In Arcadia TPB Giveaway

Here is a Goodreads giveaway for the TPB version of In Arcadia.  Competition starts 9 January.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

In Arcadia

by Andrea K. Höst

Giveaway ends February 17, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

A Touchstone special edition

The Book Smugglers are celebrating their ninth anniversary and have announced another Touchstone surprise for 2017: a special limited edition reprint of the trilogy with covers by Kirbi Fagan.

I'm SO looking forward to this - it's wonderful to work with Ana and Thea (and, well, I'm just a sucker for covers).  Will post more info as it arrives.

In Arcadia - Release and Competition

So it's 2017.

On the world scene, 2016 had quite a few down points, so I thought I'd start the new year off with a small gift for my fans.  Now I know I've been promising a Touchstone short story for years, but I'm afraid I'm just not a short story writer...so you're going to have to make do with a brand spanking new Touchstone novel.

My first outright romance novel, in fact, with the story of how Cass' Mum Laura gets together with Tsur Selkie.  Well, you know me - it's more a slice-of-life geek-fest because how would you feel getting to move to a place like Muina?  Though Tsur Selkie sure as hell knows how to make a romantic gesture.  [And I hope you all fall in love with Aunt Sue, because I sure did, and Aunt Sue will definitely be getting her own adventure some time.]

I love this cover image, btw.

One does not simply walk onto another planet.  At least not without the help of a daughter who has developed unlikely powers, fought an intra-dimensional war, and then arranged for a family relocation to a futuristic clone of Earth.  Laura Devlin would gladly have paid any price to have her daughter back, so living in a techno-paradise with spaceship views is merely an added bonus.  And a dream come true.

But Arcadian paradises do not come without complications.  Laura's include a plethora of psychic grandchildren.  Interplanetary diplomacy.  Her daughter's immense fame.  And KOTIS, the military watchdog that seems to consider Laura's entire family government property.

Forewarned by her daughter's experiences, Laura had anticipated as many problems as she could, and didn't doubt her ability to cope with the rest.  But she had not planned on Gidds Selkie, a military officer 'chipped from flint' and not at all the sort of man lifelong geek Laura had ever imagined would find her interesting.

Burned in the past, Laura is surprised to find herself tempted.  Is this a new start to go with a new world?  Or a mismatch doomed to failure?

Ebooks
Amazon US, UK, DE, FR, AU
Kobo 
Barnes & Noble  
Google 

Smashwords

Trade Paperback
Amazon 

CreateSpace 


Competition!
I had a number of large magnets made up from the cover to give away, for those who are really keen on some new fridge decorations.  When I say large, I mean large:

To enter, just add 'enter' in the comments of this post (or, if you can't comment, email me at mail at andreakhost.com).  [Feel free, of course, to squee as well, but try to keep this relatively spoiler-free.]

Competition closes end of January.  I can also sign your magnet with a glittery pen, if you so choose, or even a short quote from the novel of your choosing.

FFXV (mild spoilers)

Final Fantasy Boy Band came out last week, and I racked up 50-60 hours of gameplay and now it is done.

Another very pretty game, and gameplay-wise it was pretty solid Final Fantasy, with endless side quests and open world stuff that you could meander through at your own speed - at least until you hit the end game railroad.

Like many Final Fantasy fans, I was a bit dubious about the 'boy band' aspect.  No female playable characters at all is disappointing - though not irredeemable to me - there has been at least one all-female FF game, and all male playable characters aren't necessarily a gamebreaker for me.

'Cindy the mechanic' nearly was.  Cindy's outfit was a painful piece of fan service, and boy did they love posing her for viewing pleasure.  The windscreen washing was particularly egregious.  She was also the female character we spent the most time with.  Still, at least she was competent.  Aranea and Lunafreya were both better dressed, and we even got to do a dungeon-crawl with Aranea, who has a nice line of snark and some hilarious dragon cosplay going on.

Unfortunately, FFXV has a massive plot problem.  For one thing, most of the plot isn't in the game, it's in an entirely separate movie called Kingsglaive (which I haven't watched).  And what started as a reasonably enjoyable game dissolved into a shemozzle of epic proportions during the end-game, with most of the characters you met during the first forty hours of the game getting a brief mention rather than satisfactory final scenes, and even the primary 'brotherhood' theme coming off pretty weak since we needed more of the _beginning_ of these four's friendship to really appreciate that friendship being under stress, and then finally enduring.

So, for those trying to decide on whether to play the game - the first two-thirds are great classic FF, if lacking in playable female characters and backstory.  The last third isn't particularly fun to play, and reads more like cliff notes or dot points of a plot rather than a satisfying story.

But it's very pretty, and I play quite a few of these games for the pretty.

The Towers, the Moon release

France, under the Court of the Moon, is a country of cyclical change, where the true rulers arrive every night to compete among themselves, and humans are backdrop, witnesses, inessential – and yet inextricably intertwined. It is the reign of the Gilded Tower, and fashions are daring. Two Wings: Griff Tenning has suffered too much change in the past year, and wishes everything would quiet down for a while - or, better still, would go back to when his parents were alive. But, even so, it's useful that his odd aunt can afford airship tickets to France. On such a quick trip, his hated travel sickness won't be enough to keep him from a chance to stand beneath the impossible Towers of the Moon. Forfeit: Forfeit is the newest game of the Court of the Moon, and one seemingly designed for humans to lose. But Arianne Seaforth is willing to pay a great deal to help her oldest friend – and she is learning to extract a price of her own. Death and the Moon: Eluned Tenning can barely remember all the names of the vast network of cousins making her sixteenth birthday party so overwhelming. But she has no problems with would-be actor Milo, who is so calmly quiet and friendly. She'd never step on a stage herself, but she's happy to help him rehearse. The Towers, the Moon's cover is by the wonderful Likhain.  Covers are one of my favourite parts of any release, and it was awesome to watch this image come to life.

Note: These short stories sit between The Pyramids of London and Tangleways in The Trifold Age series. They contain mild spoilers for The Pyramids of London. "Two Wings" is 7,500 words, "Forfeit" is 20,000 words, and "Death and the Moon" is 2300 words. Ebooks Smashwords Amazon US, UK, DE, FR, AU Kobo  Barnes & Noble  Google (coming) Trade Paperback CreateSpace  Amazon

Epistory (game)

I've not played a typing game before that wasn't designed to teach typing.

Epistory is definitely not here to teach you typing.  In fact, if you're not a plus 50 wpm (and preferably more like plus 80 wpm) typist, I don't recommend this game.

I mean sure, it has an origami girl on a cool origami fox trotting through an origami landscape that unfolds before your eyes.  And you can change the landscape - spawning trees or flowers or removing logs by typing their names.  And the creepy crawlies coming toward you every so often are easily banished with a quick key word or several key words.  And you even get skills to take out multiple enemies at once, and can manage boss battles where a dozen things are heading toward you from all sides and you're typing and owning them with your skills and your three and four and five letter words and then it hits you with nocturnal and polysyllabic and hyperglaecemic and...

Beginner typists simply aren't going to survive.

It was fairly short on the story part, and the control mechanism for the fox is a bit irritating, but for those who are fast typists, this game will give you a nice challenge.

Slownesses

Much hard work lately, but no releases to show for it!  I'm about three-four chapters from the end of my current project, though, and have nearly figured out how I want to rewrite the beginning of the main story of The Towers, the Moon after feedback.  This means two releases by the end of the year, although I'm not going to set any fixed dates.

I've really been enjoying writing MMO-related stories, though it makes me SO tempted to pick up an MMO and lose myself for a few months.

It's spring here in Sydney, which means lots of flowers, but also more weeding and mowing.  The brand new leaves on deciduous trees are very lovely as well.