Happy? Holidays

Howdy howdy, squiders! How are you? Going insane? I may be. Not sure. There does seem to be an endless amount of things needing to be done that are only very slowly getting done.

(For example, tomorrow I will need to pick up the Christmas coffee cake from the bakery, get my dad’s present ready as he’s coming by, and probably I just need to wrap everything else so I can clear out the guest room for my mom to stay the night. Yay.)

I heard something on the radio last week that said that men tend to enjoy the holidays more than women, because women tend to do all the prep work and stressful things, and men just enjoy. And not to be a stereotype, but yes, absolutely. There’s got to be a better way to manage this, but I don’t know what it is.

I am managing to get some non-holiday things done, though. I’ve revised chapters 17 and 18 (which reminds me, I should email chapters out to my critique group for January’s meeting) and I got through all the other people’s mini-marathon contributions. (Only 2, but at 50+ pages each it does take a minute.) AND everyone’s done mine, and generally it sounds like no one saw anything major, so I’ve made a note to go through their comments next week and get ready for the winter marathon, which starts on Jan 3.

All in all, not terrible for December, which is notoriously one of my worst months for productivity. And I’m trying out a new To Do app on my phone, which is going rather well (for the week I’ve had it, anyway). I traditionally use Todoist, but sometimes it gets a little overwhelming if things are building up. I’m trying Microsoft To Do in addition. With To Do, you only see one day and you can pick what’s on there, so I can manage my stress a little better.

I am going to take next week off the blog though–catch up on some things, spend some time with my family, read a book or two, ponder goals for 2024, that sort of thing.

Have a happy holidays, squiders, whatever you celebrate. I’ll see you in the new year.

Promo: A Curse of Magick by Diane Gallagher

Good morning, squiders! We’re less than a week out from Christmas, for those who celebrate, so hopefully your stress levels are relatively low. I’ve reached a general state of low-level panic, which is just going to be what it is.

Today I’ve got a promo for you! Take a look and see if it sounds good to you (or if it sounds like a nice present for someone on your list)!



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Diane Gallagher will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

“A desperate princess, a handsome warrior, and an ancient magick to determine their fate.”

As daughter to the High King, love doesn’t come easily to Gráinne. Having turned down hundreds of suitors, she is being forced to marry Finn, an old, ugly yet powerful general. While outside the marriage hall, Gráinne bumps into Diarmuid, Finn’s handsome foster son. From that moment, Gráinne knows if she is to have any chance at love, he is the one she must marry. She begs him to take her away from this unwanted wedding. When Diarmuid refuses, Gráinne, desperate, places a curse on him; help her or die.

Diarmuid is a warrior who only wants to serve loyally, but when the princess sets her sights on him and casts her curse, he must make the most difficult choice of his life. Does he help her, taking their chances with a vengeful Finn, or does her refuse her, leaving her to her fate, and risking his own death?

With both their lives on the line, Gráinne and Diarmuid must fight to use Ireland’s ancient magick to escape from Finn, either bringing them together in passion or in death.

A Curse of Magick is a passionate tale of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption. A retelling of an ancient Irish myth, A Curse of Magick takes the love and romance of Romeo and Juliet, and the exhilaration of King Arthur, and mixes it together for a satisfying adventure all will love.


Read an Excerpt

“Look, up ahead. It’s the River Shannon.” Sure enough, Gráinne had caught a glimpse of the river sparkling in the distance.

“Then, come on,” Diarmuid shouted as he galloped past her.

Without need of encouragement, Fáelán took off at a gallop close behind Diarmuid.

“Come on, Fáelán, don’t let him beat us,” Gráinne shouted. She felt Fáelán respond beneath her, and they rode as one, hoofbeats hot on the trail of Diarmuid. With each drum of the horse’s hooves on the hardpacked road, Fáelán drew closer and closer until they were even. From the corner of her eye, she saw Diarmuid glance over at her, a grin on his handsome face and one hand holding his cap tight on his head.

“Hyaa!” he shouted, urging his own horse on.

Gráinne grinned. She knew Fáelán was a match for any other beast. As if he knew her thoughts, Fáelán leapt forward in a new burst of energy at Diarmuid’s shout, and pulled ahead, leaving Diarmuid and his horse behind. They rounded a bend and came to a skidding stop right at the edge of the river, with Diarmuid close behind.

Gráinne slid from Fáelán’s back, both of them panting hard. Diarmuid jumped from his horse and landed hard on the grassy bank. He stumbled towards Gráinne, catching his footing just before knocking into her. She watched him struggle to his feet and face her, a breathless grin stretched across his face. She grinned back and they stood, face to face for a few moments, gulping at the cool morning air.

About the Author:


Diane Gallagher is a novelist and Druid priest. She is the author of three novels: A Curse of Magick, Greenwich List, and the Bastard of Saint Genevra. She has long roots stretching into her Celtic past, although she splits her life between two islands—Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada, and Sicily off the toe of Italy’s boot. She writes young adult romance based on ancient Celtic myths of the powerful women of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. She currently teaches creative writing at Cherry Hill Seminary.




See you later this week, squiders!

WriYe and End Times

Hey ho, squiders. How are you? I’m attempting to re-upload one of my SkillShare classes, but the videos are uploading blurry and I can’t figure out why. The originals aren’t blurry, and half the ones that got uploaded are fine. Very frustrating, I don’t have time for this crap.

Working on Chapter 18 of the revision. (There’s thirty chapters, for reference, though I think I may need to add a new one in.) That’s going fine except I’m in an occasional phase I go through where all my sentences sound stupid even though they’re actually fine. Good times. Halfway through one of the other people’s critiques for the mini-marathon.

Have lost track of who I still need to get Christmas presents for, but I hope to wrap some later which should help me remember.

Anyway, let’s do our final WriYe blog prompt for the year.

Sum up your year for us.

It’s December, so it’s That Time. And it makes for easy blog topics at this point every year.

2023 has been, well, very stressful. There was the flood in May and the tornado in June, our furnace died in…Sept? We had to figure out which middle school to send the bigger, mobile one to for next year (good news–he got into the one we wanted. Bad news–no bus.) which is more difficult than usual since he’s 2e. Someone ran into my car in a parking lot two weeks ago. There’s major personnel changes happening at work, which may affect my own role. Both small, mobile ones have had two emergencies this year (one that actually required an ambulance).

I’m just…I’m tired.

Writing wise, well, I hunted down my goals for the year. I did think I was going to get completely through my Book 1 revision, and perhaps another revision, or two! Plus putting together submission materials and actually submitting them. (Here on the blog I thought three whole revisions and submission materials, plus something new for Nano. At WriYe I only committed to two, with the third optional, and then outlining a whole series, revising the first book of that, and THEN writing something new for Nano. On my spreadsheet I had four revisions in the wings.)

(Apparently I forgot how long it takes me to revise. Like, seriously, what was I thinking? Ah, the optimism of late December/early January.)

I also was going to release my novella Deep and Blue (originally released in serial installments), which I did not do but could do pretty easily. I’ll move that to early next year and hopefully remember to do it this time.

I also wrote Across Worlds with You in April, which was not on my list of goals and which has been releasing serially since June, and I sold two short stories.

As for the revisions, well, Book 1 is going well. We’re over halfway done, I’ve been getting feedback on it which is generally positive and has definitely helped me make it better (though maybe slowed the progress down a bit), and I can see the end in sight. I can’t be too sad about it not being done yet. It will be done eventually. And hopefully this is the last major revision I ever have to do on it, though that, too, is sad in its own way.

(There’s always a bit of sadness at the end of a project, a feeling of “what now?” And since I’ve been working on Book 1 on and off for twenty years, I imagine it will hit harder than usual.)

So, hoorah, 2023.

And I shall withhold judgment on 2024 until we get there. Just in case.

Because the last time I was really excited about the possibility of a new year, it was 2019, going into 2020, and we all know how that went.

All right, squiders, see you later!

Promo: Heart Stealer by Melody Wiklund (Review)

Good morning, squiders! Today I’ve got an interesting fantasy novel for you! The concept was so intriguing I asked for and got a copy to review, so scroll to the end to see what I thought!


Fantasy

Date Published: 12-08-2023

 

 

Without a heart, death and love are equally impossible.

James’s heart has been stolen. He knows because he got stabbed in the chest and didn’t even bleed. On the plus side, he isn’t dead! On the minus side, whoever has his heart can control him, and until he gets the heart back, he is incapable of feeling love for anyone but the thief. Whoever that may be.

He has to get the heart back, and quickly. But with an assassin in the mix, and a vengeful ex-lover, and a suspicious fiancée, and no idea who to trust or where to look, the task won’t be easy. Especially when, with a stolen heart, he can’t even really trust himself.

 

 

About the Author

Melody Wiklund is a writer of fantasy and occasionally romance. In her free time, she loves knitting and watching Chinese dramas. And she’s never summoned a spirit or an assassin… or at least so she claims.

 

Contact Links

Website

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Purchase Links

Amazon

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iBooks

BookShop

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

RABT Book Tours & PR

Review:

I don’t tend to accept books for review when I do the promos, but I found this concept so interesting. Not sure what it was exactly–the missing heart? The assassin? The cover? (The artwork looks very similar to a friend of mine’s style but apparently is not.)

Anyway, I was interested, and then I got the book in the mail a few weeks later and had completely forgotten I asked for it, and it took me a moment to remember why I had an unexpected book.

This was a quick, interesting read! It’s not terribly plot heavy, but instead spends time exploring each of the characters involved in the interesting matter of James’s missing heart. The world-building is subtle but complex, and the world feels real and believable. Some of the concepts throughout, such as Poor Jane and Cruel Therese, are the kind of interesting mythology that I really dig.

We get to the heart (pun intended) of the matter pretty quickly. When an assassin tries to kill James, they both discover his heart no longer resides in his body. Each chapter is told in a different viewpoint, including (but not limited to): James himself, his would-be assassin Natty, his fiancée, and his jilted lover. Each character is treated as important and we get a good sense of their lives and how they’ve arrived at this place. And each character is different and varied, and each of them adds to the layers of the story.

The plot itself I found a tad predictable, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (as a writer it tends to be very hard to surprise me, and I have just gotten use to that). But it flows well and kept me engaged and entertained all the way through.

So if you’re looking for a vaguely Victorian fantasy with a hint of mystery, interesting characters, and some neat curses, I’d say take a look at this one!

See you next week, squiders!

Oh no, December

Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, but my month-long Nano streak has died. This happens every year.

Well, I mean, not exactly, I don’t normally work every day in November either. I did this year, but that’s the exception to the rule. But generally no matter how well (or not well) November has gone, I just can’t seem to keep going once December hits.

But anyway, I worked on my story a bit on Friday/Saturday, but not really–I re-read what I had thus far and made a list of chapter summaries, to give out to my critique groups, for people who either haven’t read the earlier chapters or have forgotten what happened. That took…longer than expected. I think I got maybe two sentences of actual progress.

Sunday I played video games all day and was generally not productive.

Yesterday I worked on a couple of side projects and other things I’ve been neglecting, and randomly possibly solved a Book 2 plot issue that has long been a problem for future!Kit. It will need to be explored further, but that is also a problem for future!Kit.

Today is just a mess, and then we’ve got to get serious on Christmas.

I mean, that really is the issue every year. Christmas just requires…so much. I’ve got to figure out presents to give everyone, but I’ve also got to figure out enough of a Christmas list for the rest of the family so I can give suggestions to other family members about what to get my family. (The old just have everyone make a Christmas list thing doesn’t work. Oh no, we can’t possibly risk people potentially buying the same things and…um, probably best to just cut this line of thought off here.) There’s decorations and Christmas cards and pageants and concerts and special events, and yet we’ve still got to bake in enough family time to make sure we’re really getting into the holiday spirit.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas. Or at least the idea of Christmas. But it is exhausting.

(I’ve yet to buy stuff for my work Secret Santa but apparently everyone else has, so that’s adding stress too. I’d like to get to it today but I just really don’t see how that’s going to happen.)

The good news is I’m far enough ahead in the revision that I don’t have to worry about having stuff ready for my critique groups (my in-person one isn’t meeting til January anyway, but I do need to spend some time doing critiques for the December mini-marathon). But it is still hard when I have been on a roll to see that momentum die.

Oh well. What’s a girl to do?

There’s normally some added stress from looking back at what I wanted to get done this year vs what I actually did get done. Luckily this year I was pretty good about it, and didn’t set myself up for failure. My goal was to finish my revision, and while I’m not done, I have written 70K on it, which is more than half, and I’ve gotten good feedback, so it is going well. And progress is the most important thing. So I don’t feel the need to stuff in a couple more resolutions here at the end of the year.

Good job, past!Kit.

Anyway, I’ve just got to remember to give myself some grace, and not stress out too much, and let the month flow the way it needs to.

I’ve got a promo with a review for you on Thursday. See you then!

NaNoWriMo Wrap-up

Yes, I realize there’s still a day left in the month, but I don’t think anything especially interesting is going to happen in the next 26-ish hours.

So, yesterday I hit 50K words. In reality this is about 25K of actual words, with the other 25K being paper edits, readthroughs, tweaking, and other revision-related work that doesn’t equate to straight word count. It’s four or five complete chapters (I don’t remember what chapter I was on when the month started) which is a pretty good clip, especially since several of them required massive streamlining.

So I feel pretty good about how productive I’ve been this month! Definitely made good progress, and I’ve hit the halfway point in the story, so everything delightfully gets to fall apart now.

Something that I’ve done this year that I’ve not done in previous years is work at least a little bit every single day. This is no doubt helping with the progress. And it’s certainly less stressful than during the summer critique marathon, where I had a similar level of progress but was doing a chapter over two days a week.

Are the revisions actually good? Hopefully! I like revision in general but sometimes when you’re deep in the middle of it, it just feels like you’re making changes without making progress.

That being said, I did go through Cpts 11 and 12 with my critique group this past weekend, and so far so good. And on Friday, the group that runs the marathons is doing a December mini-marathon, where we post four or five chapters all at once and then have all month to do the critiques. I’m debating between starting where the summer marathon left off (so posting Cpt 9-14), or starting at where my critique group has gotten to (so posting Cpt 13-18). I’ll probably do the first, so people have seen the whole story thus far (also I’m not done with 17 and 18 and may not be before the 1st, but both are shorter chapters and so it is possible).

But I do need to put together a chapter summary of Chapters 1-8 to remind people what has already happened. Yay.

Another section of Across Worlds with You also needs to go live on Friday, and I still need to do my follow-up stuff from MileHiCon. Those are relatively easy, just need to do them.

And then the Winter Marathon starts in January, so if we maintain progress and don’t run into any major re-writes during the marathons, by the end of the winter marathon we could be through Chapter 22, which is about two-thirds of the way through the book. Not too shabby. We may finish this thing yet.

On the other hand, though, I’m not impressed with Nano’s handling of their current drama. The Board did send out an email to everyone so the entire userbase should know about it now, which I thought was good, but some of the language in it was pretty dismissive. And to continue to get standard Nano emails at milestones, asking for donations and acting like everything is fine when they’re facing allegations of turning a blind eye to grooming minors, is off-putting.

Human beings suck. This is why we can’t have nice things.

So, there we are. Another Nano and November in the bag, and on we blindly stumble, hopefully being at least a little productive around the holidays.

How was your November, squiders? Any big plans for December?

Thanksgiving Landsquid! (+ WriYe and Fellow Writers)

Happy Thanksgiving to my American squiders! I drew you a Landsquid in celebration. I haven’t gotten to do much drawing lately and this blog has been decidedly low on Landsquid.

Landsquid with mashed potatoes

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday without too much family drama and with plenty of mashed potatoes, which are, of course, the best of all Thanksgiving food.

Anyway, the WriYe blog prompt for November is: Shout out another writer!

I did have to think about this for a minute, since I do know so many lovely writers, but in the end I decided to do my fellow Turtleduck Press writers: KD Sarge, Siri Paulson, and Erin Zarro. TDP launched in 2010 and we’d been working on it for a few years before that, so we’ve been together and creating stories for probably about 15 years.

KD writes science fiction, fantasy, and some ghost stories. Her latest is May the Best Ghost Win, about dueling ghost hunting teams, but my favorite of hers is Even the Score, which is a scifi mystery and the third book in her Dream’verse series. Her website is kdsarge.com.

Siri, too, writes across the speculative genres, often lyrical stories that are much prettier than I can ever manage. We, of course, wrote City of Hope and Ruin together, which was a great experience. Her latest is Voice of the Sea, a post-apocalyptic retelling of the Little Mermaid. Her instagram is here.

(Also, if you liked City of Hope and Ruin and want more Fractured World content, I have a short story here, Siri has one here, and TDP also has the prequel Love Shines Through anthology, which Siri and I both have stories in.)

Erin writes romantic fantasy primarily, though also some science fiction and horror. Her latest is Bound, which was originally published in the TDP anthology To Rule the Stars (about space princesses). Aside from fiction, Erin is also an accomplished poet, and her Without Wings chapbook is one of the best I’ve ever read, about the darker side of love. Her website is here.

TDP has been very good to me over the years, helping me stay productive and stretch my writing skills, and I owe it all to these wonderful writers. So shout out to them for being awesome writers and awesome writing friends!

See you next week, squiders! Don’t eat too much!

WriYe and Ideal Readers

Good evening, squiders! It’s been an interesting week, hasn’t it?

First things first, if you have Prolific Works, Hidden Worlds is part of a Hidden Magic promotion for the next month.

Secondly, it seems like there’s drama over at Nano HQ. It is a sad state of humanity that we can’t have nice things, and eventually someone will come along and ruin anything. Someone on one of my writing Discords has been tracking this (and trying to get people to deal with it) since the spring, and after months of inaction people have gone to the board, and the board is Not Happy.

I guess they’ve locked down the forums while they do a thorough investigation, which to be honest affects me not at all because the new site/forums are an unmitigated disaster and I only ever use them if I have to. Seriously, they are so user-unfriendly, and maybe if anything comes out of this we can at least get usable forums back.

But seriously, people, stop being awful.

Enough of that. Back to WriYe prompt catch-up.

October’s prompt is: Your ideal reader

Which is…not a complete thought. But anyway.

If you’re an indie or small press writer, you’ve probably come across this concept of an “ideal reader.” It’s a marketing idea. Basically, you picture a reader who would love your book. You create a whole personality for this person. And this fictional person is your ideal reader.

And then you use the concept of your ideal reader to figure out where said ideal readers hang out, so you can target your marketing to those spaces in the hopes of snagging the interest of said ideal readers and becoming a bestseller.

This is one of those concepts that goes around the writing community that drives me batty. I cannot wrap my mind around it. I’ve sat down to do it a few times, for the principle, and have gotten nowhere.

The examples are always like, Mary, 45, likes knitting and cozy mysteries, so you know, reach out to knitting communities and advertise where women in their mid-40s hang out.

But I always feel like I’m guessing when I try to make an ideal reader concept for myself. Fantasy is a genre that tends to be fairly wide in its readers, and they’re not particularly uniform, and aside from fantasy-specific spaces (which tend to be for specific series or movies or media) I can’t point to a particular place, online or off, where they’re going to be hanging out on a regular basis.

I’m sure I’m doing it wrong.

Anyway, I assume the prompt is “tell me about your ideal reader,” so, uh, likes fantasy, will buy my books?

Hm, yeah. Needs work.

Anyway, see you later in the week!

WriYe and Challenges

Good morning, squiders! Still on track for Nano, still kind of feel like I’m cheating. I’ve completed two whole chapters and am starting on a third, though, so making great progress. Chapters are a little longer here in the middle of the book. Should definitely hit halfway before Nano is over, so huzzah!

(In the book, I mean.)

I realized, once again, that I’d gotten behind on the WriYe blog prompts for the year, so we’re going to play a bit of catch-up again.

This is September’s prompt, but oddly appropriate for now: Do challenges help or harm you?

I’m assuming we mean writing challenges since, you know, writing community.

In general, I am pro-writing challenge. I’ve done a ton of them to varying success. The most common ones have word count goals in certain time periods (Nano, the now-defunct April Fool’s, WriYe itself), but I’ve also done ones that are writing prompts, exploring different craft aspects, building up to certain other goals, etc.

When we moved to California right after college, I went through a few months of serious depression. I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t have a job, I was in a new city in a new state that I’d never been to before, etc.

(I did eventually get a cat, and then a job, and then things got better.)

While I was sitting at home spiraling, I dove into my writing to help. I’d done Nano for the first time about two years before, but I was only doing Nano and not really writing outside of that. Right after we moved is when I decided I wanted to write for real, with the goal of getting my stories out into the world.

But I didn’t know how to do that, and I ended up joining a bunch of writing challenges for inspiration, advice, and companionship.

Am I always successful at challenges? No. Success varies on a number of factors.

  1. Challenge Length – Shorter challenges are better if I’m doing something new or something that doesn’t tie in to a specific project. I can do longer challenges (quarterly, yearly) but they need to be directly tied to my own goals and not something I’m experimenting with.
  2. Challenge Appropriateness – We did talk a bit about this in relation to Nano this year. If I am trying to do a writing goal on top of a revision project, I’m doomed to failure. If I pick a big word count goal without a project in place, same deal. If I’m working on marketing or publishing or whatever, a challenge is rarely appropriate. (Though if there are marketing challenges out there, maybe I should look at them.)
  3. Real Life Obstacles – Writing challenges were easy peasy until I had kids, full stop. I could manage around college, full-time jobs, what have you. And people just kind of let me. I remember several Thanksgivings where, after the meal was over, I would go hide in the basement and type out a couple thousand words. Sometimes real life gets in the way, and there’s not much you can do about it except not beat yourself up.

I’ve been doing this long enough that I can judge whether a challenge is going to help me or hurt me, and I can usually tell going in whether or not I’m going to hit my goal. I do sometimes do it anyway, or pick a higher goal than I’m likely to hit, just in case.

I think you just have to be honest with yourself, kind if things go sideways, and know that, in the long run, whether you won Nano or EdMo or whatever matters absolutely not at all.

See you next week, squiders!

MileHiCon, Nano, and Assorted Sundries

Good afternoon, squiders. Hard to believe it’s November already, isn’t it? Let’s catch up.

Saturday and Sunday we did get a foot of snow, but driving home from the con Saturday afternoon was the only bad time (though admittedly it was quite bad), and I was half an hour late on Saturday morning because someone had flipped their car in the middle of the interchange. But Saturday went well–I had quite a few people come by while I was at the co-op table who’d gone to the indie publishing panel the night before (and a handful from the twists panel), and the -punk panel midday went well too, and then I had some people come by and want to talk about that while I was at the autograph table in the afternoon.

Friday and Saturday felt really nice from a “I know what I’m talking about and people respect me” standpoint. Bit exhausting–definitely more socialization than I’m used to–but definitely good overall.

Sunday was the dreaded living in space panel, which was supposed to be four panelists (including Mary Robinette Kowal) and a moderator, but ended up just being Ms. Kowal, me, and the moderator. Maybe everyone else saw the snow and gave up, I don’t know. It went decently–having that aerospace engineering degree tends to be useful for science fiction concepts–but it definitely felt a little weird.

I also had to bring the small, mobile ones with me on Sunday, so between the living in space panel (10 am) and the Nanowrimo panel (3 pm) we hung out in the board game area and played Machi Koro 2 and Tea Dragons. Also I made the mistake of letting them in the vendor room. Ahaha.

For Nano, as I said last week, I did sign up with my revision. I’m at about 5K as of yesterday (I’ll work today later), so it almost feels like cheating. I mean, this current chapter has been a bit of a mess so I’ve been doing a lot of streamlining and reworking (and also going back through and making sure things are making sense) but the fact that I’m following the old draft is making it feel easy. We’ll see if it stands up over time.

Other sundry. Uh. Part 6 of Across Worlds with You is up over at Turtleduck Press.

I finally got one of my SkillShare classes back up–the Tracking Writing Ideas one (and I just noticed I put the wrong cover image, so that’s fun. I’d better fix that) and nobody has yelled at me about it, so huzzah. It’s here.

That’s it for sundries for now! See you next week, squiders!

Books by Kit Campbell

City of Hope and Ruin cover
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Shards cover
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Hidden Worlds cover
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