Blast Off this Summer with the Writers of the Future Epic Book Bundle

There is a base bundle and an extended bundle with a minimum suggested price (the bundle discount is 75-80% off retail—but you can pay what you want above this to support the authors).

Base Bundle: You can get the 5 ebooks: L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 40, A Bit of Luck (in honor of Eric Flint), Heir of the Line, Death and the Taxman, and The Dark that Ignites. If you bought those eBooks retail, they would cost over $30!

Extended Bundle: Or you can buy the Extended Bundle with all 18 books (including the Base Bundle). That’s over $90 retail! And, it includes two debut exclusives: The True Dragon of Atlanta and A Fine and Dangerous Season. And it includes the complete Astropolis trilogy!

Why This Bundle Matters to Me

Any author would be proud to have their book stand beside the books of so many bestsellers and fresh new voices. That shouldn’t be a surprise. But for me, these aren’t just fellow authors. They’re friends. Family, even. Because of my connection to Writers of the Future, I’ve had a chance to meet and spend time with practically every author in the bundle. I’ve had chances to work with and learn from many of them. The goal of the Contest is to discover and nurture new writers, and I’m deeply honored to be one of their discoveries. When the Contest staff and judges tell the new winners that they’re there to support your career, they mean it. The Contest is about Paying It Forward. I’ve met lifelong friends because of Writers of the Future. And now I get to publish alongside some of them.

And I’m particularly proud to debut this book in the bundle because A Fine and Dangerous Season is spiritually in a direct line from the Writers of the Future workshop. Among many valuable lessons and exercises at the workshop, the most infamous is the 24-Hour Story. Each student is handed a random trinket from Tim Powers’s bag of stuff. Then they read from a random book and interview a random stranger. And then they have 24 hours to use these prompts to create a complete story!

Does the thought make you panic? It did me! But in that moment, in that environment where you have no other responsibilities, almost every writer finishes their story. Some of those stories eventually sell. My story, created in that moment, was a Finalist for Year’s Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction. It can be done.

And among the many lessons from the 24-Hour Story (I learn a new one every year or so), it can be done is the most powerful. We don’t have to be intimidated by the tyranny of the blank page. When we allow ourselves, we can write at need. And faster with practice.

In the 10 years since my workshop, my productivity has steadily climbed. Often I get distracted by work and life, but when I let myself just do it, I can write a short story or longer in a day. It’s not even an effort, and that started with the workshop and the 24-Hour Story.

So in October 2023, when the fine folks from Fyrecon (my favorite writing and art conference) posted daily flash fiction prompts throughout the month, I couldn’t hold myself down to merely flash (i.e., 2,000 words or less). I wrote a short story every day in response to that day’s prompt. No plan, just write. I call this approach Story Jazz. Create in the moment.

And somewhere between day 5 and day 6, I began to see how these stories—spread across four or more different story worlds—might be all one story. One novel. I didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t need to know. Propelled by the daily prompts, I was working in pure Story Jazz.

Finally, around day 21, I started to see where the story was headed. The prompts faded into the background as the story’s momentum took over. Random elements I had dropped in three weeks earlier became a dominant theme in the final act. Everything came together in a Halloween climax I could never have predicted—and neither, I hope, will the readers.

The soil in which this book was planted is that 24-Hour Story exercise. The seed and the light and the water are the Fyrecon prompts. And the growth and the trimming and the flowering? Pure Story Jazz, created in the moment, the culmination of a lifetime of story lessons.

A Fine and Dangerous Season  was the book I was meant to write. This book bundle is the place it was meant to launch. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share it with you.