Third time’s the charm

We have a new baby! This one’s our third, and our second boy. The birth itself went quite smoothly, though he was having some minor breathing problems and had to spend a couple of hours in the NICU until they resolved. For that reason (and also because of some medication that made her shiver uncontrollably for nearly an hour), my wife said the immediate recovery from this birth was much more difficult than the other two. But he came out in one push, just like our other son. The staff wasn’t expecting that, and had to scramble to get another nurse in to help with everything.

While my wife and I were both in the hospital for the birth, my in-laws kept our other two kids overnight and watched them all day. But things got a little crazy when my father-in-law almost sawed his fingers off on a table saw, and had to go into the hospital for that. Then my mother-in-law came down with a cold, which quickly turned into walking pneumonia, so we took the kids back and all drove back home together after Mommy and baby were discharged from the hospital.

Right now, everyone in the family has a cold except for me and the baby. Hopefully it stays that way, though it is just a common cold, not RSV or anything worse. Still, we really don’t want the baby to get sick in his first week of life, which is why I’m watching him today. He’s currently sleeping on a pillow next to my writing computer.

Honestly, it’s been kind of nice—with my wife running around with the other two kids, I’m free to write and catch up on publishing tasks. The baby is super chill, and actually sleeps for four hours at a time, which ironically means that we’re sleeping better now than we were in the last few weeks of the pregnancy, since my wife had to get up almost every hour to empty her bladder. He also burps really well—so well, in fact, that sometimes we don’t realize that he’s already burped, and try forever to get another burp out of him only to give him the hiccups. But so far, he’s only spit up once (though he has peed on the changing pad table maybe half a dozen times).

Hopefully the cold runs its course in the next couple of days. And hopefully my in-laws recover from all the craziness soon, because they really would like to finally hold this new baby (and we would really like them to help watch our other kids). In the meantime, we’re just taking it a day at a time, doing our best to keep up on things without overstretching ourselves too much.

My current WIP is The Unknown Sea, and it’s coming along fairly well. I’m working on the AI draft simultaneously while humanizing it for the rough human draft, which is actually working out surprisingly well. AI writing and human writing work two different sets of mental muscles, so it’s kind of nice to switch off between the two. Keeps from burning out too much on any one thing. Also, the fact that I’m doing it all in the same WIP means that I don’t need to switch gears for a different book/series/genre. That switching can be tough.

It looks like The Unknown Sea is going to be a bit longer than my other Sea Mage Cycle books, though how much longer, I’m not yet sure. Still more fantasy adventure than epic fantasy. My hope is to finish the revised AI draft in the next four weeks, and the rough human draft another week or two after that, though with the new baby in the house, that is probably a wildly unrealistic goal. Still, he is a surprisingly mellow baby, so there is a chance.

Of course, the most important thing right now is to make sure the family is doing well, especially my wife. So that’s going to be the focus, until we can finally get settled into something of a new routine. Not sure how long that will take or what that will look like. But overall, we’re doing quite well.

Without AI, I would probably not be writing

I recently got another anti-AI one-star review that I want to pull apart, because it’s pertinent to what I want to say. I actually came up with the title for this post before I received the one-star review, so I’m not just fisking this one for the sake of fisking. With that said, though, there is definitely a lot to pull apart.

I was prepared to rate this as 2 stars. It is repetitive with no real character depth or development and a sincere lack of dynamic or engaging writing.

Two stars… so magnanimous! In all seriousness, though, it’s worth pointing out that in spite of all the book’s flaws, she did read it all the way through. That’s important for later.

Then I read the “author” note at the end of the book that was defending their use of generative AI in their writing process…. not only that but also seemingly insulting other writers who are anti-AI claiming that readers dont seem to care about it.

You know what’s insulting to any author, whether or not they are “anti-AI”? Putting scare quotes around the word “author” when referring to them Though I suspect that she did that on purpose, fully intending to insult me, whereas I did not intentionally insult anyone. For the record, this is the passage from the author’s note that she claims is “insulting” to authors by saying that “readers dont [sic] seem to care about [AI writing]”:

Besides which, after sharing The Riches of Xulthar with lots of readers, I’ve found that most of the rage and vitriol against AI-assisted writing is on the writer side of things, not the reader side.

The other thing is that I was not trying to “defend” my pro-AI stance through the author’s note, just explaining my writing process and sharing the story behind the story like I do in the author’s notes I write in the back of all my books. That’s not me being “defensive,” that just me sharing my story.

But there is something profoundly narcissistic about the way this reader is framing her review. Because I stated something about readers that contradicts her anti-AI worldview, I must be intentionally “insulting” her (or the anti-AI authors she’s white knighting for, which amounts to the same thing). Because I wrote about how I used AI to help write the book, I must be “defending” myself against her anti-AI views. This kind of narcissism can only really come from someone who lives in an echo chamber and is not used to having their worldview challenged.

Well Joe, you are wrong. This book was lifeless and dull and the use of AI showed. Everything was one dimensinal and flat. Word choises were even static. We (readers) get it… FMC had auburn hair. There are other words besides auburn to describe it….

I’m not going to deny, there is some legitimate criticism here. Rescuer’s Reward was one of my earlier AI-assisted books, when I was still experimenting a lot and learning how to incorporate AI into my creative process while still preserving my voice and writing multi-“dimensinal” [sic] characters and stories. So it doesn’t surprise me all that much that I missed the mark with this particular reader for this particular book. Lesson learned. Thanks for the feedback and the useful data point.

With all of that said, though… I can’t help but notice that she read the whole book.

I have yet to hear a compelling AI argument in the reralm of artistic expression and this “book” just exemplified everything yet again. No heart. No depth. Not good.

This is the crux of the issue, and the reason I wanted to frame this post as a line-by-line response to this review. Is there “a compelling AI argument in the reralm [sic] of artistic expression”? Or is any author who uses AI committing an unforgivable transgression against their art?

Here’s the thing: most of the other authors I know gave up writing a long time ago. We all started out with bright-eyed dreams about telling great stories and creating great art, but the hard truth is that it’s almost impossible to make it as an author.

There are many reasons for this: people don’t read very much in today’s culture (I personally blame the public school system for that), and the publishing industry has always been brutally rapacious and exploitive of writers (just read The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman—it’s a really fantastic history of the written word).

But the writing itself is also very hard. There’s a reason why even many succesful writers are like this guy, single and living in what amounts to a glorified shack. Most of my writing friends quit when they got married and starting having kids. I sincerely hope that they’re just on a 20+ year hiatus, and plan to get back to writing again someday, because some of the stuff they wrote was really, really good (I’m looking at you, Nathan Major!) But sadly, that won’t make up for the stuff they would have written, but never did.

My wife and I just had our third child. Writing with small children is very difficult, especially when your wife has a full-time job. I love them all to death, though. If I had to choose between being a single writer, or putting my writing on hold for 20+ years and having to restart my whole writing career from zero, just to be able to raise a family, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to make that choice. But it would put a huge burden of guilt on my wife, because my writing was one of the key things that drew her to me back when we were dating. And while our marriage is probably strong enough to survive that, I can’t deny that it would be an incredible strain.

Without AI, I probably would be facing this choice right now. Even though I had managed to streamline my writing process in the last few years, I’ve never been an especially fast writer. Without AI, it took me about a year to write each novel—and that’s before all the demands on my time and energy that come with having small children.

But AI has enabled me to continue to pursue my career and my art, even through this period of life. Not only does this help me to be a better husband and father (which is ultimately the most important thing), but it also means that my readers don’t have to wonder about the things I would have written, but never did. I can write those books now. I can give those stories to the world.

I’m not talking about AI slop. I’m talking about incorporating AI into the creative process deeply enough that it enhances, rather than replaces, my human creativity. We don’t have to be afraid of AI. It makes so many things possible—including running a profitable indie author business while raising (and soon homeschooling) 3+ small children. But it takes a lot of practice to get to that point. And generative AI is still so new that I don’t think there’s anyone who’s truly mastered the art of AI-assisted writing.

My Sea Mage Cycle books are mostly for practice. They’re meant to be fun, light reading. If it gives my readers a satisfying respite from all the doom and gloom in the world these days, I consider that book a success. The experience of writing each of them has helped me to be a better AI-assisted writer. And while the earlier ones may read like AI slop, that won’t be the case for long.

Midweek Excerpt: The Unknown Sea, Chapter 2

There are two viewpoint characters in The Unknown Sea, each of whom is a love interest to the other. Chapter 1 is where we meet Enoch, the seventh son of a penniless noble family who embarks as a sea mage to make his fortune. Chapter 2 is where we meet Celeste, the younger half-sister of Seraph, who is determined to leave her tiny little fishing village and make her own way in the world, out from under her sister’s shadow. Enjoy!

The first rays of dawn slanted through the cottage’s single window, catching the steam that rose from the porridge pot on the side of the hearth. Celeste stirred the oats with a wooden spoon and glanced over her shoulder at her mother Elara, who was busy kneading dough for the morning bread.

“Tristan, set the table please,” Elara called. Her silver-streaked hair was pulled back in a severe bun. Celeste glanced away before their eyes met, unwilling to see the wariness there.

Celeste’s younger half-brother scrambled to open the cupboard, standing on his tip-toes to reach. At eight years old, he was all gangly limbs and boundless energy.

“The wooden ones or the good ones?” Tristan asked, though there was no way he didn’t already know the answer.

“The wooden ones,” Celeste and Elara said in unison, making both of them grin. The good bowls were four pieces of actual glazed pottery that had survived the family’s various relocations. They only emerged for feast days, or when Celeste’s stepfather, Gerard, brought in an especially profitable catch.

Celeste stirred the porridge again, absently fingering the pearl amulet that hung from her neck on a silver chain. A parting gift from her older sister Seraph, it was one of the most valuable pieces in their humble cottage. But the feel of the cool metal against her skin only served as a reminder of all the adventures that she’d missed and wasn’t likely to have. Unlike her older sister, who wandered with her mother nearly halfway around the world, the small cottage was the only home that Celeste had ever known.

“I’m going away for a while, and I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Seraph had told her. “But if you ever miss me or feel a need to talk, use this amulet to summon me. I promise, I will come.”

“How?” Celeste had asked. Her older half-sister had smiled.

“I’ve woven a powerful summoning spell into the pearl at the center of this amulet. All you need to unlock it is to use your magic to complete it. As soon as you do, the spell will open a portal to me wherever I am.”

“So then I’ll be able to come to you?”

She still remembered the way her heart had sunk as her sister had paused before answering.

“Yes, but I think it would be better if I came to you. It might not be safe where I am, after all. Besides, mother would be worried sick if you left the village without telling her.”

That, of course, was the crux of the issue. All her life, Celeste had been kept safe—precisely because her older half-sister, Seraph, had grown up in so much danger. But where Seraph seemed to have all the adventures, Celeste seemed doomed to live a life tethered to her quiet and boring home.

“What if the spell doesn’t work?” she had asked. Her half-sister must have mistaken her tone for worry, because she’d smiled and placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

“I promise, it will work. It’s a complex spell, but I’ve mastered it by now. We can test it, if you want.”

“No,” Celeste had said, groaning a little inside. “I trust you.”

Seraph’s effortless mastery of magic was enough to make her jaw clench. It was all a fulfillment of the sibyl’s prophecy, of course—that for good or for evil, Seraph would one day become the world’s most powerful sorceress. Unlike her older sister, Celeste had no such destiny to look forward to. She was just a simple village girl with a modest gift for magic—hardly remarkable at all.

I’ll show them all, she thought fiercely as she flipped the eggs. I won’t just be known as Seraph’s younger sister.

“Celeste, dear, would you bring the porridge to the table?” her mother asked.

“Yes, Mother.” Celeste used the hook from the fireplace to lift the pot, and set it on the hot pad at the center of the table while her mother cut up the last of yesterday’s loaf of bread. Tristan got a plate of cheese slices from the cupboard and set it out next to the butter.

“We’ve got a lot of work today,” Elara said as she served up the porridge with the wooden spoon. “Celeste, could you help me with the washing and mending?”

Celeste’s shoulders tensed. “But Mother, I promised the fishermen I’d help with their catch.”

Elara’s brow furrowed, making Celeste’s stomach sink. It wasn’t hard to see the argument that was brewing.

“You know I don’t like you going out on those boats. It isn’t the proper place for a young woman like yourself.”

“Proper?” Celeste scoffed. “Seraph got to leave home and study advanced magic at the Alynthian court. Why shouldn’t I learn to use my powers by helping our village?”

“Your sister’s situation is… different,” Elara said carefully. Her answer made Celeste clench her fists in frustration.

“You mean she was more talented than me. More special.”

“That’s not what I meant. Now, let’s have our breakfast. We’ll talk about it later.”

From the tone of her voice, Celeste knew that arguing with her mother was pointless, so she picked up her spoon and stared at her porridge and bread. Beneath her blouse, she felt the amulet dangling on its silver chain. Through the window, she could see the first fishing boats already leaving the village harbor, their sails catching the morning breeze.

“I bet Seraph’s eating fancy meals in the royal court by now,” Tristan piped up as he cut a large slab of butter for his porridge. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a famous mage too!”

“Not without any talent for it,” Celeste grumbled.

“Hey! Just because I haven’t felt it yet doesn’t mean I don’t have it too, just like you and Seraph!”

“If you do, it’s buried awful deep.”

“Now, now,” Elara chided, eying them both sharply. “No arguments at breakfast. That goes for both of you.”

For several long minutes, they ate in silence, Tristan glowering at Celeste for bringing up his lack of magical talent. It was a sore issue with him, much like Seraph’s power was to Celeste. Perhaps she had been too hard on him for it, but the looming threat of chores had been weighing on her mind. More than anything else, she just wanted to get out of the house.

She waited until her mother’s bowl was empty before she brought up the subject again.

“Mother, please,” she said, shortly after Elara had finished her last spoonful. “I need to practice if I’m ever going to get better. You know how important this is to me.”

“It’s dangerous out there, Celeste.”

Her cheeks flushed hot. “I’m not a child anymore! I can handle myself.”

“Celeste—”

“Why can’t you trust me like you trusted Seraph?”

The words burst out before she could stop them. She braced herself, expecting a major fight. Instead, her mother just sighed.

“You have your sister’s restless spirit and your father’s stubborn streak. I suppose it was foolish of me to think you’d be content with a fisherwoman’s life forever.”

Tristan looked up sharply. “Is Celeste going away too?”

“No, darling,” Elara said softly, ruffling his dark hair. “Your sister isn’t going anywhere. She’s just… eager to spread her wings a little.”

“So can I go?” Celeste asked, her heart beginning to race. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Please, Mother—just for the morning.”

Elara sighed again, her shoulder sagging. “Very well. But I want you back no later than noon. I really do need help with the mending. Understood?”

Celeste nodded eagerly, already pushing back from the table. “Thank you, Mother! I promise I’ll be careful.”

Excerpt: The Unknown Sea, Chapter 1

I’m working on another Sea Mage Cycle book right now, alternating between the AI revisions (where I generate multiple iterations of each chapter using the same prompts, and combine the best parts for the final AI draft) and humanizing the AI draft to produce the rough human draft. So far, it’s working out really well. I do a little bit of work each day: maybe a chapter of the AI draft, or a scene of the human draft, but it’s steady progress and the kind of thing that I can probably keep up to some degree, even with the demands of a newborn baby, which is sure to throw things off in the coming weeks.

In any case, here is an excerpt from the first scene of the first chapter of The Unknown Sea. This is the rough human draft, so the writing is all mine and not AI-generated, though there may be some AI-isms because I used the AI draft as a guide. I’m going to write a post next week detailing my current AI-assisted writing process, so if any of that is confusing, check out my post there. In the meantime, enjoy!

The sea-soaked wood of the pier groaned under Enoch’s boots as he walked out onto the dock. He squinted, eyes stinging a little in the salty breeze as he peered out across the bustling harbor. Fat merchant caravels sat low in the water as they crawled into port, dockhands rushing to secure them. Elsewhere, sailors hauled heavy sacks of trade goods down to the docks, or rolled barrels of supplies up the narrow gangplanks for the ships that were preparing to depart.

Enoch Ashenford took a deep breath. Few ports on the Azure Sea buzzed with the raw, desperate energy of the capital of the kingdom of Caravelia. Many a merchant prince had made his fortune here, and many a man with little to his name had rewritten his own story.

So why did he feel so thoroughly out of place?

He fished the letter of introduction from his waistcoat pocket. The elegant script had smudged a little at the corners from nervous handling, but the words on the parchment were still clear. Our son is of sound mind and steady hand, he read, taking encouragement from the words. He has a promising magical talent and will serve you well in the position of sea mage.

Of course, it wasn’t just the endorsement that had landed him the position. His father had had to pull some high-placed favors to get it. Not that Enoch wasn’t qualified, of course—as the only one in his family to be born with magical talent, he had worked hard to cultivate it with what meager resources the dwindling family wealth could acquire. But few young mages landed a berth quite so lucrative as a merchant caravel so early in their apprenticeship.

He tucked the letter away, hoping it would dutifully impress the captain. The morning air was thick with the stench of old fish and burning pitch, the unlovely aroma of commerce. Enoch drew another sharp breath and squared his shoulders before setting out to find the ship.

He pretended not to notice the stares and glances aimed his way. It was rare for a noble scion to set foot on these docks, let alone seek employment on a common merchant. His mother had insisted on dressing him well, in fine leather boots and a silk tunic, but these made him stand out almost as much as his pale, untanned skin and soft hands. He also had all his teeth, which was more than he could say of many of the men he passed.

It was frustrating, because if any of these gawkers looked closer, they would see the threadbare patches on his tunic and pants, the cracks and creases in the ageworn leather of his belt and boots. A noble son he might be, but the battered satchel slung over his shoulder held little of real value.

He stopped to get his bearings. It seemed like the forest of masts and sails stretched almost to the horizon. Somewhere among them was the merchant ship that would be his ticket to wealth and glory—if he could only find the blasted thing.

“Make way,” a grizzled sailor shouted, carrying a large barrel on one shoulder. Enoch tried to get out of his way, but the man still nearly knocked him off his feet, swearing as he did so.

“Ouch!”

“Watch yourself, young lordling. This is no place for soft hands and slippered feet.”

Blood rushed to Enoch’s cheeks. “I’m not a ‘lordling,’” he muttered under his breath. “Just the seventh son of a penniless house.”

It was no use, of course. These common folk probably all thought that all nobles were rich. But Enoch’s noble birth had been more of a burden than a blessing. His older brothers had already divided up the Ashenford house’s few minor titles, barely managing to secure respectable positions and marriages for themselves. Even Carl, the second youngest in the family, had received a captain’s commission in the King’s Fleet. But by the time Enoch had come of age, the Ashenford house’s coffers had run as dry as a salt pan at high noon.

The manor still stood, of course. One couldn’t exactly pawn bricks and stone. But the paintings and tapestries had been sold, then the family silver, then most of the furniture. His mother wore the same gown to every court function, cleverly disguising the fact with slight alterations made by her own hands. As for his father, he spent most of his days in the family library, poring over the same old tomes—as if the secret to restoring the family’s fortune could be found in books alone.

No. Enoch had had enough of that dusty old manor, and he had no patience for the duties and pretenses of the court. He’d be damned before he gave up and turned around, even with all the snickering glances and gawking stares. He thought again of the letter of recommendation in his pocket, resisting the urge to take it out. If he could just find that blasted ship…

“You look a bit lost, lad,” a voice called out. “You wouldn’t happen to be young Master Ashenford, would you?”

Enoch turned to see a burly clean-shaven man in a leather apron, a crooked grin splitting his wind-chapped face. Sun and sea had tanned his skin to the color of old rope, which was almost as tough and leathery as the apron he wore. He swayed a little where he stood, and his shrewd eyes shone with the keenness of a man who had spent most of his life at sea.

“I might be,” Enoch hedged. “Who’s asking?”

“Marcus Reed, ship’s cook of the Waverunner. Captain sent me to fetch our new sea mage. That’d be you, I’d reckon?”

Enoch nodded, extending his hand. “That’s right. Pleased to meet you, Marcus.”

The man took it and gave him a single shake before gesturing toward the dock. Enoch quickly fell into step with his confident gait, grateful to have a guide to his new berth.

“So,” Marcus asked, breaking the silence between them, “what brings a young nobleman to life at sea? Chasing adventure? Seeking your fortune?”

“A little of both,” Enoch admitted. “As the seventh son, it’s not like I’ve got much of an inheritance.”

“Ah,” said Marcus, chuckling dryly. “Well, the sea’s a great leveler, lad. Noble or commonfolk, it’s all the same when the storms hit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Marcus. We’re mates now, after all.”

“Right,” said Enoch, nodding. “And I guess you can call me Enoch. Like you said, the sea’s a great leveler.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow at him and smiled.

The Waverunner sat moored at one of the last piers. Enoch felt his breath catch as his eyes fell upon it. The sturdy single-masted caravel creaked a little as it swayed gently at the dock. Sixty feet of weathered oak, with a dark, waterlogged hull that had clearly seen many voyages. Despite her elegant curves, the salt and sun had clearly had their way with the wood.

“You there!” a commanding voice rang out from the upper deck. “The new mage?”

Enoch looked upward, meeting the gray eyes of a woman whose gaze held the relentless intensity of a hawk. She stood with confident poise, her graying hair pulled back into a tight braid, and her weather-beaten face held the sort of authority that needed no crown or title.

“Enoch Ashenford, Ma’am,” he answered, straightening his posture. “I’m to be your new sea mage.”

“Don’t just stand there, lad. Come let me get a look at you.”

He quickly climbed the narrow gangplank, ignoring how his stomach lurched. Once on board, he withdrew the letter of introduction and handed it to her.

“For you, Ma’am.”

Captain Maren Black plucked the letter from his hands and stuffed it into her waistcoat, barely giving it a glance. Instead, she looked him over from head to toe. Her eyes narrowed, making Enoch swallow.

“Hmm,” she muttered—a sound that could have meant anything. “Ever worked a ship before?”

“I’ve studied maritime magic extensively, ma’am. My family’s library—”

“That’s a no, then.” She turned away. “Marcus! Show the boy where to stow his gear. Thaddeus, check those lines again. They look slack.”

The pit in Enoch’s stomach fell—a pit that until now, he hadn’t realized was there. Like a dog with his tail between his legs, he quickly followed Marcus across the wooden deck and down into the hold.

“How large is the crew?” he asked the burly.

“Just five of us,” Marcus answered cheerily, ducking as they passed through the door. “Captain Black, First mate Thaddeus, Felix, yourself, and me. But what we lack in manpower, we’ll more than make up for in your magic. Right?”

“Right,” said Enoch, swallowing nervously. Just what had he gotten himself into? Seeing his discomfort, Marcus chuckled and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ll do fine, friend. Think of it this way: the fewer of us to crew the ship, the greater each man’s share of the profits.”

That was a good point, though it did little to quell Enoch’s growing anxiety. He also couldn’t help but notice how rough and calloused Marcus’s hands were to his own. With only five of them, he’d have to work hard to earn his keep, and not just with book learning and magic.

“This is where you’ll bunk,” Marcus announced, pointing to a cramped berth with a nod of his head. He leaned casually against the doorframe, folding his arms atop his leather apron. “This your first time at sea?”

Enoch’s cheeks burned. “Is it that obvious?”

“Don’t worry, lad. You’ll find your sea legs soon enough. The sea’s a harsh mistress, and an even harsher teacher.”

Enoch drew a sharp breath and nodded. A harsh mistress indeed, he told himself silently, but one I intend to master. As Marcus watched, he quickly unpacked his meager belongings, making space near the head of his bunk for the two most valuable pieces.

“Those look interesting,” Marcus remarked. “Family heirlooms?”

“Gifts from my parents,” Enoch explained. He unsheathed the dagger his father had given him and tilted it in the gleam of the candlelight. “The edge is inlaid with silver. It’s supposed to let it cut through magical shields and wards.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “And the amulet?”

He pulled out his mother’s amulet, fashioned from a spiral shell and hanging from a leather cord. “This one is called the Whispering Shell. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s enchanted with a powerful spell that helps the one who wears it to translate foreign speech.”

“So it lets you understand what the people around you are saying?”

“That, and it makes the bearer’s speech intelligible to all who hear. Like I said, it’s a powerful spell.”

Marcus whistled appreciatively. “Now that’s a rare piece of work. Must have cost a pretty penny.”

More than my family could afford, Enoch thought but didn’t say. His mother had pawned her grandmother’s emerald brooch to raise the funds, one of the last valuable pieces the family possessed. Instead of saying that, though, he simply nodded.

“My family wanted me to have every advantage.”

“Aye—and they’ll serve you well, I’d wager. Though not half as well as a sturdy pair of sea legs and a strong stomach.” Marcus grinned and slapped his back. “Though we’ll be giving you those in no time.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Marcus turned and left then, his footsteps creaking along the old, wooden floor of the deck. Enoch watched him for a moment, then carefully tucked the dagger and amulet away.

He thought of his mother, pawning a priceless family heirloom to buy him this chance. His father, struggling to maintain the fiction of their wealth while the walls grew bare around him. Seven sons, and the seventh was their last hope for something more than genteel poverty.

The thought hardened Enoch’s will until the pit in his stomach no longer seemed so terrible. He would not fail them. He could not afford to. He would stay on this ship and win his own fortune, restoring the family name and making his own way in this world. All of his doubts, all of his misgivings—it was time to throw those away. He was not just the overlooked son. It was time to become something more.

Getting ready for the baby

Things are fairly quiet around here, though that’s going to change soon. The baby is nearly full term, and the doctors want to induce labor in just a few days, so that’s the plan. We’re just trying to get things ready for that.

Writing-wise, things are going very well. I recently finished the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling, and started work on The Unknown Sea again. My goal is to have the final draft ready to send to my editor by Thanksgiving, so that I can publish it in January. That’s going to be a tall order with the baby, though, so I may have to push the publication date back by a month or two.

Moving forward, I really want to publish a new novel at least every quarter. Some of those are going to be short, like the Sea Mage Cycle books, but eventually I hope to get up to epic fantasy length. And of course, I plan to finish my three unfinished trilogies in the next year or two. I’ve been taking the last couple of years to really figure out my AI-assisted writing process, and I think I’ve got that mostly down now, so it’s time to apply those lessons to these books and get them done.

One thing I’ve done recently was pull out all of my books from InAudio, formerly Findaway Voices. I was crunching the numbers from the last year, and I only made something like $12 during that twelve-month period, averaging something like $.04 per sale. Those numbers are skewed by all of the free audiobooks that get downloaded, but when I drilled into the reports, I found a bunch of places that were literally paying me only $.01 per sale. Literally just a penny. For an audiobook that a reader paid money for. Someone got paid in that transaction, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. Since InAudio doesn’t let you pick and choose which distributors you can send to—it’s literally all or nothing—I made the choice to just drop them. There’s no way I can sustain a career if I’m only getting pennies (if that much!) per sale.

I know that Audible has been in the news a lot recently, and for good reason—they really have been playing dirty, simply because they can get away with it. And while I don’t like the way they’re screwing authors over, I don’t think they’ve been screwing me nearly as bad as some of the places where InAudio distributes their books. For one thing, all of my audiobooks are AI narrated, so it’s not like I have a lot of production costs to make back. It’s literally just a value-add on top of the ebooks. For another thing, the least amount of royalties they’ve paid me is $.80 per book, which is more than what I get from just about every library service for audiobooks.

So for the time being, I’m going to keep my AI-narrated audiobooks up on Audible, even though I wish they would treat their authors better. But I’m not going to shell out the money for a human narrator at this time. It just doesn’t make sense, especially with the way that Audible squeezes us. With AI-narrated audiobooks, there really is no reason not to put them out, so long as they don’t drop the royalties any further. But it would take a hell of a long time to earn back an investment of several thousand dollars if all they’re paying me is $.80 per listen.

If you want to listen to my books on audio, the best way to do it is to click on the link at the top of the page and visit my online store. You also have the added bonus of owning the files, not just licensing them. And Bookfunnel is really good at delivering the audiobook to whatever app or device you prefer—or even opening it up in your browser, if you don’t have an audiobook app.

update post

This is my current writing setup. The top of the filing cabinet already needs to be decluttered, but the rest is actually working out pretty well. The nice thing is that the computer can be raised into a standing desk, which works out really great for writing, since I tend to write better when I’m standing or pacing.

I am almost finished with the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling. It looks like it’s going to be about 140k words total, which is on the short end for an epic fantasy novel, but longer than anything else I’ve written (except for the first novel I ever finished, which shall never see the light of day).

The human draft will likely be longer than that, though. I’m going to add more details as I humanize it, which is easier to do just by writing it yourself than it is to get an AI to write it. Though parts of it will likely be shorter, since I’m sure there are places where I let the AI overwrite. Most of the skill in AI-assisted writing consists of knowing what to cut out, since generating words is the easy part.

I have also finished the outline for The Soulbond and the Lady, the second book in the Soulbound King series. It should clock in at about 20 chapters, 100 scenes, and 165k words. The next step is to fill out all the prompts and generate a rough AI draft, but because of how Sudowrite works, I don’t want to do that until the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling is complete (since it would require tweaking a bunch of the worldbuilding and character prompts). So that will probably wait until the end of the month.

In general, I have found that I tend to work best when I have two current WIPs: one human and one AI. This is because the two different kinds of writing exercise different parts of my brain, and I can rest the one part while I’m using the other. However, it only really works if both WIPs are in the same series. If I have to mentally switch from one universe to another, that adds friction that makes things difficult.

So the key is to pair up different WIPs together, such that I’ve always got both a human WIP and an AI WIP in the same series. With The Soulbound King, that’s not so difficult, because the AI draft of The Soulbond and the Sling is complete enough for me to start the human draft. And once the AI draft is complete, I can move on to the AI draft of book 2 while I finish up the human draft of book 1. It might become a problem if I finish one of the drafts well before the other, but that won’t be a problem for a while.

With the Falconstar Trilogy, that’s also not a huge problem. I will probably human-write a reader magnet while I work on the AI draft of Captive of the Falconstar, then humanize Captive while I work on the AI draft of Lord of the Falconstar.

With Return of the Starborn Son, the last science fiction novel I plan to write for a while, it’s going to be more tricky because that is the last book in the trilogy, and I still haven’t generated the AI draft. What I’ll probably do is start work on the human draft after I’m about 15% done with the AI draft, and see if I can’t work on both simultaneously. That hasn’t worked as well for me in the past, since I actually prefer to write the human draft out of order, but if it starts to break down I’ll just hold off on the human draft until the AI draft is more complete.

With the Sea Mage Cycle, I’ve currently just got one WIP in that series (The Unknown Sea), and it’s in the AI drafting stage. But it’s short enough that I can probably finish it in just a couple of weeks. At that point, I’ll take my wife out to dinner and have her pick out the next one I’ll write, then work on the AI draft for that one while I’m humanizing The Unknown Sea.

Which brings me to my J.M. Wight pen name. After a lot of thought and some careful deliberation, I’ve decided to put The Road to New Jerusalem on the back burner for now. I was going to try to finish that one in time for the Ark Press contest in October, but I don’t think this is the right time to work on that particular WIP. In the first place, it probably won’t win, and even if it did, that might actually be more of a liability, since it’s a near-future post-apocalyptice novel, and I’m currently trying to establish myself as a writer of epic fantasy.

From now until 2030, I plan to write epic fantasy almost exclusively. The only exceptions for that are the two sci-fi series (The Falconstar Trilogy and the Outworld Trilogy) that I haven’t yet finished. Also, I will probably write some zany space adventure-type stuff under my J.M. Wight pen name, more in the vein of my Gunslinger books (which I have republished under J.M. Wight). But aside from that, I plan to focus on writing fantasy—specifically, epic fantasy.

In my blog series Fantasy from A to Z, I wrote about how epic fantasy has fallen into decline in recent years, due to reader fatigue with big name authors like George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss failing to finish their series, and how this has put newer authors in a conundrum, because epic fantasy novels are way too big to rapid release, but most readers aren’t willing to start a new series until after it’s already been finished. I hope that my new AI-assisted writing method will help me to crack that particular nut, writing and releasing epic fantasy books fast enough to satisfy readers. Because even though there haven’t been a ton of new epic fantasy authors in recent years, I don’t think the reader demand for epic fantasy has gone down at all. There may still be an opportunity there for writers who can deliver.

That’s what I’m hoping, at least. So I’ll keep plugging away at The Soulbound King, and hopefully release the first all three books of the first trilogy around this time next year.

Fisking 1-star reviews bashing AI

They say that authors should never respond to one-star reviews. That’s generally good advice, and for most of my career, I’ve studiously kept it. However, I’ve recently begun to get a new kind of one-star review that baffles me—reviews that essentially say: “the book was good, but it was written with AI so I hate it.”

Here’s an example:

This book is written with AI. Incredibly disappointing as a reader to give a book/author a chance and then to get to the end of the book only for the “author” to then announce the AI card. If I could give zero stars, I would for this alone. I also didn’t appreciate that this use of AI was not announced until the ending Author’s Note. If “authors” are going to cut corners and put their name to computer-generated mush, they should be willing to put that information on the front cover. The book struggled to find its pace, and some parts read as though they were written for a child’s short story competition while others felt as though the writer was snorting crushed up DVDs of Pirates of the Caribbean as they wrote.

Let’s break it down:

This book is written with AI. Incredibly disappointing as a reader to give a book/author a chance and then to get to the end of the book only for the “author” to then announce the AI card.

Yes… but I can’t help but notice that you got to the end of it. In other words, you finished the book. Also, from the way you tell it, it seems that you didn’t realize the book was written with AI until you got to the very end. So based on your own behavior, it doesn’t seem that quality was the issue.

I also didn’t appreciate that this use of AI was not announced until the ending Author’s Note. If “authors” are going to cut corners and put their name to computer-generated mush, they should be willing to put that information on the front cover.

Okay… but if my book was just “computer-generated mush,” why did you finish it? And why were you surprised when you learned that it was written with AI-assistance?

I can understand the objection to books that were written solely with AI, with little to no human input. But that’s not how I write my AI-assisted books. Instead, I outline them thoroughly beforehand, write and refine a series of meticulously detailed prompts (usually using Sudowrite), and generate multiple drafts, combining the best parts of them to make a passable AI draft. And then I rewrite the whole thing in my own words, using the AI draft as a loose guide with no copy-pasting.

Why would I go through so much trouble? Because of how the AI drafting stage gives me a bird’s eye view of the book, allowing me to identify and fix major story issues before they metastasize and give me writer’s block. Before AI, that’s where 80% of my writer’s block came from, and it often derailed my projects for months, so that it took me well over a year to write a full-length novel. But with AI, I’m no longer so focused on the page that I lose sight of the forest for the trees. So even though generating and revising a solid AI draft adds a couple more steps to the process, it’s worth it for the time and trouble that it saves.

That’s the way I use generative AI in my writing process. But there are many other ways—and I hate to break it to you, but most authors use AI in one way or another. If an author uses Grammarly to fix their spelling and grammar, should they disclose that on the cover? If they use MS Word? What if they used a chatbot to brainstorm story ideas, but went on to write it entirely themselves? Should that also be disclosed?

The book struggled to find its pace, and some parts read as though they were written for a child’s short story competition while others felt as though the writer was snorting crushed up DVDs of Pirates of the Caribbean as they wrote.

Yes… but again, I can’t help but notice that you finished the book. And after you finished it, you were surprised to learn that it was written with AI. So with all due respect, I’m going to call BS on your objections here. I think you only decided you hated the book after you learned it was written with AI, and you came up with these objections after the fact. Whatever.

I think a lot of the people who object to AI are really just scared and angry. They claim to have principled, ethical objections to the technology, but few of them follow through to implement that principled stance into every area of their lives. After all, if you use Grammarly, Google Docs, or MS Word, you are using generative AI just as surely as I am using ChatGPT and Sudowrite. For most people, the ethical objections are just a smokescreen for their general fear of change. They’re fine with embracing the convenience the technology offers them in their own personal lives, but they insist that everyone else—including me—live according to their principles, no matter how inconvenient or difficult it may be.

As an example of that, check out this one-star review:

The arts! Whether visual, performance, or literary—my haloed experience has been the act of creating and sharing a connection to the profound or sublime. Why, then, would any artist—musician, dancer, sculptor, painter, or author—offload (abdicate) the act of creation to AI? Process versus product. Mr. Vasicek included an afterword for this volume, describing his workflow and the efficiency of collaboration with AI: a 6,624-word day! another volume completed! Mr. Vasicek obviously owns the skills to weave rich character development and scenes. Perhaps Mr. Vasicek’s AI collaboration explains why these characters, the plot, the narrative—and subsequently, the entire story— are so flat and undeveloped. Although his lead male shows some undeveloped promise, the mother’s too-oft used “dear” and “my love,” and the daughter’s clutching at her mother’s apron are cringe-inducing. Perhaps Mr. Vasicek might eschew AI-assisted writing, seeking a future of quality over quantity.

Let’s break it down:

The arts! Whether visual, performance, or literary—my haloed experience has been the act of creating and sharing a connection to the profound or sublime. Why, then, would any artist—musician, dancer, sculptor, painter, or author—offload (abdicate) the act of creation to AI?

Because for some of us, writing is more than a “haloed experience”—it’s an actual job. It’s what we do for a living. And if you want to do your best work, you need to use the best tools. We used to build houses with plaster and lath and wrought-iron nails, using hand tools and locally-sourced lumber. But today, you’d be a fool not to use power tools and materials sourced from a building supply store, or your local Home Depot. If that makes your building experience less profound or sublime, so be it.

Process versus product. Mr. Vasicek included an afterword for this volume, describing his workflow and the efficiency of collaboration with AI: a 6,624-word day! another volume completed!

I’m not gonna lie: there is a certain degree of tension between art-as-product and art-for-art’s-sake. But the two are not mutually exclusive. A house can still be a beautiful work of art, without taking as long as a cathedral to build it. Likewise, a book can still be a beautiful work of art, without taking as long as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Again, you’re trying to pidgeon-hole me into your “haloed” idea of what a “true artist” should be. Which would make it absolutely impossible for me to make a living at this craft. If all of us writers followed that path, there are a lot of wonderful books that would never get written. And I doubt that the overall quality of the books that do get written would rise.

Mr. Vasicek obviously owns the skills to weave rich character development and scenes.

Now we get to the interesting part. I checked this reviewer’s history, and this was the only review they’ve written for any of my books. Therefore, I can only assume that this is the only book of mine that they’ve read. But if that’s the case, how do they know that I have “the skills to weave rich character development and scenes”? If the book I wrote with AI was pure trash, why would they say that I obviously have some skill?

Once again, we’ve got a case of “I enjoyed this book, but it’s written with AI so I hate it.” In other words, it’s not the book itself that you hate, so much as the way I wrote it. You object to the idea of authors using AI, not to what they actually write with AI.

Perhaps Mr. Vasicek’s AI collaboration explains why these characters, the plot, the narrative—and subsequently, the entire story— are so flat and undeveloped. Although his lead male shows some undeveloped promise, the mother’s too-oft used “dear” and “my love,” and the daughter’s clutching at her mother’s apron are cringe-inducing.

Finally, some specific and legitimate criticism. And while I do think there’s a degree of retroactively looking for faults after enjoying the book, I’m totally willing to own that these criticisms are valid. This particular book (The Widow’s Child) was one of my first AI-assisted books, and I was still learning to use these AI tools as I was writing it. I did the best I could at the time, but if I were to write it today, I could probably do a lot better, smoothing out the annoying AI-isms that you’ve pointed out here.

But the book is currently sitting at 4.4 stars on Amazon (4.1 on Goodreads). And the other readers do not share your objections. Here is another review, pulled from the same book:

Since waiting a year or more to read the next book in a sequel is hard on my stress levels, I’m liking this AI. It means talented authors like Joe Vasicek can churn out an outline faster. Then he can bring in his talented ideas, such as the content of this heart-stopping adventure of The Widow’s Child, to fill out the nitty gritty in record time.

Clearly, it’s not the case that all (or even most) readers feel the same way about AI as you do.

Perhaps Mr. Vasicek might eschew AI-assisted writing, seeking a future of quality over quantity.

Why can’t we have both? Why can’t we have quantity with quality? Why can’t AI make us more creative, instead of replacing our human creativity?

This is all giving me flashbacks to the big debate between tradition vs. indie publishing, back in the early 2010s. Back then, the debate was between purists who said that indie publishing would destroy literature by flooding the market with crappy books. Indies argued that removing the industry middlemen would create a more dynamic market that would give readers more choices and allow more writers to make a living. Both were right to some degree, and both were also wrong about some things. In the end, we reached a middle ground where “hybrid publishing” became the norm.

The same kind of debate is happening right now between human-only purists and AI-assisted writers. The biggest difference is dead internet theory. In the early 2010s, the ratio of bots to humans on the internet was still low enough to allow for a lively debate. Today, there’s so much bot-driven outrage on the internet that most of us are just quietly doing our own thing and avoiding the debate.

That same bot- and algorithm-driven outrage is driving a lot of peole to be irrationally angry or afraid of AI. With that said, I can understand why so many people are upset. And I do think there are a lot of valid criticisms about this new technology, including its environmental impact, copyright considerations, how the models were trained, and the societal impact it’s already starting to have. But if we don’t have an honest and good-faith debate about these issues, we can’t solve any of them. And we can’t have a good-faith debate if one side is coming at it from a place of irrational anger or fear.

In any case, I find it super annoying when readers who clearly found some value or enjoyment in my books turn around and give it a one-star review merely because they don’t like how I used AI. And at the risk of going viral and soliciting more one-star anti-AI reviews, I think its worth voicing my views on the subject and opening that debate. So what are your thoughts on the subject? How do you feel about using AI as a tool to help write books? Can we have quantity with quality? Can AI help us to be more creative, not just more productive? What has been your experience?

Going full-tilt on The Soulbound King

I’ve decided to put The Road to New Jerusalem on the back burner and focus instead on my epic fantasy series, The Rise of the Soulbound King Trilogy. If I push, I think I can finish the AI draft of book 1 in the next two weeks. I’ve also nearly finished the outline for book 2, and will probably have a rough AI draft for that one by the end of September.

I would really like to publish this series in 2026, but I don’t want to launch it until I’m ready to rapid release the first three books. And since these books are all epic fantasy, it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to write them. Without AI, it would probably take me something like two or three years for each book. I’m not a very fast writer, and I tend to get stuck in the middle, even when I have a solid outline. With AI, I think I can shorten that to 6-8 months.

These books are probably going to range between 150k and 200k words, so not super long for epic fantasy (for comparison, Mistborn: The Final Empire is about 214k words, and The Way of Kings is about 384k words). That’s much longer than most genre books, though, including most of the books I’ve written until now. And writing difficulty doesn’t scale linearly with book length; it scales logarithmically. So while it may take only 1-2 months to write a Sea Mage Cycle book, those are only about 1/3rd the length of a Soulbound King book.

My long-term goal, though, is to pivot to epic fantasy, to the point where that’s mostly what I write. And if you read my science fiction novels, you’ll find that they’re much more like epic fantasy, with multiple viewpoints, grand galactic empires, wars and political machinations, and a universe that has its own character arc. So while this may superficially seem like a huge pivot, it’s actually not.

There are three science fiction books that I need to write before I can pivot entirely to writing fantasy: Captive of the Falconstar, Lord of the Falconstar, and The Return of the Starborn Son. Those are the only outstanding science fiction series that need finishing (and I will finish them, I promise—I’m not going to pull a GRRM). I also need to finish the Twelfth Sword Trilogy, the epic fantasy series I started in the 2010s while I was still mostly writing science fiction.

Realistically, the only ones of those books that are going to be finished between now and the end of next year are the Falconstar books, since I need to juggle all of these with the Soulbound King epic fantasy books that I’m also writing. But I think I can finish the Falconstar books, and also write and publish a Sea Mage Cycle book or two within the next year. I’ve found that it often helps to take week-long breaks to work on other projects, which allows me to approach a larger and more challenging WIP like The Soulbond and the Sling with new eyes. So I will probably alternate between working on the Soulbound King books and working on Falconstar and Sea Mage Cycle for the forseeable future.

But my goal for the next two weeks is to go full steam ahead on The Soulbond and the Sling, until it is finished. And with luck, I will also have a few excerpts to share with you soon!

Back into writing!

So we are more or less moved into our new (old) house, though there is this overdue kid’s book from the library that somehow got lost during the move, and we haven’t been able to find it… but aside from that, we are more or less settled in. Our five year-old has started kindergarten, my wife is starting her new job, and by the time this post goes live, we will have acquired office chairs from the BYU surplus sale, so I won’t have to be standing all the time like I am as I write this.

I’ve already gotten back into writing my epic fantasy, The Soulbond and the Sling, and am making steady progress on it again. The AI draft is about 66% complete, and it’s good enough that if I were writing it under a secret AI-only pen name, I would feel comfortable publishing it as-is. But my personal standard of quality is higher than that, especially for epic fantasy, so after the AI draft is complete, I will rewrite the whole thing without any AI, to put it in my own voice (and will probably add a whole lot of other stuff to it too—you know, the kind of setting and character details you’d expect in a proper epic fantasy, giving it much more depth).

(Also, as a side note, I do not have a secret AI-only pen name… though I must admit, a part of me kind of wants to start one. With a little bit of market research to figure out the pulpiest genres where I could really excel… but no, with two (soon to be three) small kids and a wife who works full-time, there are only so many projects I can work on at a time.)

I’m also working on The Road to New Jerusalem for my J.M. Wight pen name, though that one has been going much more slow. I really have no idea how much market appeal this one is going to have, and doubt it will do much more than help me to flesh out the world for a potential series in the same universe (a post-apocalyptic Mormon polygamist romance, which also probably has limited market appeal). However, I feel impressed that this is a book I need to see through to the end, so my goal is to finish it before October, at which point I will probably focus on The Soulbound King.

Beyond that, I’m also working on two other novels that I hope to finish before the end of the year (or, more realistically, sometime early next year, since I’m sure the new baby will throw things off for a while. The first is The Unknown Sea, a Sea Mage Cycle book, which is going to be a lot of fun. The rough AI draft is already done, and I had a real blast writing it.

The other one is Captive of the Falconstar, the sequel to Queen of the Falconstar. The rough AI draft is also done for this one, but the revised AI draft is going to take a bit more work. Also, I need to redo the cover and blurb. But I’m really looking forward to getting this one out, and completing the trilogy, which has stood unfinished for nearly a decade now. Yes, I really need to finish these unfinished series, and fully intend to do so—not just with this one, but for all of them.

Over the next year, I hope to transition from being a science fiction writer who occasionally writes fantasy, to a fantasy writer who occasionally writes science fiction. My two big unfinished sci-fi series are the Falconstar Trilogy and the Outworld Trilogy. The plan right now is to finish Falconstar first, knocking out the last two books almost at the same time (the rough AI draft for Lord of the Falconstar is also complete), and then spend a little more time on Return of the Starborn Son to finish that trilogy strong. For a long time, Star Wanderers was my flagship series, so I want to do right by it. But I haven’t even outlined book 3 yet, so it’s going to be a while.

And when Return of the Starborn Son is done, I will probably release another volume of my author’s notes, since hey, why not? But that won’t be for a while—probably not until this time next year, at the absolute soonest. However, Return of the Starborn Son probably will come out before The Soulbond and the Sling, since for marketing reasons I don’t want to release an epic fantasy trilogy until all three books are ready to rapid release. And yes, I fully blame George R.R. Martin for conditioning epic fantasy readers not to try out a new series until it is complete. It is what it is.

So that’s the long-term plan. I will probably start a few new projects as well, including a relaunch of my Christopher Columbus stories, once I figure out what I want to do with that series. But for now, I’m just going to focus on The Road to New Jerusalem and The Soulbond and the Sling, until we are back into a new routine. BYU classes start on September 3rd, so it will probably be a little crazy until then. And the way things are shaping up, I half-expect they will induce my wife at the tail-end of September. So maybe we won’t actually get into a new routine until sometime next year. But either way, I’ll do my best to keep writing.

New book! Out now! Bloodfire Legacy

I published a new Sea Mage novel last week! Check it out!

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

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Get the ebook FREE from my online store!

Get the audiobook FREE from my online store!

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.

Other Books in the "Sea Mage Cycle"

The Call of the Tide

The Sea Mage Cycle: Omnibus 1

Rescuer's Reward

The Widow's Child

The Winds of Desolation

Preview

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