February went by as February goes, cold and stormy (rainy here). We had a nice Valentine’s Day and as you saw last month, I got started on the sequel to Unfinished Business. Some news about that! The first book was serialized on my Kyell Gold Patreon, but my Robin Hood story is still going strong over there. Meanwhile, UB ended up coming out under my other name, and on that Patreon, the serialization of Price of Thorns is just wrapping up, so my plan is to start serializing Wolftown 2 over there as of April. If you liked the first book and want to support the second one, now’s your chance!

That’s most of what I worked on this February, that and supporting our senior doggo. March promises to be a little more exciting, as I have Furry Fiesta on my calendar! I’ll be doing two panels there, one Friday and one Saturday, on Writing Effective Characters and Historical Fiction (with Rukis), respectively. If you’re coming to TFF, stop by those panels, or find me at the FurPlanet table in the dealer’s room!

Standard stuff:

I’m still posting book notices and stuff to Twitter, but most of my personal posts are moved over to Mastodon, @KyellGold@vulpine.club. Follow me there and be part of the furry community there as Twitter degrades.

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Books: Nothing new on the audiobook front. Return From Divalia is available everywhere now. If you have read and liked it, writing a review is one of the most helpful things you can do for it, and it’s free! (It doesn’t have to be on Amazon, but that’s still where most people go for their books.)

Other upcoming releases:

The Price of Thorns: Scheduled for summer 2023 (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), Wolftown 2, untitled fantasy world project.

Streaming:

Still loving The Last of Us (HBO). Two episodes to go, I think.

Finally ~~got around to~~ was prodded by a friend into watching The Dark Crystal (Netflix), which I know a lot of people loved. I like a lot of things about it, but personally I prefer stories start with small stakes and expand to large. In Star Wars, we start with Luke being bored and then having to chase a runaway droid, then his family is killed. We get his personal stakes first and then ramp up to “save the world from the evil empire.” Dark Crystal starts with “there is a great evil and we have to tell people about it/stop it” and only after a few episodes did I get to know the characters well enough to be rooting for them as people. It is a beautiful show, though, and well worth watching!

We watched Amsterdam (HBO), a David O. Russell movie which is maybe not as good as Silver Linings Playbook or American Hustle, but as of now, at least, I remember more of it than I do of those two. It feels like a director’s cut; every scene seems to be like 10% too long, and the characters repeat plot points up to three times in succession. But Christian Bale and John David Washington and Margot Robbie are great as the leads, Mike Myers and Michael Shannon make a fun odd couple of intelligence agents, and Anya Taylor-Joy steals just about every scene she’s in. Also sinister Timothy Oliphant is great. If you go in just expecting some quirky adventures and a kind of history lesson, you’ll have a good time.

And we’re still watching The Great Pottery Throwdown (HBO), a Great British Baking Show spinoff that is somehow even more wholesome. Contestants make pottery and compete for a spot in the final in a very GBBS format. The pottery is amazing and we’ve learned a lot about the art that we didn’t know. Plus the Paul Hollywood of the show, Keith Brymer Jones, is much better than Paul and is famous for crying whenever a piece of pottery overwhelms him with its beauty, or a contestant overcomes obstacles to succeed in a task. If you’ve grown tired of the GBBS, it’s worth checking this one out.

Happy March everyone!

Dispatches From Kyell

March 2023 Dispatch