Hampton Comicon, Hampton, Va. February 21, 2026

Longshot Comic & Toy Show, Roanoke, Va. March 21, 2026.

Shenandoah Comicon, Harrisonburg, Va. April 11, 2026.

Tidewater Comicon, Virginia Beach, Va. May 16–17, 2026

Myths & Monsters Market, Suffolk, Va. May 24, 2026

Otaku Brew Fest, Virginia Beach, Va. July 11, 2026

Artisan Caravan, Suffolk, Va. July 26, 2026

Wandering Book Caravan, Suffolk, Va. August 23, 2026

Atlantic Shores Craft Fair, Chesapeake, Va. September 26, 2026

It also features the latest version of the “Watchers” story from the Vaporous Realms, with narrative additions conducive to Vaporous Realms at War tabletop play.

If you already received the ebook by backing the Kickstarter, note that this version has a few minor changes to the copyright page, afterword, and scene break symbols, in addition to fixing a typo.

[BookFunnel download link removed. Paid and complimentary subscribers, check out this December 2025 post for the latest version of the ebook, with several additional errors corrected.]

This ebook is also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere. Surplus signed-and-numbered copies of the U.S. Kickstarter paperback are available direct from our shop. The POD version of the paperback is scheduled for release on Amazon and Barnes & Noble on October 15, 2025. [Note: by the end of January 2026, the POD paperback will be updated to correct several errors.]

After much ado, the post-Kickstarter publication of Steelhearts: An Anthology is upon us.

If you don’t recollect, this is the heroic fantasy anthology sponsored earlier this year, bringing me on as lead editor and crowdfund manager. The volume features exceptional stories by , , , , and .

The ebook (with a few updates)1 is available now from your friendly global monolithic online retailer—and numerous other digital booksellers, familiar and obscure.

A few leftover copies, signed and hand-numbered, from the original U.S. Kickstarter print run, are available now in my online shop. Out of respect to our generous crowdfund backers, these limited-run copies are priced similarly to Kickstarter, including shipping. [Update: we’ve lowered the price to $21.] But it’s exactly what our U.S. backers and authors received, including a bonus character sticker. [Clarification: these remain available primarily to those in the U. S. If you’re outside the U.S. and would like one, let me know. We’ll have to work out an appropriate shipping fee for your location.]

The post-Kickstarter paperback (with updates) is delayed till mid-month or so by technical difficulties. Both of our distribution channels for the internationally available post-Kickstarter paperback have been unusually disagreeable when it comes to our cover file. I know some folks outside the U.S., including our contributing authors on the Continent, have been waiting for the paperback. It will be available for purchase everywhere at some point in October. I’ll send out an update when I have a specific release date. [Update: It’s available now, but January 2026 is our first chance to upload a version that has several small errors corrected.]

Thanks for your time and support—and happy reading!

If you haven’t read Travis Kuffel’s debut fantasy novel, Unleashed, you’re missing out. (Check out my original review here.) As an editor (who can only take credit for some final proofreading of this book) and a Tolkien diehard, my take on this is: whoa. Characters you get attached to, themes centered on virtue and evil, and well-crafted battle scenes (skirmishes and epic duels alike) in which aforementioned characters do their darnedest to slay each other—what more could you ask for?

There’s also H. Halverstadt’s young adult sci-fi novel, Gemini’s Key, which was a Realm Awards finalist. (I even have a few copies with a shiny sticker to that effect.)

A few signed copies of my novella, Dustsong, are still available, too.

In case you’re wondering, I’m an approved seller of the books by Kuffel and Halverstadt. They’re POD copies, but signed. Much of the price covers royalties to the author; part of the rest covers the cost of the “free” shipping. My margins are thin, but I want to support these authors and get their deserving books in readers’ hands.

Prices are $14 for Dustsong (signed, limited edition non-POD copy with handwritten corrections) and $21 each for Gemini’s Key or Unleashed.

The shop and free shipping are set up for U. S. customers. If you’re not in the U.S. but want a signed copy of any of these three books, message me and we’ll figure it out!

See detailed info about each book in my online shop. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, y’all! Happy reading.

Greetings!

What a start to the year, y’all. Winter germs nigh on the heels of fall germs. The tax pre-season. A (welcome and much needed) surge in editorial consulting work. Bribing toddlers (mine, to be clear) with granola to let me initiate them in the ways of hobbits, medieval combat, ‘80s cartoons, and country music when their mama needs a break.

It’s all prompted an early reevaluation of my Vaporous Realms priorities and schedule. I want to be more clear-eyed about what’s possible and to be pleasantly surprised if circumstances shift and more opportunity for creative work arises. (Realism, as opposed to unfounded optimism, is all the rage these days, but I’ve been a proponent for years, even as I’ve struggled with it.)

What’s going to change? Not much, yet enough I thought I should offer a heads up.

My priority remains doubling down on the writing of more books, slow and steady, even at the expense of creating content specially for this platform. A Sceg Kaelii novella and an expanded Len novella, both underway, are my minimum objectives this year [which is now 2026].

Vaporous Realms at War tabletop content is still a secondary preoccupation, but my priority will be on creating rules and profiles for the occasional, small-scale Kickstarter (crowdfunding) campaign. I’ll explain any crowdfunds better and make them less complex. And crafted miniatures will take a back seat: they’re fun but inordinately time-consuming. I’ll mainly make them for my limited event appearances.

The hard work of online self-promotion must be shelved, because I just can’t—not right now. I value y’all as an audience and hope more folks find my stories and such, but if I don’t put my minimal creative time into writing stories, there won’t be anything worth promoting anyhow. So I’ll post on Instagram when I feel I’ve got something interesting to share, not for the sake of posting.

And in terms of the substance of what I share with y’all here:

1. Weekly to monthly. There are only so many hours in a day and a week, and the math just isn’t adding up. I’ll offer the same kinds of content (an Annals snippet, a codex entry, notes and recommendations, and a tabletop profile), but I can be more reliable and less stressed about it if I shift to a monthly posting schedule.1

2. As recompense, for paid and complimentary subscribers, I’m adding an excerpt, likely a whole chapter, from my work in progress each month when available.

That’s it! I look forward to being pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns that lie in wait the next eleven months.

Thank you for subscribing. And happy reading!

–M. B. Heywood

Get your signed, numbered, copy of Dustsong: Len the Wanderer direct from the Vaporous Realms bookshop:

($14. Free shipping. U. S. only.)

This product is the limited-run paperback version of Dustsong: Len the Wanderer by M. B. Heywood. Signed and numbered by the author. Only 97 copies were printed! (Only ten copies are left as of January 1, 2026—and there won’t be a second printing! The print-on-demand paperback will be retired, too, once we’re ready to publish The Legend of Len the Wanderer.)

It is the original version of the novella and does not reflect changes made on Amazon since September 2023. It may include a small number of handwritten corrections and/or annotations by the author.

©2023 Vaporous Realms Publishing LLC. 159 pages. Paperback. 6 inches by 9 inches. Smooth matte cover.

A cursed man. A reluctant guardian. A new realm born from chaos.

A grievous mistake and a devastating curse drive Len from his idyllic alpine life. He flees the only home and family he has ever known, to become a wanderer in a perilous world of demons, beasts, and barbarians. Len must find allies if he is to survive the desert wastes, face unforeseen threats, and confront the curse that haunts his every step.

Dustsong: Len the Wanderer is a “sword and spirit” fantasy revealing the deep origins of the Vaporous Realms story-world. Join Len and his unlikely companions on their adventure into the unknown!

Questions about this item? Let me know in a comment or direct message!

Thank you for your purchases, which enable us to keep doing what we’re doing: writing snippets, publishing books, and handcrafting unique tabletop miniatures!

Being severely under the weather has cramped my writing style here in the final third of February, there’s no question. Whatever happens, or doesn’t, in terms of Worldbuilding Wednesday and Flash Fiction Friday this week, I expect to resume my recent rhythm thereafter. My intent is to finish turning this Substack into the official Vaporous Realms website this month, too.

But in the meantime, I want to introduce you to Amazon’s current #1 release in Christian fantasy: Unleashed by Travis Kuffel.

This is the first book of Kuffel’s Baksa series, part of his Tales of Ganden. Woefully behind though I am on my reading list and reviews—with several excellent books languishing, partly finished, since the holidays—this is one novel I actually completed recently. The beta-read deadline helped, to be sure, but I enjoyed the book so thoroughly, I went ahead and bought a copy this past Friday. (The paperback has been available since February 23. The ebook release is March 4.)

I genuinely think many of y’all would enjoy the story as much as I did. Like my Dustsong novella, it reads more like sword and sorcery than high fantasy for the most part, but is clearly part of a wider, epic narrative. There’s something old-school, at its best reminiscent of Tolkien or Lewis, in Kuffel’s prose and his handling of point of view. I wasn’t sure at first where the story was headed, but I kept turning pages—and I turned them faster as the plot and characters drew me deeper into the tale.

Here’s the official blurb featured on Amazon:

In a perilous realm of elite warriors, ancient powers unfold. One warrior's choice leads to a chain reaction affecting many lives—all intertwined in a tapestry of epic proportions as Hadrek awakens.

Cadel, a massive warrior gifted with the skills, acumen, and conviction to become the greatest hero ever born in Ganden, leaves his home deep in Lobana Forest to join the Baksa, a unit of elite warriors gathered from all the realms.

After getting promoted to the Rangers, he catches a young thief in the act. His convictions force him to make a choice that will change both of their lives forever. As he transports the thief to Arukah Prison far across the realm, Cadel is unaware that Sa’res Maeve is hunting the young man as well. A harrowing chase leaves a bloody trail across Ganden as Sa’res will do anything to return an ancient amulet to her chieftain deep in the Niph’al Swamps.

From the Midbaros Desert to the jungle realm of Tamayar, Cadel is caught in a dangerous game with stakes that reach far beyond a simple thief’s life. With the long-dormant power of Hadrek stirring beneath the surface, and the threat of war hanging over the realms, Cadel is about to be unleashed.

I found Kuffel’s characters to be well developed; his main protagonists and antagonists are intriguing and multifaceted. The action scenes, especially the extended battle sequences, are well-wrought—and sometimes brutal. This book is decidedly PG-13 (and pushing the upper limits of that rating in some of the most violent moments), but the light in the story is as bright as the dark is dark. The biblical motifs that gradually become evident add depth. Kuffel’s story-world leaves the impression of being expansive, vibrant, and detailed, yet he doesn’t test the reader with gratuitous description.

At times, the world felt to me like the Vaporous Realms in an alternate dimension. And if the author uses a big word sometimes where a little one would do the trick, well, I’m guilty of the same.

The conclusion of the story—no spoilers!—is immensely satisfying. I, for one, am ready for more.

I hope you’ll take a minute and scope out Unleashed for yourself!

Subscribe now

My fellow fantasy author (and editor) Talena Winters draws inspiration from some of the same Watchers legends as the Vaporous Realms.

Yes, “Blurry” is an allusion to the Blurry Creatures podcast about cryptids, giants, and the vast Nephilim conspiracy.

No, you haven’t missed much—yet—if you didn’t realize fallen angels are a key part of the Vaporous Realms mythology. My Havok Publishing exclusive story “Watchers” was the first real clue. Len and Kaelii predate the Scions’ rebellion against the Wright. Sciito, Zshurii, and Delfii all enter the picture afterward. Egwae, like Tim Curry’s Cardinal Richelieu, has seen it all. ”Human-folk come, and human-folk go, but one thing remains the same. And that . . . is me.”

I digress. Talena’s clean YA historical fantasy epic Rise of the Grigori begins with The Waterboy (spoiler: not Adam Sandler).

Sign up for Talena’s newsletter to download this clean fantasy prequel today!

I know I did.

Not sure it’s your cup of tea? Here’s the hook (no pun intended, but I’ll stand by it):

One mistake could seal his fate…

Zale Teague grew up thinking he was an ordinary boy—until the day he called lightning from the skies and caused an explosion with horrific results. Now, at only eleven, he's fleeing his terrifying new merman powers and the mistake he'll never forget.

When a Romani clan takes him in, he thinks he's found a way to protect his loved ones from disaster… until his past catches up to him. Will Zale ever find redemption, or must he keep running forever?

The Waterboy novella is the standalone origin story of Zale, the first undine male (merman) born in over three thousand years, introduced in Book 1 of the young adult epic fantasy Rise of the Grigori series, The Undine's Tear. It takes place five years before the main series.

In this rich, breathtaking series, join merfolk, sphinxes, dragons, and humans in a search for redemption that will determine the fate of the world . . . they just don't all know it yet.

I sure am thankful for y'all. I mean it. This Substack community has helped keep me writing for most of this past fifteen months, when I had my pick of good reasons to tap out.

One of my top three writerly moments for 2023 was finding out that Havok Publishing accepted my short story "Watchers." [Update: I’ve now republished it here on our site, for paid and complimentary subscribers.] This thousand-word story gives you a peek into the story-world future of Egwae, Len's grumpy guardian angel from Dustsong: Len the Wanderer.

You've heard me mention this exclusive Havok snippet at every opportunity this last couple months—and now the day has arrived. "Watchers" is free for everyone, today only! I'll respect your time by keeping it simple:

1. If you have a few minutes to spare today, please visit Havok Publishing's homepage (https://gohavok.com).

2. Read the story. And enjoy it, I hope! After all, that’s the point.

3. Comment on the story if you'd like. Seriously, please comment—it doesn’t have to be long or complicated. I'd love to hear what you think, simply put. And your comments help get the story more attention, too.

4. Consider joining the Havok Horde. Memberships are cheap (as little as $4.99/year, or $1.99 for 90 days), and the daily stories are high-quality entertainment. I've been reading them almost every day since I joined.

5. If you decide to subscribe to Havok, or are already a member, please consider rating "Watchers" (one to three stars—and any stars are good). Votes help promote the story, too.

Every read-through, comment, and vote means a lot to me and the team!

Havok's best stories are collected in seasonal anthologies and frequently make appearances at the Realm Awards. I'll keep you updated on those fronts, if "Watchers" finds life beyond Black Friday. (Incidentally, Havok members can access their story archives anytime.)

Thank you, bless you, and enjoy your weekend!

—M. B. Heywood

If you missed it, please see the subtitle of this post for the gist. I dislike taking a personal day (in this case, a personal week) off of writing, but the good Lord saw fit to remind me I’m not invincible.

Don’t get me wrong—I had a blast meeting nice folks and potential new readers in Berryville, Virginia, last weekend! (See pic below.) Getting to talk to strangers about my stories was a humbling and exciting experience, and I want to do lots more of it.

But alas, too many days on three hours’ sleep and too many days starting at 3 a.m. caught up with me this week. So Delfii’s Song, Snippet 5, must wait one more week.

Another thing that has to wait is finishing my crafted Vaporous Realms at War character miniatures. They’re almost built, but I’ve put way, way, way too much planning and labor into these little suckers to rush the painting and finishing touches. Let’s just say there are a lot of naked ridge-cats, dread-beaks, and peg people staring at me when I walk into my office. On the upside, I’m closer than ever to a decades-long dream of making non-boring peg people versions of my story characters! Future M. B. Heywood will have a lot of fun completing that project in 2024.

On the publishing front, I’m downright exuberant that the “Watchers” short story will appear on Havok* on Black Friday—only two weeks away now! Take a peek into the story-future at Egwae’s life after Len. It’s a bridge from the “origins” era of Dustsong to the main event. Also, it points to the Genesis 6 and Book of Enoch inspiration for the wider Vaporous Realms saga. (If there are any cryptid podcast aficionados out there: yes, the Vaporous Realms have been “Blurry,” incidentally, since their inception over twenty years ago.)

Speaking of eras, I’ve added a series chronology [reading guide] to the Vaporous Realms website today!

I was also going to share a book promo I joined, but it turns out, some books I don’t feel comfortable promoting made it in, too. That’s why I organized my own “clean fantasy” promo for January.

Instead, I’ll close out by sharing what I’ve been reading and listening to lately (in what spare time I could scrounge up):

Best Stuff I’ve Been Reading Lately:

• Havok Publishing’s daily feature stories

• Gemini’s Key by H. Halverstadt (clean YA sci-fi)

• The Crossing by Jenn Lees (low-intensity historical-fantasy romance)

• Daughter of the Sun by Amanda Auler (clean dark YA fantasy)

Best Stuff I’ve Listened To Lately:

• Blurry Creatures’ episode 203 on “The Bones of Moses”

• CJ Milacci’s Read Clean YA with CJ podcast

• Russell Nohelty’s Kickstart Your Book Sales podcast (featuring his and Monica Leonelle’s super-helpful Author Ecosystem—as long as you don’t mind the occasional strong language)

Thanks for reading—and have a lovely weekend!

*My story “Watchers” will be freely available on Havok Publishing’s main page for one day only, unless you’re a Havok subscriber (which costs less than a dollar a month for an annual sub). Don’t worry, I’ll bug y’all about it once Havok gives me the link and other day-of details. I want everyone to be able to enjoy the story, and Havok will have the exclusive publication rights for another six months or more after its November 24 debut.

Plus, the more traffic and comments the story gets the day it’s released, the better our chances are of getting recognition for the Vaporous Realms within the Havok and Realm Makers (Christian fantasy and sci-fi) communities.

Whew, what a month September has been. Getting Len’s novella published has been a humbling experience, with several lessons learned the hard way. (Case in point: we probably won’t do an e-book preorder again. Apologies to the few who tried to take advantage of that.) But I’m relieved and grateful to be on this side of the launch—and excited for what’s in store this fall. Here’s a rundown of Vaporous Realms news:

Dustsong: Len the Wanderer has launched!

Hallelujah! At long last, the Len novella is available for purchase on Amazon (e-book or print) or our website (e-book only, which you can downland and send to your preferred e-reading app). [January 2026 update: The Dustsong: Len the Wanderer ebook is now free for paid and complimentary subscribers. Paperbacks will continue to be available on Amazon for now, until a new and expanded version of Len’s story is published this year. You can also buy one of the few remaining signed copies of Dustsong directly from our bookshop.] This book is a vastly improved and expanded telling of Len’s adventures in his younger years. (Subsequent novellas will further expand the saga with Kaelii’s and Egwae’s points of view, as well as “Old Len’s” experiences featured in the original, 2022 edition of Len’s Song.) Thank you to everyone who’s already bought the book or is considering it! Buying a copy would be an amazing and deeply appreciated way to support what we’re doing here. Let us know what you think of it! (I’ll brace myself.)

Havok Publishing has accepted an exclusive Egwae snippet for publication!

One admitted reason for the week’s delay in the novella launch was the decision to meet a submission deadline for Havok Publishing. Havok is a respected, typically “family friendly” online publisher of flash fiction in genres like fantasy and sci-fi. Our 999-word story “Watchers,” featuring Egwae, was accepted! We’ll let you know when we find out the exact date of its publication on Havok’s homepage in November or December.

Rough versions of the novella chapters are posted here on Substack.

As promised, the novella chapters have been posted here on Substack for paid and complimentary subscribers. New chapters, beginning with “The Hollow,” are posted as new snippets. Chapters based on revised snippets from Len’s Song are hidden beneath the original, serialized version in the old posts. They’re all linked for convenience, though! (Of course, the versions published in the book are further polished and proofread.)

Weekly snippets of Delfii’s Song are (finally) coming at the start of October.

Delfii, Snippet 1, will tentatively appear on Monday, October 2. When I start drafting Kaelii’s story in October, I’ll share those, too! Free subscribers will receive abridged versions of the Delfii snippets, and we’ll enable comments on those. We’ve got a great reader community and look forward to more conversations with y’all in the months to come!

In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to peruse these updates. Happy reading!

—M. B. Heywood (and the Vaporous Realms team)

While I’m still on my June sabbatical as far as Vaporous Realms stories go, I had the chance to finish reading a novel titled Magnify that I started in December. Storm & Spire is a series of short Christian fantasy novels by independent Canadian author Stefanie Lozinski. In the spirit of helping other indie authors, I wrote up a 5-star review and posted it on Goodreads. But I also think this is a series some of you, our Substack subscribers, would genuinely enjoy, so I’m reposting here. Have a lovely weekend!

When I rate a book "4 stars," it's because I found it a worthwhile read—I'm decidedly not sorry I took the time to read it. To get 5 stars, a book must capture (or even expand) my imagination in a substantial way, whether intellectual or emotional.

For about forty percent of the book, I felt it was on track for 4 stars, despite efficient world-building, a personable protagonist, and a fairly quick dive into action and thematic development. Considering how many of my favorite fantasy novels start slowly, perhaps it was all happening too suspiciously fast for my old-school sensibilities. To some extent, relationships, plot, and theme were falling into place a little easily for my taste.

Don't get me wrong: I was enjoying the read! But it wasn't a page-turner for me; I wasn't entirely immersed. In hindsight, maybe I had a sense of being told the stakes were high before I really felt the stakes were high. And though the author crafts an interesting relationship early on between two protagonists, it fell shy of capturing my imagination.

Until it did. No spoilers here, and every reader's experience will surely differ somewhat, but approaching the middle of the novel, this finally became a compelling, 5-star page-turner that I finished in one lengthy sitting.

The characters are well-defined and empathetically depicted, including a wonderfully unlikely protagonist who's an everyman on the inside (instead of being some kind of Homeric hero in a peasant costume). The use of dragons as a race and POV makes Storm & Spire stand out.

The worldbuilding is not overwrought or burdensome, but it's thorough and thoughtful, as revealed in the light sprinkling of unessential setting details that make the world subtly, satisfyingly plausible.

The narrative is a happy balance of predictable and surprising, with interesting twists and turns that seemed plausible (for the most part, and I found myself willing to forgive the few exceptions).

It's a consciously "clean" book in terms of content and language. The author manages to be charming and in-world consistent about this, which helps maintain the book's overall literary quality IMHO. (Incidentally, in terms of quality, the book is well-proofread.)

There's no Tolkienesque effort to disguise or submerge the Christian themes and language, or real-world religious parallels in general. Again, I found it's all sensical in-world, and it also reinforces the theme of embracing truth unashamedly.

This a long way of saying, whatever your first impressions, stick with it. Come back to it if need be, until you hit that point where you can't stop. If Christian fantasy is up your alley, this is an entertaining and wholly worthwhile read. Note that it's the first in an going series, so there's a decidedly "to be continued" sort of ending—but it's also a satisfying read in itself. I'm looking forward to further development of the dynamics between characters as the story continues. I know I'm ready to read through the rest of the series and anything else this talented author has to offer!

Here’s the promised cover reveal, just for y’all!

Since we’re breaking up the last three episodes over five posts (four to go!), we thought we’d share our current ebook cover draft for Dustsong: Len the Wanderer slightly ahead of schedule.

We pored over hundreds, if not thousands, of possible cover designs to find one that reflected the story world and its feel. The art is licensed from Dusan Markovic, who tends toward fantasy art that’s a bit dark for us—but we thought this particular piece was a brilliant fit!

Of course, we’ll let you know as soon as we have a publication date for the ebook.

Thanks for taking a look!