Category: 2024 Monthly Updates

Thanks for reading! 

Any support, even just giving these posts a read, is always appreciated.

Recent Updates:

No new publications or major announcements. Just remember that my debut novel, BEYOND THE RUINED NIGHTS, is set to release Summer ‘25. The Song has yet to be Sung. 

Project Progress:

I have completed outlining Book 2 of SONG OF CALARINE, and I am now sitting at about 50 pages into the first draft. 

As far as the publication process of BRN, I’m currently working through some cover ideas and getting assets from an artist friend as part of that. 

As far as the OTHER projects I’ve talked about, they’re on hold until I finish the first draft of book 2. 

Recent Fascinations: My Top Reads of 2024

It’s that time of the year again! Time for me, for no reason beside tracking my own developing reading tastes, to put together my Top Five Reads of 2024. There’s a lot of good ones to talk about this year, but first I just want to lay out a few things. 

1. These aren’t new books. I did read some newer stuff this year, but most of the time I read whatever I want. (I read nothing published in 2024 this year). However, most of the books on this list are older, some are very old, so just remember that this isn’t a top list of 2024 releases, just my favorite reads this year. 
2. Spoilers. I won’t be overtly spoiling the entire plots of anything, but consider everything that follows analysis, and therefore some things will be spoiled. If you’re one of the people that are very spoiler adverse, I appreciate you stopping by, but this probably won’t be for you. You have been warned. 

Now then, on to the:

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Picking five was very hard this year, so hard that I almost did ten instead, but I decided at the end that writing in depth pieces on ten books would be too much. Instead, I put together a list of four honorable mentions, with just a brief statement about why I loved them so much. 

• CLAYMORE, Norihiro Yagi

A fun, action packed, and terrifying grimdark fantasy manga about, at the end fo the day, uplifting women. Overall, it was really fun and I recommend it for any fans of dark manga and grimdark fantasy. By far the best new manga I read this year. 

• THE SURGEON’S MATE, Patrick O’Brian

What can I say about a Aubrey and Maturin book that I haven’t already said in the past? This one, the seventh in the series, is another of the “shoreside” books, where much of the plot happens on land. Read the series, it’s fantastic and this one was genuinely exciting and surprising. 

• MEXICAN GOTHIC, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I read this one as part of a book club I participate in along with some writer friends, and it was so much better than I ever expected. It is dark, gothic, terrifying, and genuinely surprising. I don’t want to spoil the twists, but I will say: if you like horror, read it. 

• SUTTREE, Cormac McCarthy

Over the past couple years, McCarthy has quickly become one of my favorite writers, and SUTTREE, a semi-autobiographical book about a man who abandons everything to live the life of a river-dwelling vagabond, was another near-perfect outing. It didn’t make it into the main list, but if you like Southern Fiction, give it a read. 

Now, on to the big show. 

TOP FIVE BOOKS:

NUMBER FIVE: SIX WAKES, MUR LAFFERTY

“Principles are easy to have when you have a place to live and regular meals.”

I have been following Lafferty via her podcast I SHOULD BE WRITING for a long time, but I’m ashamed to say that it took me until this year to finally read one of her books. I’m glad I decided to start with SIX WAKES, because it was exactly my type of thing. Despite being on the shorter end of the SFF I typically read, right at 400 pages, it feels wide-spanning and fully engrossing. It’s hard to explain exactly what type of sci-fi this story is, because it does a lot of things at once. It is an exploration of future politics, it is the exploration of new and changing technology, it is a clone story, and it’s a generation ship story. However, despite doing so many things at once, I found that, for me, it did all of them so well that I got on board from the very beginning. Lafferty managed to lay out a story that explores the reality of consciousness and a story about second chances in a way that intertwined all of the various plot threads into one satisfying and exciting finale. If you like sci-fi, any kind of sci-fi, I can’t recommend this one enough.

NUMBER FOUR: LORD OF CHAOS, ROBERT JORDAN

“Asha’man…kill!”

Of course a WHEEL OF TIME book had to make its way onto this list somewhere. I managed to make it through two of the books this year, LOC and A CROWN OF SWORDS, and Chaos was by far my favorite. It’s actually one of my favorites of the series (so far). It is almost impossible to talk about a single entry of WOT without letting some spoilers slip through, and despite my declaration that spoilers could be in these reviews, that just isn’t something I want to do here. WOT is a once in a lifetime experience, and I really encourage everyone (who REALLY likes slow-burn fantasy) to read the series. For a spoiler free, teaser-esque review, I will say this: there is a very particular moment in LORD OF CHAOS where the series shifts, forever, from a fantasy story about unwanted destiny and saving the world to something much darker. It becomes a commentary on war, and the horror that is sometimes required of soldiers on the frontlines. The Rand Al’Thor that goes into LORD OF CHAOS is not the same man who comes out the other side. That moment is forever seared into my mind. Jordan, for those that don’t know, was a decorated member of the U.S. Army, serving two volunteer duties in Vietnam as a helicopter door gunner. For people not particularly interested in Military History or Vietnam, that might not sound like much, but for people that are they understand exactly why that is such a substantial little piece of Jordan’s biography. Many door gunners lasted weeks, not years. The things that Jordan must have seen, and done, in service to his country clearly affected him, and nowhere is that clearer than in the Battle of Dumai’s Wells. War is hell, fantasy or otherwise. Read it. Read the whole damn series. 

NUMBER THREE: I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED, JENNETTE MCCURDY

“I’m trying every day to face myself. The results vary, but the attempts are consistent.”

I grew up during the little period in time when Nickelodeon sitcoms were very popular. My personal favorite of those shows was DRAKE AND JOSH, and that probably shows my age a little comparative to the others. However, the most prolific of those shows was by far ICARLY, which I also ended up watching a fair bit of as a teenager. So, I came into McCurdy’s I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED with a pretty solid baseline understanding of what to expect, but even still that did not prepare me for the harrowing story this book contains. McCurdy’s story is her’s alone to tell, so I won’t go too deep into exactly what this memoir entails, but it was by far the most raw, emotional reading experience I had this year. This one touched me in a lot of really personal ways, and McCurdy’s recounting of the emotional and physical struggles she had throughout her life, things going on in the background of those incredibly popular TV shows, was more impactful than I even know how to explain. I cannot recommend this one enough, but I feel I must attach a caveat: you will never look back on those old Nickelodeon shows in the same way. 

NUMBER TWO: DUST, HUGH HOWEY

“Heroes didn’t win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story–the dead didn’t say a word. All of it was bullshit.”

This year, I managed to read through the entirety of THE SILO SAGA by Hugh Howey, and by far my favorite was the finale, DUST. It is personally inspirational for me to see someone come from Self-Publishing to this level of success with a series like this. The Silo books are not cut-down, simple sci-fi meant to play on algorithmic trends or search terms. They are all honest, insightful, and philosophically challenging works that center around the importance of having control over your own fate. For me, the primary draw of the series came from two places: the characters and watching as the various stories began to interweave as the narrative unfurled. That’s why DUST was my favorite, because in the finale the reader gets to see just where that story is headed and how each and every character has their roles to play. If my number five pick, SIX WAKES, takes several stories and intertwines them into a single satisfying narrative, DUST, and again the entire series, does that on a much grander, more incredible scale. The way everything comes together in the finale, connecting characters and plots separated by centuries together, is truly remarkable. I would recommend this one for any and all fans of science fiction, hard or otherwise. 

NUMBER ONE: LONESOME DOVE, LARRY MCMURTRY

“Yesterday’s gone down the river and you can’t get it back.”

Often, my number one book is an emotional topic to parse, and this year is no different. No amount of percolating, or extrapolating, can ever allow me to explain what Larry McMurtry’s landmark western LONESOME DOVE means to me. The landmark miniseries, starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, was an important part of my childhood, and I can still remember the first time I sat down to watch it with my dad. It’s a damn fine series, but now, finally having gotten around to reading the book, I can say that it does not compare to McMurtry’s masterpiece. Forget westerns, this is, by far, the second best book I have ever read (only Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD stands above it in my mind). McMurtry carries the reader through a painstaking character study of the two central figures, former Texas Rangers Call and McCrae, and throughout the story the reader is subjected to the sweeping horrors of the American West. It is a painful, emotional, and philosophically exhausting trek from rural Texas to the wild and untamed Montana, and along the way the reader will fall in love with characters in ways they never thought possible. The book is a little over 850 pages in the version I read, and it still felt too short. I plan to reread it next year. I think that’s a fine way to end this list, with a recommendation for a book I doubt will ever be topped. 

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for reading! 

Any support, even just giving these posts a read, is always appreciated.

A Very Special Announcement: BEYOND THE RUINED NIGHTS, SUMMER 2025

This entry will be a little different. No big project updates/announcements section because I have a big announcement I want to spend the entirety of my time here on. 

As some of you may have seen, I announced my debut novel BEYOND THE RUINED NIGHTS, currently slated for release in late Summer 2025. 

For those of you who’ve been following my publishing journey here, you’ll understand why this is such a huge decision. I’ve spent the better part of a year querying agents in hopes of going the “traditional” publishing route, but after some previously discussed issues in this process (which you can read about here) I’ve decided to go the self-publishing route. For years, this story was the unnamed “sci-fantasy story” I’ve been working on. In reality, it’s a kind of scifi-tinged Dark Fantasy story in the vein of the Dark Tower. 

Here’s a quick blurb of the story:

Sarah Silvergrove has spent two years trying to outpace the guilt she carries over the death of a friend. Living as a nomadic traveler and attached to no one, she discovers the Belhaven, a haunting library hidden in the ruins of a long abandoned city. It holds the secrets to commanding the world’s magic, and Sarah, now one of the few magic users not under the control of the struggling empire, sets out to build a new community in hopes of redemption. But when a charismatic traveler arrives and integrates himself into the budding community, Sarah begins to worry that she is destined to fail again. Terrified of the task at hand, but knowing she cannot pass it on, Sarah must decide if she will let her failures define her or if she can defend the library and those who have come to trust in her. Greater mechanisms than her are pulling at the chords of destiny, and her fight for redemption will test everything she thought she knew about herself. 

The Song has yet to be Sung. 

If that sounds like you’re kind of thing, please follow along and grab the book when it becomes available. I’ll keep you all updated, trust me. 

As far as what this announcement means for these newsletters and my blog in general, there’s a few things you should all probably know going forward;

• There will be a lot more promotion here going forward. 

–This will mean a lot of things, but most of all that the purely opinion/announcement focused nature of this thing will change quite a lot. I may push my socials more, I will absolutely bring up the book every change I get. 

• There will be no more “Project Progress” announcements. 

–Instead, this section will be replaced with “Publication Updates”. This will give me some space to keep you all updated on the publication timelines. 

• A lot more will be going on strictly on my website (billyloperhistory.com) so if you don’t check there every once in a while, maybe do. 

Other than that, I don’t think there’s much more I can say besides: thanks. Thank you all for taking your time to read these, for being part of this journey. We’ll be back to normal business next month. 

And remember: The Song has yet to be Sung. 

Thanks for reading. 

Thanks for reading! 

Any support, even just giving these posts a read, is always appreciated.

Recent Updates:

No major updates. There are some updates to be had on my publishing journey

Project Progress:

Boy howdy is that a complicated question today. 

So, as I hinted I might do in the previous post, I have put my literary fiction long-form project on hold in order to make some progress on my big Sci-Fantasy project. That will probably stay that way for a while, if not until the end of the year. That’s all I’ll say here, because this whole thing is the topic of today’s post. 

Recent Fascinations: The Great Things Ahead Along the Long Hard Road

In my July/August edition, I mentioned that I had been courting the idea of self-publishing after some pretty insane, though not uncommon, struggles in the query trenches and discovering/being guided to some cost-saving open-source software. Well, I guess this can be considered the official statement that I WILL be self-publishing my long-discussed sci-fantasy project in 2025. 

I started this project back in 2021, and now it is pretty much exactly a year from when people besides my close writer friends will get to read it. I’m excited, but more than just a little terrified of this. The idea of my book, one that I’ve put so much of myself into, being in strangers hands feels terrifying.

Those previously mentioned open source programs have made an enormous difference, with GIMP helping me make real progress on getting cover ideas settled, and currently I’m going through and doing all final formatting of my novel with Scribus, which has honestly been a blast. That is probably what’s been most interesting to me as I’ve started down this path: I’m discovering I really love all the different aspects of self-publishing. I’ve even gone through and written up some loglines/pitches in preparation of the announcement/title reveal (which I’m hoping to do in October), and I’ve found that enjoyable too. All of that is basically saying that I am finding self-publishing, in this early, fledgling hour, genuinely fun and exciting. 

The irony of this whole thing is not lost on me, believe me. I know that if any one of you were to decide to go back through the backlog of my 2024 blog posts, and maybe even a few of those from ‘23, you’d find some very similar posts where I am talking about how fun and exciting querying is. As I sit here typing all of this out, that hesitation of the veneer of excitement is very, very tangible, I promise you. But, I feel like there’s a pretty big core difference between what made querying feel fun and what is making this self-pub process feel fun. 

Control. 

While parts of querying were certainly fun, what finally drove me away was the near total lack of control I had over the process. You query, but you get to know nothing about the status, decisions, or general mechanisms that happen behind the scenes. With self-publishing, I have total control over every aspect of this process right up until the point that I finally release the damn thing. Of course, I’m not so delusional to think that I can brute-force myself into a Travis Baldree-style super success with incredible sales that launch an international career. I don’t know how my sales will go once I launch, I don’t know if I’ll ever make a single dollar off of it. 

I can tell you, though, that I will know EVERYTHING that is happening, because I’ll be in charge of it, and for someone as neurotic as me, that sounds just fine. So I’m going to tackle this self-published with everything I have, and I’ll be sure to keep y’all updated. 

Thanks for Reading.