Corrupting Power

2/28/24 - Weekly Update

And on the 7th day, he napped.I'm not one who naps often, but my flatmate (who will remind me that he is 2 months OLDER than me at the drop of a hat) has oft advocated that any time I feel like I want to nap, I should take said nap. Usually, I am dismissive of this sort of nonsense. Today, however, I took the bait, and after an hour or two of staring angrily at a keyboard that couldn't see...

Quaranteam - Book 2, Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-OneApril 19th, 2021He hadn’t expected to be waking up just a short hop, skip and a jump away from Pinewood Studios, but sometimes the machinery that surrounded his life was just that much bigger and meaner than he was, and he had no choice but to acquiesce to its demands.Hollywood being what it was, the amount of shooting time needed in London had been expanded, and the key member...

A Pack Of His Own - Ch. 11 (Alpha readers)

Chapter ElevenThe day after Will had encountered Mister Silversmith, a notice was dropped off at the diner, marked personally for him, one which Billy seemed a little annoyed by as he waved it in Will’s face. “If you think this means shit’s going to change here for me, you best think again or have my replacement lined up,” he said, finally slapping the envelope into Will’s chest.“What ...

A Pack Of His Own - Ch. 10 (all readers)

Chapter TenThe hardest thing Will had ever done was to have to go back to work after he’d been kidnapped by monster hunters, but he felt like it was imperative his life try and get back to some semblance of normal, even if there was no possible way that he could ignore the fact that he now had four women sharing his bed on the regular.Each of the women was doing their best to get along with one ...

2/21/24 - Weekly Update

So, I'm back from vacation and let me tell you, the last few days of it were a fucking doozy. I spent two weeks jaunting around Hawaii, and for the most part, I had a blast, with a handful of exceptions.The last day of the trip, I was on a "sunset dinner cruise" on Kauai and generally, I don't get motion sick. First two and a half hours, I feel fine. Salad course arrives, I have so...

Weekly Update - 2/14/24

So, how's your day going?I dropped QT2:i4 on Tuesday, the same day I had lunch with the author of Quaranteam: 808 State, the first actual physical meeting of any two Quaranteam authors. A good time was had by all. He got to ask me a lot of questions about the future of the series, and I got to get a gutcheck about some of the big ideas that are coming down the pipeline in the near future. (In ...

Quaranteam Book 2, Intermission 4

Intermission Four – Milagros / JakeOperation: Funnel Cake – Case Files IB2323 & OB646IB2323 – Feb. 1st, 2021 – 1stContact – San Carlos de Bariloche, ArgentinaMilagros Herrera arrived at the tented outdoor temporary building with a certain level of trepidation, but there had been enough talk about how people were being offered a new life and being guaranteed safety from the virus that had...

Before The Storm - Ch. 10

Chapter TenThe planet was only a couple of ring jumps away, but it might as well have been like traveling back in time, Sketch thought, considering just how primitive and backwater the planet they were going to was. It wasn’t as though they didn’t know about technology; it was that they refused to use it voluntarily, for what they claimed were religious reasons. They didn’t have a problem wi...

2/7/24 - Weekly Update

Welcome from Paradise, folks. I'm officially somewhere warm and sunny and so far it's been delightful. I had rum in almost everything I drank yesterday and this morning debating whether I put on shorts today or not.As expected, I'm getting some writing done along the way, but we will see how it cranks along. I ended up sleeping 12 hours last night to try and adjust to the time zone (in...

Quaranteam: Unbroken Mold - Ch. 1 (alpha)

Chapter OneMarch 11th, 2020Senior Airman Tom Holt-Hodge looked out the window of the plane he was on and frowned as he noticed the plane’s wing tipping upward, meaning the 737 he was flying commercial on was turning off the expected path. He reached over to his right and shook his best friend, Joseph Barton, who was asleep next to him in their first-class seats.They hadn’t booked first-class, ...

Quaranteam: Aisling's Antics - Ch. 9

Part Nine – “Worse Than Mean”December 14th, 2020Fiona looked out the window at the snow-covered streets of New York City, watching cars slowly slog their way between the skyscrapers. The streets had been plowed, but because the traffic wasn’t constant, there was still some slush on the streets, and the sidewalks were only somewhat shoveled. Her watch said it was just past 9 a.m., and she w...

Weekly Update - 1/31/24

Whew! So that's out of the way.For those of you who haven't seen, I dropped QT2:20 earlier today, clocking in at just a hair's breadth shy of fifteen thousand words, meaning it's ostensibly three chapters worth of chapter in one chapter. I actually finished it at about 1 AM but wanted to have all the other QT writers take a quick look at it to make sure I hadn't made any silly ...

Quaranteam: Book Two - Ch. 20

Brewster's Brood - Pt. 35

Part Thirty-fiveDanny Garney – 3/11/2017 – Sunday – 12:22 pm“How are we looking, Danny?” Mrs. Churchill asked him on the phone. “I know Lynne’s been reporting a lot more activity for her scrambler to eat up, and that’s got me a little bit concerned.”The ex-soldier sighed a little bit. “Yeah, well, I warned you this was a thing we were going to have to contend with, boss. The re...

Weekly Update - 1/24/24

So here we are... about a week away from QT2:20, and I've already put a ton of work into it. The episode will even come with its own Spotify playlist. I've been slowly chipping away at it on and off for weeks now, and I think everyone will be satisfied with it when it drops. If not, well, I'm only human after all. There's a lot going on in the chapter, so get ready to get comfortab...

Neon Stonehenge - Ch. 6 (Alphas)

Chapter Six – “Seems Too Ordinary”You’d think that after my time spent running down mysteries and trouble, I’d have gotten used to the smell of corpses, but I don’t believe it’s a scent anyone can get used to. Nobody human, anyway. It’s a sort of rancid, acrid odor that cuts down to the bone marrow, pierces right into your soul as sharply as it can and reminds you of your own morta...

Neon Stonehenge - Ch. 5 (all readers)

Chapter Five – “Good Hunting”When I woke up in the morning, both Sirena and Navya were gone, but Gwen was still curled up in my bed, looking a bit more like her normal self. Most people don’t know, but succubi take on aspects that those around them find appealing without them even knowing, albeit just temporarily. So when she’s around me, the freckles become a bit more prominent, the red...

The Threadbinders - future direction

So next time we come back to Threadbinders, I want to try something a little different. The chance for those of you with voting rights to determine some of the plot of the next chapter. If you haven't read the two most recent chapters of Threadbinders, go do that first and then come back here.Got it? Great. So, you see I could have the 'Binders hang around a bit and Velshia could be fully ...

The Threadbinders - Ch. 9

Chapter NineThe elven woman was certainly easy on the eyes, of that Arkady had no doubt, and Gom Weydan was exceptionally lucky that they had caught on to something wrong before she had had a chance to spread Shesterlillies to every living soul within the city walls. Lush, full breasts, ideal hips, a slender waist, a pretty face – it was easy to see why the Shesterlily scout had chosen her, unaw...

Weekly Update - 1/17/23

Hopefully everyone's seen the note at the end of The Threadbinders 8, which announced that I was going to immediately roll over and continue with The Threadbinders 9 for Tuesday/Wednesday's release, which I'm a good ways into but not quite finished yet, so expect that soonish. I may be able to finish it off tonight when I get back from poker night, but that'll be wee hours of the m...

The Threadbinders - Ch. 8

Chapter EightGom Weydan hung on the horizon like a solitary jewel against the bronze of the morning.The Shimmering City.The Drifting Domain.If there was any place in the seven worlds that Arkady had always wanted to visit but had never had the opportunity to, it was Gom Weydan. The last time it had been around, they’d been on their way to see it, and the city’s gates had closed earlier than ex...

Quaranteam: Phil's Tale - Ch. 18

Chapter 18November 10th, 2020It had been nearly a week since his meeting with the President, and he felt both satisfied and frustrated all at the same time. On one hand, they’d made a ton of progress in locking out bypasses in the system – as far as Phil could tell, they had every major loophole closed and were down to just the last handful of minor ones, and nobody had been able to do an unau...

Weekly Update - 1/10/24

The next chapter to drop will be Quaranteam: Phil's Tale 18, which might get done tonight, but might also slip to tomorrow, just because I want to get the continuity of it all right, and because I get to do something I've been meaning to do for a long time. It'll be fun for you to read, and I promise, it's coming as quickly as I can get it done.No idea if you watch the weather for ...

Quaranteam: Aisling's Antics - Ch. 8

Part Eight – “It Didn’t Take?”December 12th, 2020When they got back from their trip to the city, both Fiona and Aisling found themselves buzzing. Neither had realized quite how much they’d needed to get out of the walls of New Eden, and San Francisco had been quite the experience.They’d stopped at City Lights Bookstore, and Andy had agreed to do a book signing for them in mid-January a...

Breakpoint - Part 14

Part FourteenRin“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Mick grumbled as he slowly made his way through the jungle, Rin covering their six.“Speak for yourself, old man,” Rin said with a laugh. “If I were any younger, I’d be listening to the Pussycat Dolls.”They weren’t particularly worried about being followed, but still the idea that someone else could be keeping tabs on them made ...

Weekly Update - 1/3/24

Yes, the next chapter of Breakpoint is still the next thing I'm going to release. It's been slow coming. (Tonight, if I'm lucky; tomorrow, if I'm not.) That happens sometimes. I take solace when I look back at the amount of output I had last year, and realized I was doing about 40-45k words a month, and that Stephen King, who is a "speed demon" of a writer, typically does 2...

Weekly Update - 12/27/23

Yes, I know that's yesterday's date in the headline, but just go with it, okay?I feel like I may actually get fully caught up this month, so I'm going to keep on hammering on things. There's going to be a chapter of Breakpoint in the next few days, and another chapter of Fertile Grove to alpha readers, new chapters of Devil's Details and Fertile Grove to just their commissioner...

The Devil's Details - Ch. 11 (alpha)

Chapter ElevenTabitha had been reviewing the information on her next targets, trying to make her approach seem as natural as possible, but the two targets were so heavily intertwined that it seemed like she needed to be ready for the pair of them simultaneously, and to get entangled with whichever of the two presented the first opportunity. They were intimately intertwined, being that they were ma...

Quaranteam 2:19

Chapter NineteenJanuary 23rd, 2021The bachelor party began like most of them typically did – with Congressional hearings.They were at Rook Manor, although the plan was to be out of the house within a few hours, once everyone had arrived. Until they had, they were doing something none of them had really planned on – they were watching C-SPAN.“Mr. Rook, do you have experience seeing what an im...

Weekly Update - 12/20/23

So, short and late weekly update - it's the holiday week, so everything will be sporadic and light until the New Year, pretty much. I spent almost all of yesterday either on a plane or in an airport, and that'll repeat again Monday, so I'll get stuff out when I can.Public release schedule is still hoped to be: 12/23 - BTS 7, QT2:9; 12/30 - Amor Ex Machina 1, QTAA 2; 1/6 - Threadbinders...