Royal Banquet - Out NOW!

Kept you waiting, huh?

The physical edition of Verse 1 is now officially available on Amazon.

Actually, it's been out for quite some time, but I had to wait to get my own copy and see if it looks okay. That ended up taking a while. Thanks to the global pandemic and all the other stuff going on out there, the delivery times are way longer than they used to be. Alas. I wish we could all just read stories and enjoy life.

Well, as our protagonist often says, no meaning in whining about things you can do nothing about.

Check out the blog post on my web sites for photos of the fabulous paperback edition, if you haven't already.

The print edition of Verse 1 adds some new elements into the mix.

What does it all mean? 

What does it change, if anything?

Besides writing, I did quite a bit of other stuff that would normally be outsourced to a dedicated artist. But we're running a 1-man show here, so there's only one name repeated in the ending credits ad infinitum. 

And here are some of my designs and concepts for this release, exclusively to my patrons.

I modeled the phone from scratch in Blender, loosely based on my old Mi4, but with changes to the UI and frame shape since all of that is meticulously patented and you can never be too careful. 

I posted the early version of the model on Twitter in autumn as a teaser, but did some additional tweaking since. 

Since it's Izumi's phone, the wallpaper should depict a busty girl from a trending gacha game, but using copyrighted imagery was obviously out of the question, even for demonstrational purposes. The initial render has a photo from my backyard, the second a more effeminate, generic freeware wallpaper with some personal modifications.

The main cover combines hand-drawn elements with 3D models:

The cover draft rarely goes right the first (ten) time(s).

A 3D-rendition of the Haywell mansion:

New character: the lady dressed in blue. 

She was always scheduled to appear later in the story, but now makes her first appearance already at the beginning of the printed series. 

Beside plot reasons, she's there as a sort of meta guide for the reader. Hidden in her lines are various answers to the lore and themes behind each book that confused the readers of the web novel. Attentive readers may find themselves rewarded by the white room segments—or even more confused.

The main logo:

That's all for now!

I'm just very glad and relieved to finally get this done. Phew!

It took way more effort than I first thought, equivalent to writing a whole new story, but I think it was worth it.

Hope you may bring yourself to agree.

If you decide to get a copy, let me know what you think!

What shall we come up with next time?

We'll find out...next time.

Until then, stay safe!