Interregnum

(A Clean Death, coming soon!)

As last week marked the final episode of Death and Taxes, there is no story this Friday.

However, next week begins a new tale—A Clean Death. This features two of the characters from Death and Taxes, Little Pepper and Hedda, some years after the events shared in that story. If you want to read more, then head to the introduction and navigation page.

I’m already having mild nightmares about the images I shall choose for the forthcoming serialisation of A Clean Death. It is an almost entirely urban tale, which means careful selection of photographs without wires, satellite dishes, street signs etcetera. Epic, rural and wilderness fantasy, I’ve got you covered—urban, I’m struggling!

Tales of The Lesser Evil—2024

If you have been waiting for Death and Taxes to finish before reading the story (and I don’t blame you if you have), then now is the time. I am currently putting the finishing touches to an .epub file of each of the stories so far shared (Only One Death, Dust and Death, Death and Taxes, and also to A Clean Death, which will be shared soon) and, when this is complete, I shall paywall each of the stories—with the exception of Only One Death.

Paid subscribers will be able to either read the stories on Substack (whether the app or the website), or download the files to read on an e-reader of their choosing.

I shall keep Only One Death free for everyone to read on Substack. I shall also keep the current story free too, whilst serialised but, once complete, it too shall be paywalled.

However, I shall also be sharing the e-book file of whichever story I am serialising, for paying subscribers, as soon as I start to serialise it. The reason behind this is simple—I know some people can’t wait to find out what happens and would perhaps be willing to pay to find out sooner.

In short, this means that all subscribers can read my stories via the letters I send out, and, along with non-subscribers, can read whichever story is currently being shared, via the Substack app or website. Paid subscribers can read all the stories, both online, via the app, and also as an .epub download.

It is also my intention to begin to share extra posts about my fiction, specifically for paying subscribers. I have several ideas for these, along the lines of the letter I shared with everyone about the process behind my map making.

I have loose ideas to begin to use the community features here on Substack in 2024—first with Ancestral, Wild Empowerment, then for my fiction. What form the latter shall take has yet to be settled upon, however, so this will not arrive immediately.

In summary, solely for fiction (there are other benefits to being a paid subscriber not discussed here):

FREE SUBSCRIBERS:

• Weekly serialised fiction via email/app/website (Next: A Clean Death, January 2024)

• Only One Death, complete novella on app/website

PAID SUBSCRIBERS:

• Weekly serialised fiction via email/app/website (Next: A Clean Death, January 2024)

• Only One Death, complete novella on app/website and as an .epub file

• Dust & Death, complete novelette on app/website and as an .epub file

• Death & Taxes, complete novella on app/website and as an .epub file

• A Clean Death, complete novella on app/website and as an .epub file

• (Death In Harmony to follow later in 2024, complete novel, on app/website and as an .epub file)

• Community discussions (to be finalised!)

• Bonus posts/letters.

Finally

I fervently believe that fiction can share things that matter, things that are real and important—whether values we should cherish or ideas we should abhor and fight against—all cunningly hidden within stories which grip, which excite, which engage and make you feel. I like to make my characters and the events in my stories seem believable, even if they may involve hints of magic, or situations you would never wish to find yourself within.

This is a time-honoured tradition and I make no apologies for it. Story matters. It locks us into something ancient and fresh, all at the same time; it transports us and it stays with us, making us look at our own world anew, through the lens of a world not ours.

The fiction section of The Crow’s Nest will become increasingly important in the coming year and beyond. The world of The Lesser Evil (and its sister, The Greater Good) has been years in the making, and I am very excited to be able to share it with you, here and, I hope, through books published elsewhere.

Finally, if you subscribe solely for the stories (and that is fine!), don’t forget that I also share other words here on Substack, whether through my discussion of Edges and Entries, those liminal places which feel between worlds, or through my ongoing project to show how we can achieve a sense of calm and strength through a study of nature, as seen through the eyes of our hunter-fisher-gatherer ancestors, in Ancestral, Wild Empowerment. Both of these sections of The Crow’s Nest will often give you a deeper perspective into the ideas behind my fiction—they each feed into the other.

Many thanks for reading this year—it has been a true pleasure to read your comments and know my stories have been received and enjoyed. There is a lot more to come.