Wallpapers

The Bi-Weekly Report: Happy St. Patrick’s Day

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You know, if you’re looking for one more way to celebrate, Axtara—the titular protagonist of Axtara – Banking and Finance—is green. You can read the first few chapters for free here, or pick up your own copy here! Or even just adorn your device background with her cheerful grin!

Since I’m on the topic of Axtara, she’s reached a grand total of 20 ratings and reviews now. All of them granting her Five Stars. There hasn’t been a disappointed reviewer yet! Or even one that’s just slightly impressed.

And that? It’s pretty pleasing. To paraphrase one review, ‘Axtara knocks it out of the park,’ and that brings me a lot of joy. Which is great, because so far Axtara seems to be bringing a lot of readers old and young a lot of joy as well, like I’d hoped it would. So it’s like one big circle of joy.

Best of all, I’ve been hearing from readers that have passed it on to their teenage girls that they absolutely love it. Success! Here’s to more reviews in the coming weeks, and thousands of new readers as those who fell in love with Axtara share their newfound find with others!

Since we’re on the topic of both reviews and green covers, Colony and its sequel Jungle got some more love this last weekend from reviews. Colony might be over four years old at this point, but it’s still garnering praise from readers of Sci-Fi and picking up new readers. Which is good, because Starforge is inching step by step towards completion and wrapping the whole thing up.

But yeah, if you’re not in the mood for green dragons for Saint Patrick’s Day, well, Jungle is also full of a lot of green. A lot of it. In a most threatening manner. You can check out a free preview here if Sci-Fi is your thing, but you’re still looking to stick to that St. Patrick’s Day tradition.

Speaking of Starforge, the current draft is now at 310,000 words. Continued progression, like clockwork, with each daily quota. It’s still somewhere near the 66-70% done marker, but with a book that has to tie up this much, that’s probably not a surprise to any of you. As to when, roughly, this draft will be finished? I’d rather not make predictions at the moment, but I do write 3000-4000 words a day for my daily quota, so rest assured there is progress.

Speaking of progress, to my utter shock I discovered it had been almost a year since I touched Stranded. Sure, it was a weekend fan project, but … Well, there was 2020. That was a thing. And Stranded appears to have been a casualty. But not a fatal one. I’ve been spending my Saturdays adding to it and getting it moving forward once more,

Of course, that isn’t my only Saturday project. Progress continues on getting the Shadow of an Empire paperback worked out. Granted, two Saturday projects (plus this being tax season) mean that it’s taking a little while, but with then there’s this next bit of news …

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Hello Readers, Do You Like Art?

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Hello readers! Max here with some really good news, and a question for you: Do you like art?

Let me be more specific. Would you like this art? As a 12″ x 24″ glossy print suitable for framing?

Shadow of an Empire - Textless Wallpaper

This is the glorious cover image from Shadow of an Empire in all it’s full-sized glory, and there’s definitely a good reason I’m asking.

As most of you know (but some may not, hence the statement), LTUE is next week! That’s right, Life, The Universe, and Everything is next Thursday through Friday. The big writing con … and if you’re still drawing a blank, check this post for details.

So, at LTUE there’s a book signing and sale event, where you can get books and whatnot from your favorite authors. And yes, I will be there. Not with physical copies, sadly. Not this year. But I will have facilities for folks to grab my books anyway (I’m pretty proud of that).

But as I’m getting things printed up, well … this is a lovely cover for Shadow of an Empire, and I’m curious … how many of you attending LTUE would be interested in a 12″ x 24″ glossy of it? The kind of thing you could stick in a frame and hang on your wall?

Because I can print some up and bring them to the con. They’d be $14 cash or if someone showed me receipts right then and there for having just bought Colony, Jungle, and Shadow, complimentary.

If I print up a couple. So now I turn to you, readers. Are any of you attending LTUE interested in something like this? Post in the comments below and let me know!

Other good news: I would expect the first chapter of Fireteam Freelance this weekend. Just … letting that one out there.

Shadow of an Empire Wallpapers!

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Hey readers! Got a pretty awesome treat for you all today!

You’ve seen the cover for Shadow of an Empire, right? That awesome, western vista done by Michal Kváč. Well, those close followers of the site may remember how I teased that it was wallpaper-sized. And those who were Patreon Supporters? They got the wallpaper sizes.

Well, as of today, you can too. That’s right, in beautiful 4451×2560 Widescreen, you can have the full cover image of Shadow of an Empire for your desktop or digital device background, available in both textless and text versions.

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