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New Chapter for "Agent Shield and Spaceman"

Good morning folks!

I have a new chapter up for "Agent Shield and Spaceman," my espionage web fiction. Frankie Two-eyes, already at the Thulewaite party starts to mingle and quickly gets himself over his head.

Other than that, my mind has been preoccupied in recent days by the superlatively good epic 'silk punk' fantasy novel "The Grace of Kings" by Ken Liu. Ken's name has come up a few times on this blog because I have enormous respect for his talent and the clarity of his ideas. This novel is door-stop and I hadn't had enough time to really launch into a massive fantasy epic until this summer. I guess at the moment, all I have time to say is that I'm blown away by it. I think it's easily one of my favorite fantasy stories and ranks pretty high up in terms of general works as well.

I could probably talk for a couple of days about all the reasons I think this novel succeeds at everything it sets out to do and writers of speculative fiction have a lot to learn from its example. I'm going to try to put together some of these thoughts at some point this week and see where it goes. In the meantime, do yourself a favor, pick up "The Grace of Kings" and give it a read. It's a huge, consequential addition to fantasy literature.

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