Today is move-in day — the door to the house has opened wide, Ramble Rocks is open for business, the electric chair is empty, and something is calling you from deep inside the old tunnel. The Book of Accidents is now available in the US/CAN and the UK, and I’ll be talking a little more about it as the week goes on, though for my mileage, the less you know about the book going in? The better.

Let’s get some of those buy links out of the way now, shall we?

First, I’m still able to do personalized copies through Doylestown Bookshop.

If you just want signed copies, particularly where I’m doing virtual events, click here.

Signed copies in the UK: here.

Otherwise, please enjoy the book from:

Indiebound | Bookshop | The Strand | Powells

B&N | BAM | Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Google

Audible | Libro.fm

Some other links of note:

From The Guardian:

“It begins in a quite traditional way: a serial killer awaits death in the electric chair; years later, a married couple move with their emotionally fragile son to an isolated old house in the country … Yet this is neither a haunted house story nor another lurid look at an unfeasibly clever murderer, but something more interesting. Wendig combines cosmic horror and human heroism with his continuing theme of the traumatic effect of abusive relationships handed down from father to son; this is a rich, rewarding tale.”

This review (!!) in Grimdark Magazine by Beth Tabler:

“It is like a symphony starting with many discordant and uncomfortable notes that come together so fully the force of the cacophony nails you to your chair.”

A great review from the London Horror Society:

“There is a hint of Shirley Jackson in the new/old family home. A house isolated—despite the presence of neighbour, Jed—physically and psychologically. What goes on there is not bound by the normal rules of reality, but the book this put me in mind of the most was Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub—but maybe with a touch of Junji Ito’s masterpiece Spiral; the sense that the wrongness at the heart of the story pulls at everything around it…”

I got to chat with the wonderful Scott Neumyer at Shondaland, if you wanna check it out: “Chuck Wendig Finally Got To Write His Haunted House Book”

Here’s an interview with me at Grimdark Magazine.

And here’s an awesome video interview at Fango X from Fangoria. I had fun with this!

Also I got to chat a little with Gwenda Bond about the book on behalf of Subterranean Books — check that out here, over yonder hill and dale.

Of course, you can check out any of my virtual tour events here — and tonight kicks off with Aaron Mahnke and myself at the Avengers combo of PA bookstores: Doylestown Bookshop, Let’s Play Books, and Midtown Scholar.

Finally, Del Rey, in partnership with the horror streaming service Shudder, is running a sweepstakes where you can win six months of the streaming service and a hardcover copy of the book, if you’re so inclined to enter. I love Shudder and always find something spooky to watch there. Go forth, enter and win. And then go watch some horror movies.

I hope you check out the book, and if you feel like leaving a review or spreading the word, I’d appreciate it, otherwise I die flailing in the abyss, horror-clowns sucking at my toes as I sink deep into the unabiding dark. JUST SAYING.

The laws of physics acting on the planet of Jai have been forever upended; its surface completely altered, and its inhabitants permanently changed, causing chaos. Fearing heresy, the artificially intelligent Gods that once ruled the galaxy became the planet’s jailers.

Tiv Hunt, who once trusted these Gods completely, spends her days helping the last remaining survivors of Jai. Everyone is fighting for their freedom and they call out for drastic action from their saviour, Tiv’s girlfriend Yasira. But Yasira has become deeply ill, debilitated by her Outside exposure, and is barely able to breathe, let alone lead a revolution.

Hunted by the Gods and Akavi, the disgraced angel, Yasira and Tiv must delve further than ever before into the maddening mysteries of their fractured planet in order to save – or perhaps even destroy – their fading world.

1: Second Books Are Hard

They warned me! Everyone warned me! When you write your first novel you get to take your sweet time. When you write the sequel you’re under contract and you have to do it in a certain amount of time. It’s like having to learn your entire process over again.

It doesn’t help that, like, two years went by between landing an agent for The Outside and getting the green light from the publisher to write Book Two. When I finished writing The Outside, I was so in love with these characters and this setting, I was just chomping at the bit to write more. By the time I was actually allowed to write more? Time had passed. I was a different person. It took a lot of work to get that mojo back and I blew through a whole lot of deadlines in the process.

But I did it! I wrote the book, and now here we are. Because that’s the other thing about writers; we can do hard things.

2: Revisions Will Save Your Ass

The Outside had just two point-of-view characters – Yasira, who carried most of the novel, and Akavi, who got fun little “villain’s point of view” scenes now and then. The Fallen expands its scope – not just to more points of view but to more moving parts generally. Yasira and Tiv have been joined by a group of seven friends and oh my god why did I try to introduce seven new characters at once please do not do this to yourself. The climax of the book – I’m going to try to say this without spoilers – has them coordinating a bunch of dramatic things that happen dramatically in a bunch of places at the same time. This kind of expanded scope was essential to what I was doing with the book – it’s very much a book about collectivity, community, diversity of approaches towards a common goal. But also wow that was more moving parts than I could actually keep in my head at a time.

The solution? Revisions. Sure they’re annoying, and I’d rather get everything right the first time, but it turns out you can actually have seven vague underdeveloped secondary characters in a first draft, and then you can go back systematically and add more stuff about each character in all the scenes they’re in and people will be like “oh, your secondary characters are charming.”. You can have a final confrontation that’s sort of a rushed sketch of the major things that happen, and then you can go back, actually chart out what groups were involved in each of those major things and what their goals are, what major phases the whole operation goes through (including planning), what each group is doing in each phase, and add way more little scenes with way more detail, accordingly. Obvious writing advice is obvious, but, like, it’s fine! We get multiple passes at this stuff for a reason. You can be like a speed painter who adds more and more intricate detail with each pass over the canvas. Or at least I think that’s how speed painting works, I don’t know.

3: Isolation Sucks, Actually

I was writing about isolation before it was cool* (*spoiler: it’s not cool) simply for health reasons – I started work on The Fallen when I was in a complicated life situation and too burned out to do a lot besides go to my day job and then sit in bed with a blanket over me. Then of course the pandemic happened and now isolation is everyone’s problem.

I didn’t intend to make isolation a theme of the novel but, looking back at what I wrote, it’s everywhere. It’s in the backstory of Yasira and Tiv’s new friends, who were held prisoner by the Gods for years. It’s in the way Elu has to adjust to life without the information-rich networks he’s used to, when it’s not safe for him to interact with much of anyone but Akavi, and Akavi only interacts with him when it’s convenient. It’s in the way Yasira stays in her room out of trauma and exhaustion and the way Tiv causes problems, with the best of intentions, by trying to keep information from her for her own protection. Everyone in this book is at some level dealing with isolation, disconnection, or loss. Everyone who gets a happy ending gets it by finding new ways to connect and collaborate. A lot of this wasn’t even apparent to me until I finished writing, and then I did that thing authors do so often, where I looked back at it and went, “Oh, that’s what I was talking about,” and then blinked at myself with a suspicious expression.

I’m doing a lot better now, by the way. But still really looking forward to the day when I can go out and have a picnic with people again.

4: I Love Writing About Weird Buildings

It doesn’t play a big role in the novel, but there’s one chapter where Tiv goes and visits a museum that the Gods designed, and I fucking loved writing that chapter. It came out easily in a book where almost nothing came out easily. Give me a fictional space that was constructed to convey a sufficiently unusual experience and I will go wild designing its floorplan and writing what it’s like to move through it. I have no idea why I love this extremely specific thing.

5: Your Audiobook Narrator Is Going To Have To Actually Read This Shit Aloud

Writing a complicated telepathic conversation with a hive mind? Want to just splash phrases all over the page like an experimental poem to convey a multiplicity of collaborative but contrasting viewpoints within the same entity? Sure, go nuts, you’re already under contract for this book and you can do what you want.

But just know that the bewildered voice actor who’s trying to narrate the audiobook version will at some point call you on Zoom and be like “wait what is going on here? How do you want this read? Who is even talking in what part of this, exactly?” and you won’t have anything to say except “lol idk, good luck with that.”

Sorry, Nancy! I’m sure whatever you’ve come up with will be fine.

***

Ada Hoffmann is the author of the space opera novel The Outside, as well as dozens of speculative short stories and poems. Ada’s work has been a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Compton Crook Award, and the WSFA Small Press Award, among others. She is also the author of the Autistic Book Party review series, devoted to in-depth #ownvoices discussions of autism representation in speculative fiction. Ada is an adjunct professor of computer science, as well as a former semi-professional soprano, tabletop gaming enthusiast, and LARPer. She lives in eastern Ontario.

Ada Hoffmann: Website | Twitter

The Fallen: Powells | Indiebound | B&N | Amazon

The island nation of Servenza is a land of flint and steel, sail and gearwork, of gods both Dead and sleeping. It is a society where the wealthy few rule the impoverished many.

Determined to change that, former street-rat Buc, along with Eld, the ex-soldier who has been her partner in crime-solving, have claimed seats on the board of the powerful Kanados Trading Company. Buc plans to destroy the nobility from within—which is much harder than she expected.

Stymied by boardroom politics and dodging mages at every turn, Buc and Eld find a potential patron in the Doga, ruler of Servenza. The deal: by the night of the Masquerade, unmask whoever has been attempting to assassinate the Doga, thereby earning her support in the halls of power. Blow the deadline and she’ll have them deported to opposite ends of the world.

Armed with Eld’s razor-sharp sword and Buc’s even sharper intellect, the dynamic duo hit the streets just as the shadow religious conflict between the Gods begins to break into open warfare. Those closest to Buc and Eld begin turning up with their throats slit amid rumors that a hidden mastermind is behind everything that’s going wrong in Servenza.

Facing wrathful gods, hostile nobles, and a secret enemy bent on revenge, Buc and Eld will need every trick in their arsenal to survive. Luckily, extra blades aren’t the only things Buc has hidden up her sleeves.

Sequels are the easiest books to write.

I was completely unprepared for how much FUN it was going to be returning to the world of Sambuciña ‘Buc’ Alhurra and her partner-in-crime-solving and master swordsman, Eld. I’ve written a fair number of novels (12), but aside from this one and the concluding novel to The Fall of the Gods series, those were all first novels. As a lifelong reader I should have been prepared, right? One of the best things about a favorite series is watching the characters and the world grow before our eyes. There’s a reason why Frodo and Samwise linger with us longer than Bilbo does. And there’s a reason why I really enjoyed writing this novel. If you’re not familiar with Buc, she’s an autodidact streetrat who isn’t afraid to use a blade when others’ brains prove too slow to follow her own. Eld is there for when her mind and tongue get her into situations where one blade won’t be enough. The pair are a loaded blunderbuss and I’m the one who gets to pull the trigger. It was a literal blast. Beyond that, I got to dig into worldbuilding and magic more this time around (it is a fantasy novel after all) and watching Servenza, this island gear-wrought city-state rise from the blank page like Atlantis returned was really cool. Cooler still was showing us magic through the warring rival mages’ eyes (and talons and fangs), whether it was Sin Eaters with their mind magic allowing them to communicate with their Goddess directly or the Dead Gods using blood magic to transform into were-creatures or better yet, Buc and Eld caught in between both sides. And the foreshadowing, ye Gods, the foreshadowing. It was almost too much fun.

Sequels are the hardest books to write.

Say what? I know, I know I just said how much fun I had writing this one and I absolutely did, but if a book was going to ruin my confidence in my ability as a writer it was this one. Why? Well, last time Chuck had me on, I talked about discovering I had a brand: that there are specific aspects of storytelling I tend to really lean into (fast pacing, tight transitions, fireworks, all tied together by emotional character arcs). In writing The Justice in Revenge I discovered I had an audience. I didn’t know who they were just yet, they were faceless ephemeral, but they were waiting: someone (hopefully a lot of someones) was going to read this book and this was the first time I’d ever known that for a fact. When you’re in the query trenches as a young writer, past the first book or three, you start to forget that the goal is for a lot of people to read your book because it just doesn’t seem likely to happen. The odds are astronomical and in their enormity, there’s some freedom. I didn’t realize how much freedom until I sat down to write the opening chapter and realized, holy shit, YOU are going to read this. Or your sister might. Or her friend. Or their friend’s Mom (sorry for the swears, Mom). That kind of pressure puts a lot of weight on the mental cogs turning in my mind that eventually translates to my fingers moving across a keyboard and, through the magic of the written language, creating a story. A novel. I usually write a pretty solid first draft. I may add some scenes, tweak a few moments, and play with the linework, but it’s rare I have to make major changes. This one required a significant rewrite. One sans nerves. I really love how it all came out, but boy howdy, was I unprepared for the journey it would take me on.

I can juggle better than I knew I could.

I’ve never been much of a juggler…I can just manage three balls for a few tosses without dropping them, but that’s about the extent of it. In my daily life, I do juggle a day job and writing and having an actual (sort of) life. I’ve been doing that for years now and I’ve got that down pat, but when it comes to the business of writing, I’ve alway been very methodical: do one thing at a time, then move on. I was never one who could query while drafting a new novel for example. I could brainstorm, outline, but I couldn’t do prose until I was ready to start the next novel. Well, turns out being a published author changes things. I no longer have the luxury of doing one thing at a time…a lesson I learned on the fly while finishing final edits with The Justice in Revenge. Basically, in the spring/summer of 2020 (recall that summer? Of the pandemic and reckoning with systemic racism and the decade that was 2020) I was editing Book Two, promoting Book One for my debut release, writing the conclusion with Book Three, and my dayjob was in healthcare…it was A LOT. I survived it, though, and I learned that I can do multiple things in multiple areas at once. It’s not always fun, but it’s called being a professional and I realized if I want to make my dreams a reality, I need to level up. I’ll say this though, I never knew how full my brain could feel until I had 4 versions of Book One, 2 versions of Book Two, and a coalescing version of Book Three in my head. This is why authors talk to themselves, folks. Well…one reason anyway.

I have (almost) no control over the success of my career.

“The rocket’s already been launched, so there’s not much more we can do but watch.” I think my agent, DongWon Song, meant those words to be comforting to me when I asked them two weeks before The Sin in the Steel hit shelves, what more I should be doing to ensure the book that had won me an agent and a 3-book deal with Tor Books would find readers. What I really was asking was, “How do I ensure this book is a financial success? That the book, and ergo me, are not failures? Flops?” The answer, I learned, over the course of the past year, is that you don’t.

You can’t.

I’ve never been a fan of can’t. You can’t write a novel, only special people do that. You can’t write another novel, the first was a fluke. You can’t write something good enough to land an agent. You can’t get a book deal. You can’t have a career as a writer. A lot of can’ts I’ve heard or told myself in the lonely, midnight hour of the blank page and I’ve overcome all of them. Save that last. So I did what I’ve always done when faced with can’t. I threw everything I had at it…and here is where reality asserts itself, friends. Turns out, one person can’t actually do a whole lot themselves. That’s why publishing exists (duh, Ryan). The problem with that, is, publishing is a numbers game. No one knows what will stick, so they chuck a bit of everything at the wall and wait and see. I’ve no complaints with the toss Tor gave The Sin in the Steel, far from it, but once the book hit shelves they were onto the next book and I was still there, screaming out into the void that you all should read my little adventure fantasy with heart. There were pirate queens for Dog’s sake! It’s a lonely time when you realize that whereas a publisher can make waves, you can barely stir ripples. It’s not that those ripple don’t matter, every one that finds a reader absolutely matters, but ripples don’t make one a bestseller overnight. It was something I should have remembered, because writing is like that every step of the way. A sentence doesn’t make a paragraph and a paragraph doesn’t make a chapter and a chapter doesn’t make a book. There’s a lot of rowing to be done before that bathtub crosses the Atlantic (to repeat one of my favorite Stephen King quotes on writing) and you get to type ‘The End’. I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully make my peace with the fact that I’ve set my sights on a career that is so externally subjective, but I do know that I can keep writing and that brings me to the lesson I relearned this past year.

I have all the control in the world: butt in chair; hands on keyboard

Hamilton, the musical has a wonderful line in the number Hurricane: “I’ll write my way out.” In the musical, Hamilton, full of ego, thinks to write his way out of being caught paying off the man whose wife he was sleeping with, and instead ruins his marriage and political aspirations. There’s many lessons to learn there, but to be fair to Hamilton, he had written himself out of poverty, into college, into the right hand of Washington, into his future, socially superior wife’s heart, and into the Constitution and that’s the lesson I relearned this past year. I don’t have control over something so nebulous as a career, but I do have control of what I do in those fleeting moments between book releases. Butt in chair; hands on keyboard, is oft repeated advice to new writers–that the only way to complete a book is to show up and put in the work. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the only way to keep having books land on library shelves and in bookstores is along the same lines.

I said a moment ago that I probably wouldn’t ever make peace about my lack of control, but when I’m writing, I am at peace. It doesn’t mean writing comes easily, the story flowing effortlessly from the keys to the screen, but I am happy and full of purpose and hopefully those feelings, however fleeting, however ephemeral, do shine through on the page. We can’t all be Alexander Hamilton (and I’m not sure we should try, the dude did a lot but had some pretty serious flaws as well), but we can try to write our way out. That’s what I’ve been doing while writing Justice and the conclusion to the trilogy, The Memory in the Blood. Writing my way out…I hope you’ll come and join me.

***

Ryan Van Loan is a Fantasy author who served six years as a Sergeant in the United States Army Infantry (PA National Guard) where he served on the front lines of Afghanistan. His work has appeared in numerous places including Tor.com and Fireside Magazine. His debut novel, The Sin in the Steel (Tor Books), Book One in the Fall of the Gods series came out in Summer 2020, the sequel, The Justice in Revenge follows on July 13, 2021, and the conclusion to the series, The Memory in the Blood drops Summer 2022.

Ryan Van Loan: Website

The Justice in Revenge: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Powell’s | Bookshop

As we enter the final lap here, with The Book of Accidents releasing next week (ahhhhh), I figured it was a good time to do one more pre-release roundup.

I posted tour information and where to get signed copies already, buuuut — if you wanted to buy signed copies in the UK, then I have that info available, as well:

Waterstones

Forbidden Planet

Goldsboro Books

Let’s see, what else?

A starred review from Booklist:

“Wendig has fashioned a horror story that feels at once old-fashioned and cutting-edge, masterfully taking a familiar scenario and shaking it up to devastating effect. More proof, if proof were still needed, that Wendig is a force to be reckoned with across genres.”

And a starred review from Library Journal:

“Wendig’s latest is a bold, impressive novel with fierce intelligence and a generous, thrumming heart; this is the author writing at the height of his powers. It’s intimate and panoramic. It’s humane and magical. It’s a world-hopping, time-jumping ride that packs a deep emotional punch.

…blends horror, fantasy, and small-town family drama in an ambitious epic that spans both a multitude of worlds and the interior expanse of the human heart. This one’s essential.”

The audiobook is narrated by Xe Sands and George Newbern — available here.

And tonight I’m a part of the virtual Random House Open House, doing a panel about hot new summer reads — you can find details here on how to attend!

I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering the book or asking your library to carry it. It’s weird to launch a book during a pandemic and I’m still… not entirely sure how I’m doing on that front. And it’s an intensely personal book, to boot, a heart-on-sleeve kind of novel, so hopefully it connects and people find their heart is there in the book, too. (Don’t worry, I didn’t steal your heart. Just… borrowed it, for a little bit.) If you’re so inclined to spread the word, that is a great favor you can do. Thanks, and hope you enjoy the book. One more week. Commence to freaking out.

PSST. HEY, KID. WANNA BUY A SIGNED COPY OF A BOOK?

If you are one of those nice people inquiring about how you buy a signed copy of The Book of Accidents, I have the “deets” (do the kids say “deets” anymore, they probably don’t, oh god I’m ancient, a crumbling mummy, a rain-soaked wasp nest, nooooo) —

Here, then, are your ways to procure a signed copy:

If you want a signed, personalized copy, meaning, I sign it to THROMDAX THE EVER-DELIQUESCING or whatever your actual name is (Gary, perhaps!), and then I hastily, sloppy pen my actual autography underneath it?

Then you have three options:

Doylestown Bookshop

Let’s Play Books

Midtown Scholar

All three are tied to the joint event I’m doing with Aaron Mahnke to launch the book. Requests for personalization, at least with Doylestown, run up to July 15th.

The other bookstores hosting me for virtual events will also have signed (not personalized) copies available, should you be so inclined.

Finally, there’s: Barnes & Noble, and Books-a-Million!

Ta-da!

Also, as a sidenote, if you were so inclined to pick up my first novel, Blackbirds, you can do so digitally this month for the meager coinage of $1.99. Please enjoy.

MORE SOON BYE