Category: Uncategorized

Damian and Andrew answer questions about Wunderkind and their writing process for the INKubatoor book club.

Someone recently tweeted that you better write a book you love because you’ll need to read it a lot. This is very true. But even though we have read Mayday over and over again (and again, and again and… well, you get the picture), there is something magical about holding the dead tree version in your hand. We received a copy of Mayday today from Amazon and could not be happier. To everyone who helped us with it, thank you! We could not have done it without you. Novels are very much a collaborative effort regardless of what some people might tell you. It takes a village to get them done. To our kind beta readers, thanks for doing your best for us. We did not give you a lot of time, but we really appreciate your support. Any mistakes are ours (if you find any, please let us know!)

This is the series page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08PCYRTMG

Check it out if you have not already.

If you want another out-of-this-world adventure to add to your TBR pile, you can enter to win my book, SPLICE, on @BookSweeps today —plus 50 exciting Sci-Fi novels from a great collection of authors… AND a brand new eReader 😀 Here’s the link ?bit.ly/SciFi-May21 #books #amreading

The novel of ours that has been most widely read is Wunderkind by a large margin. So it was with some curiosity and great interest that I put the novel through Booxby’s new machine learning tool to see what would happen. Booxby is trialing this as a tool for writers to help us figure out which readers our work will most resonate with. The idea being that highest on every reader’s wish list is that they find books that complement the writing style of their favorite author or authors. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but this is the fundamental principle behind Booxby as far as I can understand it. It should not be a surprise that a writer like me finds this idea difficult; we have not had such tools before. We have not needed them until very recently. The art of selling books has always been the role of the book seller. Writers write. Sellers sell. Somewhere along the line, particularly in the brave new world of Indie publishing, everything changed. Or perhaps this was always a falsehood and writers whose work sells were always on top of their genre, their readers, the zeitgeist, knowing what will appeal and which will not. Understanding the market. Booxby uses machine learning to find links between writers based on writing style and therefore (assuming their methodolgy is sound) helping readers and writers connect to each other based on style.

I first put Wunderkind through the machine. Wunderkind was written most recently and as with all writers, our craft improved, our art grew more focused and the end result is, I believe, a better product all around than the works that came before it. We wrote Splice first. It is nearest and dearest to my heart, but not as polished as Wunderkind. So how would the AI fare looking at these two books?

Much like Splice, when we wrote Wunderkind we were aiming for something fast-paced and fun. A story that was full of action but also explored the deeper relationships between the characters, as well as showing their inner story arcs of personal development. We wanted it to be fun and fast and quirky but also meaty enough to be realistic from a character perspective.

Splice started similarly. The two main characters (Elliot Goshawk and Arthur Fortune) would be very different from each other, both possessing that which the other needed but both not fully connected with themselves emotionally in a way that would allow them to see that.

Booxby looked at Wunderkind and then gave us some genre options to look at. These are, according to Booxby, the top books that most closely reflect the style of Wunderkind.

When we look at the Moods that Booxby identifies we get the following:

For Wunderkind, I am pretty happy with that. It is lively and compelling but also dark. Here are the books most similar according to Booxby:

So we get the complexity of Iain Banks with the darkness of Brent Weeks, the action of Goldsmith and the page-turning compulsion of Anita Shreve. Interesting. How does that compare against Splice?

Flattering for sure. And clearly I need to read some Kenneth Bulmer and maybe if you are reading this blog post, you do too! (Which I think is the entire point.)

What about mood?

All of this was exactly what we were going for with Splice. The humor of Hiaasen, the grit of Abercrombie and the darkness of Weeks. Did we achieve that? That is really up to you to judge. It is also interesting to see how the comp novels changed between Splice and Wunderkind given that there were several novels written between them.

For now, this has been a fun excursion down the Booxby rabbit hole. Not to mention a flattering one. We will definitely be looking to see how we can use these insights to make our books easier for readers to find and enjoy.

Andrew and Damian discuss their new novel, Wunderkind, with Rowena Harding-Smith.

ZPA Reading Order

ZPA is a big series. Eight main episodes and a host of prequels and additional content. So with that in mind, we thought we should put together a list of the stories and a suggested order to read them. This is the chronological order of the stories. You don’t have to read them this way, but ZPA is really one continuous story broken into episodes and this is the order of those events. We figure this is a pretty good way (maybe the best way?) to enjoy the story.

---

A list of the Zero Point Awakening Books in Chronological Order

---

(Prequel) Siege — A novelette available for free to subscribers of our newsletter

(Prequel) Fire and Sand — A short story available for free to subscribers of our newsletter

(Prequel) Wunderkind — A full novel available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 1) Splice — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 2) Shadow War — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 3) Ascension — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 4) Mayday — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 5) Counter Punch — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Additional Content) Super Time Tokyo Zombie Party — A novella TBA

(Episode 6) Beachhead — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 7) Incursion — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

(Episode 8) Tyranny — Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

We have been totally blown away by how many people have downloaded our new prequel novel, Wunderkind. We cannot thank you all enough for your support. We really hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed writing it and putting it out there. We never expected this much of a response, so we are not exaggerating when we say that we are pretty much speechless.

These images tell the story. Current feeling: Amazed.

• 

• 

• 

• 

What’s this release we are so hyped about? Wunderkind! An action-packed sci-fi thriller. This is a full novel that tells the story of Elliot Goshawk (from Splice) and also features other characters we love like Hallelujah Jones and Millicent Cuff.

The events in Wunderkind precede Splice, so this is a prequel and what’s more, we’re releasing it for free. So if you have not yet tried one of our novels, then this may be the one for you. Just like the entire Zero-Point Awakening series, Wunderkind is a darkly humorous take on the sci-fi thriller genre–an irreverent, no-holds-barred jaunt through space and time. If strong language upsets you, then this is probably not for you.

Like we say in our promo blurb: fans of The Avengers, X-Men, The Boys, Watchmen, Guardians of the Galaxy, or Stranger Things, will love the Zero-Point Awakening series. The entire series is an action-packed science fiction superhero thrill ride! So strap in.

With everyone getting into the spirit of April Fools we decided to join in. Fans of our Zero-Point Awakening series may recognize the name Hallelujah Jones (Hal) from the books. One day we may actually write a Hal novel. For now this is just a it of a… ahem… time waste. There’s a real album cover vibe going on there which is awesome as well.

Continue reading →