It’s been a while. Approximately 365 days from my last blog post actually. I originally mean this to be a more regular thing but work and life have gotten in the way of that. I have ideas about more posts I could do. I will see how those pan out.
You are probably reading this while wondering about the future of Soul Crystals. I know I promised book three (Soul Crystals: Atlantis Risen) to debut in 2022. That obviously didn’t happen. Here’s what is going down with that:
Soul Crystals: Atlantis Risen is completely written and edited. It has actually been that way for the past few months. I’ve even seen some preliminary cover art. The only reason you aren’t currently holding right now is because my publisher, Private Dragon, is doing some restructuring. They are coming out with a new strategy for advertising and book releases. You will probably see some new ads and a new YouTube channel from them. Another facet of the new plan is to rerelease their previous titles. That means that Soul Crystals: ARC of the Amuli and Soul Crystals: The Mask of Tragedy will be getting new editions with new cover art. The hope is that these changes will bring in a new audience and generate hype before book three comes out. So, currently, I have no idea of when the next Soul Crystals book will be coming out.
While a lot of things have been out of my hands, I have been keeping busy. I mentioned last year that I was working on a Soul Crystals prequel starring Greg Luper. I am pleased to say that novel is over halfway done (at least in rough draft form). That will likely be my next release after SC3 (as I like to call it). I don’t have many plans for the Soul Crystals after that point. I have always been adamant that SC3 will be the last entry in the chronological narrative of the series, but there is probably room for some prequels and side stories.
The day is coming where I will set aside Soul Crystals for something new (but probably not for good). I said last year that I have a lot of ideas for new projects. There is a high fantasy action-comedy that I have the most fully fleshed out. I recently came up with an idea for a space opera that I like a lot. Third on the totem pole would be a shorter project that is basically soft sci-fi at its core. We’ll see how they go in the next few years.
I will definitely try to post here more often. I want to do another chapter-by-chapter soundtrack for SC2, but the first one was so weirdly time-consuming that I have been putting it off. I can also go over what my early ideas were for Soul Crystals. I’ve also thought about post about some nerdy pop culture topics. I very much dislike hot takes, so I would just be saying; “hey, I think this is cool and here is why.” I’ve been bingeing the Gundam Universal Century timeline for over a year now, so I might have to do a ranking of all the Gundam series. I could at least do a list of my favorite mobile suits.
Well, that’s enough rambling. I will be giving out updates for Soul Crystals as they come up.
Oh, I’ve also been messing with some AI art programs to get some more Soul Crystals art.
Here’s AI-generated Paul:
LaTrobe Barnitz 