Sam Flynn's Cabinet of Curiosities - Issue #3

“Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute…”

Sorry, that was the opening to a certain movie about democratic descent into fascism. The reality we’re in is far stupider.

On one hand, the outlook post-election for America and the world is grim. On the other, a social media sabbatical has done wonders for my mental health. Which wraps around to depressing again when I remember how dependent authors like me are on social media.

All that said, the successful launch of The Mystery of the Pale King made this a milestone year for me and I couldn’t be more grateful for everyone who read, reviewed, and shared the book. The response was everything I hoped it would be and more.

The Mystery of the Pale King Release & Event Recaps

The book launch went as well as I could have hoped. It currently sits at 4.9 out of 5 (out of 21 reader ratings) on Goodreads three months after release. An artist can judge themself by their audience and it’s a joy to see the story be welcomed, understood, and appreciated. I wrote it to achieve some specific goals and it’s incredibly gratifying to hit the marks I set for myself. If you’ve read the book, please consider adding your review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. They really help authors get noticed.

Surprisingly for an introverted homebody like me, I quite enjoyed traveling for talks with readers about the book. It’s hard to compete with making new friends and sharing your passion at the same time.

There was the virtual launch party on my YouTube, the in-person launch party at Donkey Coffee, visits to Morley Library and Antiques and Uniques, my first Hocking Hills Book Fair, an interview with my alma mater’s paper The Post, and a trip down memory lane to my old high school Willoughby South, where I had the pleasure of meeting with the book club.

I also made the Horror Writers’ Association (HWA)’s Bram Stoker Recommended Reading List (seeing my book listed alongside the likes of Stephen King gave me chills) and was nominated for the inaugural Small Spec Book Awards.

Here’s to more in 2025 (Cincinnati, here I come)!

Book News

While hibernating online, I’ve been cooking behind-the-scenes, focused on why I write in the first place, namely the writing itself. Between social media sobriety and post-election nausea, I’ve had all the time and motivation needed to focus on projects new and old.

First up, epic fantasy saga The Darkest Fate, my passion project years in the making, is closer to breaking free of its cage than ever before. On the advice of trusted beta readers and professional agents, I’m shortening the narrative, which involves shuffling one POV from this book into the (hoped-for) sequel. The latest edits will take the final draft down to 6 POVs, 42 chapters, and 135,000 words. I’m feeling very good about where the book’s at. Fingers crossed 2025 is its year.

I’m about halfway done with the first draft of God Is Dead, first in the Apocalypse Auditor series that I’ve called my “cosmic Columbo.” I wanted to stretch my creative muscles and dip into genres I love outside high fantasy - namely space opera and detective fiction. Taking inspiration from the “howcatchem” cases of Columbo and Poker Face mashed with the sci-fi noir styling of the Murderbot Diaries and Marvel’s Loki, the series follows the genial Auditor, an unassuming galactic agent with a glass eye and a cane, who investigates and arrests perps behind planetary apocalypses and extinction events.

Lastly, just in the past month, after repeated encouragement from readers, I took the plunge on a sequel to The Mystery of the Pale King, tentatively titled Dweller in Darkness. the second half of what I’m now calling the Deadlights Duology. Set 16 years after the first, it explores what a world taken over by the Pale King looks like. SPOILER ALERT: Not great, Bob.

What I’m Reading

I loved The Forever Desert novellas by Moses Ose Utomi. Everything great about epic fantasy compacted to its rawest form. His stories were a much needed balm this year and his techniques, particularly in the second novella The Truth of the Aleke, provided much inspiration for my own forthcoming sequel. Eagerly awaiting the third and final novella The Memory of the Ogisi next year.

Had a great time in October with one of my heroes Alan Moore as he released not one but two excellent tomes. The first was The Great When, first in his new Long London quintet, the second The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, a modern grimoire for magicians-on-the-go. I’ve learned much from Moore’s esoteric and occult mysticism and how he incorporates it into his life via his art and the Bumper Book of Magic wraps all his elaborate cultural, philosophical, and pseudo-scientific threads into one pretty package.

In November, I returned to Area X for the fourth (and final?) time in Jeff VanderMeer’s Absolution, an absolute joy to read, pun intended. Consisting of three mind-bending novellas that build on each other much as the original trilogy did, you bet I was taking mental notes on how to spread out a larger story across shorter ones. VanderMeer’s work, like Moore’s, is a melting pot of out-there phantasmagoria that combines sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery, and espionage in a way that is also paradoxically grounded and visceral.

Next up for me are the fantastical detective yarn The City & The City by China Mieville and the new YA cli-fi Dust by Alison Stine, whose dystopian noir Road Out of Winter was a favorite read of mine this year. I’m also looking to catch on up on some classics in the near term, namely The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin and the George Smiley books by John le Carre.

What I’m Watching

In further depressing news, my preferred local theater the Athena Grand is shutting down the first week of January, a huge bummer for a guy who’s been going there since he came to Athens in 2011. When I started getting DVDs in the mail from Netflix in 2007, this was not where I expected things would end up.

It almost feels weird talking about the things I watched this fall, since they are almost all streaming exclusives at this point: Shogun, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Penguin, Agatha All Along, Dune: Prophecy, Creature Commandos, etc. I am Jack’s tumor.

You can see how insoluble the issue is when huge theater proponents like me are binging blockbuster shows on huge TVs at home.

I’ll leave you with an incomplete list of favorite movies of the year (as of Dec. 10)

1. Dune: Part Two

2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

3. Civil War

4. Conclave

5. Monkey Man

6. Rebel Ridge

7. The King Tide

8. Woman of the Hour

9. Longlegs

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With authorly affection,

Sam