Welcome back! This is Melinda again, your scribe. Ran is taking a break for a few weeks, and he’s getting plenty of page time. Curse Breaker Unleashed is now 20 chapters long and should be hitting the halfway mark soon.
I never know how many chapters it will take for Sarn and his allies to solve the problems they get into in each book, and this on is no different. It’s already strayed pretty far from where I thought it would go, but it took a really interesting tangent. I’ll let Ran tell you about it after the Kickstarter ends.
The kickstarter for the Riders of the Apocalypse books ends on Nov 12 at 11:59 pm EST. So this time, I set it correctly!
Back now if you haven’t already. All rewards are guaranteed.
A Physical Box for the Set
For the first time ever, we have a slipcase and a physical boxed set! It finally arrived so I have pictures of the real thing now, and it looks exactly like the mockup I created for the campaign page.
You can also see the ribbon bookmarks! The green one belongs to Curse Breaker Jousts because Ran wouldn’t allow any other color. So it has a green ribbon bookmark and the Riders of the Apocalypse books have black bookmarks.
Don’t worry! Ran insisted that I put the reading order on the box. So I did:
The slip case has the same lux textured matte as the book covers! But no gold foiling. The printer doesn’t offer that for the slip case. Maybe one day they will but not today.
The books fit snuggly inside. Despite the fact that the reading order is on the side of the box, the books might not be in that order when you receive them. I am not sure why they put book 2 in the slipcase first. But it’s easy to switch them around.
The campaign also includes early access to the retail versions of the books in two formats: ebook and paperback. So if you just want the story and the maps, those are the tiers for you.
Every tier includes Curse Breaker Universe: Reading & World Manual which has all 6 maps and some artwork from past special editions.
A Big Thank you
If you backed already, thank you for bringing the last three books of the series to life. The project is funded and that means all rewards are guaranteed when the project ends.
You’ll definitely get your books.
These books are jam packed with magic, humor, found family, angelic & immortal shenanigans and of course, Sarn finally attends a joust, and it turns into an epic monster fight.
There is no cliffhanger ending.
The apocalypse is handled by the end of the 4th book. If you’ve read any of my other books, then you’ll see a lot of familiar faces again since most of the characters that have appeared in my other books elbowed their way into this series somehow.
I’m not sure how that happened. But they all had compelling reasons why they should be included, and I’m not mean, so I said okay.
Some of those characters have already elbowed their wait into Curse Breaker Unleashed and brought some of the lingering issues that they weren’t able to resolve while stopping the apocalypse into that book.
That’s okay since there was only so much the characters could do while dealing with 6 intelligent, malevolent, entities that wanted to destroy the world, and they packed in a whole lot of stuff I didn’t think we could do in the Riders of the Apocalypse Series.
Unlocked Stretch Goals
#1 – As a thank you, I’ll be adding a special backer thank you page to the books. So there will be a field on the survey where you can fill in your name for inclusion on that page.
#2 – I also created an extra 6-page section in Curse Breaker Universe: Reading Guide & World Manual for the Riders of the Apocalypse that details who released what with pictures!
Here’s some screenshots of the rough drafts so please ignore any typos. These pages have not been edited yet:
Those two stretch goals are already unlocked and you’ll receive them no matter what and no matter when you back.
Next Stretch Goal:
If we can get over 30 backers, we’ll unlock more pages, and you’ll vote on what they will contain. So please share the campaign with your friends and ask them to back.
Thank you so much for being part of this adventure!
New Podcast Episodes!
I recorded 2 new episodes since the Kickstarter launched!
Cortney S. Lamar joined me to talk about their fantasy book, Legends from the Ashes. Inspired by the strange world of Aztec mythology, Legends from the Ashes plunges you into a world of animal spirits, shapeshifters, mythical beasts, ancient magic, friendship, love, and self-discovery.
L. E. Bendon joined me to talk about his fantasy book, The Dungeon Campaign for Animal Rites. Discworld meets Knightmare on a planet with purple plants, a magic system inspired by music theory, and adventure questing as a serious field of academia. The Dungeon Campaign for Animal Rites has all of the quirky humour you’ve come to expect from the author of The Weapon and the Fruit series, but with added satire and no murders.
Where to listen to both episodes:
That’s it for this week! See you next week.
– Melinda Kucsera, your scribe.