focus on actually doing Part Four, and not skip ahead to the fun stuff in Part Five. I expect once I am done with Part Four I will blaze through Part Five.

After all, I've thought about the ending of this book for ten to twelve years, so I am very hyped. The other day I wrote the last two scenes in the final regular chapter (not including the three epilogue scenes), and it's very exciting.

Book will be done by the end of October almost certainly.

[Aeoryi she/her]

Do you enjoy moderating, and do you personally think that you are satisfied with your site decisions?

Do you think Kaladin (at the end of RoW) would be able to beat Kelsier?

Are you still working on Prophet King?

What's the farthest south you've ever been?

[Chaos he/him]

11 hours ago, Aeoryi said:

Do you enjoy moderating, and do you personally think that you are satisfied with your site decisions?

Do you think Kaladin (at the end of RoW) would be able to beat Kelsier?

Are you still working on Prophet King?

What's the farthest south you've ever been?

1. Enjoy... hmm. It can be pretty taxing. But I do enjoy being the big guns that staff brings out to deal with jackasses. I do think I have gotten a lot better at this, but I have never been one who, like... avoids confrontation? It's pretty easy for me.

Overall, I think there have been some mistakes--and I have been too harsh at times--but I'm pleased with the big decisions. 

2. Radiant Shardbearer with Plate who can also fly vs. guy who can fly with no natural defenses, whose primary offense is regular daggers and shooting coins... Yeah, this seems like no contest. Kelsier is great, but Radiants are super OP.

3. Very much so! Approaching the ending. I spoke about this a bit more in my last post.

4. Sydney, Australia, which I was just in earlier this month! 

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

5 hours ago, Chaos said:

I do enjoy being the big guns that staff brings out

Of course you do.

 

What is your favorite math pun?

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

On 8/23/2024 at 12:45 AM, Chaos said:

Hey, not a worry. Thanks for asking!

Book is going awesome! At the end of May I finished Part Three (of five). This summer I have not quite gotten as far as I wanted, because I had so many work projects as well as our honeymoon to Australia, but I am 78% done, and I am two chapters away from the start of the big Brandon Avalanche. I just need to focus on actually doing Part Four, and not skip ahead to the fun stuff in Part Five. I expect once I am done with Part Four I will blaze through Part Five.

After all, I've thought about the ending of this book for ten to twelve years, so I am very hyped. The other day I wrote the last two scenes in the final regular chapter (not including the three epilogue scenes), and it's very exciting.

Book will be done by the end of October almost certainly.

are you thinking about going the traditional publishing way or are you thinking about self publishing or something else entirely?

[Chaos he/him]

On 8/27/2024 at 6:01 PM, RoyalBeeMage said:

are you thinking about going the traditional publishing way or are you thinking about self publishing or something else entirely?

It's gotta be traditional publishing. To make it self-publishing, you have to write much faster than I do. (Or, realistically, split my book into like... five smaller books).

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

*Insulted Gasp* you didn't answer my question.

You might have answered these questions before, but what advice do you have for someone wanted to follow the same career path as you? What did that path look like? How did you decide to take that path?

[Chirolina she/her]

If you had to live the life of one of the characters in the Cosmere, from birth to death (or, if the chosen character isn't dead yet, you are stuck living their life until that happens, unless they're immortal I guess), which character would you choose?

Assume this is a timey-wimey magic thing where your real life pauses, you go live the entire life of your chosen character as if you are actually them (you keep your own thoughts and inner monologue but can't influence the character's choices) and then come safely home to Jess!

If you happen to choose an immortal character let's just say that you live their life until they find peace, and no longer have relevant "things" to do.

[Keke They/he]

Have you watched star wars the clone wars

[Chaos he/him]

Hello! I have been insanely busy since October till about... well, right now! 

I did finish the first draft of my first novel, The Prophet King, on my birthday at the end of October. Ended up being 285,000 words, very slightly under 1000 manuscript pages. I am immensely pleased with it, and will begin revisions very shortly. I absolutely destroyed the three alpha readers who finished the book. Great news.

On 8/23/2024 at 5:16 AM, Lego Mistborn said:

What is your favorite math pun?

Sorry for missing this one. I was always fond of the math pickup line, "I wish I was your derivative so I could lie to tangent to your curves." I still find it funny. Slightly educational too.

On 9/25/2024 at 9:05 AM, Lego Mistborn said:

You might have answered these questions before, but what advice do you have for someone wanted to follow the same career path as you? What did that path look like? How did you decide to take that path?

Academia sucks, I don't recommend it to anyone. I can only imagine it's going to get more horrific as children continue to have compounding issues from Covid learning loss. My last fall class was the weakest group I have ever taught, and expect it to get much worse. Being a teacher is truly exhausting and people will want everything from you. And it's never enough because the true issues are systemic issues like the overall system as well as poverty. But yeah sure I'll just teach people twelve years of math and calculus 1 in one sixteen-week semester. What could possibly go wrong? I would strongly dissuade everyone away from being a teacher of any kind. It is just not worth it.

Academic jobs like I have--that are tenured--are rare, and highly competitive. What I did was I got my math degree, and it was 2012, and the economy sucked, so I did grad school. I did enjoy lecturing (and still do) and so I continued teaching in a non-tenure track job for four years before getting this job.

On 12/4/2024 at 7:42 PM, Chirolina said:

If you had to live the life of one of the characters in the Cosmere, from birth to death (or, if the chosen character isn't dead yet, you are stuck living their life until that happens, unless they're immortal I guess), which character would you choose?

Assume this is a timey-wimey magic thing where your real life pauses, you go live the entire life of your chosen character as if you are actually them (you keep your own thoughts and inner monologue but can't influence the character's choices) and then come safely home to Jess!

If you happen to choose an immortal character let's just say that you live their life until they find peace, and no longer have relevant "things" to do.

Hmmm. I don't really handle stress well, so main characters are just out. One of my main characters in my novel is similar, only I have forced her to be very prominent... I certainly could never do better than her. 

Maybe someone in the Court of Gods...

Oh, but actually, I'd just be Rayse. I have stuff to do. I would transform these realms substantially. I'd probably do better than Rayse!

Is this incredibly hypocritical that I opened this with saying, "Oh, no one important" and then I went with, "Actually, God would be great," you'd be right! But hey. The heart wants what the heart wants. I suppose Invention would be pretty good, too. 

On 12/20/2024 at 7:26 AM, sarcasm spren said:

Have you watched star wars the clone wars

I have not, I'm afraid. 

[The cheeseman Don't you dare go Hollow!]

If you could watch any movie again for the first time, what would it be and why? Same question for books.

[Chaos he/him]

Oh no, it's been a long time since I've been over here! 

Not surprisingly, my absence mostly corresponds with when I was working revision for The Prophet King. I cannot truly explain to everyone just how much life admin I have completely ignored since last January to solely grind through this. (I did get two concussions last year, which didn't help).

Anyway, I am partially back here to answer stuff, but also to announce the 2.0 draft of the book is done as of yesterday! I had, uh, a Taravangian level of transcendence over my spring break, and I did... the last ~27% of the entire book in 11 days. That's 71,000 words, by the way. (Tress, by comparison, is 107,000 words entirely.) By comparison, the first quarter of the revision took 205 days (concussions suck, take care of your head), the second quarter, 151 days, and the third quarter 75 days. Sooooo doing that last portion was a lot.

I'll be doing a beta starting in May or early June and last for threeish months. I probably have too many betas already but I am ready for more people. I'll be putting a more official beta callout eventually with some particular things I need but in case anyone is interested, here's the back of the book blurb thingy:

Quote

The Hero of Lenoa seeks peace.

Haunted by pain from the actions that made her a hero, Alessa Ravinicci is called back to war. A man claiming to be Selarin, the Prophet King who shattered a continent and nearly destroyed the world, has returned claiming the world will end. The cruel queen Alessa once mentored has a simple mission for her: to determine if this "Selarin" is the actual Prophet, and if so, kill him once and for all.

The Engineer of Death seeks redemption.

Kumori, Princess of Leshan, stands at Selarin’s right hand to stop the end of the world. A renowned aetherist whose inventions have been used to kill, Kumori will do anything to make up for the mistakes of the past. As her scheming mother tries to use the chaos of Selarin’s arrival to her advantage, Kumori must travel into dangerous territory– Alessa’s home, the country her family once tried to conquer– to avert the end. 

These two legends are on a collision course to discover and fight for the truth. But time is running out. For Selarin’s prophecy is clear. 

Ninety-one days, two Hours, and thirteen minutes until the end of the world.

It has tons of the things you'd like from a Brandon book, with rules based magics and high magic, a very strong plot and an avalanche of an ending (I did the entire ending in days, it's so good), and is queerer. It is pretty long, at 262,000 words. My plan now is to do some line editing so it should trim down... some. But, feeling really good about this. My alpha feedback was very positive and this draft is far superior, so I'm ready to show it to a wider audience.

Okay, now for questions. Sorry cheeseman!

On 1/26/2025 at 9:32 AM, The cheeseman said:

If you could watch any movie again for the first time, what would it be and why? Same question for books.

Man, what do I choose here for books? Mistborn or Foundation's Edge were awesome and formative books for me. But maybe Oathbringer? I love the lore we got there, but there's just something that is so awesome of learning what the hell is going on in practice that does take a bit of the mystique out of later books. I also think Oathbringer's ending is just spectacular, though.

Movies... hmmm. Honestly, K-Pop Demon Hunters. It is genuinely the movie I have seen the most in my life, and may be favorite movie, but the pure euphoria of seeing it the first time was unparalleled. 

[Aeoryi she/her]

4 minutes ago, Chaos said:

It has tons of the things you'd like from a Brandon book, with rules based magics and high magic, a very strong plot and an avalanche of an ending (I did the entire ending in days, it's so good), and is queerer. It is pretty long, at 262,000 words. My plan now is to do some line editing so it should trim down... some. But, feeling really good about this. My alpha feedback was very positive and this draft is far superior, so I'm ready to show it to a wider audience.

Ooohhhhh epic

I remember you talking about working on this in... 2023

Glad to see that you've gone through with it! Also sounds like you're proud of your work, which is always nice to hear.

[Chaos he/him]

12 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

Ooohhhhh epic

I remember you talking about working on this in... 2023

Glad to see that you've gone through with it! Also sounds like you're proud of your work, which is always nice to hear.

Yeah, wow. And you're totally right, because I did really start working on the book in earnest in 2023. In 2021 I just had written the prologue, in 2022 I wrote the first three chapters of Alessa and one of Kumori. In 2023, I had finally finished part one and really got into it. By the end of 2023, I hit 98,000 words, which was longer than my half-finished manuscript of a different project I did in college, but that was just about a third of the length of the book. Then, I finished in 2024. 

Revisions took a long time, as I wanted to do it very thoroughly. 

I am very proud of it! I right now have a very small crew of alpha readers who are ravenous for the sequel. If none of these get published, it's genuinely awesome that people are looking forward to it. But hey, maybe a publisher will pick it up.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

I don't know much about it but I'd be down to read it if it ever gets published.

Edited April 2 by Usseewa
Removed vertical space from quotebox.

[Through the Living Hope]

11 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Yeah, wow. And you're totally right, because I did really start working on the book in earnest in 2023. In 2021 I just had written the prologue, in 2022 I wrote the first three chapters of Alessa and one of Kumori. In 2023, I had finally finished part one and really got into it. By the end of 2023, I hit 98,000 words, which was longer than my half-finished manuscript of a different project I did in college, but that was just about a third of the length of the book. Then, I finished in 2024. 

Revisions took a long time, as I wanted to do it very thoroughly. 

I am very proud of it! I right now have a very small crew of alpha readers who are ravenous for the sequel. If none of these get published, it's genuinely awesome that people are looking forward to it. But hey, maybe a publisher will pick it up.

I read the blurbs and that book sounds peak

I remember learning a bit about different publishing methods a couple years ago, can’t remember any off the top of my head right now. The thing I remember right now is like how The Martian was published where it was released chapter by chapter on a blog. I think the issue with this was that if a publisher does pick it up, you’d probably have to take down the posted chapters 

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

What is your opinion on Project Hail Mary?

You don’t prefer the afterlife? What are your thoughts on that? What brought you to that preference?

Have you played Hollow Knight?

What altitude do you think Highstorm clouds hover at?

What’s your favorite part of the forums?

[Chaos he/him]

9 hours ago, Through The Living Grub said:

1. What is your opinion on Project Hail Mary?

2. You don’t prefer the afterlife? What are your thoughts on that? What brought you to that preference?

3. Have you played Hollow Knight?

4. What altitude do you think Highstorm clouds hover at?

5. What’s your favorite part of the forums?

1. Haven't read it or seen it yet. I'll get to it... eventually... hopefully... It'd be nice to read something non-Brandon or non-Janci sometime.

2. I'm not opposed to like, having more time, but eternally more time and actually living forever? No thanks. Things have value because they are limited. I think life would become boring and meaningless given a long enough timespan. If there's no option to just end your existence eventually, that sounds terrifying. Endings are not an inherently bad thing. I don't know. I mean, there's at best very weak evidence for the afterlife anyway, so I don't suspect this will be a problem, but are people who believe in the afterlife really sure it's great? That seems like... a lot to swallow. I don't think I could be so confident about anything, even stuff I had tons of physical and demonstrable evidence for. "Trust me, it'll totally be great over here, guys." Meanwhile there are so many scifi / fantasy stories talking about the problems with immortality that I just... don't have any confidence that this afterlife would be different.

Regardless, though I imagine it's theoretically possible there is such a thing, there's been no evidence for souls yet, and lots of evidence that your personality is very directly linked with the neurons in your brain. If there was a magical special essence to your being, why can head injuries permanently change your personality? That seems so incongruous with the notion of a soul to me that it seems perclusionary. How does the soul attach to the neurons in the brain, because we know for sure affecting the neurons definitely affects your sense of self? What's the mechanism or interface between meat-stuff and soul-stuff? Maybe there is one, who's to say, but betting on souls has not led to positive evidence so far, so I would bet against it, personally. I'm willing to be convinced, but it needs to be very strong evidence, and neuroscience doesn't lend any credence to it. Of course we don't know how consciousness works per se, but that's not a reason to think "I have a special essence, different from my brain, that contains my sense of self" or something.

Anyway, so an afterlife is interesting to think about, but it's not like I actually worry about it. The afterlife seems more a reflection of what people want to happen, and the fear of mortality, than anything actually real. And that's super understandable, but... that's not good enough for me. I can be persuaded about crazy, wild claims--just think how crazy and wild quantum mechanics is--but I need the goods before I can care at all. 

3. Nope. Unfortunately, video game time is just Eric-isn't-writing-time, so I don't get to play video games anymore if I want to get things done. Hollow Knight doesn't really feel like my kind of game though. I don't want to play challenging games anymore, and Metroidvania games have never really appealed to me. It is very pretty though and well made, no doubt about it. 

4. I mean they have to get up to cumulonimbus heights for sure, and be kind of the most extreme variety of those. Those things can be up to 10km high, so 32,000 ft. Uh, good luck surviving up there, Windrunners. 

5. I'm not sure I have one anymore, honestly. I do legitimately spend far more time on the Discord than the forums. The religion threads are interesting to me, but a big time suck. 

On 4/1/2026 at 8:37 PM, Through the Living Hope said:

I read the blurbs and that book sounds peak

I remember learning a bit about different publishing methods a couple years ago, can’t remember any off the top of my head right now. The thing I remember right now is like how The Martian was published where it was released chapter by chapter on a blog. I think the issue with this was that if a publisher does pick it up, you’d probably have to take down the posted chapters 

I'm glad! Grace (thegatorgirl) wrote it, based off my original blurb, and she's very good at them.

[Schizoposting]

You have probably talked about it before, but I have a few questions regarding your book: what made you write it? What's the writing process like? Did you have any prior experience in creative writing? And if not, did you take any lessons or read/watch any guides? Do you think that the book is publishable, or is it just a passion project?

I am asking this, because, I have to admit, I have been at least somewhat tempted by the prospect of writing something of my own, so I'm curious as to what it's like.

[Chaos he/him]

On 4/5/2026 at 11:07 PM, Schizoposting said:

You have probably talked about it before, but I have a few questions regarding your book:

1. what made you write it? / Did you have any prior experience in creative writing?

2. What's the writing process like?

3. And if not, did you take any lessons or read/watch any guides?

4. Do you think that the book is publishable, or is it just a passion project?

I am asking this, because, I have to admit, I have been at least somewhat tempted by the prospect of writing something of my own, so I'm curious as to what it's like.

I split this up into a few different sections for ease of response.

1. I've always dreamt up stories. I remember as a kid just having a tennis racket and bouncing a tennis ball up and down and thinking of fantasy / scifi stories. This was very, very common for me. Video game stories really captured my attention. 

Here's a fun little anecdote. I remember a standardized test in school where they had you write a creative essay, and the prompt was something akin to, "You come across a chair in a mall and you're transported somewhere else" and you had to write something. I don't remember what I actually wrote, but I was transported to some fantasy world, and I think I was on flying on the chair, and there was some evil wizard on a similar chair. We duked it out with different colored laser beams, and the different colors had different effects... Anywho, apparently the graders did not like this and I heard they actually wanted to hold me back a grade. BUT LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING NOW??

Anyway so you can see why I gravitated to writing fantasy and harder magic systems with defined abilities, hah.

I wrote some stuff in high school--including a Yugioh forum RP which was very foundational for my creative writing, to be honest--and in college I wrote half a book (about 90,000 words) with a reincarnation based magic system, which went pretty well though had some important flaws. In college I started getting the key defining ideas for The Prophet King, but it seemed very ambitious, so I wanted to finish the reincarnation book first. But I just got burned out, and I lost my momentum. I think I got feedback too early. Years went by, and then... I just was never getting back to that.

I met my wife on here, and I distinctly remember when she visited, I would tell her about Prophet King and lots of details about it. This has been stewing in my brain for a very long time, so I had lots to tell her about, as well as lots of secrets. Then, in 2021, it was just... why not go for it and actually write the thing? Jess was right, it was the thing I was passionate about. 

Though this trilogy has been the subject of much thought and attention of mine, there are plenty more stories that I will write, too. Jess can tell you, my mood is strongly correlated with me getting writing done

2. Hmmm. How do I talk about this in a succinct way? I could (and will) talk for a long time on this. I started with a few core ideas, which led to a few characters, and the worldbuilding and story stemmed from them. Like Brandon, I am very excited and motivated by endings, so I start with the cool ending first, and work my way backwards. I'm a huge outliner.

In fact, when I am writing a new scene, I often need to outline the beat-by-beat layout of each scene, up to the ending of that scene, so I can figure out the essence and soul of the scene. I don't write in order, either. I will skip around between scenes, and in a scene itself, I am skipping around in it, too. Words are words, so I will write the interesting part and stitch them together. If you saw a chapter that I was halfway done writing it would be completely unintelligible. 

3. Not really? I remember being very overwhelmed when I first listened to Writing Excuses when I was writing the reincarnation book. This was back when Brandon did that podcast. Go write anything. It will suck. But just do some stuff and figure out what works for you. There is no one way to write, no one way to outline. The creative process is different for everyone.

4. I actually think this is pretty solid. I had great reception on the alpha draft from a good set of alpha readers, and that draft was way worse than this revised draft. It's honestly extremely cool. We'll see what the beta readers think. Though I do think it's publishable, I don't think any publisher will take a 260,000 word book from a first time author, but we will see. I think it is likely I will need to write something shorter first, and then whenever that's picked up by a publisher, maybe they will take a look at this. 

I am very happy to say that the ending for Prophet King that I have thought of for probably fifteen years absolutely slapped. Every alpha is ravenous for the sequel, as am I. The second book is the one I am even more excited for than book one, but now that outlining is coming soon for it, I'm a bit nervous. Book two is a complicated beast, with four POV characters instead of two, with a risky structural aspect... There are several reasons that I want to complete the trilogy before selling the first one, so hopefully I can make this all work. 

The end of book two is one that I actually made a dramatic change in 2022 (which is very recent for core changes)  compared to the original ideas. That will at least completely slap. I've already written snippets of it (as I am wont to do) and damn. It's going to be so delicious. It's been very fun to write lines into book one's revision that have meaning in that book, but will have way more meaning if you reread it after book two. 

Sometime, I hope everyone can read it all! But I can be very patient with my secrets. 

[Through the Living Hope]

5 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I split this up into a few different sections for ease of response.

1. I've always dreamt up stories. I remember as a kid just having a tennis racket and bouncing a tennis ball up and down and thinking of fantasy / scifi stories. This was very, very common for me. Video game stories really captured my attention. 

Here's a fun little anecdote. I remember a standardized test in school where they had you write a creative essay, and the prompt was something akin to, "You come across a chair in a mall and you're transported somewhere else" and you had to write something. I don't remember what I actually wrote, but I was transported to some fantasy world, and I think I was on flying on the chair, and there was some evil wizard on a similar chair. We duked it out with different colored laser beams, and the different colors had different effects... Anywho, apparently the graders did not like this and I heard they actually wanted to hold me back a grade. BUT LOOK WHO'S LAUGHING NOW??

Anyway so you can see why I gravitated to writing fantasy and harder magic systems with defined abilities, hah.

I wrote some stuff in high school--including a Yugioh forum RP which was very foundational for my creative writing, to be honest--and in college I wrote half a book (about 90,000 words) with a reincarnation based magic system, which went pretty well though had some important flaws. In college I started getting the key defining ideas for The Prophet King, but it seemed very ambitious, so I wanted to finish the reincarnation book first. But I just got burned out, and I lost my momentum. I think I got feedback too early. Years went by, and then... I just was never getting back to that.

I met my wife on here, and I distinctly remember when she visited, I would tell her about Prophet King and lots of details about it. This has been stewing in my brain for a very long time, so I had lots to tell her about, as well as lots of secrets. Then, in 2021, it was just... why not go for it and actually write the thing? Jess was right, it was the thing I was passionate about. 

Though this trilogy has been the subject of much thought and attention of mine, there are plenty more stories that I will write, too. Jess can tell you, my mood is strongly correlated with me getting writing done

2. Hmmm. How do I talk about this in a succinct way? I could (and will) talk for a long time on this. I started with a few core ideas, which led to a few characters, and the worldbuilding and story stemmed from them. Like Brandon, I am very excited and motivated by endings, so I start with the cool ending first, and work my way backwards. I'm a huge outliner.

In fact, when I am writing a new scene, I often need to outline the beat-by-beat layout of each scene, up to the ending of that scene, so I can figure out the essence and soul of the scene. I don't write in order, either. I will skip around between scenes, and in a scene itself, I am skipping around in it, too. Words are words, so I will write the interesting part and stitch them together. If you saw a chapter that I was halfway done writing it would be completely unintelligible. 

3. Not really? I remember being very overwhelmed when I first listened to Writing Excuses when I was writing the reincarnation book. This was back when Brandon did that podcast. Go write anything. It will suck. But just do some stuff and figure out what works for you. There is no one way to write, no one way to outline. The creative process is different for everyone.

4. I actually think this is pretty solid. I had great reception on the alpha draft from a good set of alpha readers, and that draft was way worse than this revised draft. It's honestly extremely cool. We'll see what the beta readers think. Though I do think it's publishable, I don't think any publisher will take a 260,000 word book from a first time author, but we will see. I think it is likely I will need to write something shorter first, and then whenever that's picked up by a publisher, maybe they will take a look at this. 

I am very happy to say that the ending for Prophet King that I have thought of for probably fifteen years absolutely slapped. Every alpha is ravenous for the sequel, as am I. The second book is the one I am even more excited for than book one, but now that outlining is coming soon for it, I'm a bit nervous. Book two is a complicated beast, with four POV characters instead of two, with a risky structural aspect... There are several reasons that I want to complete the trilogy before selling the first one, so hopefully I can make this all work. 

The end of book two is one that I actually made a dramatic change in 2022 (which is very recent for core changes)  compared to the original ideas. That will at least completely slap. I've already written snippets of it (as I am wont to do) and damn. It's going to be so delicious. It's been very fun to write lines into book one's revision that have meaning in that book, but will have way more meaning if you reread it after book two. 

Sometime, I hope everyone can read it all! But I can be very patient with my secrets. 

I’d definitely be interested in more details as you get closer to release, this sounds absolutely incredible!

[Chaos he/him]

On 4/8/2026 at 8:40 PM, Through the Living Hope said:

I’d definitely be interested in more details as you get closer to release, this sounds absolutely incredible!

Thanks for the kind words. It will be a very long time, if at all, as trad publishing is very competitive and a huge book like this will not be looked to kindly. It's entirely possible I'll need a shorter book to break in before anyone takes any interest in this one. 

Self publishing, particularly with AI rampaging about, seems just like a too difficult business model for me to make a living at. You really have to publish a book a year, and that's impossible for me. So, I have roll the trad publishing dice.

[Through the Living Hope]

32 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Thanks for the kind words. It will be a very long time, if at all, as trad publishing is very competitive and a huge book like this will not be looked to kindly. It's entirely possible I'll need a shorter book to break in before anyone takes any interest in this one. 

Self publishing, particularly with AI rampaging about, seems just like a too difficult business model for me to make a living at. You really have to publish a book a year, and that's impossible for me. So, I have roll the trad publishing dice.

Ah, gotcha. Well, good luck!