January 2023 Dispatch

Happy New Year!

Decembers are always slow from a writing standpoint, what with the holidays and all, and this year wasn’t an exception. I was at MFF for the first week, which I talked about last month, and that was great but also somewhat draining. Then we spent a week driving our dog up to radiation therapy (two hours there, two hours back, every day for a week), so ultimately I ended up reading some stuff this month (maybe I’ll talk about that next week) and trying to get a bit ahead in my Patreon work, which I think of as “maintenance mode” for my writing.

I also outlined the sequel to Unfinished Business and I’m getting more excited about working on that one. Tomorrow I head off to a writing retreat where that outline is what I’m bringing to be kicked apart and put back together stronger, so hopefully I’ll get to drafting that this month.

Of course, as soon as I get back, there’s Further Confusion, where I will be hanging about in the dealer’s den at the FurPlanet table to sell all you people Return From Divalia and other books. It’s not as big as MFF but it’s my home con, so I hope to see lots of friendly muzzles there!

And after that, January’s almost over! Hope you are all starting the new year with bright eyes and bushy tails.

Books: Nothing new on the audiobook front. Return From Divalia is available from the FurPlanet (print) and BadDogBooks (e-book) sites, and will be on all the other e-book sites as soon as I manage to do it this month (which, see above, might not be for a couple weeks).

Other upcoming releases:

The Price of Thorns: Scheduled for spring 2023 (TFF or AC). In a fantasy world where stories are woven into the fabric of magic and life, Nivvy the thief is hired by a mysterious woman, and this job will change his life in ways he could never have anticipated.

Squeak Thief: Complete but not scheduled yet, maybe late 2023. A rich mouse hires a fox thief to steal from his own family, but the job quickly spirals out of control.

In progress: Robin Hood fanfic and Ty Game sequel (on Patreon), Unfinished Business sequel, untitled fantasy world project.

Streaming: In the same vein as my movie list, I collected a bunch of streaming shows I enjoyed in this past year, trying to keep it to shows released last year. There are too many to do a big writeup on each, but I’ll make exceptions for Andor and The Peripheral, which I haven’t gotten to talk about yet. I marked ones I really liked with a *, but I’d happily recommend any of the below (note that the * applies just to the current season; some, like Stranger Things and For All Mankind, had good seasons but not as good as their prior ones):

*Andor (D+): I’d heard buzz about this before we started, and it lived up to all the hype. Diego Luna leads a stellar cast in a show about the “common people” of the Star Wars universe. I haven’t followed most of the Star Wars series (Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Obi-Wan), but I believe my friends when they say that Andor shines a light on part of the Star Wars universe that hasn’t gotten much attention (while it does also spend time with some Senators, their stories are very grounded). This feels fitting, since Cassian Andor is a character from Rogue One, which also featured a bunch of people who were not Skywalkers or Jedi or Sith Lords. The series feels connected to that movie in a good way, and the conclusion, when it comes, feels fully earned.

*The Peripheral (Amazon Prime): We have gotten to the point where if I were given a choice between a Christopher Nolan movie and a Jonathan Nolan show, I would pick Jonathan’s work. Westworld was uneven (we stopped after s2 but I hear s3-4 are very good), but The Peripheral shows that he’s learned from some of those mistakes. We are again in a world we don’t understand at the outset, but this time the writers aren’t stingy with the revelations, dishing them out one after the other and balancing the story very well between the two worlds involved (rural Kentucky and London). The end of the season didn’t feel like a climactic ending to me, but it’s enough that I’m excited for season 2.

*Big Mouth (Netflix)

Love Life s2 (HBO)

The Woman Across The Street From The Girl In The Window (Netflix)

*The After Party (Apple+)

Somebody Somewhere (HBO)

Moon Knight (D+)

*Killing It (Peacock)

*Bust Down (Peacock)

Stranger Things s4 (Netflix)

*Hacks s2 (HBO)

*Physical s2 (Apple+)

For All Mankind s3 (Apple+)

Rutherford Falls s2 (Peacock)

*Ms. Marvel (D+)

The Resort (Peacock)

*Severance (Apple+)

*Our Flag Means Death (HBO)

*Only Murders In The Building s2 (Hulu)

What We Do In The Shadows s4 (Hulu)

The Midnight Club (Netflix)

She-Hulk (D+)

The Boys s3 (Amazon Prime)