AFK, in Pursuit of Avengement (2015) by Huckleberry Hax

The door opened, quickly.  He was actually quite an attractive man.  He was slim and muscular, he had a square jaw and delicate fingers.  He was wearing a nearly open dressing gown.  "Hello, Mica," I said.  "My name is Thursday."  I pushed the Taser into his abdomen and sent him jerking to the ground.

THE VIRTUAL WORLD IS CHANGING.

And Definitely Thursday is struggling to keep up.  Once upon a time she tracked down metaverse cheats; now her job is to find the online criminals who would use the virtual world to con, rape and murder.

'AFK, in Pursuit of Avengement' is the latest entry by Huckleberry Hax to the 'AFK' series. See also 'AFK', 'AFK, Again' and 'AFK, Indefinitely'.



Available formats:

Print:	Paperback (300 Pages): £8.99
Online:	Issuu: Free

Amazon Kindle: $0.99

Due to the way that Amazon operates in different countries, it's best if you obtain your copy of 'AFK, in Pursuit of Avengement' from your 'local' Amazon website.

UK: amazon.co.uk	USA: amazon.com	France: amazon.fr	Spain: amazon.es
Canada: amazon.ca	Germany: amazon.de	Italy: amazon.it	Japan: amazon.co.jp

ePub: $0.99

'AFK, in Pursuit of Avengement' will be available from a number of different ePub retailers:

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble (TBC)

Kobo (TBC)

Blio (TBC)

Support independent authors by leaving a rating/review

Independent authors don't have large advertising budgets; feedback and ratings, therefore, are the most effective way to show that their work is being purchased and enjoyed. If you have enjoyed this novel, please consider leaving a rating or review at Amazon or whichever other service you obtained it from. It will take you five minutes and cost you nothing, but will help me enormously. Thank you :)

Book Launch: AFK, in Pursuit of Avengement - 26 Feb @ 3pm SLT

I'll be launching  the fourth novel in the 'AFK' series - 'AFK, in Pursuit of Avengement' - at Harvey's Bar, Basilique, on Thursday 26 February at 3pm SLT (the SLURL will drop you down just outside of it).  Please join me there if you would like to find out more about the latest entry in this story.  I'll be reading an excerpt in voice, and if you're a fan of the series up to now you might be interested in knowing this will be the section of the book which explains the twist at the end of 'AFK, indefinitely'.  I'll also be talking about a little experiment I want to run.

The book is currently in its third edit and looking likely to end up a little shy of 70,000 words - the longest by far in the series to date.  I'm confident that it will be finished by the weekend and ready for Kindle users to download by the 26th.

Hope to see you there!

The Tenth Novel...

My thanks to the incredibly talented Canary Beck for taking my cover photo and turning into the best-looking cover any of my novels have ever had.  Just take a look at it.  Seriously.  That's one of my books, that is.

AFK, in pursuit of Avengement is the fourth novel in the AFK series (and my tenth writing as Huck) and picks up the action from the unexpected ending at the end of book 3, AFK, Indefinitely.

The novel will launch in a couple of weeks in print and Kindle formats, with an ePub edition following soon after.  There will be an inworld launch event, the details of which will be posted here soon.

If you haven't read books 1 to 3, the first novel, AFK can be read here - and is a free Kindle download at Amazon.

Stay tuned!

2015 and all that

Happy New Year!  This time 12 months ago I was announcing the completion of the first draft of 'AFK, Indefinitely'.  I'm not quite there yet with 'AFK and Avengement', but I'm getting very close. It's already surpassed the length of last year's instalment by a healthy 2,000 words so this is the longest in the series so far.  Stay tuned.

There's a lot to do this year.  I want to release a book of some of my blog articles by the end of June and I still have my novella, 'Sim', to finish.  I'm also hoping to pen a completely non-SL detective novel at some point during the year.

Last year, I took some photos in SL for this blog that I was rather pleased with (for example, The Trace) and I'd like to do this a bit more in 2015.  It won't hurt me to get out a bit more.  SL really is becoming a more and more beautiful place and yet it's still the old 2006 pictures that get dug out whenever a news outlet runs a story on the metaverse.

2015, of course, is currently pegged as the year in which the Oculus Rift gets its commercial release, potentially heralding the beginning of a new era of virtual reality, so get ready for plenty of VR stories hitting the headlines once these devices hit the shelves (my guess is that most of them will be about motion sickness).  How the OR - and, indeed, VR - will fare long-term is a very difficult thing to predict, but I am really looking forward to this release and the directions the industry subsequently takes.  At the very least, I hope that by the time I've written my '2016 and all that' post next year I'll have seen SL from the inside for the very first time.  Fingers crossed...

Images: Top - BBC coverage of the London New Year fireworks; Bottom - Oculus Rift development kit from www.oculus.com.

Report of 2014

WordPress users would do well to laugh themselves sick as they gorge themselves on the feast of stats tools provided by their blogging platform.  Here in the land of Blogger, there is the choice of a pen, paper and calculator or obtaining the PhD required of understanding Google Analytics.

So I'm not able to present a flashy Annual Report as my WordPress buddies are, however 2014 has been my blog's most successful year by far - gaining over 28,500 hits - so I thought a little celebration post listing the year's ten most popular posts was in order.

Here they are, in ascending order:

#10 Ticking off the To-Dos (March)

My March update on my New Year intentions.  I've no idea why this was so popular.  Behind it by just one view was my article in October, Is Sex in Second Life Pornography? which was much more interesting.

#9 Farewell Dave (May)

My farewell and eulogy to one of the most influential men in my life.

#8 Paraffin Winter (May)

My review of Peter Chowney's incredibly immersive novel.

#7 Could an office in Second Life 2 be the killer app that virtual reality is looking for? (July)

When we think of VR going mainstream, we imagine wondering around and interacting with each other in amazing photo-realistic environments.  All well and good, but a virtual office might also have much to promote it.  I seriously desire the set-up I describe here.

#6 Inventory: Your own personal ticking time bomb (June)

A discussion on how we own absolutely nothing in our SL inventories and how one day it will all be gone.  Interestingly, this issue became suddenly thrown into focus on the announcement (later that month) of a Linden successor to SL, since this news also served the purpose of highlighting to residents that SL will one day shut down.

#5 The second life of Second Life (February)

My thoughts on how the Oculus Rift will give SL a temporary second life, once it launches commercially.

#4 AFK, Indefinitely (2014) by Huckleberry Hax (February)

I published the third novel in the 'AFK' series in February.  The fourth is on its way.

#3 Linden Lab announce a successor to Second Life (June)

My thoughts on the Second Life news story of the year drew well over a thousand viewers.

#2 Twelve Pet Shop Boys songs expressed as charts, diagrams, etc (May)

I created this post whilst off work with a kidney stone and it provided a small amount of relief from the complete agony I was going through at the time.  It also proved to be a bit of a hit with the fine bunch of people who are Pet Shop Boys fans.

#1 Second Life 2 going alpha (January)

My most popular post of the year is, to be honest, a bit of a red herring.  I wrote this brief snippet to report on Philip Rosedale's 'High Fidelity' going into its alpha stage; at the time, the announcement by Linden of a successor to Second Life was months away and I chose the title because it sounded snappy.  Since Linden's announcement, however, it's drawn a high number of hits, presumably from search engine queries.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.

I'm glad to say that my #1 post doesn't account by itself for the success of the year (it would still be by far my blog's most successful year without that post).  It's also gratifying that many of the posts which didn't make it into the top ten still got a respectable number of hits compared to averages from previous years.

I'd like to thank all my readers for finding something of interest within these pages.  I'll continue to develop the blog in 2015 - its ninth year - and hope I'll see some of you make return visits during that time.  It looks set to be an exciting year potentially for virtual worlds and virtual reality.  Let's see what it brings.

Alt Out: A new short story

A new short story of mine has been published by Kate Bergdorf at The Virtual Review.  'Alt Out' is inspired by Isaac Asimov's series of 'Black Widowers' short mystery stories (only without the indirect male chauvinism); I plan on writing more and already have the rough plot of the next story worked out.

Raw Concrete, a builder in the metaverse, has been outed as an alt.  The only problem is, he doesn't know what it is that gave him away.  Can you work it out?

ePub update

'AFK, Again' and 'AFK, Indefinitely' are now available in ePub format.  For the moment, these can only be purchased from Smashwords, however the next few weeks should see their inclusion in the Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Blio and Apple online stores.  Both books retail for $0.99.

Beside an Open Window (2014) by Huckleberry H. Hax

Thirty years after his girlfriend persuaded him to get a brain scan with her, Jason Harlan wakes up in the metaverse to discover he's been dead for thirty years. But where exactly is Rachel Petstoof, now that her own death has triggered his activation? And who has the millions that Jason managed to accrue in his singing career? And what happened to him in the two years between his scan and the car crash in which he died?

In a thought-provoking portrait of a future in which the digital dead work and play alongside the living, 'Beside an Open Window' probes the nature of consciousness, of the sensory word we inhabit and the nature of human relationships.



Available formats:

Print:	Paperback (319 Pages): £8.99

Amazon Kindle: $2.99

Due to the way that Amazon operates in different countries, it's best if you obtain your copy of 'AFK, Again' from your 'local' Amazon website.

UK: amazon.co.uk	USA: amazon.com	France: amazon.fr	Spain: amazon.es
Canada: amazon.ca	Germany: amazon.de	Italy: amazon.it	Japan: amazon.co.jp

Support independent authors by leaving a rating/review

Independent authors don't have large advertising budgets; feedback and ratings, therefore, are the most effective way to show that their work is being purchased and enjoyed. If you have enjoyed this novel, please consider leaving a rating or review at Amazon or whichever other service you obtained it from. It will take you five minutes and cost you nothing, but will help me enormously. Thank you :)

Beside an Open Window: download it for free

I will be launching the Kindle version of 'Beside an Open Window', my latest novel, on Saturday 26 April.  The book will cost $2.99 to purchase, however for the first three days I will be offering it for free.

Please be aware: I will be uploading the book to Amazon this evening and it usually takes about 12 hours for approval; you might well, therefore, see the book appear over the next few days (ie, before Saturday).  The three day free copy offer, however, will only start from the moment I publish the official page for the book on this blog (some time on Saturday morning UK time).  I will also then post a reminder about the offer on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

If you take advantage of this offer - and I really hope that you do - please please please consider leaving a rating and mini review (a sentence is all that's required) at Amazon once you've read it.

Beside an Open Window: Cover art

After a great deal of Photoshopping, the cover design of 'Beside an Open Window' is finally done.

This is the cover for the print version, which will be available from lulu.com.  I'll be putting the finishing touches to the Kindle version over the next few days.  Stay tuned!

Coming soon: Beside an Open Window

As I announced last week, I'll soon be publishing a new novel, Beside an Open Window. This is a science fiction novel set sixty years into the future which takes place in a metaverse not entirely dissimilar to Second Life, except one of the key groups of residents in this world are people who have died in real life and uploaded to it a digital copy of their brain.

I say new; in fact, I wrote this book originally in 2009. Unlike my NaNoWriMo Second Life titles (which are written in a month), Beside an Open Window took me the best part of six months. I also read it through completely in SL - twice - to get listener feedback.  I think Beside an Open Window is the best thing I've ever written - which I say not to boast, but by means of an explanation as to why I haven't so far published it online.  My original plan was to get it published 'traditionally'.  Well, I sent it to a couple of agents and you can probably guess what happened.

So I let it gather virtual dust, always meaning to get around to send it off to someone new and not quite achieving this (ie, not achieving it at all).  I decided to read it through again in January (whilst I waited for my draft copy of 'AFK, Indefinitely' to arrive).  Not having looked at it for the best part of three years turned me into a far more critical reader of my own work than I would otherwise have managed and I decided it needed a major edit.  The first half of the book in particular contained some really lazy passages and I spent about a fortnight cutting these down and rewriting them, in the end reducing the novel length by over a thousand words.  I'm now really happy with the final version.

A lot has happened in the publishing world since 2009, not least of which is the rise of the Kindle ebook. I've decided, therefore, that I'm going to publish BAOW exclusively to Kindle in the first instance, taking advantage of their 'KDP Select' programme.  This will mean a higher price than my normal Kindle books ($2.99 is the minimum price on KDP Select), but will also enable me to give it away for free for up to five days.  I'll use up the first couple of those days when I announce publication and keep the rest back for future promotions.  If you're a Kindle owner, therefore (and that includes all Android and Apple tablet users, who can download a free Kindle app for their device), keep an eye out for the publication date if you would like a free copy of the novel.

To warm you up (and whilst I get to work actually preparing the Kindle version), I'll be publishing a couple of articles over the next couple of weeks exploring some of the issues raised by the novel.  'Metaverse and Death' will be the first of these, which I'll publish this coming weekend.  Enjoy!

Video above by Tom Scott.

Ticking off the To-Dos

I'm working my way gradually through my list of 2014 stuff to get done from this post.

'AFK, Indefinitely' is now released and has had its first - five star - review on Amazon.com (which I'm very grateful for).

I also launched (quietly) last month my new website for my 'HHax' range of 60s and 70s furniture and electricals, which you can visit via the new 'HHax' tab in the menu bar of this page. In addition to product-related posts, I plan on flooding this with associated memorabilia (advertisements, brochures, photographs, packaging, and so on), the principle reason for this being that I just plain adore it all and have been looking for an excuse to post stuff like this for ages.

Thank you so much to the 300 plus readers of my "Second life of Second Life" article.  I wasn't certain how many readers a new SL article would attract now that AVENUE is on its hiatus, so this was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

I'll soon be turning my attention back to 'SIM', the novella I mentioned in January. In the meantime, however, I've decided to release finally online my novel 'Beside an Open Window', which I wrote in 2009.  I'll post more news on this shortly.

AFK, Indefinitely (2014) by Huckleberry Hax

This was it. This was what I'd wanted all those years. I'd given up all hope and now it was actually happening. It was actually happening. How many times had I dreamed of having her in my arms like this, if only for one more time. And here she was. Right now.

STEP STRANSKY IS DEAD

And everyone knows now it was murder. And everyone knows now it was Definitely Thursday who murdered him. Can Thursday stay ahead of the law long enough to complete one last mission in the metaverse?

'AFK, Indefinitely' is the latest entry by Huckleberry Hax to the 'AFK' series. See also 'AFK' and 'AFK, Again'.



Available formats:

Print:	Paperback (273 Pages): £8.99
Online:	Issuu: Free

Amazon Kindle: $0.99

Due to the way that Amazon operates in different countries, it's best if you obtain your copy of 'AFK, Again' from your 'local' Amazon website.

UK: amazon.co.uk	USA: amazon.com	France: amazon.fr	Spain: amazon.es
Canada: amazon.ca	Germany: amazon.de	Italy: amazon.it	Japan: amazon.co.jp

ePub: $0.99

'AFK, Indefinitely' is available from a number of different ePub retailers:

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble (TBC)

Kobo (TBC)

Blio (TBC)

Support independent authors by leaving a rating/review

Independent authors don't have large advertising budgets; feedback and ratings, therefore, are the most effective way to show that their work is being purchased and enjoyed. If you have enjoyed this novel, please consider leaving a rating or review at Amazon or whichever other service you obtained it from. It will take you five minutes and cost you nothing, but will help me enormously. Thank you :)

Final edit completed on 'AFK, Indefinitely'

Just the damn Kindle version to do now.

The (hopefully) final version of 'AFK, Indefinitely' got uploaded to Lulu today and a fresh copy ordered.  I always work on the paperback copy first, because that means I get to hold a printed draft copy in my hands to make final edits on (as seen above); there's a transformation that happens some place in my brain when it's a thing I can put on my bookshelf rather than a file stored somewhere on my hard drive.  It becomes a book.

That just leaves the job of Kindle formatting it, which essentially involves nuking the book's formatting completely and starting all over.  Fun fun fun.  Once that's done, and uploaded to Amazon, I'll make the paperback public and publish a dedicated web page, where you'll also - as always - be able to read the book online for free.  Stay tuned, Thursday fans!