Iain M. Banks's Against a Dark Background is discounted to $2.99 at the Kindle and Google Play stores. Banks, of course, is widely beloved and needs little promotion. But AaDB is widely considered one of his lesser works. I love it. It's one of my favorites. play.google.com/store/books/...

The brilliant Locomalito has been making beautifully crafted, totally free, retro indie arcade games for years. He is video gaming's equivalent of the unknown guy in small-town Texas making some of the world's best barbecue. I really enjoyed original Gaurodan. Definitely interested in the revamp.

Pitch for a young adult romance novel: "My BF Skinner". A young woman dates a student of behavioral psychology at Harvard, but his well-meaning yet manipulative approach to their relationship causes her to eventually split.

Saw the Columbo episode "An Exercise in Fatality" for the first time. Maybe not among my absolute favorites but very solid and the Internet consensus is right: Milo Janus is absolutely one of the most loathsome murderers in the series.

Oh, and look what the Google Play bookstore algorithm just threw at me. On sale for $2.99! There are worse ways to spend your money.

Robert Irwin's brilliant novel The Arabian Nightmare is on sale as a Kindle ebook, for those of you who use Amazon. www.amazon.com/dp/B07RW6VNB4 The book has many merits, not the least of which is one of the greatest set of chapter titles I have ever encountered:

Excerpt of a work in progress. I used Word's "Compare" tool to redline everything that changed between first and second drafts. The changes are slightly more pervasive than usual for me (there are some recurring minor changes that show up a lot, making it look more red than it "should" be)...

Genuinely tempted to (but probably won't) start a book-by-book critique, analysis, and ranking of the non-Beginner Book works of Dr. Seuss. Reread "I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew" the other day... still great!

Pleased that Star Wars: Zero Company has been announced at last! I had the privilege of working a bit with Bit Reactor early in the project and am excited to see where it's all going. Wonderful team, full of talented and caring people... wishing them the best. youtu.be/rcxnRaZ6slU?...

Been off social media awhile thanks to some travel and health issues. (Not like I'm normally a social media fiend, but usually my disappearances are gradual instead of sudden!) All is well, though.

The Nothoiin are great and I am pleased to have contributed to their revival in Star Wars: Uprising some years back. (Sir Corto Belrake especially was such a fun character to write!)

Based on the fact the signature is ALMOST legible and the pen still had ink, it also could've been "942 more to go..." (Confession: It's always a pendulum swinging between, "Oh, mercy, how many do I have to sign?" and "This is a huge honor, try your best to make it look good for the readers.")

Google Books, Amazon, Kobo, etc. have Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy on sale for $1.99. An absolute steal. I came to McKillip late in life but if you're fond of thoughtful, ethereal fantasy--Le Guin's Earthsea comes to mind--I highly recommend her work. play.google.com/store/books/...

Did you know that ginger is packed full of "gingerol" molecules, giving ginger its distinctive flavor? Did you know that nutrition science has determined that "gingerol" is the fakest-sounding molecule in nature? (One of the above statements is true!)

And another! (See, tagging me alone doesn't necessarily nudge me to share, but I can take a hint.)

A thoughtful and lengthy analysis of Mask of Fear. It's an honor to see the rigor people have been bringing to the book. (I can't promise I'll repost every time someone asks but, I mean, I'm not a monster!)

And on a non-book note... I may be around for GDC this year after all. Been a while but it'd be nice to reconnect with industry colleagues. (I'm a terrible networker but it is genuinely pleasant to hear how people have been doing and talk shop.)

I'm a day late, but... wow, it does not feel like four years!

Huh. I wasn't EXPECTING The Mask of Fear to show up on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List", but I'll certainly take it. ew.com/the-oscars-r...

"Meetings in person. Coordinates attached." The Empire does NOT want you to find a copy of THE MASK OF FEAR. To resist, we hid free one hardcover copy at several Little Free Library locations across the country. Participating locations: t.co/vtj4gf4KXp

The Mask of Fear is out. May it go forth into the world and find its audience! Thank you to everyone who reads and engages with the text. And deep thanks to the folks at Random House Worlds and Lucasfilm for giving me this opportunity (yet again). It is never taken for granted.

The STAR WARS: REIGN OF THE EMPIRE trilogy begins today with THE MASK OF FEAR from @alexandermfreed.bsky.social. If you like ANDOR—and who doesn’t—then this is the book for you. And like ANDOR, it is a very timely story that’s relevant to 2025.

I always feel weird about both sharing and NOT sharing reviews, commentary, etc. It seems awkward to selectively retweet positive or high-profile reviews and ignore others. But also I'm incredibly grateful when people engage with my work. Feel free to self-promote in replies?

They have arrived. On-sale date is Tuesday! Early reactions seem gratifyingly positive, but you don't have to like it to buy it--I'll take what I can get!

Played the board game "Tales of the Arthurian Knights" for the first time yesterday. It is a fantastic branching storytelling experience, and great fun. But it got me thinking about genre and interactive narrative, and why Arthuriana works so well within that context.

This was a lovely interview and absolutely not my finest hour, so public apologies for my incoherent babbling! There's still some good stuff in there, though.

One week. #StarWars #ReignoftheEmpire #TheMaskofFear "You wanted a reckoning and you chose *me*" ~ Mon Mothma

I think all the time about a quote from the great Gene Wolfe where he writes that, for him, "Almost any interesting work of art comes close to saying the opposite of what it really says.”

For me, the difference between original writing and work-for-hire (for games, novels like Mask of Fear, etc.) is this: With original works, you start by deciding what you have to say. With work-for-hire, you're given a starting point and asked, "Do you have anything interesting to say about this?

Glowing review for @alexandermfreed.bsky.social's new Star Wars book. Congratulations,Alex! 💫 gizmodo.com/star-wars-ma...

As promised - 100 things about #StarWars #ReignoftheEmpire #TheMaskofFear. Somehow only 1 of them is *truly* a spoiler. Here are the first 40. You can read the entire list here: thecubicleattheendofthegalaxy.substack.com/p/star-wars-... #MTFBWY

Two weeks away from the start of the next great #StarWars series #ReignoftheEmpire begins with Book 1: The Mask of Fear 1 like = I'll tell you one thing about the book or series.

There's a 30 page excerpt of The Mask of Fear available on the Penguin Random House UK site! www.penguin.co.uk/books/459729... Oddly, it's a longer excerpt on the UK site than on the US site. For safety's sake, however, please remember to read it to yourself in the publisher's preferred accent.

It's the weekend, the world needs joy, and I ought to be doing a thousand useful things and revising a manuscript, so let's procrastinate with a thread on Fine Artists That I Like. Mostly painters and sculptors, all (to the best of my knowledge) active and working today.

Both Amazon and the Google Play store have sales on a bunch of C.S. Lewis books today, including my beloved Space Trilogy. (Come for the anti-imperialist wonder of Out of the Silent Planet, stay for the wild Christian fantasy of Perelandra, maaaaaybe stick around for That Hideous Strength.)

Okay, I'm embarrassed that I don't have better recommendations. My only excuse is that it's late. Help me out--novels for folks who like Andor?

So The Mask of Fear is out in three weeks. Rebecca Roanhorse is already hard at work on the actual followup (and it will, from what I've seen, be grand!) But I'm vaguely curious about what happens if you read all the Alexander Freed Star Wars novels in chronological order. Do they work as a whole?

Glad to support local Austin (well, Pflugerville) businesses. I haven't actually been to the Book Burrow... it's surprising how many little bookstores have opened around town lately, and I'd be happy to see each and every one thrive. Note that they do offer online ordering.

Okay, big game writing thread! Thank you for the excellent prompt. Taking this and running with it a bit: There are lots of times where, as narrative designers, we find ourselves wanting to use story to reward players for engaging with optional content. This is a good and natural instinct.

Pondering game writing topics to expound upon here. Suggestions totally welcome if anyone wants to hear me ramble. Otherwise, maybe a thread on working under a Creative Director as a Writer or Narrative Designer... what to expect, different sorts of arrangements, how to build a strong relationship?

Had the pleasure of watching the livestream of Phantom Chorus Theatre's production of "Dealing with Dragons" (adapted from the Patricia Wrede novel). It's a genuinely delightful all-ages production, whimsical fantasy with some excellent puppetry! www.simpletix.com/e/dealing-wi...

For anyone local to Austin, ECHO is in urgent need of volunteers for this weekend's count of the city's homeless population. As you can imagine, it's hard to find solutions and get folks shelter when you don't know the scale of the issue... this is an important project. www.kxan.com/news/local/a...

I learned today that the wonderfully brilliant scholar and novelist Robert Irwin passed away last year. He was 77 years old, and left behind an enormous body of work--both fiction and non-fiction. His writing was enormously dear to me and I'm so sad to lose him. www.theguardian.com/books/2024/j...

Sword and sorcery author and editor Howard Andrew Jones passed away. I didn't know him. I never read his fiction (something I ought to remedy). But I loved his influence on the industry--he did so much to make Black Gate and other S&S magazines what they are today. www.blackgate.com/2025/01/17/r...

For folks interested, EW has a short excerpt from Mask of Fear! A glimpse into Mon Mothma's storyline. As @darthinternous.bsky.social reminds us, preorders are hugely helpful for giving a book success and long life, so if you're already sold, know that ordering it early helps.

This story, about a man who decided to infiltrate a major American militia group on his own and who rose to command the Utah chapter, is one I'll be thinking about for a long while. Right now I genuinely don't know what to make of it, but it's worth reading. www.propublica.org/article/ap3-...

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Over the summer I was absolutely thrilled to get commissioned by @krystinaarielle.bsky.social to make this Alphabet Squadron piece from a scene in Shadow Fall by @alexandermfreed.bsky.social that I’ve had bouncing around my head since I first read it.

Let's talk video game writing. Been a while since I've done one of these so we'll tackle a light and fluffy subject today: Pen-and-paper RPGs, and what lessons DMing and adventure design have to teach about branching narrative writing in the BioWare, CD Projekt, etc. style.

The next great #StarWars series begins in Feb #ReignoftheEmpire starts during the first year (the first weeks) of Imperial rule. There are no rebels. There are no alliances. Only ordinary people trying to survive, and what happens when survival isn't enough? If you love #Andor, you'll love this.