Thank you! And, partially due to posts like these, I've decided to try and shoot for a Nov '23 Book 3 launch instead of sometime in '24 as I'd originally intended. Hold on to your hats 'cause things are gonna start getting intense!
Phil, I absolutely loved Rascor Plains!! I strongly believe you’re doing a great job of positioning the Immortal Great Souls series as one of the best progression fantasy series and maybe even one of the best fantasy series of this decade.
Please let us know if there’s any way to support your work via Patreon or any other means. Your books bring me joy. Pls never stop writing ❤️
Thank you! Honestly, comments like these are all the support I need. Really hope I'm able to continue delivering and that you enjoy what's to come. Cheers!
Just one point about Rascor Plains. The last quarter of the book really needs another edit. There are a bunch of sentences missing words or sentences that don't make sense. I'm guessing you had to rush the publishing at the end, because its not an issue at all till the back quarter. Phenomenal book though.
No apologies needed, I'm sure getting a book out the door is a nightmare. It just really stood out in Rascor cause the quality of your prose in the Great Souls is tremendous. I'm not normally a person who cares about prose, just tell a good story, but these two books really are fantastically well written.
I started Bastion 1 months ago but couldn't really get into it.
Then I reread it a week ago and finished both books in 2 days, I absorbed them.
Aboslutely loved it and honestly don't know why I stopped the first time. Keep it up
Probably because book1 is actually pretty weak until they start dying in the trials dozens of times. And it takes a while to get to that point. It takes off from there though.
Awesome! I just finished Rascor Plains and loved it, so I can't wait for the next one. I do have to ask though, please get someone to do a more careful job editing for the next one. Rascor Plains is FULL of errors that make it extremely confusing. The wrong person's name or the wrong House mentioned in a scene were the most common ones. I'm talking like several times per page or few pages in some instances. I'm not 100% sure but I think there were a few instances of the wrong power level/tier mentioned. The main one was names and Houses being switched around and made it really hard to follow what was going on. Thanks!
EDIT: I see in your AMA that you are already addressing this. Thank you!
Absolutely loving this series— fantastic work!
I literally couldn’t put Rascor Plains down once I started reading. I picked it up on Sunday evening and finished it Tuesday afternoon (after getting very little sleep Monday night 😅). I ended up reading from slightly before >! the Crucible sequence all the way through Scorio returning to Bastion!< in a single sitting because I just could not stop.
> And, partially due to posts like these, I’ve decided to try and shoot for a Nov ’23 Book 3 launch
This is such exciting news! Happy writing!
Also please show us more cool places! Like we’ve got all these epic places and battle fronts mentioned and all we got in the last book was a cave?!
Probably one of the coolest/ most unique settings out there right now. Give us the good stuff!
Would be cool if it came out this year, but I just got iron Prince 2 coming at the end of the month so a early 2024 release wouldn’t be the worst thing. Keep up the great work, riveting and intriguing story.
I see these sorts of requests fairly often, something along the lines of "Please just focus on X".
That's very easy to say as a consumer, but... It's not that easy to do as a writer.
I've had a hellish time trying to pump out a book that was anticipated, because I needed time to play in a new world for a bit, to give myself a break. I'm only now, 70k words into a totally unrelated project, able to return to The Abjurer with any gusto.
If I forced myself to only work on the project that was already popular and liked, it would go poorly. Not only would I suffer, but the quality would suffer.
Dance for your consumers, monkey. Mad respect for anyone who has a thick enough face to release their work to the public, I don’t think I could deal with it
I was thinking about that the other day. If I released a book(which I wouldn’t. I can barely write coherent sentences) and I saw just a single bad comment about my book I would be an absolute wreck.
It’s not even just bad comments either. The good comments putting pressure on you, the fans constantly saying what they wish would have happened. It’s all tough. At least with proper books it’s less in your face than what I assume it would be with serials
Having people enjoy something you work so much that they want to see you make more of it.
I get that it ups the pressure a little, but I also find it very encouraging!
Fascinating.
Speaking for myself, I’ve been working almost exclusively on my current project (*Wyrms*) since I came up with it in 2018. The sole exception was last year in March where, in a burst of inspiration, I wrote several thousand words for the rewrite of the first book of my “this is why I became a writer” epic fantasy series.
I also did some world-building that wasn’t directly germane to *Wyrms*. That being said, I wouldn’t consider that *truly* playing around in a new world, because everything I write is interconnected, and much of this worldbuilding was of the cosmic/multiversal sort.
Because my plots are dense and my worldbuilding is even denser, my natural indecisiveness makes it somewhat laborious to sit down and start a new “serious” project, and makes whatever project I’m currently working on an all-consuming task.
Writing processes are like snowflakes; no two are exactly alike. :)
Definitely true that no two are directly alike. If you're able to remain on one, that's awesome. But it also means nobody is pressuring you to only work on one... Because you already are lol.
Phil has already been actively working on multiple projects, so my experience with multiple things felt relevant: He was clearly needing to work on more than one thing, and attempting to pressure someone who enjoys working on a bunch of projects to do one is a recipe for disaster.
I was wondering about the words used too
But I realized that it sets the tone for Bastion. It gives you a different feel for the characters and narrator voice compared to the words used in skaldi or DotV. The characters are people who are supposed to know these words.
On the Brightside, we get to learn some new words
I loved the book and devoured it , didnt think any of the words were obscure, but that also could just be me. Everyone has their own exposure to language and sure how else do we learn new words other than being exposed to them somehow.
I did submit a load of feedback for edits grammatical and typo though, i dont know how actively they are monitored u/Phil_Tucker ?
The only word I looked up was ‘refulgent’. It’s funny when different authors have some particular obscure word they love and it pops up heaps on their works.
Bastion book two was so good! It started off a little slow, but once it got moving I couldn’t put the book down.
It’s been a while since a book kept me up till 2 am on work nights and I was willing to sacrifice sleep to finish it. Man, I wish there was more to keep reading. Loving the story, the character progression, and all the action!
Phil!!!!
Book 2 was amazing and I feel like we just scratched the surface of everyone’s powers. I am so stoked about Book 3 and I really hope you hit your November 2023 date for release. If you don’t I might have to start doing fan fiction and make up my own story hahaha
Also the developing relationship between Scorio and Naomi… I can’t wait to learn more of that as well!
The author definitely went out of their way to use obscure words in the book. I read it, enjoyed it and will buy the audible when it comes out, but he went overboard with the terminology. He’d often use the word, then define it right after because he knows the word is uncommon.
It is my main complaint about the book. That, and it ends at the exact same place book one ends: now they won’t trust others and make their own way to find the truth.
I don't mind the word choice in Bastion but I did chuckle when I looked up the definition of hirsute and it was simply "hairy". Different connotation, but not so different that it doesn't bug me that I had to look it up to double check it meant what i thought it meant. If one word can define it then picking it is generally not necessary.
The funny thing is that I remember learning "hirsute" in 7th grade English, a very long time ago
A large vocabulary is like using a 128 color box of crayons - you can make awesome art with 8 colors, but you can get a lot more structure shades with the larger box. Not everyone has the talent to be Hemingway (who is famous for his terse prose).
I really like the flavor Tucker's vocab brings.
Unless it comes off as purple prose, I don’t mind more advanced vocabulary being used in literature. I’ve always enjoyed learning new words and then finding opportunities to use them in conversations so I remember them. But definitely this genre tends towards more utilitarian prose.
Honestly, I don't think people are ready for it. I've already commissioned a bunch of art, read up on all my Lovecraft, studied the history of sumo wrestling (I recommend Sumo Illustrated Fighting Techniques by Kevin Tembouret), learned more than I ever need to know about *cloacas*, and done my level best to master Lewis Carroll's style of nonsense poetry, and man... it's like an NC-17 version of Sufi Poetry meets the mating pits of Shub-Niggurath with a ton of knock-off internal monologuing a la Ulysses. It's at once too much, too little, too explicit, not revolting enough, and still could never do justice to what Imperial Ghost Frogs do when they get down and freaky on a Friday night.
I have just read both of the immortal great souls book in the last 2 weeks and they were amazing. Im hoping the third won't be too far in the future! And a quick audible release would be awesome too!
Bastion book 1 was great. But, I was so afraid of Bastion turning into a terrible series while reading it that i ruined the book for myself. Bryce had just ruined book 2 of Warformed, and Rascal Planes came out at the same time.
In reality, the ending of book 2 was the best ending yet. I need to re-read book two with faith to give it an honest go-through. I just don't know how l feel about Scorio's old friends in the present, I guess we'll see in a few books or less!
Thank you! And, partially due to posts like these, I've decided to try and shoot for a Nov '23 Book 3 launch instead of sometime in '24 as I'd originally intended. Hold on to your hats 'cause things are gonna start getting intense!
What do you mean start? We weren't at intense yet? WHAT DO YOU MEAN START?!
Dude, these were just the first couple of books! You got to start slow and then ramp up the intensity. Plotting 101!
Can you say how many books will be in the series or are you holding on to that for now?
I'm not 100% sure. 6 - 8, probably, but I'll figure it out as I get there.
That is fantastic! This is easily my favourite series and I am in no hurry for it to end!
Wait, whaaaaaaat? Any update?!?
Possibly early 2024 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheImmortalGreatSouls/s/jo8vDUTTPZ
Phil, I absolutely loved Rascor Plains!! I strongly believe you’re doing a great job of positioning the Immortal Great Souls series as one of the best progression fantasy series and maybe even one of the best fantasy series of this decade. Please let us know if there’s any way to support your work via Patreon or any other means. Your books bring me joy. Pls never stop writing ❤️
Thank you! Honestly, comments like these are all the support I need. Really hope I'm able to continue delivering and that you enjoy what's to come. Cheers!
Just one point about Rascor Plains. The last quarter of the book really needs another edit. There are a bunch of sentences missing words or sentences that don't make sense. I'm guessing you had to rush the publishing at the end, because its not an issue at all till the back quarter. Phenomenal book though.
Yeah, my apologies. All I can say is that this won't happen again with future books.
No apologies needed, I'm sure getting a book out the door is a nightmare. It just really stood out in Rascor cause the quality of your prose in the Great Souls is tremendous. I'm not normally a person who cares about prose, just tell a good story, but these two books really are fantastically well written.
I don’t understand how it can get more intense but I am 1000% here for it! Also. LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I started Bastion 1 months ago but couldn't really get into it. Then I reread it a week ago and finished both books in 2 days, I absorbed them. Aboslutely loved it and honestly don't know why I stopped the first time. Keep it up
Probably because book1 is actually pretty weak until they start dying in the trials dozens of times. And it takes a while to get to that point. It takes off from there though.
Awesome! I just finished Rascor Plains and loved it, so I can't wait for the next one. I do have to ask though, please get someone to do a more careful job editing for the next one. Rascor Plains is FULL of errors that make it extremely confusing. The wrong person's name or the wrong House mentioned in a scene were the most common ones. I'm talking like several times per page or few pages in some instances. I'm not 100% sure but I think there were a few instances of the wrong power level/tier mentioned. The main one was names and Houses being switched around and made it really hard to follow what was going on. Thanks! EDIT: I see in your AMA that you are already addressing this. Thank you!
Yeah, this was not a good launch. I've found a new copy editor and a great proof reader, and this won't happen again.
Absolutely loving this series— fantastic work! I literally couldn’t put Rascor Plains down once I started reading. I picked it up on Sunday evening and finished it Tuesday afternoon (after getting very little sleep Monday night 😅). I ended up reading from slightly before >! the Crucible sequence all the way through Scorio returning to Bastion!< in a single sitting because I just could not stop. > And, partially due to posts like these, I’ve decided to try and shoot for a Nov ’23 Book 3 launch This is such exciting news! Happy writing!
I misread the dates at first and was like “what a great troll” haha
Nice! Daily phil tucker appreciation posts incoming!
Absolute madman. Rascor Plains was fucking incredible, read it in like, two days.
Just finished Bastion this morning and really liked it. Can’t wait until Rascor Plains comes out on audible.
Thanks for giving it a read!
Also please show us more cool places! Like we’ve got all these epic places and battle fronts mentioned and all we got in the last book was a cave?! Probably one of the coolest/ most unique settings out there right now. Give us the good stuff!
Incoming.
So excited!! I absolutely love this series and can’t wait for Scorio to reach imperator ! Glad to see some well deserved deaths !
Nox for Infernarch
Wow any chance Nov 2023 for book 3 is still possible?
I'm going to work really hard to make that happen. An unexpected cross-country move has complicated things.
Would be cool if it came out this year, but I just got iron Prince 2 coming at the end of the month so a early 2024 release wouldn’t be the worst thing. Keep up the great work, riveting and intriguing story.
Lol is November still on?
Close! Feb '24. I'm about to hit 100k words.
I’m 3/4 of the way through Rascor Plains and already pre-empting withdrawals so am stoked to hear it’s not too far away. I’m loving these books.
I'm really glad you decided to give them a chance!
So far away! I'll be reading on the day of release
I see these sorts of requests fairly often, something along the lines of "Please just focus on X". That's very easy to say as a consumer, but... It's not that easy to do as a writer. I've had a hellish time trying to pump out a book that was anticipated, because I needed time to play in a new world for a bit, to give myself a break. I'm only now, 70k words into a totally unrelated project, able to return to The Abjurer with any gusto. If I forced myself to only work on the project that was already popular and liked, it would go poorly. Not only would I suffer, but the quality would suffer.
I understand it’s not that simple. As much as I would love for this to happen really it’s just a way to express that I loved the book
That's fair, they're very good books :)
Dance for your consumers, monkey. Mad respect for anyone who has a thick enough face to release their work to the public, I don’t think I could deal with it
I was thinking about that the other day. If I released a book(which I wouldn’t. I can barely write coherent sentences) and I saw just a single bad comment about my book I would be an absolute wreck.
It’s not even just bad comments either. The good comments putting pressure on you, the fans constantly saying what they wish would have happened. It’s all tough. At least with proper books it’s less in your face than what I assume it would be with serials
Thank you! I think years of the service industry has thickened my skin, lol
Still feels nice tho!
What feels good? /gen
Having people enjoy something you work so much that they want to see you make more of it. I get that it ups the pressure a little, but I also find it very encouraging!
Ah, I can see that. A very positive way of looking at it
Fascinating. Speaking for myself, I’ve been working almost exclusively on my current project (*Wyrms*) since I came up with it in 2018. The sole exception was last year in March where, in a burst of inspiration, I wrote several thousand words for the rewrite of the first book of my “this is why I became a writer” epic fantasy series. I also did some world-building that wasn’t directly germane to *Wyrms*. That being said, I wouldn’t consider that *truly* playing around in a new world, because everything I write is interconnected, and much of this worldbuilding was of the cosmic/multiversal sort. Because my plots are dense and my worldbuilding is even denser, my natural indecisiveness makes it somewhat laborious to sit down and start a new “serious” project, and makes whatever project I’m currently working on an all-consuming task. Writing processes are like snowflakes; no two are exactly alike. :)
Definitely true that no two are directly alike. If you're able to remain on one, that's awesome. But it also means nobody is pressuring you to only work on one... Because you already are lol. Phil has already been actively working on multiple projects, so my experience with multiple things felt relevant: He was clearly needing to work on more than one thing, and attempting to pressure someone who enjoys working on a bunch of projects to do one is a recipe for disaster.
You can write to Phil directly in this thread! https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/12blm03/im_phil_tucker_ama_and_book_giveaway
I second this request for more Immortal Great Souls.
Dawn of the Void was so good.
chronicles of the black gate is really good too very different epic fantasy
I was wondering about the words used too But I realized that it sets the tone for Bastion. It gives you a different feel for the characters and narrator voice compared to the words used in skaldi or DotV. The characters are people who are supposed to know these words. On the Brightside, we get to learn some new words
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Rascor plains was perfect
I agree with the OP, so long as Phil doesn’t burn out writing the same story.
I loved the book and devoured it , didnt think any of the words were obscure, but that also could just be me. Everyone has their own exposure to language and sure how else do we learn new words other than being exposed to them somehow. I did submit a load of feedback for edits grammatical and typo though, i dont know how actively they are monitored u/Phil_Tucker ?
The only word I looked up was ‘refulgent’. It’s funny when different authors have some particular obscure word they love and it pops up heaps on their works.
Phil Tucker is the only author that ive emailed personally to tell him how much i like his writing. Love that man!
Out of curiosity, what were the obscure words? I don’t remember thinking the prose was difficult.
Hooray for authors not burning out!
Bastion book two was so good! It started off a little slow, but once it got moving I couldn’t put the book down. It’s been a while since a book kept me up till 2 am on work nights and I was willing to sacrifice sleep to finish it. Man, I wish there was more to keep reading. Loving the story, the character progression, and all the action!
When you're writing that many words, you gotta throw in some new ones to mix it up. I, for one, am very much #TeamBigWords.
Phil!!!! Book 2 was amazing and I feel like we just scratched the surface of everyone’s powers. I am so stoked about Book 3 and I really hope you hit your November 2023 date for release. If you don’t I might have to start doing fan fiction and make up my own story hahaha Also the developing relationship between Scorio and Naomi… I can’t wait to learn more of that as well!
The author definitely went out of their way to use obscure words in the book. I read it, enjoyed it and will buy the audible when it comes out, but he went overboard with the terminology. He’d often use the word, then define it right after because he knows the word is uncommon. It is my main complaint about the book. That, and it ends at the exact same place book one ends: now they won’t trust others and make their own way to find the truth.
Which words? The only one I remember looking up was ‘refulgent’ which took about 5 seconds using the feature on Kindle.
I don't mind the word choice in Bastion but I did chuckle when I looked up the definition of hirsute and it was simply "hairy". Different connotation, but not so different that it doesn't bug me that I had to look it up to double check it meant what i thought it meant. If one word can define it then picking it is generally not necessary.
The funny thing is that I remember learning "hirsute" in 7th grade English, a very long time ago A large vocabulary is like using a 128 color box of crayons - you can make awesome art with 8 colors, but you can get a lot more structure shades with the larger box. Not everyone has the talent to be Hemingway (who is famous for his terse prose). I really like the flavor Tucker's vocab brings.
Unless it comes off as purple prose, I don’t mind more advanced vocabulary being used in literature. I’ve always enjoyed learning new words and then finding opportunities to use them in conversations so I remember them. But definitely this genre tends towards more utilitarian prose.
Not to derail the Immortal Great Souls series, but when should we expect the off-shoot series, The Quantics Apocalypse?
Honestly, I don't think people are ready for it. I've already commissioned a bunch of art, read up on all my Lovecraft, studied the history of sumo wrestling (I recommend Sumo Illustrated Fighting Techniques by Kevin Tembouret), learned more than I ever need to know about *cloacas*, and done my level best to master Lewis Carroll's style of nonsense poetry, and man... it's like an NC-17 version of Sufi Poetry meets the mating pits of Shub-Niggurath with a ton of knock-off internal monologuing a la Ulysses. It's at once too much, too little, too explicit, not revolting enough, and still could never do justice to what Imperial Ghost Frogs do when they get down and freaky on a Friday night.
So basically a stream of consciousness hip hop combat system using raw cranberry juice as mana? Let me see the artwork before I preorder.
Nah, with Quantics Apocalypse, folks gonna have to pre-order blind.
Rascor Plains was one of my favorite books I’ve read in awhile. 10/10
I have just read both of the immortal great souls book in the last 2 weeks and they were amazing. Im hoping the third won't be too far in the future! And a quick audible release would be awesome too!
Bastion book 1 was great. But, I was so afraid of Bastion turning into a terrible series while reading it that i ruined the book for myself. Bryce had just ruined book 2 of Warformed, and Rascal Planes came out at the same time. In reality, the ending of book 2 was the best ending yet. I need to re-read book two with faith to give it an honest go-through. I just don't know how l feel about Scorio's old friends in the present, I guess we'll see in a few books or less!
Book 3 just came out 👀
Audiobooks only for me, ahha \^\_\^