I must admit it actually took me a bit to come up with that title, true as it is. Hey folks, Max here with the weekly update, and as noted above, this week it’s full of dragons. Why? Well, because I’ll be talking about two dragon books today.

Furthermore, the first one I’m going to talk about is not my own.

This is Smash the World’s Shell, by Daniel Fliederbaum, who perhaps holds a unique place on this earth for having one of the rare names that starts with an “Fl” but can make one wonder on pronunciation as much as mine.

Smash is Fliederbaum’s debut novel, a YA Semi-Slice-of-Life Fantasy following two young characters whose lives are on a collision course. And one of them is a dragon.

This does not end in dragon riding. Yes, you read that correctly, and it’s rare enough among fiction of this type that I’ll state it again: It does not end in dragon riding. In fact, it does something very novel instead.

Of course, I’m not going to spoil what that is. If you’re curious, and the synopsis—which you can read by clicking the cover above—sounds like something you’d like to read, you’ll have to try it for yourself. As to why I’m mentioning it, it’s not just because Fliederbaum sent me an early copy and asked me to read it—though he did, just to be clear; and I did read it and enjoy it, though I will note it was pre-release—but because it did something novel. Again, not spoiling it, but I like novel things.

You can check it out further by clicking that cover above, which will take you directly to the publisher page where you can check it out. Which does include samples to check out.

You’ve got the link, the choice is yours. Onward to Axtara news!

---

So, what’s the status of Magic and Mayhem so far? Well, the draft is currently sitting at 122,000 words. Which is about the length of the prior Axtara title but … this one’s not done yet. Granted, it’s still in writing, and may get some chapters truncated in editing, but for now, it’s 122,000 words of Axtara, and that number is continuing to grow.

There have been some great moments between Axtara and Mia with this draft too, though I won’t share them because they also happen to include some major plot spoilers that I’d rather keep under wraps for a moment longer.

But I think you’d all like a bit more than just a notification that “work is ongoing” so I will drop this little tidbit for you all. Remember Wilfor, the young courier’s apprentice? Well, he’s back and he’s inquisitive. Check it out:

“Are [seafolk] pretty? The stories say they’re really pretty, and it’s how they lure people in to eat them. But you say they don’t eat people, so are they not pretty?”

“That’s a difficult question. I suppose it depends on your definition of beauty.”

“Huh?” Wilfor’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“You’ll understand as you grow older, but not everyone finds the same things attractive, Wilfor.”

“Kind of like how my brother can’t stop staring at—?”

“Similar to that, yes,” she said quickly, cutting off whatever innocent but untoward thing the boy had been about to innocently say. “And I have heard many say that seafolk are quite attractive by human standards.”

Wilfor gave her an odd look, [REDACTED]. “I personally have never found them that attractive,” she covered. “But the ways of the heart are complicated.”

“They must be,” Wilfor said. “My mother and father don’t want anyone around when they want to be lovey.”

Kids, am I right? With that said, I should get back to work. But first, one last bit of news …

---

Remember about three years ago when it was announced that Viacom was selling off Simon and Schuster, noting that outside of a few outlier years, they’d not made a profit in over thirty years? I spoke a little bit about it then.

Well, as of yesterday, the sale has been finalized. S&S was not acquired by a hopeful Penguin-Random House, as the courts ruled that something like 78% of all US book sales would be a little too much. Instead, S&S was sold whole to KKR, a venture/vulture capital firm private equity fund. Given the firm’s track record of running companies into the ground to extract a bit of profit before selling off all the broken pieces, combined with the detail that S&S is already effectively a sunken ship, means that what began three years ago, when S&S was taken out of the running and the “Big Five” became the “Big Four” has finally reached its conclusion.

It’s going to be interesting to see which of the four is the next the fall, given the number of authors that have stepped away from publishing houses recently.

It’s an interesting time to be an author!

Anyway, I need to get back to work on Axtara. See you all Monday!