D.T. Neal's Blog
September 24, 2025
Pretty Please...
As I see the many hundreds of people who have my books on their TBR lists, I dearly wish those folks would buy my books!
Don't keep me in limbo; buy, read, and review my books, pretty please!
For those of you who've done so, I'm eternally grateful.
Don't keep me in limbo; buy, read, and review my books, pretty please!
For those of you who've done so, I'm eternally grateful.
September 11, 2025
THE AURICLE, cont'd...
I'm pleased to see some highly positive reviews for THE AURICLE appear on NetGalley. Hopefully more people will read & enjoy that one (and, ideally, leave reviews).
That novel's had a long path to publication, as anyone reading this blog knows. I'm just pleased that the work I put into it has been well-received.
Given the satirically polemical nature of THE AURICLE, you new know how people will take it. As I've said before, it's either a utopian first contact fable or a dystopian apocalyptic alien invasion, depending on which side of the fence you're on.
The core premise of it is simply: what if an alien superbeing actually saved the world? I wrote this novel out of a sense of frustration that humanity can progress if it wants to; we just need to do it (if we want to avoid extinction).
In so doing, I crafted a story that transcended the original intention and conjured up a SF allegory of sorts. Legacy stories in similar veins err on the side of embracing the status quo, which I refused to do -- I pointedly call out the vomitous absurdities Americans in particular live with, and ran with them.
Auric, the titular character of the novel, is a monumentally benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient superbeing. I looked him in his glowing blue eyes and didn't blink.
My hope is that other readers enjoy the journey as much as I enjoyed writing it...
THE AURICLE (Barnes & Noble)
THE AURICLE (Amazon)
That novel's had a long path to publication, as anyone reading this blog knows. I'm just pleased that the work I put into it has been well-received.
Given the satirically polemical nature of THE AURICLE, you new know how people will take it. As I've said before, it's either a utopian first contact fable or a dystopian apocalyptic alien invasion, depending on which side of the fence you're on.
The core premise of it is simply: what if an alien superbeing actually saved the world? I wrote this novel out of a sense of frustration that humanity can progress if it wants to; we just need to do it (if we want to avoid extinction).
In so doing, I crafted a story that transcended the original intention and conjured up a SF allegory of sorts. Legacy stories in similar veins err on the side of embracing the status quo, which I refused to do -- I pointedly call out the vomitous absurdities Americans in particular live with, and ran with them.
Auric, the titular character of the novel, is a monumentally benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient superbeing. I looked him in his glowing blue eyes and didn't blink.
My hope is that other readers enjoy the journey as much as I enjoyed writing it...
THE AURICLE (Barnes & Noble)
THE AURICLE (Amazon)
September 9, 2025
Book'em, Dave-O
As I continue unpacking (took me seven weeks to pack after living at my Chicago residence for 16 years; I'm thinking about two+ weeks to unpack), my >1500-book private library is indeed cumbersome.
I sacrificed my bookshelves on the move, with the net result that I have no proper home for the books I packed, beyond stacking them up along the walls of a side room.
Can't be helped; I love books, can't bear to part with them. But the massive number of books I have is daunting. I'll take pictures of my book stacks once I'm done placing them. Something for the ol' Instagram feed.
I sacrificed my bookshelves on the move, with the net result that I have no proper home for the books I packed, beyond stacking them up along the walls of a side room.
Can't be helped; I love books, can't bear to part with them. But the massive number of books I have is daunting. I'll take pictures of my book stacks once I'm done placing them. Something for the ol' Instagram feed.
September 1, 2025
Iron City
I moved from Chicago to Pittsburgh this past week, an exhausting eternity. I won't go into it just yet, still have a ton to unpack, but it was a hell of an effort.
Hopefully my job-hunting efforts will be more successful here. Fingers crossed. Once I get settled, I'll get working on my next book.
For now, I'm just getting situated.
In the meantime, feel free to read my books, and do please leave ratings and reviews:
dtneal.com
Hopefully my job-hunting efforts will be more successful here. Fingers crossed. Once I get settled, I'll get working on my next book.
For now, I'm just getting situated.
In the meantime, feel free to read my books, and do please leave ratings and reviews:
dtneal.com
August 22, 2025
Onward & Outward
Heading into my last weekend in Chicago, after living here for 30 years. Definitely bittersweet for me. I tried unsuccessfully for three years to land a permanent job...came painfully close a dozen times, but no dice.
My new residence will be in Pittsburgh, which is a nice city I frequented in my youth. The lower cost-of-living will help buy me a little more time as I struggle to land a job. Hopefully my luck will improve there.
I've made Chicago the setting for so many of my books -- pointedly so, since I feel like Chicago gets culturally blown off at times by the media, relative to the coasts.
Chicago features prominently in my Wolfshadow Trilogy. I still see locations where I made scenes in those books, and feel wistful.
It's a key location in my Shutterclique superhero series (BRIGHTEYES, INFERNA, and, in '26, TANTRUM, with four more books pending).
I also made Chicago a key setting in my more recent SIGHTSEER cyberpunk novel ("Shytown" is what I call it in that series, with two more books pending).
Various short stories, too. I used it as a setting in a number of tales in THE THING IN YELLOW, my homage to the cult classic by Robert Chambers.
So, my love for Chicago flowed through a lot of my books over the years (decades, truly). I'll miss Chicago so much. I wanted nothing more than for my work to take hold with readers here, but it didn't happen.
Maybe Pittsburgh will work out better for me? I don't know. It's a good city, a fun city. Still, I see stuff like this:
Reading for Fun Fell by 40% Among Americans Over the Past 20 Years
And I feel a keen sense of despair. I'll keep writing, of course, and just hope it resonates with readers.
My new residence will be in Pittsburgh, which is a nice city I frequented in my youth. The lower cost-of-living will help buy me a little more time as I struggle to land a job. Hopefully my luck will improve there.
I've made Chicago the setting for so many of my books -- pointedly so, since I feel like Chicago gets culturally blown off at times by the media, relative to the coasts.
Chicago features prominently in my Wolfshadow Trilogy. I still see locations where I made scenes in those books, and feel wistful.
It's a key location in my Shutterclique superhero series (BRIGHTEYES, INFERNA, and, in '26, TANTRUM, with four more books pending).
I also made Chicago a key setting in my more recent SIGHTSEER cyberpunk novel ("Shytown" is what I call it in that series, with two more books pending).
Various short stories, too. I used it as a setting in a number of tales in THE THING IN YELLOW, my homage to the cult classic by Robert Chambers.
So, my love for Chicago flowed through a lot of my books over the years (decades, truly). I'll miss Chicago so much. I wanted nothing more than for my work to take hold with readers here, but it didn't happen.
Maybe Pittsburgh will work out better for me? I don't know. It's a good city, a fun city. Still, I see stuff like this:
Reading for Fun Fell by 40% Among Americans Over the Past 20 Years
And I feel a keen sense of despair. I'll keep writing, of course, and just hope it resonates with readers.
August 8, 2025
THE AURICLE
THE AURICLE comes out near the end of this month. The culmination of about eight years of writing and rewriting, it's a satirical Science Fiction dystopian/utopian novel that combines aspects of:
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
CHILDHOOD'S END
THE DISPOSSESSED
CATCH-22
...into a gleefully apocalyptic narrative of an alien invasion unlike any other. Depending on which side of the fence you're on, you might find humor and horror in equal measure.
THE AURICLE posits the question: what if a cosmic superbeing actually DID save the world? What would that look like? A transhumanist ode to a better world, it doesn't blink in the face of our extinction...
Available for ebook pre-order here.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
CHILDHOOD'S END
THE DISPOSSESSED
CATCH-22
...into a gleefully apocalyptic narrative of an alien invasion unlike any other. Depending on which side of the fence you're on, you might find humor and horror in equal measure.
THE AURICLE posits the question: what if a cosmic superbeing actually DID save the world? What would that look like? A transhumanist ode to a better world, it doesn't blink in the face of our extinction...
Available for ebook pre-order here.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...
July 11, 2025
Countdown to Catastrophe
Still nothing on the job front, with my own personal doomsday clock a'ticking. I don't understand how so many companies post jobs while I just can't land one.
I assumed that work ethic, experience, and skill (to say nothing of my affable charm) might make me a credible hire, but fuuuuuuck it's apparently nearly impossible to overcome ageism. And I don't (yet) look old. As they like to say: Da fuck?
I have contingencies queued up in case I can't come through before doomsday, but it's still not something I'll relish -- I've loved living in Chicago these past 30 years, and it would hurt me spiritually to have to leave it.
But if something doesn't click for me very soon, that's what's going to happen.
I assumed that work ethic, experience, and skill (to say nothing of my affable charm) might make me a credible hire, but fuuuuuuck it's apparently nearly impossible to overcome ageism. And I don't (yet) look old. As they like to say: Da fuck?
I have contingencies queued up in case I can't come through before doomsday, but it's still not something I'll relish -- I've loved living in Chicago these past 30 years, and it would hurt me spiritually to have to leave it.
But if something doesn't click for me very soon, that's what's going to happen.
July 1, 2025
End of Line
Wow, it's been almost a month since I last posted here. I'm sure whoever's reading this blog has really missed hearing from me *cackle-choke*
I'm nearing endgame with the life I've known since 1993, when I first moved to Chicago. I absolutely must land some kind of full-time job within the next two months, or I'll have to leave my beloved Chicago.
It's very upsetting to me, because I've had so many close-but-no-cigar moments in my job searching over the past 2.75 years. I never realized just how powerful ageism is as a barrier to employment. Nobody cops to it, but it's there.
Without that in place, I'd have landed 10 jobs in the past couple of years.
On top of that, the general collapse of the publishing world and the country itself has me teetering in a liminal nightmare stew. You think it's bad being in a failing democracy? Try being unemployed in one with the last scraps of your money slowly evaporating with zero job prospects in sight. It sucks.
What's killing me is that even temp recruiters are coming up empty. WTF? And I know tons of people are out of work and floundering now; I just had a 2.75-year head start on them, so I'm at the height of my peril right as all of them are stampeding. Lordy -- it's like the running of the bulls, where I'm a ways down the street, breathless from running, only to hear the bulls racing hard for me.
Anyway, back to job-hunting and hoping some of my many, many books find audiences (with the knowledge that I can only very meagerly market them).
I'm nearing endgame with the life I've known since 1993, when I first moved to Chicago. I absolutely must land some kind of full-time job within the next two months, or I'll have to leave my beloved Chicago.
It's very upsetting to me, because I've had so many close-but-no-cigar moments in my job searching over the past 2.75 years. I never realized just how powerful ageism is as a barrier to employment. Nobody cops to it, but it's there.
Without that in place, I'd have landed 10 jobs in the past couple of years.
On top of that, the general collapse of the publishing world and the country itself has me teetering in a liminal nightmare stew. You think it's bad being in a failing democracy? Try being unemployed in one with the last scraps of your money slowly evaporating with zero job prospects in sight. It sucks.
What's killing me is that even temp recruiters are coming up empty. WTF? And I know tons of people are out of work and floundering now; I just had a 2.75-year head start on them, so I'm at the height of my peril right as all of them are stampeding. Lordy -- it's like the running of the bulls, where I'm a ways down the street, breathless from running, only to hear the bulls racing hard for me.
Anyway, back to job-hunting and hoping some of my many, many books find audiences (with the knowledge that I can only very meagerly market them).
June 7, 2025
A Musing
I'm sort of piqued by RELICT being my best-selling book. A sea monster novella that first came out in 2013, that one has been the most-consistent of my books in terms of reader engagement...
RELICT
What amuses me I suppose is that people like killer cephalopods, I guess.
Because THE DAY OF THE NIGHTFISH (2020), another sea monster novella, hasn't had nearly the appreciation RELICT got, even though it's at least as good as its bigger sibling...
THE DAY OF THE NIGHTFISH
Just curious to me. Not all sea monsters are created equal, I guess. Killer octopus good, murderous fishmen bad?
There are a thousand variables with every book out there, what sells, what doesn't. The people who enjoyed NIGHTFISH really dug it, but they were less numerous than the RELICT fans.
Of course, RELICT has been around seven years longer than NIGHTFISH, so maybe it's had the time to establish itself? No idea.
From my writerly perspective, they're both sea monster novellas, so while the setting and the monster is different, there's just something about RELICT that compels readers to give it a go.
I have a third sea monster book to write (actually, I've drafted it years ago, when I was in that sea monster zone), but it'll need a complete rewrite or two before it can properly live, and it's going to have to wait its turn.
It might eventually end up in a three-novella collection under one title one day. We'll see. As I said, I'm working on a lot of stuff.
Mastodon | Seabeast
RELICT
What amuses me I suppose is that people like killer cephalopods, I guess.
Because THE DAY OF THE NIGHTFISH (2020), another sea monster novella, hasn't had nearly the appreciation RELICT got, even though it's at least as good as its bigger sibling...
THE DAY OF THE NIGHTFISH
Just curious to me. Not all sea monsters are created equal, I guess. Killer octopus good, murderous fishmen bad?
There are a thousand variables with every book out there, what sells, what doesn't. The people who enjoyed NIGHTFISH really dug it, but they were less numerous than the RELICT fans.
Of course, RELICT has been around seven years longer than NIGHTFISH, so maybe it's had the time to establish itself? No idea.
From my writerly perspective, they're both sea monster novellas, so while the setting and the monster is different, there's just something about RELICT that compels readers to give it a go.
I have a third sea monster book to write (actually, I've drafted it years ago, when I was in that sea monster zone), but it'll need a complete rewrite or two before it can properly live, and it's going to have to wait its turn.
It might eventually end up in a three-novella collection under one title one day. We'll see. As I said, I'm working on a lot of stuff.
Mastodon | Seabeast
June 5, 2025
Fantastical
My Sagas of Irth Fantasy series is getting new covers. They should be appearing sometime before the end of the year.
Hopefully that'll draw in Fantasy readers who haven't dabbled in Sagas. It's a good series (six books so far, with three more planned).
I've bitterly referred to it as "the least-read fantasy series in literary history" and I wish I was wrong about that. Regardless, I am very fond of the series and hope readers discover it once the new covers are out there.
The original intention was to introduce readers to the world of Irth in novella nibbles, before moving to novels. The assumption was that quick reads might pull people in, but that didn't play out at all with Irth. Still not quite sure why.
Anyway, we'll see if the new covers make a difference. I'm very fond of the characters and the story, which is somewhere between Epic Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery -- minus the baggage of both.
One other thing is that I rewrote Book 1 as OF SWORDS AND SORROWS -- that'll be a nice addition to the Sagas family, hopefully starting things off right for readers in a way that the original Book 1 didn't (?)
We'll see how it goes. With the indie/self-published pond choked with duckweed and issues with people even reading anymore, it's harder than ever to get seen and appreciated as an author. But I stand by Sagas, even while working on other projects for now.
Hopefully that'll draw in Fantasy readers who haven't dabbled in Sagas. It's a good series (six books so far, with three more planned).
I've bitterly referred to it as "the least-read fantasy series in literary history" and I wish I was wrong about that. Regardless, I am very fond of the series and hope readers discover it once the new covers are out there.
The original intention was to introduce readers to the world of Irth in novella nibbles, before moving to novels. The assumption was that quick reads might pull people in, but that didn't play out at all with Irth. Still not quite sure why.
Anyway, we'll see if the new covers make a difference. I'm very fond of the characters and the story, which is somewhere between Epic Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery -- minus the baggage of both.
One other thing is that I rewrote Book 1 as OF SWORDS AND SORROWS -- that'll be a nice addition to the Sagas family, hopefully starting things off right for readers in a way that the original Book 1 didn't (?)
We'll see how it goes. With the indie/self-published pond choked with duckweed and issues with people even reading anymore, it's harder than ever to get seen and appreciated as an author. But I stand by Sagas, even while working on other projects for now.
