Weekly Roundup: July 23rd - July 30th
I’m e rathke, the author of a number of books. Learn more about what you signed up for here. Go here to manage your email notifications.
This Week’s Posts
Monday: My review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix continues my series on the Harry Potter book series. I think this might be the best of the Potter books, but I also have some real quibbles! And potentially fall into a trap of taking too seriously something that’s not meant to be dissected this way.
Tuesday: Iron Wolf came out from Broken River Books! It’s the sequel to Howl. More information at the link, but you can buy it right now in ebook or paperback!
Wednesday: Paying subscribers received Chapter Eleven of Emrys the Fool and free subscribers received Chapter Nine. If you received neither, there are instructions here on how to get these in your email.
Thursday: I interviewed the one and only David Simmons about Ghosts of East Baltimore and its sequel Ghosts of West Baltimore, which came out this week. But it here!
Friday: Not posted at this here substack, but my children’s storytime podcast continues with Chapter Three of A Pirate’s Life. This is the story I’ve been telling my son for a few months and began recording for him on his Yoto Player. With that in mind, this is a story meant for children and so share it with a child.
A young boy named Carrot who wants to become a pirate. Chapter Three involves meeting the crew of the Blundering Beluga and beginning his pirate adventure.
Music by my good friend Bart Larsen.
Saturday: I published a previously published story, though it was only available in print. Now you can read it here. It’s about a generation ship traveling endlessly through space.
I’m considering discontinuing the short stories here, however. I may split all the fiction off to a new newsletter. I’m still thinking about it so the short stories may go on hiatus following this story, which has always been a favorite.
I wrote it in, I think, 2009.
From the Archives
I’ll be doing one of these for another famous writer that people have been talking about lately, so I thought I may as well remind you all that Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the greatest living authors.
Listening
Reading
’s collection is gonna be so good. Pre-order it here.
Read The Mabigonion, which is wild! Just bonkers stories that function in such a different mode than what you’re now used to. Also still bouncing through Beowulf and Gawain and the Green Knight translations. About to read the alliterative Mort d’Arthur because of course I am. Becoming a big fan of Simon Armitage.
The Chaucer biography I mentioned last week took a bit of a hiatus because my youngest was sick all week so I didn’t get a lot of reading done.
And then some other nice substackery posts:
Watching
lmao
What Else?
Iron Wolf came out this week! I’ve been pleased with the fact that people are buying it! It’s one of the most fun books I’ve ever written.
And then my biggest surprise of the week:
Dadpod Gamescast! My good friend Joe Owens had an idea several months ago to do a podcast about gaming and parenting. It took some time for us to get going, in part because the person who was meant to be the third cohost had a lot of scheduling conflicts. But we decided to just hop into it with the two of us for now. We released the first FOUR episodes this week because why not, yeah?
The cadence from here on out will be bimonthly.
Each episode, we focus on a single game, which often leads us to books, movies, other games, our childhoods, and this strange act of parenting.
I hope you give us a listen. Like and subscribe and review and all that. You can subscribe here at substack or at wherever you like to listen to podcasts, like Spotify and Apple.
That’s it from me.
Anyway, read my books that are currently out. Then review them.
Thank you.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.
Some free books for your trouble:
Wolf.
Howl.
Thanks for the mention!
Thank you so much for the shout-out!