Official release date announcement: Death of a Mad Dragon, a Raoke Gang novel, will release on October 15

We finally have a date for the release of Death of a Mad Dragon. Initially planned for a June release, personal circumstances forced me to delay the release. To break it down, I got hit by health issues in March which affected my abilities to get any work done. Therefore the last rounds of edits, in between the professional edit done by Sarah Chorn and the proofread done by Dominish Books, took me four months to complete. The novel is ready now and has been since July and could have been published already but I want to give ARC readers enough time to read it and review it. Three months seems a fair amount of time for a 65k words novel. If you have missed out on the ARC and would like to read and review it before the 15th of October, you can still register below. I am happy to send out eARCS until the release date.

Register for eARC

There is another reason for the delay in releasing this novel which links to my next topic. I am changing my ways of working and marketing. I will be diving into the topic in depth in future blog posts and newsletters. The short story is that my publishing career so far has been based on the Ryan Cahill model which, I find, is financially expensive and mentally unhealthy. It’s a (desperate) sprint race where those who don’t finish first crash and burn. That system is not me. It took me 27 years to see my first novel published. I have 40+ novels planned in the Raoke Gang series. To me, this publishing journey is a marathon, not a sprint. Financially, I cannot afford to sink in huge amounts of money into the production, marketing and release of every book and then run ads at a loss for months. Health-wise, I cannot dedicate this much time on social media like I did prior to the release of A Wolf in Space. I need to prioritize my family and my writing time. Creatively, I haven’t got the skills yet to write my magnum opus. Although… the novel I am currently developing is an effort to reach those highs.

Down the line, the ultimate goal for me is to create a series as rich and dense as the great ones: Realm of the Elderlings, Malazan, A Song of Fire and Ice. I can’t do that right now, because I do not have the skills, the experiences and the resources to write such deep, intricate and long books. But… with this next novel and series within the Raoke Gang series, I’m trying to achieve this on a much smaller scale: smaller cast of characters, narrower focus.

Which leads me to my last topic: an update of Gotthaus, the Raoke Gang origin stories.

For clarity purposes I’m going to write this in bullet points:

What is done and (90%) sure:

  • This sub-series will be titled The Fall of Gotthaus
  • The overall arch will focus on two characters: Raoke, as the future gunmaster of Gotthaus and Bori (not a Raoke Gang member) as the new Lordess of Gotthaus
  • The theme for book 1 is anger and inexperience.
  • The setting is high fantasy with the inclusion of (rare) gunblasters. Think Krull but with a better script and dialogues.
  • The references to my favorite film Big Trouble in Little China, present in A Wolf in Space, will continue with the inclusion of the Three Storms. They’re not verbatim the same ones but an inspiration, the same way John Carpenter was inspired by the three ronins known as the Gods of Death in the second Lone Wolf and Cub film: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972, Japan). The Three Storms are an important plot device and an ominous presence throughout the series.
  • The closest depiction of this series I can give is this: think A Song of Fire and Ice but only focusing on the Starks.

What is unsure:

  • The actual creation of the gang will not be depicted in this sub-series
  • Raoke will be the only gang member represented in this sub-series
  • The number of books in this sub-series. It will be a minimum of 3 books and a maximum of 5.
  • The length of the books. I have a lot of content but do not want to write chunkers (yet). So the planned range is 140k to 180k words, at least for book 1. I have a lot of content to depict before the Three Storms make their fatal entry.

Raoke Gang trivia

Raoke, the gang leader, is a woman of Native American and Japanese ancestry. Her name is pronounced Ra – O – Ké

Going forward, the plan is to be more transparent and communicative about the creative process. I will keep updating on the progress of Gotthaus.

Summer 24′ Writing update

Hello all!

The last five months of my life have been very challenging on a personal level. I did very little writing; all my energy has been focused on fixing those problems that are still affecting my life. The good news is, while not everything is ‘fixed’, I am better and my life is on a steadier track. Which means I’m back on writing and marketing duty.

As most of you would know, the ARCs for Death of a Mad Dragon have gone out this month. An exact release date hasn’t been picked yet, but you can expect a September / early October release. The novel will release on Amazon and will be KU exclusive. I’ve had almost not page reads on KU since joining but I’m happy to stick with it, hoping that a third instalment in the series will help those page reads grow.

Pre-orders for Death of a Mad Dragon will go live in the second half of August.

Now, onto the next project. I have decided that after 3 books in the Raoke Gang series, it was time to write the origins of the gang. Therefore, as it stands today, the plan for the next releases is thus:

A duology titled The Raoke Gang – Origins

Book 1 – The Fall of Gotthaus

Book 2 – Rise of the Gunslingers

Timeline:

I am currently working on the outline of book 1 now. In an ideal world the novel will release in May 25′, just in time for SPFBO11. Realistically, with the arrangements I’ve had to make in my life, I would be happy with a November 25′ release.

Book 2 won’t be long to follow but I might aim for a palate cleanser in between the two books. I will see when the time comes.

That’s it for now. I will keep updating the website for progress on the new book. Thank you for being a reader.

Here’s a photo of me at very rare and special place in the old world. This was taken at the spring of the Danube in Danaueschwingen, the German town in the Black Forest where the Danube is formed. For some reason they had designs of all zodiac signs around the spring. It made sense to snap a photo with my own zodiac sign.

Book Tour A Wolf in Space

The Book Tour for A Wolf in Space will kick off on the 16th of January with a guest post on Liisthinks blog!

Full schedule of the last two weeks of January:

16 – Liisthinks guest post

16 to 20 – free book promo The Choice of Weapons

17 – Loz’s Den book tour

18 – Jamreads guest post

19 – Enthralled by Love book tour

20 – Into The Heart Wyld book tour

21 – FanFiAddict Book tour 

22 – Jamreads book tour

23 – A Wolf in Space release day

28 – TBRCon2024 guest appearance

You can order A Wolf in Space here

The Choice of Weapons is out!

Publication Day

When I was 8 years old, I wrote and told my first story to my classmates and teachers. Their warm reaction convinced me to become an author when I would grow up. Little did I know then of the sacrifices, the mountains of hard labor to climb and the financial difficulties that came with a full-time writing career. But I never looked back on that objective. I read all the classics, I studied, I watched all the classic films, I studied people and their interaction, I remained curious, and, through it all, I wrote. Thousands of pages, millions of words.

27 years, 8 novels, 5 plays, a poetry collection, 100+ short stories later, I am finally a published author. The first Raoke Gang novella: The Choice of Weapons marks the beginning of a new journey, a journey that was 27 years in the making.

What’s next? The SFINCS competition!

These are the 100 entries for the first edition of SFINCS, a competition for SFF novellas. The competition starts on September 15.

The Choice of Weapons is in a group of 20 novellas. The best 5 will progress to the semi-final. My goal for this competition is to reach the semi-final.

I can’t wait for the competition to get started!

A New Raoke Gang Novel Is Underway

I have paused the writing of Bloodbanes, the first Bloodbreaker novel, in order to focus on Chimes of Reckoning, the 2nd Raoke Gang novel (book 3 in the Raoke Gang series). It will be the first entry featuring the gang together from the get go. The novel starts with a heist on a space cruise ship that turns into Space Dragons hunting. The hardest part so far has been to pick the 5 main characters for this novel. I could create a teaser about who those 5 characters are, but because at the moment of writing only 2 people have read A Wolf in Space, it would be absolutely pointless. So here there are. The cast for Chimes of Reckoning is:

Malvius – the lead character of A Wolf in Space

Lena – The second in command in the Raoke Gang

Nana – the blue and pink haired Korean killer

Father Williams – the outspoken priest killer

And… Ren – the lead character of The Choice of Weapons

Initially, the crew included Scorpio instead of Lena and Peatu instead of Ren. After much consideration, it made little sense not to have Lena in this one, giving the important part she has in A Wolf in Space and the special relation she has with Malvius, which is essential to Chimes of Reckoning. The same went with Ren, he only had one scene in A Wolf in Space, it made little sense to introduce him as the first Raoke Gang member to the world and then having go under the radar for the first two novels. So here they are, all five of them about to embark on a weird Space Dragon hunt.

Alex Valdiers

I am a French writer, born in Lyon in 1988, from French and Laotian parents. I began writing stories at 8 years old. I was captivating by the classic 80s films and the writing of Marcel Proust, Albert Camus, Emile Zola and Boris Vian. Even back then, I wanted to write stories combining the plots and characters of John Carpenter’s movies and the writing style and depth of Albert Camus. Of course, at 8 years, I didn’t have the skills. But I kept at it, writing over a hundred ‘Chapter One’.

When I was sixteen, I often ditched school to go watch old classic films at the Cinema Lumières, the birthplace of cinema, in Lyon. One day I met its president, the filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier who gave me the best advice I could get. ‘If you want to tell stories, you need to read every book from every great writer, watch every film from every great director. Don’t rush it, make sure you are ready before you make your debut.” It took me 19 years to ‘get ready’. I’ve taken his advice to heart, and, incidentally missed more school, mainly English, which I failed at my final exam.

Fast forward to 2023. I live in England, having left France to bring my stories to the wider world, in English. I am happily married, with Andrea, from Hungary, where I think we might happily retire one day. I have created two fictional universes, one Space Western, although you if truly ask me what style it is, I’d say it’s purely literature, Realism like Zola, only set in a near future rather than the past. This universe is home to the Raoke Gang series. The first installment will be released on Aug 29, 2023, Andrea’s birthday. A full-length novel, ‘A Wolf In Space’ will follow in the Winter. All installments are based around members of the Raoke Gang. They can all be read separately unless stated otherwise.

The second universe is a Dark Fantasy one. This is still a work in progress, but I know all the trilogies and series will be set on the same world. The first series will be called ‘Luzsferin’ and will centered around the city of the same name. Its origins are inspired by the bell episode of Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’. The end of the series is inspired by Yharnam in the FromSoftware game Bloodborne.

I intend to write both series conjointly starting from Aug 29, 2023, in both novella and novel forms, with 2 to 3 releases per year. Let’s see how long I can go full Beatles, or BTS if you prefer, with this rhythm. I am ready for the ride. Are you?