Edit 10 July: You can read the first three chapters of STORMDANCER all typeset and logo'ed and whatnot here.

STORMDANCER is my book, so it should go without saying that I love it in the pants. I love it more than that moment at the end of Top Gun when Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise have just killed the bejeezus out of all those commies and Val is all like "You can kiss me on the mouth be my wingman anytime" and the music swells and some deckhand is just wailing on an electric guitar somewhere in the background, everyone all hugging and whatnot. But I’m not going to give my own book a star rating, because that would just feel... weird.

But, I should say something about it, since we don’t have covers yet and it can’t speak for itself. Poor baby. :(

The book is infiltrating YA lists on Goodreads (many thanks to the awesome people who are voting), but it's being published on an adult imprint. Nobody seems to know what this thing is, what with all the sweary and the stabby and the sexahhh and so-on. For my part, I say only this:


But while we’re utilizing visual aids, let me try and explain this whole ‘Japanese-inspired Steampunk dystopia’ deal.

See, some people think Steampunk is this:



(All corsetry and disturbingly shaped ray guns and what have you...)

STORMDANCER is more like this:



Combined with this:



(She's Chinese, but you get the idea.)

So we end up with something like this:



(Grrrrr.)

Of course, within the pages you will also find some of this:



(They won’t be blonde, obviously...)

But truthfully, there’s more of this:




(She means it…)

There will be some of these:



(Actually, there are five…)

And before I forget, there’s also one of these:



(He's kinda important. And he doesn’t really say moo...)

Hopefully things are clearer now.

To those of you who plan to read STORMDANCER and help me live out this absurd little dream, I give my heartfelt thanks. Sincerely. Love it. Hate it. For agreeing to spend some of your time in this tiny world I’ve made, thank you.

I leave you with this looped .gif of Tyrion Lannister teaching his nephew Joffrey what the five fingers said to the face.

It has nothing to do with the book. I just find it strangely hypnotic...