alexanderwales posts
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Thresholder, ch 108, The Gaze of Justice, pt 2
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~Perry flew in a straight line, hoping that he’d minimize how much motion the men on the roof could see. They were high up, five stories, on top of a tower, and while they were surely keeping a lookout, flight wasn’t an ability that people had outside of airships. If they were enemy soldiers or loyalists planning something, then they almost certainly had the stairwell to the tower well-guarded, and they had probably thought that would be enough.“Marchand is having me set up the laser,” said Mette in Perry...
Thresholder, ch 107, The Gaze of Justice, pt 1
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~Mette got her debrief in the morning before they were set to go have breakfast.“What do you mean you don’t care?” asked Mette when he was just about finished.“If it’s not a thresholder, then it’s not thresholder business, which means that it’s not strictly speaking my business,” said Perry. “I guess I shouldn’t say that I don’t care, but another thresholder is eventually going to be my problem. A high-powered and possibly state-backed individual wiping the last vestiges of monarchy from the ...
Thresholder, ch 106, Fanatic
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~It took twelve hours before the word ‘symboulion’ started to lose all meaning. The thing that Perry couldn’t figure out was how they had ended up with such a long word, given that they were going to be using it so often. There was a certain insistence to it that hadn’t been there in Kerry Coast City, a way of saying the word that made Perry cringe a little bit. ‘Symboulion’ was a shibboleth, something that they seemed to say to assure each other that they were on the same side. It smacked of the caref...
Thresholder, ch 105, Agency
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~With the ship back on course and the remaining hijackers safely divested of their weapons and under armed guard, the loose command structure that was percolating on the Caster had a private meeting in one of the largest cabin rooms, one which was normally reserved for large families but had been given over to the dwarven engineer Moss and his elven wife Velli. It was the two of them, the mysterious Dirk, Casper, and another woman that Perry had seen but didn’t know personally. She was one of the few melekee onb...
Thresholder, ch 104, Combustion, pt 3
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkIn case it's not obvious, writing continues to be a pretty slow process for me, which is a major problem given 1) the ostensible schedule of this web serial and 2) the fact that I'm ideally working on multiple projects at once. Sometimes that's how it goes, but usually I'm a little better at just grinding it out. Part of it might be a touch winter-time depression, which will cure itself naturally once the sun is out longer. Since December I've been spending a half hour a day doing intensive exerci...
Thresholder, ch 103, Combustion, pt 2
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkSorry for the late chapter, this week has been kind of a mess for me because while I was back from vacation, my son still didn't have school.~~~~Perry felt the effects of the masks before he actually saw the men wearing them. His hand was slowed down, like it was moving through molasses, and he drew it back as if bitten, looking it over to make sure that he wasn’t injured. He had only opened the door out of the vestibule a small crack, and that was enough to let the effects of the masks in. When he opened the d...
Thresholder, ch 102, Combustion, pt 1
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkI'm back from vacation! I was down in Florida with my family, watching manatees and finding shells on the beach. I'm pretty wiped right now, which is at least partly because of airplane delays. There's nothing like getting up very early for a very early flight, then having to wait at the airport a long time.I used to work on vacations, but getting chapters out felt stressful unless I had a big backlog, and I think it probably goes without saying that I don't currently have a big backlog. I did almost ...
Thresholder, ch 101, Observation Deck
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkI'm going to be taking a vacation next week, so will be missing two chapters. There's a good chance that I'll have some time to write while on vacation, but I think that time is going to go toward building a backlog or working on some non-Thresholder things. There might also be some things posted from the archives just so there's not nothing, but I haven't gone archive diving to see what's there and worth posting or easily finished or worth just having out there.(Separate to the point all this...
Thresholder, Non-canon Bonus Chapter, Pissworld
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkThis is a special Patreon-only bonus chapter that imagines Perry going to somewhere other than the world he canonically went to for book four. Why did I think this would be funny? I don't know. Call it an extended shitpost, I guess. Or not a shitpost, but ... you know. Sometimes I do things because I realize that no one can stop me from doing them.Anyway, happy 100 chapters of Thresholder! And yes, this is what we're doing to celebrate, sorry.~~~~Perry stepped through on a crusty white shore that crumbled ben...
Thresholder, ch 100, Tragedy and Comedy
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkHappy 100 chapters!~~~~Perry spent about eighteen hours straight helping with the aftermath of the attack. He was drawing attention to himself, he knew that, but at least he was doing it for a good reason. He had impeccable senses and plenty of brute strength, more than the strongest orcs, and if he flared his energy, he could move rubble that there was no other easy way to move. By the time six hours had passed, heavy equipment was being moved to the sites, huge lanterns that had to be pulled in by wagons, along wit...
Thresholder, ch 99, A Ripple Through Still Waters
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~Perry hadn’t meant to talk to anyone. He had been trying to stay to himself, getting in and out of the libraries, eating food where he could, and spending his time preparing for a better cover story that would carry him to Berus.The problem was, that wasn’t the culture. Libraries weren’t a place to get what you needed and get out, they were a place to talk, exchange ideas, and socialize. The food was free, this was true, but there had been a very deliberate attempt to make the cafes and restaurants into thi...
Thresholder, ch 98, Wide Fields
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkI'm not sure that it still exists, but when I was growing up, I heard a lot about the dreading Friday Night Death Slot, where network executives put programs that were failing so they could fail more and then die. Fridays were one of the worst times for television, because everyone in the key demographics is out partying, or maybe just blowing off steam in other ways, and not sitting in front of their televsion.I think this is probably the worst possible time to release a chapter in terms of having people read it...
Thresholder, ch 97, Brickwork
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkThis chapter got away from me a bit, and might get cut in two for RoyalRoad, given that it's almost 9K words (I aim for 4K and usually end up with 5K). Also I hate doing this, but I might do some retcons to previous chapters that won't change any of the plot or character stuff, mostly because I spent a few hours reading about the history of running water in major cities and how the need for clean water has been handled by various societies throughout history.~~~~For Perry’s money, the dwarves were the stran...
Thresholder, ch 96, A Soft Mouth and Hard Teeth
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~The free housing was both better and worse than Perry had thought it would be. He had half been expecting that it would be a flophouse, people stacked on pallets or something like that, and when it became clear that it wasn’t that, he had thought that it would be more like a bog standard hotel.The room had virtually nothing in it, and while the walls weren’t terribly thin, Perry could tell that there wasn’t nearly enough privacy for his tastes. The bed that he and Mette would be sharing was wide, and they...
Thresholder, ch 95, That New World Smell
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkYeah, these chapters are coming out at ass o'clock, but I think this is better than punting until tomorrow (for me) at a reasonable time.~~~~The first thing Perry noticed were the trees, which rose up high in the air. They reminded him of the redwoods of Muir woods, which he’d always visited when his family made the trip to his aunt and uncle’s house near San Francisco. They had twenty-foot diameters and stood three hundred feet tall.For a moment, just a single second, Perry thought that maybe he was back on ...
Thresholder, ch 94, Interlude: The Crew of the SS Farfinder [End Book 3]
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkI think this is technically a 'tag' or something rather than a 'final chapter'. I have strong memories of reading through Scholastic Book Fair chapter books as a kid and getting little preview things. These will eventually be ebooks at some point, and I'm still thinking about how they might possibly be structured, but I'll have the input of an editor by the point I'm deciding that.Maybe this is just going to be the first chapter of the new book, but that doesn't make that much sense ei...
Thresholder, ch 93, Epilogue: Leticia
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~The goal was to hold things together. That was the only goal, at least for the next few years. They had lost people and damaged equipment, and the cycle of harvests had been disrupted, costing them material supplies. With no option to farm among the corpses of thousands of insects, they would need to move, and that would mean living off what they had in their stores for much longer than preferable.They were one more disaster away from annihilation. That was what Leticia chose to keep in her mind, rather than the ...
Thresholder, ch 92, Unfinished Business
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~The micro-fusion-fission bombs had wiped out half of the incoming insect swarm, and that was the only thing that gave them any chance. Perry stayed in his wolf form, moving between them, targeting the largest of them, sinking his claws in and ripping out their lifeforce to get the power necessary to keep up with the exertion and recover from the heavy blows they occasionally landed. He was faster than anything on the field, but there were so many of them that he was clipped from time to time, and once, trampled.T...
Thresholder, ch 91, Cancer and Blight
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~“Radio Mette, tell her there’s an attack incoming,” said Perry.The dragon went for Perry, uncontrolled rage in a body the size of a freight train, and Perry dropped to the ground, using the sword to pull him sideways so he’d miss the smashed remains of the Demon Core. He was faster on the ground, and it wasn’t about the fight, it was about the bugs moving toward the Natrix. Perry needed to deal with both, and he was too slow in the air, not to mention lacking in maneuverability.The tooth had been intend...
Thresholder, ch 90, Caving In
Normal TextEdit/Comment TextI'm hoping that I'm back on the regular posting schedule now, feels like my brain is doing better with the concept of writing words, and the holiday obligations are mostly concluded. Apologies again.(I had a bonus non-canon Christmas chapter planned that obviously didn't get done, and while it's obviously secondary to the main writing, there's a good chance that it'll be finished within the next week or two and released late.)~~~~Perry descended down to the surface of Esperide, where the insec...
Thresholder, ch 89, Incentives
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkLate chapter, sorry, but not as late as last chapter, which does mean that we're in some sense moving in the right direction. There's a good chance that the next chapter is also late, and I've decided to take the 25th off (though still have a chapter on the 28th). December 25th is a religious holiday that I'll be spending with family, and while I normally don't take holidays off, this is mostly a way of trying to hammer the schedule back into shape.~~~~“Which do you want first, the good news or ...
Thresholder, ch 88, Screaming into the Void, pt 2
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkThe schedule does appear to be slipping. Sorry. :(~~~~Perry flew through space, toward the dragon, which was receding into the distance.“Figure out his top speed,” said Perry. “It has limits, doesn’t it?”“His top speed in relation to what?” asked Marchand.Perry thought about that. “If he could have slammed me into the space station at a thousand miles an hour, he’d have done that, right? Are we gaining on him?”“The total distance between us is increasing,” said Marchand. “However, assuming t...
Thresholder, ch 87, Screaming Into the Void, pt 1
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkAlright, definitely missed a chapter last week. I went to the doctor and got some shots, which made me feel pretty sick for a day and a half, but I had this delusion that I was somehow going to get the chapter out in spite of that. It's a delusion that I suffer from a lot when it comes to schedule slips, not helped by the fact that the schedule already has no time. But I also know that as soon as I say "there won't be a chapter" it'll be like a weight is lifted off me, and that's my excuse not...
Thresholder, ch 86, The Enemy
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~After half a day of having a radio link, one thing was clear: Jeff really, really liked to talk.“So, here’s the thing,” said Jeff. “I lied about killing everyone. It was a heat of the moment thing. I’m not going to do it. First off, it seems like a lot of work, and second, it seems really boring. There’s probably something to fighting against the mechs, maybe that could be fun, but it’s so impersonal, you know? It’s like killing someone with poison. What’s the point unless there’s a clever twi...
NaNoWriMo Update
My ambition for this November was to do a "double" National Novel Writing Month, with 50,000 for Thresholder and another 50,000 for Doomsday Pivot!, a system apocalypse type story. This is just an update on how that went, in case you're curious.For Thresholder, I assume no one noticed. There were some great chapters in November, in my opinion, and the final word count was 53,733. Nothing really to talk about there. This covers everything from the final part of the fight with Natalka to present.For Doomsday Pivot!, I didn't reach...
Thresholder, ch 85, Chains
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkNote: Last chapter, 84, had a slight change to the ending, some of which is moved here and expanded. I think I was trying to do too much at the end of the chapter and should have just made it a whole scene, which is what I did here.Another late chapter, but this one is at least before midnight Central time. That's my "true" cutoff for when a chapter is late late. But at least now NaNoWriMo is finally over, and I might take a recovery week to just write this instead of this and an entirely separate private...
Thresholder, ch 84, Going Radioactive, pt 2
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkApologies again for the late chapter, I'm really going to try not to make this a regular occurrence, but the root cause was the Thanksgiving holiday, and thankfully there are no major holidays to disrupt my schedule in December.~~~~Jeff nearly ended the fight with a single punch. He powered forward, glowing golden, and at the last moment, twisted his body around to leverage the full force of power, moving forward and spinning around. The hit was brutal, denting the metal of Perry’s helmet, but March, as always,...
Thresholder, ch 83, Going Radioactive, pt 1
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkApologies for the late and delayed chapter, Thursday was American Thanksgiving, and I had fully intended to get the chapter totally finished to be posted in the morning before I was fully of turkey. That pretty clearly didn't happen, and with all the family stuff, it got punted. Today was a bit rocky for me, with an upset stomach (possibly related to having new and different foods), which is why this is getting posted so late.Also it was originally going to be on the shorter side, ~4K words, but I thought it work...
Thresholder, ch 82, The Five-and-a-Half Worlds of Jeff, pt 2
Normal LinkEdit/Comment Link~~~~The world I was from, they didn’t really have prisons. They had jails, and I had ended up in those a time or two, usually because I was drunk. A jail is a place you stay for a night, maybe a week if you’re unlucky. It’s a place to hold someone while you figure out what to do with them. So we had plenty of jails. I don’t know what kind of world with cities doesn’t have a place to put people who need to cool off or sober up. And we had madhouses too, places to put people too crazy to function. Orphanages ...
Thresholder, ch 81, The Five-and-a-Half Worlds of Jeff, pt 1
Normal LinkEdit/Comment LinkThese are my favorite chapters of Thresholder to write, and always feel like a reprieve of sorts. This one is 8K words, which about twice as long as a chapter would be, but I don't really want these to take up more than two updates of space, because in serial terms, that would be potentially two full weeks of updates. Might be trying new things narratively, the next chapter is still in flux.~~~~You know, I’ve gotta say it, this world kind of sucks.From what I’ve seen, you have maybe five cities, if I’m bein...
