July Report: Glasgow, Traveling Light & Royal First Irregulars

 Hello friends!

Once again, it’s been too long since I’ve done a proper update, and there is so much going on!

First of all, I will be attending Worldcon in Glasgow, where Worldbuilding for Masochists is up for another Hugo.  (And if you’ve got the inclination to vote and haven’t yet, there’s still time!  And if you are inclined to vote for Worldbuilding for Masochists for Best Fancast, we would greatly appreciate it!)  If you are also at Glasgow, please say hello!  

Also, I’ll be at ArmadilloCon in September.  More on that as we get closer to it.

---

Now the big question is, what about writing?  Well, I’ve got a little news on that front.  For one, Worldbuidling for Masocists has put together an anthology with some brilliant authors set in the world of the magical gates that we have been building on air.  Traveling Light: Tales of the Magical Gates comes out August 13th and you can pre-order it now!

 

The other side of the world could be just a step away...

Whether loved, despised, or just a fact of life, the Gates connect all parts of the globe to each other in an interwoven web linking disparate cultures and forming strange relationships. And whether you're a seasoned Traveler or a neophyte, when you step through a Gate, you won't be the same on the other side.

For one thing, you'll be naked.

The Gates only admit living beings - but living beings always bring with them their knowledge, their faith, their languages, their skills, and their beliefs. Some nations embrace the Gates. Others fear them. For some nations, they are the beating hearts of trade, centers for the exchange of language and philosophy, hubs of adventure and discovery. For others, they are useless dead-ends, objects of terror, or outright threats.

In this anthology, twelve authors explore the adventures, intrigues, and discoveries, large and small, global and personal, that occur because of the interconnections of these incredible magical Gates.

I’ve got one story in there, plus there are stories from Marie Brennan, Mike Chen, J.C. Pillard, Victor Manibo, Kate Elliott, Rowenna Miller, Lindsey Carmichal, Natania Barron, Cass Morris, Valerie Valdes and Michael Underwood.  I am reall proud of this anthology, and I encourage you to check it out!

---

ALSO, I have a new Maradaine novella coming in September, The Royal First Irregulars!

Lt. Fredelle Pence and the other women of the Royal First Irregulars are elite soldiers, skilled in their weapons of choice to the level of art. But the Royal First Irregulars aren't treated like elite soldiers, but as a traveling sideshow. Sent on a "morale tour", they’re ordered to travel from base to base across the kingdom, using their skills only in staged performance, usually only to jeers and catcalls.

Life on tour brings opportunity, as Fredelle and the other Irregulars learn of a band of marauders attacking a village. They defy orders and go after the raiders, to prove once and for all just what they are capable of. But proving that becomes more of a test then they ever suspected, and the cost to all of them will be higher than they bargained for.

Pre-Order Now!

---

But you are asking, rightfully, what about further Maradaine novels?  A valid question.  I’ve been working on An Unkindness of Uncircled Mages, but it’s been slower going than I would like.  But it is still going!  I hope to have news for you on that soon.  Plus I am working on a new non-Maradaine project, which I don’t want to talk too much about, other than to say I am writing it with someone else (it’s my wife!), and it’s been an incredible process so far. 

That’s all for now!  

 

New Editions, New Host, and more!

 So, once again, it’s been a bit since I’ve communicated.  But this time there is news!  I’m thrilled to report that there are going to be new releases of all the Maradaine Saga books from Artemisia Books.  The Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages are already out, and the rest of Phase One will be coming out in February!

• FEBRUARY 6th: The Holver Alley Crew and Way of the Shield
• FEBRUARY 13th: The Alchemy of Chaos, An Import of Intrigue, Lady Henterman’s Wardrobe and Shield of the People
• FEBRUARY 20th: The Imposters of Aventil, A Parliament of Bodies, The Fenmere Job and People of the City

We’ll be seeing An Unintended Voyage coming out mid-March, and both The Assassins of Consequence and The Quarrygate Gambit.All of these are being released as trade paperback and e-book, which also means these will be the first time Assassins and Quarrygate will be released in physical media! All of them will be $17.99 (USD) for trade paperback and $3.99 for ebook.  

However, if you go to the Artemisia website, you can find direct purchase links for the trade paperbacks for $14.99, and week of release for each, on my website, there will be a special limited time purchase link for each one for $11.99, including Thorn and Murder the first week.

Beyond that, further Maradaine Phase Two titles will be coming out from Artemisia, with the fourth Maradaine Constabulary novel, An Unkindness of Uncircled Mages, hopefully out before the end of the year.

Also, just so you know it’s not forgotten, The Velocity of Revolution will get its own Artemisia re-release, most likely in May, but there’s still some details to hammer out there so it might take a little longer.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the podcast!  We’ve had some big changes, namely we’ve now been joined by the amazing Natania Barron!  If you’ve not caught up yet, go check it out!  The past few episodes we’ve not had any additional guests, so we could get into a new rhythm with Natania, but in upcoming episodes we’ll be joined  by some brilliant writers like Fonda Lee, Melissa Caruso, Gwenda Bond, Premee Mohammad and more!

In February I’ll be appearing at FenCon, so if you are in the greater DFW area and wish to say hello, here’s a great chance.  That’ll be February 23-25.

Also, in addition to all the above, I have a few more things in the works, but nothing I can really talk about yet.  I’m excited to share it all when I can.

Where did 2023 go, exactly?

 So, it has been a bit since a proper update, hasn’t it?

About this time last year, I dropped the news about things ending for me at DAW, my plans for the future, especially regarding Phase Two of Maradaine, and that 2023 would be more of a “rebuilding year”.  

That last one was more true than I realized.

This past year has been especially challenging— really the past few years, but 2023 especially.  Some of it I’ve talked about publicly, but in brief: significant legal and financial entanglements with my wife’s family, health and accidental injury challenges with my father, myself and my son, further crises and emergencies that are, frankly, almost comically absurd and melodramatic.  It’s honestly been great fiction fodder, but terrible to live through.  Add in that I’ve been trying to focus on finishing a non-Maradaine book, which has been… challenging to say the least, in no small part due to all the things above.  Needless to say, 2023 has been the least productive writing year I’ve had in well over a decade.   I’ve not finished anywhere near what I had hoped I would have by now.  

But sometimes it’s good for fields to lay fallow and regenerate.  Hopefully that’s what’s been happening.  I’ve been accused of being a writing machine, and that machine probably required some maintenance, and we’ll be in a better place moving forward.  

What this means is, as much as I’d love to give you all some concrete dates for An Unkindness of Uncircled Mages , City of the Truth and those further Phase Two books, I’d love to tell you I’ve finished a non-Maradaine book, I’d love to tell you I have a new agent, welll, I can’t do any of that.  Hopefully 2024 will bring more news that I can share along those lines.  

However, there are some things I can share!

I did write a story for the upcoming Traveling Light anthology set in the world we’ve been building on Worldbuilding for Masochists podcast, which we plan on releasing in August 2024.  

I am releasing the next Maradaine Saga Short, the novelette The Withered Boy.  It’s the story of a young man in an island community, outcast for the belief that he’s to serve a greater destiny out in the world.  It will come out on December 5th.  Also on December 5th, I’m releasing my own updated versions of Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages, as trade paperbacks and e-books, and The Alchemy of Chaos and An Import of Intrigue will follow soon after.  And we’ll continue to release these “Marshall’s version” of Phase One of the Maradaine Saga as I get rights returned to me.  

And since we’re at the end of another year, how about a list of any awards-eligible works I had this year?

Novelette: Hultichia and The Withered Boy

Series:The Maradaine Saga (thanks to the above novelettes)

Podcast/Fancast: Worldbuilding for Masochists

That’s all for now.  After all, I have quite a bit of work to do.

ArmadilloCon!

 

Hi folks!  I know I am overdue for some State of the Writer communication, but for now, I’ve got just a brief update that I’m at ArmadilloCon this weekend!   I will give a more indepth update in the near future.

In the meantime, here is my schedule for ArmadilloCon:

Friday, August 4

9pm

It's An Epic Urban Gaslight Fantasy with Atompunk Aesthetics: The Evergrowing Subgenres of Fan

Ballroom E, 9pm - 9:45pm

R.W.W. Greene (moderator), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Ari Marmell, Marie Brennan, Sara A Mueller

Subgenres make it easier for audiences to find the kind of fantasy they are looking for, but they also can be a headache of forcing things into labeled boxes. Do we need better labels or more boxes? Why are we naming things -punk and -core? How can we help someone who might love a dieselpunk story find it if the word “dieselpunk” already makes them tear their hair out? Is there a better way?

Saturday, August 5

12pm

You Call This Archaeology? 40+ Years of Indiana Jones

Ballroom E, 12pm - 12:45pm

Mark Finn (moderator), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Avery Parks, David Afsharirad

This year saw the release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth movie in a franchise that launched in 1981— a franchise that also included a television series, spin-off books, comics, video games, and gave a generation wrong ideas about archaeology. We get nostalgic for a series that was, itself, nostalgic of the cliffhanger serials of the 30s and 40s. Is there still more life in this franchise, or does it belong in a museum?

1pm

The MCU: What Was Phase IV? What Is Phase V?

Ballroom E, 1pm - 1:45pm

Alan J. Porter (moderator), Aaron de Orive, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Robert Jackson Bennett, Jess Nevins

The MCU Finished Phase III in 2019, and since then, the discourse has gravitated around one core concept: Where is it going now, and why? For better or worse, it has now finished Phase IV, and the question "What was Phase IV about?" is a very valid one to ask. And now with Phase V underway, where is it going? And, do we need to know where it's going? Or does the very nature of knowing what's coming next color our interpretation of what's happening now?

3pm

Autographing: Maresca - Ransom - Wells

Marshall Ryan Maresca, Martha Wells, Tonia Ransom

Autographing

5pm

Building and Fostering a SFF Community

Brenda Noiseux (moderator), Holly Lyn Walrath, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Jessica Reisman, Sequoia Nagamatsu, D.L. Young

WIth so much of the publishing industry falling apart, means of promotion and connection collapsing, and three years of pandemic isolation, it's clear that the best thing to help us all strive and succeed in the coming years is each other. How can we find each other, lift each other up, and make the genre and the community a better place?

Sunday, August 6

10am

Reading - Maresca

Conference Center, 10am - 10:30am

Marshall Ryan Maresca

12pm

Crafting Court Intrigue & Battle Scenes

Ballroom D, 12pm - 12:45pm

Patrice Sarath (moderator), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Aparna Verma, Eva L. Elasigue, Nia "N.E." Davenport , C.S. Humble

Some of the most memorable moments in a book or a TV show/film is a battle or fight scene (think: the fighting montage in Everything Everywhere All at Once or the epic, Middle Earth-shaking Battle of the Pelennor Fields), as well as the intricate, thorny court politics that led to these battles. So how does one write an effective and memorable battle scene? How do you set the stakes? What makes court intrigue interesting and nefarious, versus contrived and tasteless?

1pm

How to Build & Implement A World Bible: Methodologies, Infrastructure, & Tools

Ballroom F, 1pm - 1:45pm

Marie Brennan (moderator), Marshall Ryan Maresca, Sara A Mueller, C.L. Irwin , Eleanor Haglund

A discussion of world bible building "best practices" which would also include a brief overview and comparison of various world bible building systems and software like Scrivener world bible templates, World Anvil, Campfire + worldbuilding add-on pack, Scapple, Plottr, Aeon Timeline, Obsidian.MD, etc.. We could also discuss the pros and cons of each method and/or tool.

Hultichia, February 7th!

 Good morning! My novelette, HULTICHIA, is coming out in ebook and paperback in two weeks! So I will be shouting louder about it in the coming days.

HULTICHIA is a standalone story in the Maradaine setting, and like THE MYSTICAL MURDERS OF YIN MARA, takes us to another part of the world, the neighboring nation of Kellirac.

Several of our main characters in the Maradaine Saga have Kelliracqui heritage-- notably Veranix, Minox and Corrie. And Corrie meets a Kell Death Caller in the Mocassa in AN UNINTENDED VOYAGE. But here's the first time we'll see someone going there.

Our traveller is Aurien Pemmick, who Maradaine readers have met as Reverend Pemmick, the priest of St. Julian's who has been The Thorn's ally in the streets of Aventil.

Here we see him before he comes a Reverend, on his own journey of his faith.

HULTICHIA is a complete standalone, and you do not need to read any of the rest of the Maradaine Saga to enjoy it.

But I would still advise you read the entire Maradaine Saga, because... why wouldn't I? Of course I want you to read it all.

But it can be an excellent gateway to get a taste of the world of Maradaine.

So you can dip your toe in before you dive into all the rest.

And "all the rest" is... quite a bit, after all.

The End of 2022 in House Maresca: Eligibility, Social Media, and the Future

 We're at the end of another year, and friends, this one was a blur.  Honestly, I don't even know where it went.  But I did do quite a few things throughout the year, so here is my humble reminder of the things I have done in 2022 for which I am eligible.

I put out three whole books this year!  Well, two novels and a novella, but still.  Despite publishing challenges, especially with Assassins & Quarrygate, I'm proud of the books themselves and the work I did.

So I'm eligible for:
Best Novel: THE ASSASSINS OF CONSEQUENCE
Best Novel: THE QUARRYGATE GAMBIT
Best Novella: THE MYSTICAL MURDERS OF YIN MARA
Best Series: THE MARADAINE SAGA*

And of course, also:
Best Fancast/Podcast: WORLDBUILDING FOR MASOCHISTS

So if you are empowered and inclined to nominate me for any of those categories in any awards, I would greatly appreciate it!

*-So, as we know, the rules about Best Series are designed to keep the same thing from being nominated every single year, with another two volumes and 240K being necessary to be eligible again.  Which is a pretty good rule, it even takes Seanan two years to fulfill that one.
BUT for 2022:
The Assassins of Consequence    105000
The Mystical Murders of Yin Mara    37000
Quarrygate Gambit                            101800
TOTAL                                               243800
Admittedly, it's a completely academic point, as it wasn't like I was otherwise ineligible this year, nor likely to be nominated.  Still, it's a nice, if silly accomplishment.

---

In other news, despite the near-collapse of Twitter, it does kind of remain my preferred location for daily musings and whatever else is going on with me.  But I will likely be using my blog more often!  Not my pre-2018 levels of twice a week, but more often.
But if YOU are fleeing Twitter (or were wise enough to never get on it), here are other places to find me.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/marshallryanmaresca
Website: http://mrmaresca.com
Mailing LIst: https://tinyletter.com/mrmaresca
Insta: https://instagram.com/mrmaresca/
Mast: @mrmaresca@wandering.shop

I'm trying some of the other social medias, but.... not really vibing on any of them.  But most other places I'm likely "mrmaresca", so if you are trying to find me other places not mentioned above, that's a good bet.  I mean, "Marshall Ryan Maresca" is a unique name-- you look it up, you find me.  For better or for worse.

---

So, what's next for 2023.  As I mentioned elsewhere, it will be something of a "re-building" year where I won't have much scheduled to come out.  BUT I am working hard on a number of things, including making good on the big announcement from last month.  Along those lines, you can expect the Maradaine Saga Short Hultichia to come out early 2023.  More details on that to come, but it will be a novelette length, featuring another secondary character from the Thorn series in a starring role.

A mysterious and disturbing summons brings Aurien Pemmick, novitiate with the Church of Druthal, to Kellirac, the peculiar and suspicious country on the eastern border.He is determined to find his old mentor, no matter what threats Kellirac throws at him.But since Pemmick arrives at the eve of Hultichia, a night where the locals claim the dead will walk, Kellirac proves to be a place of dangers beyond the natural realm. Pemmick’s faith is tested against Kellirac superstition, even as his mission threatens to drag him into madness, and the darkest night of his life falls.

That's all from this end, more news for you soon.

Maradaine Phase Two Announcement

 

All right, I've held my tongue long enough, and in light of recent news, there's no reason not to tell you all my full intentions for Phase Two of the Maradaine Saga.  After all, both The Assassins of Consequence and The Quarrygate Gambit have come out, and if you've finished those books, you've seen the tease for what comes next.

So, without further ado:

Yes, that is a lot!  So what can I tell you about all of this?   I've already told you about the Saga Shorts, though there might be some timeline shifts there (Hultichia will probably come out in early 2023, rather than trying to squeeze it in among the holidays.)

But the rest?  Let's go through it!

Satrine investigates a serial killer, while Minox’s time in restricted desk duty nears its end, and he hopes to be reinstated as he works on learning how to control his magic.  But when Minox’s cousin Evoy goes missing, he's thrown into turmoil as his search dovetails into Satrine’s investigation.  As they both track an Uncircled Mage they suspect is the killer, the real danger may closer to them than they ever thought.

Dayne and Jerinne face ratcheting tensions in the city as the political trial of Tharek Pell launches a radical movement, and the plans of the Grand Ten come to a head.  The entire Druth government, from the Crown to the Parliament, could be unraveled as plots and secrets come to light.

The chaos of the Fenmere empire and the Aventil gangs is only intensified by a new leader taking command of the Sons of Tyson, making war on all parties.  Veranix is determined to keep out of it and focus on his education, but all the magic students are recruited to help hunt this new "Thorn". Veranix finds himself pressed on all sides, and he must finally decide which part of his life has his true loyalty,  before everything is burned down.

Asti and Verci work to pull together every ally they have, using every clever plan and gadget they can put together, for one grand scheme to dismantle the financial and political forces behind the Andrendon project, before their entire neighborhood is destroyed.

Minox and Satrine secretly work together to bring down the ringleaders at the heart of the conspiracies plaguing the constabulary, finding themselves completely without allies. Everything they believe in is put to the test as they discover the tendrils of corruption continuing to spread through Maradaine.

Dayne and Jerinne work to expose the real truth of the Grand Ten, forcing them to confront the lies that the nation was built on, while striving to hold onto the very spirit of Druthal that they believes in.  To defend everything they love about the country, they might have to become rebels against the crown and parliament.

 

FINALLY, I'm often asked this question: will there be another book for Corrie Welling and the other Displaced Daughters?  The answer is a tentative yes, and it will likely have the same sort of "interlude between phases" placement that An Unintended Voyage had.  But title, format, etc. is still in flux.  So more news when that's a little more solidified.

This, combined with the other projects I've got working, should keep me pretty busy for a while.  I won't make a timeline-based announcement for these titles, but let's tentatively say that 2023 will be a rebuilding year, and we'll start to see real momentum in 2024.

Thank you all so much for your continued support.