Weekly Roundup: September 4th - September 9th
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: Offering a Pay what you want or Pay what you can subscription. This is the steepest discounts I’ll ever be offering and they’re only available for the month of September. I also announced some new benefits for paying subscribers, including monthly essays. The first of which is going to be my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows essay, which finishes my months long preoccupation with the Harry Potter series.
Tuesday: Wrote about guilt by association, which has become very common online. I find it antipolitical but also a waste of words and time.
Wednesday: Paying subscribers received Chapter Eighteen of Emrys the Fool and free subscribers received Chapter Sixteen. If you received neither, there are instructions here on how to get these in your email.
Chapter Twenty is going to wrap up this second mini-arc, but that chapter is growing at an alarming rate and may end up quite long. But it’s also a real fun chapter. That’s coming in two weeks, so now is a good time to catch up!
Thursday: Episode 007 of The Dadpod Gamescast is about Mega Man!
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.
Friday: Not posted at this here substack, but my children’s storytime podcast continues with Chapter Nine 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 Ten involves a market meeting and preparing to head back to sea.
Music by my good friend Bart Larsen.
From the Archives
I think this intersects a bit with my essay from Tuesday and so I thought I’d share it again.
The internet is fueled by anger, spite, and fear. These emotions make mountains of money by drawing your eyes to a page where your digital footprint can be sold to advertisers.
Saw a brief conversation on the world wide web about how people like Matt Walsh, who espouse traditional values as a fulfilling antidote to modernity, seem so constantly pissed off by everything.
Is he unfulfilled or is it his job to be a petty weirdo triggered by everything he sees in culture? The answer, most likely, is that being triggered by modernity 24/7, whether performatively or in actuality, probably makes him a real unpleasant person in his daily life.
But there sure is a lot of gold in that mine.
Listening
I love a good dance routine in a music video. Maybe I’ll write about this…
Reading
I may have mentioned that I’m writing a novel for my nephews but a book I read this week made me realize I need to rework some things. It’s called The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan. It’s all right! My nephews love it and I understand why. It feels perfect for a 10 year old.
Also read a biography of Henry IV, which was pretty interesting, especially if you’re looking for contrast to Shakespeare’s version. It’s by Ian Mortimer.
shares, I think, a funny commonality with my own writing, in that she pulls in a dozen disparate topics and ideas to illustrate a point. makes a compelling case that makes me care about a show I never watched. has been writing these monthly mini-workshops for a long time and they’re always worth checking out. Unless you’re not into writing. Then they’re probably not.
An invitation to slow down.
Watching
This Interview with the Vampire TV adaptation shares almost none of its plot with the novel it’s based on yet it feels like one of the best novel adaptations I’ve encountered.
Haven’t finished the series yet so I may change my mind, but this is real good.
What Else?
is currently running a kickstarter for a horror comic that’s already fully funded! Looks pretty cool. I interviewed Russell back in July.Iron Wolf is still newly out and could use reviews!
A few weeks ago, I began passively throwing together some ideas for a Tabletop RPG.
I don’t know why. I’ll never know why I do certain things that I do. But the genre I picked presented a lot of complications so I shifted gears this week and made it into a dark fantasy RPG, which is easier for me to wrap my head around. And I spent a lot of time this week making rules and a framework for the setting.
I went into this with the goal of making a very rules light game that’s easy to pick up and play without too much effort. And while I think the rules are pretty clear, light, and straightforward, this still ended up being about 50 pages.
It still has no name and there’s no initial quest or anything, but if anyone out there is interested, here’s a rough draft/work in progress.
I would genuinely appreciate any feedback, especially if anyone decides to try playing it. I’ll keep tinkering away on it, but I think I’ve reached more or less my limit with what’s possible for me to accomplish without playtesting.
To send me feedback, respond to this email in your inbox or ejrathke at gmail.
Also, for you writers out there, I have a plan for this world that may be of interest to you. More on this later this month.
That’s it from me.
Anyway, read my books that are currently out. Then review them.
Thank you.
My novels, whose paperbacks are all $9.99 for the month of September:
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.
Thank you so much for the shout-out! I am honored!
Thanks so much for the shoutout! I really appreciate it!