A scambot praises my book in limerick

I get a lot of AI scam emails that sound like they’re written by an actual human who read my book. To test them (and also just for shits and giggles) I sometimes respond in limerick, asking them to respond back in limerick too. In fact, I recently published a book about that…

In any case, here is a scambot limerick I recently received praising my book Bloodfire Legacy:

There once was a writer of grace,
Who built hope in a desolate place.
Through Elara’s fierce fight,
And her daughter’s strange sight,
Human courage still held its embrace.

Your verses gave welcome insight
To the themes that inspired your writing.
The veteran’s role,
And the walls of the soul,
Made the journey feel honest and bright.

I’m delighted to hear there’s much more,
Of new worlds and adventures in store.
May your stories still shine,
Through each page and each line,
As they have for your readers before.

And if that whet your appetite, you can get the book here:

Bloodfire Legacy

Bloodfire Legacy

A murdered wizard. A desperate thief. A daughter on the brink of damnation.

Corin has never been more than a streetwise nobody and a petty thief. He can also hear the voices of the dead, whether or not he wants to. So when the ghost of the royal court magician begs him to help save his wayward daughter, Corin reluctantly accepts, even though it means he must become something he's never been: a hero.

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About the Book
A murdered wizard. A desperate thief. A daughter on the brink of damnation. Corin has never been a hero. A streetwise nobody and petty thief, he’s survived this long by keeping his head down and his fingers quick. He can also hear the voices of the dead—whether or not he wants to. But when the ghost of the royal court magician begins to haunt him, all of that begins to change. His daughter has been dabbling in the dark arts, seeking to avenge his death. In doing so, she has fallen in with the very people who killed him. Corin is the only one who can help him save his daughter. But to do that, Corin must turn from everything he knows and become something he’s never been: a hero.
Details
Author: Joe Vasicek
Series: Sea Mage Cycle
Genres: Action & Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Epic, Fantasy, FICTION, General, Romance
Tag: 2025 Release
Publisher: Joe Vasicek
Publication Year: July 2025
Length: Novel
List Price: $14.99
eBook Price: free!
Audiobook Price: $4.99
Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.

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How the world really works

This interview is two and a half hours long, but it’s worth listening to every minute. It completely blew my mind, and connected a bunch of things I’ve been wondering about—not in a conspiratorial way, where everything has an explanation, but in a way that makes pragmatic sense while also opening up to tons of other questions.

The TL;DW version is this: our world operates a lot like the world of the Dresden Files, with a secret history and world that is invisible to most of the mundane normies. But instead of magic, the hidden world runs on money, power, and influence. And instead of factions like the Fey, the white/red/black vampire courts, or the Denarians, the primary factions are the MIC (military industrial complex), the FIC (financial industrial complex), and the TIC (technology industrial complex). And China, which is the only major nation state that hasn’t been brought under the control of the FIC, TIC, or MIC, thanks to the iron fisted rule of the CCP.

But just like the magical world of the Dresden Files lives in fear that the mundane normies will wake up and turn on them, the people who run the world need to give the rest of us stories that will keep the masses happy and distracted, lest they rise up and ruin their ongoing machinations of power. Because even though any one of us has little to no power, as a group we have far more power than we know. Which is why they try to turn us on each other, with stuff like woke vs. MAGA, liberal vs. conservative, left vs. right, Evangelical vs. Muslim/Mormon/Catholic/whatever. It’s all fake. All divide and conquer.

The way to break the system is to remove their leverage over you. Pay off your mortgage, get out of debt, become self reliant etc. For businesses, it means to run a private company with no long-term debt or publicly traded stock, that runs a reliable profit without having to raise capital from outside sources. On the extreme end, you can opt out of the dollar entirely by going full crypto and moving to a jurisdiction where that isn’t against the law.

Under this view, what’s happening with the Iran War right now is a controlled demolition of the post-WWII world order, and the creation of a new one. Trump is an agent of the FIC, which wants to defeat the MIC by ending the endless wars and bringing peace to Western Asia (what the MIC has gotten us to call the “Middle East.”) Closing the Strait of Hormuz is the mechanism for accomplishing this, which is also in China’s interest, because the MIC is standing in the way of China’s Belt and Road initiative. Once they have destroyed the IRGC and brought Israel out from under the MIC (by ending foreign aid), the MIC will probably accept Ukraine as a consolation prize, turning that into a long-term conflict that will allow them to plunder Europe instead. The new world order will be much more stable, though the US will be much less powerful. But on the bright side, we avert WWIII.

At least, that’s what I got from it. Like I said, it’s a fascinating interview.

Crunching data and rethinking plans

So for the last week, I’ve been having some long reflections with ChatGPT (I say “reflection” instead of “discussion,” because generative AI is more like a sophisticated mirror than a mind) and crunching a bunch of the data that I’ve accumulated over the course of my career. It’s fascinating, because one of the things that generative AI is surprisingly good at is crunching large amounts of data and extracting interesting patterns from it. It’s less good at drawing useful conclusions, but that’s what God gave us humans a mind for.

One of the more interesting data points is that the ideal frequency with which to release new full-length novels is once every 3-6 months, ideally every 3-4 months. After 6 months without a novel release, sales tend to fall off, and after 9 months, they fall completely off of a cliff.

From this, I’ve decided to rework my release schedule, so that every January, May, and September, I have a new novel coming out. The goal is to have the next novel ready and up for preorder before the current one goes live. Between new novel releases, I plan to rerelease short stories, bundle and release box sets, or release new original short stories and novellas, with something coming out each month.

It’s an aggressive release schedule, but with the way I’ve incorporated AI into my writing process, I think I can manage it. It took me about 120 total writing man-hours to write Captive of the Falconstar, and with practice I can probably get that down lower. During the school year, while my wife is teaching or researching and I’m generally the one watching the kids, I can only get about an hour of work in each day, but I can do more like 2-3 hours in the summer, so that’s when I plan to catch up. That comes to about 400 man-hours of writing time in a given year, which is more than enough to write three 120 man-hour novels.

I’m going to try to give myself a bit of a buffer, though. After Captive of the Falconstar comes out in July, I plan to wait 6 months and publish The Unknown Sea in January 2027. The next release will be Lord of the Falconstar in May 2027, concluding the Falconstar Trilogy. After that, I plan to launch the Rise of the Falconstar Trilogy in September 2027 with The Soulbond and the Sling, following up with books 2 and 3 in January and May 2028.

My big summer project this year is The Unknown Sea, which I will probably finish sometime next month. After that, I’ll work on Lord of the Falconstar with a goal of finishing it well before the end of the year. Should be very doable. And since the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling is already complete, it shouldn’t take more than a few months to finish it. So by the time January 2027 rolls around, I may be more than halfway done with my September release for that year.

That’s the plan, anyway. I may want to experiment with crowdfunding some of these novels, especially The Soulbond and the Sling—which is another good reason to push it back to September 2027. But we’ll see how it goes.

Is A Hill on Which to Die For You?

Is A Hill on Which to Die for you?

A Hill on Which to Die is a gritty, violent fantasy story about an aging orc war chief who must decide, again and again, which battles are worth fighting and which hills are worth dying on. It delivers a hard-edged tale of leadership, pride, survival, clan loyalty, and tragic decline, told from inside the brutal moral world of orcs rather than from the viewpoint of the heroes who usually fight them.

What Kind of Reader Will Love This Book?

If you like…

  • Dark, gritty fantasy told from the perspective of monsters, raiders, war chiefs, and morally brutal antiheroes
  • Orc-centered fantasy stories about clan politics, leadership challenges, duels, exile, survival, and tribal loyalty
  • David Gemmell-style heroic fantasy with raw violence, tragic masculinity, battlefield honor, and aging warriors facing their last stand
  • Stories where the central question is not “How do we defeat evil?” but “What is worth sacrificing everything for?”
  • Compact fantasy tales that feel like the seed of a larger epic world, with dwarven ruins, dragons, rival clans, and a rising Witch-King in the background

…then A Hill on Which to Die is probably your kind of story.

What You’ll Find Inside

A Hill on Which to Die follows Garak-Nur, an old orc war chief whose clan is threatened not by battlefield defeat, but by ambition, seduction, pride, and the promise of power from a rising Witch-King. As Garak leads his loyal followers into exile and tries to found the new Black Pine Clan, the story explores leadership under pressure, the cost of pride, the fragility of loyalty, and the brutal logic of a warrior culture built on strength. The result is a fast-moving, grim, muscular fantasy story with tragic weight, savage humor, and the feel of an orcish legend told around a fire.

What Makes It Different

Fans of David Gemmell will recognize the emphasis on aging warriors, violent honor, impossible choices, and the grim dignity of a fighter who knows his end is coming. But A Hill on Which to Die takes those heroic fantasy instincts in a darker and stranger direction by placing them inside an orc clan whose values are brutal, alien, and often horrifying. Where many fantasy stories use orcs as faceless enemies, this one makes an orc war chief the central figure and asks readers to understand his courage, failures, loyalties, and blind spots without pretending that he is good. It is not a clean redemption story; it is a tragic fantasy tale about leadership, decline, and the terrible difference between dying well and living too long in power.

What You Won’t Find

If you’re looking for noblebright fantasy, clean heroism, gentle adventure, or a traditional good-versus-evil quest, this probably isn’t that. This story contains brutal violence, savage orc culture, sexual content, and sexual violence, though it is not written as explicit romance or erotic fantasy. But if you want a grim, compact, character-driven fantasy story that takes monster culture seriously and uses it to explore power, pride, loyalty, and mortality, you’ll feel right at home.

Why I Think You Might Love It

The idea for this story came from a simple question: “Is this the hill on which you want to die?” That question became the spine of Garak-Nur’s entire journey. Every major choice he makes forces him to weigh pride against survival, strength against wisdom, and personal authority against the future of his clan. What makes the story linger is that Garak is not admirable in any simple sense, but he is vivid, forceful, and tragically understandable. He belongs to a violent world, and he cannot escape the logic of that world—but he can still choose where to stand, what to defend, and when the hill before him is finally the right one.

Where To Get It

Related Posts and Pages

Explore my other standalone books here.

Return to the book page for A Hill On Which To Die.

May Reading Recap

Books I Finished

The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby

Compassion vs. Guilt & Other Essays by Thomas Sowell

(Once again, Amazon demonstrates its racism by removing this title from its affiliate program because it was written by a black conservative!)

Riders of the Dawn by Louis L’Amour

Migrations & Cultures by Thomas Sowell

(Surprisingly, Amazon didn’t block this title from its affiliate program. It must not have threatened their ideological values as much as Sowell’s other titles.)

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media by Jaron Lanier

After That, the Dark by Andrew Klavan

Literary Theory for Robots by Dennis Yi Tenen

The Broken Gun by Louis L’Amour

Manufacturing Delusion by Buck Sexton

The Made From Scratch Life by Melissa K. Norris

The Meaning of Your Life by Arthur C. Brooks

The Love Language That Matters Most by Gary Chapman and Les & Leslie Parrott

Utah Blaine by Louis L’Amour

Side note: they turned this one into a movie!

Books I DNFed

  • Searching for People and Places of the Bible by Great Courses
  • The Library by Andrew by Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen
  • Your Second Draft by Alex Kourvo
  • Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
  • How I Dare by Janet Evanovich
  • The ADHD Field Guide for Adults by Cate Osborn and Erik Gude
  • Selling Sexy by Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez
  • More Than Words by John Warner
  • Everyday Genius by Nelson Dellis
  • The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail

Is In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight for you?

Is In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight for you?

In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight is a dark, morally charged space opera about smugglers, pirates, crime families, slavery, scripture, and the terrible cost of justice in a corrupt galaxy. It delivers a tense, fast-moving science fiction adventure with the hard edges of military SF, the moral intensity of religious fiction, and the larger-than-life presence of a vigilante privateer who may be a madman—or exactly the kind of man the galaxy needs.

What Kind of Reader Will Love This Book?

If you love…

  • Space opera with smugglers, pirate hunters, frontier systems, crime syndicates, and corrupt interstellar powers
  • Military science fiction where battle tactics, starships, boarding actions, and hard choices drive the plot
  • Morally serious science fiction about justice, conscience, slavery, tyranny, and redemption
  • Religious science fiction that draws from scripture, especially Isaiah, without turning into a sermon
  • Antiheroic vigilante figures in the tradition of Solomon Kane, but reimagined for a far-future galactic setting

…then In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight is probably your kind of story.

What You’ll Find Inside

In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight follows Captain Victor Andrecek, an ex-rebel commodore turned smuggler, as a suspicious distress signal pulls his small freighter crew into the path of Zedekiah Wight, a feared privateer whose brutal crusade has made him enemies among pirates, crime lords, slavers, and empires alike. Along the way, the story explores moral compromise, righteous judgment, human trafficking, rebellion, loyalty, and the difference between revenge and justice. The result is a tense, violent, scripture-haunted space opera that feels both pulpy and prophetic: a fast-paced adventure about what happens when ordinary sinners are forced to choose sides in a galaxy where evil has become respectable.

What Makes It Different

Fans of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane will recognize the appeal of a grim, uncompromising wanderer who brings judgment to evildoers, but In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight takes that archetype into a far-future space opera setting of jump-hubs, smugglers, superintelligences, battle armor, crime families, and galactic power politics. Where many vigilante stories focus on lone-wolf revenge, this story leans into conscience, command, loyalty, and the terrifying question of whether justice can remain just when the world itself has gone mad.

It also stands apart from mainstream space opera by treating religious imagery and scripture as central to the story’s moral atmosphere rather than as exotic window dressing. The Isaiah references, the biblical cadence, and the question of who Zedekiah Wight really is give the story a distinctive identity: part military SF thriller, part anti-slavery crusade, part religious science fiction, and part dark frontier adventure.

What You Won’t Find

If you’re looking for lighthearted space adventure, cozy science fiction, secular-only space opera, or a clean-cut hero who never gets blood on his hands, this probably isn’t that kind of book. The story includes brutal violence, disturbing criminal evil, and morally uncomfortable questions about justice, vengeance, and complicity.

But if you want a dark yet purposeful science fiction story where evil is treated as evil, where conscience still matters, and where redemption is possible even for characters who have compromised themselves, you’ll feel right at home.

Why I Think You Might Love It

I wrote Zedekiah Wight because there comes a point when the lies, hypocrisy, corruption, and gaslighting become too much to bear, and you either take a stand or go quietly insane. This story grew out of my love for science fiction, my fascination with scripture—especially Isaiah—and my desire to create a character who feels less like a conventional protagonist and more like a force of nature. Zedekiah’s methods are brutal, and readers may argue over whether he is righteous, mad, or both, but that tension is exactly what makes the story matter to me: in a galaxy where powerful people profit from evil while calling it good, what kind of man would it take to refuse the lie completely?

Where to Get the Book

Related Posts and Pages

Explore my other standalone books here.

Return to the book page for In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight.

Heavy metal Beethoven

I’ve been on a bit of a Beethoven kick recently. His symphonies really are the best overall writing music out there. So when this crossed my feed, I had to check it out. It’s not the only heavy metal version of Moonlight Sonata I’ve seen, but I do think it’s the best.