All posts tagged: Book

Splash page for the scifi crowd-funded novel FULL NEGATIVE.

Last Chance to Pledge for Full Negative Book

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Friends. Readers. Fellow nerds with impeccable taste. We are officially in the home stretch. The final 24 hours. The last lap. The dramatic climax of the movie where everything explodes in slow motion and the music swells and someone says something heroic right before punching a fascist in the face. (Okay, that last bit’s just wishful thinking, but after the week we’ve all had, I think we deserve it as a treat.) My point is: we’re down to the last days to pledge for FULL NEGATIVE, my big, bonkers scifi space opera that asks the question: what are you willing to give up for freedom? And also, what happens when the trolley problem is measured on a macro sale. (Spoiler: it gets messy.) Why does it matter? Because, for me right now, and hopefully for you, later, this isn’t about publishing a book. It’s about launching a world—telepaths, shapeshifters, space empires, doomed romance, glorious betrayals—and all the weird, wild joy that comes with that. It’s also about proving that stories like this—genre-rich, character-driven, unapologetically extra—have …

Your Book/Game/Project Needs Better Promotion (and so does mine)

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Hello, dear friends! So, a funny thing happened last night. Some context: every other week, I play in a Fading Suns TTRPG campaign with Bill Bridges. Yes, that Bill Bridges, the one who co-created Fading Suns and worked on little-known titles like Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. (Fortunately, he’s also an incredibly gracious human being and has never once pulled the dreaded “Well, actually…” on the GM.) Anyway, last night, our GM casually mentioned that a revamped, enhanced edition of Emperor of the Fading Suns—the 4X video game that Bill and Holistic Design, Inc. originally created—is launching this Friday, April 4. Better graphics! Better sound! More empire-building goodness! It’s hitting Steam, and if you want to check it out, here’s the link. Naturally, I turned to Bill and said, “Why didn’t you mention this?” To which he replied, “I didn’t think I needed to. It’s been all over social media for weeks.” I, of course, informed him that my social media feed had not breathed a word of it. Cue much cursing of …

The cover for the first part of the Full Negative Settings Guide: The Past, copyright 2025, Jenn Lyons

Part I: The Past – Our Launch Story and Goals

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Well, dear friends, we are now officially launched and funded. It’s just a matter of how high we’ll go. Hopefully high enough to unlock all of the setting guide, but for now, I’ll happily deal with what we have, namely Part I: The Past. For anyone who’s curious as to why I spread out the setting guide over multiple update goals, I can explain it pretty easily: Because I’m doing all the art. Time spent doing the art is not time spent writing or being paid for that, so…if I let it be tied to a single stretch goal, then I might easily find myself committing to months of work for far less than a livable wage when all was said and done. So much as I want to do the whole thing, prudence prevailed. Basically: tell your friends so they can pledge, too, and we can afford to create the whole guide. (We get the whole thing funded and I might start looking at making physical print copies available, too, and not to just …

Wrap-around art for the Full Negative cover with the title of the book centered.

Join the Adventure: Crowdfunding for ‘Full Negative’ Launch

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I have a story to tell you. One that’s been waiting for its moment in the spotlight for a long time. It’s called Full Negative, and if you love explosive space opera with a touch of noir, betrayal, and all the high-stakes action you can handle, this is one you don’t want to miss. But first, I need your help. On March 18, I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign to bring Full Negative to life, and I want you to be part of it. What Is Full Negative? The best way I can describe it? Think X-Men meets Star Wars by way of Jason Bourne. It’s got everything you’d expect from one of my novels: This is space opera at its best—fast-paced, full of heart, and built on a universe I’ve been developing off and on for almost forty years. Why Crowdfunding? Since you’re here on my web site, you probably know me as the author of the A Chorus of Dragons series and The Sky on Fire–all best-selling epic fantasy books available from Tor. But …

Cover Reveal: Fractured Days

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When I asked to help out with the cover reveal for the new book by Rebecca Roland (one of my fellow writers at World Weaver Press) I thought: absolutely! Rebecca’s a sweetheart, as well as an amazing talent. So a little about the new book: Malia returns home the hero of a war she can’t remember. The valley burning under the Maddion’s invasion, the fate of her late husband, the way she resolved the long-time distrust between the Taakwa people and the wolfish, winged Jegudun creatures–all of it has been erased from her memory. Malia hopes to resume training as her village’s next clan mother, but when the symbiotic magic that she and the Jeguduns used to repair the valley’s protective barrier starts to consume more and more of her mind, she’s faced with the threat of losing herself completely. A powerful being known as “the changer” might hold the solution to her vanishing memories. But the Maddion’s new leader, Muvumo, also seeks the changer, hoping the being will cure them of the mysterious illness killing off his people. Meanwhile, Muvumo’s bride …

A toast for 2013

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This was the year everything changed. It started with a Cracked article. Yes, Cracked. Now, Cracked sometimes sneaks in life lessons with their weird history and nerd comedy, and at the beginning of 2013, David Wong of Cracked issued a challenge to his readers: make 2013 the year that you close (warning: Alec Baldwin says mean things in that clip.) No excuses, no bullshit, no tired old lines about how you couldn’t because (insert whatever excuse is your preferred reason for not getting it done here.) No trite promises quickly abandoned, no self-defeating battles with the mirror. 2013 wouldn’t be about what we are, but what we do. He left what up to the reader. Learn a language, a martial art, make a painting, write a book. Learn a tangible skill, create a tangible result, do something. CLOSE. Kick some items off the bucket list, figure out what makes life worth living and DO THAT THING. Not too hard to guess that my vow for 2013 was to finish one of the three books that had floundered …

Book Covers: Project Example

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Okay, so in part 3 of this series, we’re now going to take what we’ve learned and apply it a real life example. Okay, a fictional example. A fictional example of fiction I totally made up. Even though I do in fact have a book cover on my to-do list right now (for The Culling Fields, the book I finished as part of NaNoWriMo 2013) I’m going to do evil, naughty things to the first example of such, and I don’t like the idea of doing it for a book that will actually see publication. Potentially awkward. Thus, let’s go with something invented for that purpose. “A Litany of Ashes” is a post-apocalyptic YA about a teenage girl in a small community that survives by its religious rituals, designed to keep at bay the demons of radiation and nuclear fallout. But when she begins to think the demons are literal, is she going insane or has a terrifying new threat arisen in the post-nuclear landscape? So it’s a bit A Canticle for Leibowitz meets Handmaid’s …

Why You Shouldn’t Listen to Me

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(Or anyone) Okay, so like many writers out there, I have a lot of opinions about how the process of writing should go, what constitutes poor writing, and what works. I also see a lot of advice handed out by writers to other writers. Should you have an agent? Should you self-publish? Should you write in the morning before work or should you quit your job and devote yourself totally to writing, make or break. Should you write seat of your pants (a pantser) or use an intricate outline (a plotter)? Write anything just to get it down on the page or try to make sure your first draft is a jewel? Should you focus on characters, plot, what’s new, what’s original? Blah, blah, blah… Okay, so let’s lay a few things out there… First, when you read about a writer’s methods, you’re only reading about what works for them, in their situation, for the kind of books they write. Nobody has a lock on a mythical right answer or process that will transform you …

On Book Covers

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I used to be a graphic designer. This isn’t exactly a secret, and I was a graphic designer for something like 20 years (a little over, but close enough.) I became something of a specialist in logos, which are often considered the hardest work a graphic designer can do. Nope. I wasn’t giving enough credit to book cover designers. This stuff is HARD. Keep in mind: I am an artist. I have that advantage over most writers — I still think this stuff is hard. Insanely hard. When I say writing the book was the easy part, that is nothing but blunt honesty. You’re probably wondering why I’m designing the book cover at all, if I have a publishing contract. The truth is: I don’t have to. I’m very lucky in that my publisher is open to the idea of letting me take a crack at it (even if they go with something else, which would be their contractual right.) As a graphic artist turned writer, I have it within me to be the most obnoxious of …