La Révolution: A Netflix Recommendation

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When you first see the picture above, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is a TV series about the French Revolution. It’s there in the title. There’s a woman wearing a mask, throwing a lit bottle of something flammable, the decor is in the process of being blown to pieces and there’s bits of very French looking architecture (Versailles, in case you’re curious), in the background.

This is not a TV series about the French Revolution.

It’s set at the beginning of the French Revolution. It’s a fantasy retelling of the events that led to the French Revolution. It uses the tropes, historical setting, nomenclature and vocabulary of the French Revolution, but that’s not what it’s about.

Here is the trailer:

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World of Skills 2: Anger’s Reflection

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I’m happy to announce that the second instalment of World of Skills is now available to suscribers on my Patreon page.

The first instalment, Only the Wicked, is available to download free, also on Patreon.

There’s a dedicated page on the site for the series, which I hope will run to about 10-15 episodes, assuming there are enough readers to make it worthwhile.

What is World of Skills?

World of Skills is a fun little project based around a world identical to our own except for the emergence of “Skills”. Skills are unexplained abilities that manifest randomly in the general population.

My two protagonists are an insurance investigator and his associate, and their specialty is identifying when and how a Skills has been used in a crime.

To protect their employer – the insurance company – from having to pay out on claims in such cases, they try to recover stolen property or catch thieves or identify Skill-enabled fraud.

My protagonists are not un-Skilled themselves. The investigator, Darius, has a mysterious ability that frightens even the most powerful among the Skilled. Molly hides a secret even she doesn’t understand. But new differences give rise to new prejudices, and being Skilled can be more of a curse than a gift.

Why Patreon?

A lot of what I write, I give away for free. I’ve enjoyed doing this and I get a lot of satisfaction from it, especially when people reach out to let me know they liked something I wrote.

However, nothing I’ve written in the past has made me any money (a little side effect of giving almost everything away for free). As a consequence, I’m beginning to explore models where I might make a little bit of income from all the words I put down.

I’m trying to find a way of doing this which doesn’t offend or alienate any readers. While full-length novels or novellas might be sellable on Amazon, my preferred format is slightly shorter. Therefore: Patreon. It’s my hope that enough people who read this story will think it’s worth paying the price of a coffee each month to keep the series going.

I’m also putting additional content on Patreon such as short stories unrelated to World of Skills, information about the process of writing these stories, and occasional early warning when some of my writing goes on sale (or free) on Amazon.

If you choose to support me there, then you have my unending gratitude!