Refuse the assignment and the migraines tear him apart. Is Horatio morally responsible for the kills? Where's your line? How much pain would someone have to be in before you'd let them off the hook? Tell us in the comments.
The stone coaster reservation count just hit 199. Somebody reading this is #200. Five dollars holds yours, it exists only as a reservation, it will never be sold, and reservations close forever the moment we launch. The real sample is in the studio right now and it looks fantastic. It's thick stone with a cork backing. You'll be able to order as many as you want post campaign.
And the other scoreboard is moving even faster: 957 of you have followed, which means we are 50 away from 1,000. At 1,000 the Crystal Ballroom Library Card unlocks for every pre launch follower who backs: the physical mirror card carrying the exclusive Nexus archive. You are already in. Your only job this weekend: send this project to one person who would love Nexus. Here is the link to share:
This week it all goes to Atlanta. Dragon Con runs September 4 through 7, and the whole crew will be at Booth C5, straight down the main aisle from the main entrance. Show us you followed and take home the Dragon Con exclusive trading card. 1,000 printed, never reprinted, while supplies last. Catch Steve painting live Friday at 1:00 in Room 203A, with the finished piece going to the Hope Atlanta charity auction, and the 45 Years of Steve Rude's Nexus panel Saturday at 2:30 in Room 203BC.
One heads up for the regulars: no regular 1:30 stream next Saturday. We will be going live on the fly from the booth and the floor all weekend instead. Subscribe at youtube.com/steverudethedude and turn on ALL notifications so you catch us.
One more thing before you go. We attached a poll below: The Migraine Defense. If you know, you know. Nexus never got a choice about his headaches, but you get a vote, and 199 of you are apparently already qualified jurors with a coaster to prove it. Weigh in. We read every result out loud in the studio, usually while Steve shakes his head at all of you.
The manuscript went off to its new editor last week and I'm not gonna lie: I was pretty emotional. Book 2 has had one hell of a journey. I wrote it across multiple states, in campgrounds, on trains and planes, and in a few living situations. It's where the heart of the series was truly born.
Book 1 was intended to stand alone but when I finished it, new characters snuck their way into my brain. One of them (Sam), has ended up becoming one of my absolute favorites. His tragedy, addiction to productivity, and sweet but mysterious manner is sure to win your heart. His, Lilith's, and Lucio's talismans will be available as backer rewards with this campaign and I'm so excited about them!
This One Counts
Books 3-5 have already been written. Book 6 is in progress as we speak. This campaign is the pinch point for the series, so every pledge, share, interaction counts. If you read Book 1, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, etc. If you follow me on social media, comment or reshare posts--the algorithm notices. I'm a very small creator with an incredible amount of distance from the success of Star Cross'd Destiny, so I am very much dependent on these small acts to get in front of new people. You're the heroes of Southwest Gothic. Thank you so much for helping it get this far.
so shiny. so sexy.
Pledge Reservations are Open for Only 11 More Days! This is your only chance to get a mini-poster with sparkly foil inlay--the shiniest art I've ever offered. You'll get your choice of character doing an epic power move but only if you opt in before the campaign launches on September 10th.
As I mentioned earlier, we're partnering with Belanger Books* for Printopia. His project is SHERLOCK HOLMES: MISTLETOE MYSTERIES, which will (obviously) be a set of Christmas-themed Sherlockian stories. Conveniently, this is a project I would be backing anyway, so I can happily encourage all of you to follow that project, as well as this one. For our special cross-collaboration project, we'll be each providing an e-book of one of our novels to people who back both projects (mine will be FROZEN DREAMS, the first book in the series). Belanger Books is also currently giving away four Sherlockian e-books in memory of pulp fiction author Will Murray (co-creator of Squirrel Girl), who passed away earlier this month. See here for further details.
Moving on, this is the current state of incentives and whatnot for the Banshee Beach Backerkit:
All of my pay tier Patrons on Patreon get a discount on the Ripper pledge level (higher levels are not affected, but get the relevant awards anyway). Link will appear after the project starts.
Returning backers will get a PDF advance copy of the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Companion. This consists of all the tabletop RPG material for that setting that I’ve done since publishing the Fermi Resolution Worldbook. If you don’t play roleplaying games, it still has tons of lore and worldbuilding (and spoilers)!
Anyone who makes a pre-launch reservation will get a free collection of poetry written in the Fermi Resolution universe! Filks! Heroic verse! Actual rhyme and meter!
Anyone who follows the Backerkit before launch (or backs in the first 48 hours) will get an E-ARC (Electronic Advanced Reader’s Copy) of my upcoming Fermi Resolution novel Lunatic’s Hope. That book is at the editor’s, even as we speak.
Finally: if you want an idea of what the pre-launch reservation poetry is going to look like, I've included the beginning of a saga that I have commissioned from my local Anglo-Saxon verse expert. ...Yes, I did marry most exceedingly well. Thanks for noticing! Anyway, you need to follow to be able to see it. Such is life.
It all starts in eleven days!
Moe Lane
*Derrick Belanger, BSI ("The Board Schools"), PSI ("Albert, the Dove") is an award-winning author, publisher, and educator most noted for his books and lectures on Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Derrick is co-owner of the publishing company Belanger Books, which published the first eBook editions of the original Solar Pons books by August Derleth. Derrick's work has been published in The Baker Street Journal, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, The Strand Magazine, and in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year (2023). Derrick is a board member of Dr. Watson’s Neglected Patients, the Denver-based Scion Society. In January 2020, Mr. Belanger was awarded the Susan Z. Diamond Award in recognition of outstanding efforts to introduce young people to Sherlock Holmes, and in 2024, he won the Arthur Conan Doyle Society Doylean award in fiction for his short story, "The Joyce-Armstrong Confession". Derrick currently resides in Broomfield, Colorado. Find him at <www.belangerbooks.com>.
Thanks so much for being an early supporter of this project!
I'm in the process of doing final prep for the backerkit page, and that also includes working with the cover art design team to update the cover.
AI generated works are not allowed on Backerkit and they have flagged the cover for this book to be AI generated, which was not intentional and was actually quite a surprise the other day when they approved my project then the next day rescinded that approval.
It is my intention to have a new cover and be ready to go with this project next week, if that changes I will be sure to let you know!
Early backer incentive
If you back this project in the first 48 hours you will receive a FREE COPY of the first book of THE PURSUIT OF SHADOWS. So if you back at the digital level, you'll get an eBook and if you back at the physical level you will get a physical copy. I am not kidding.
For physical backers, that will mean your shipping cost will be slightly higher when it comes time for shipping (Shipping prices are finalized AFTER the campaign and you'll be charged when I'm ready to ship books).
The Searing Sentinel is the third book of the series, but you only HAVE to read the first story in the first book to get familiar with the first appearance of the main character Stanley. So as a thank you for being an early supporter and make it easy for new people to get into the series, I'm giving the first one away for free. (book 2 will be available as an add-on if you wish to complete the set.)
Thanks for being here and hope to see your name pop up in the backer list when we go live on September 10th!
Say it out loud. A thousand people raised a hand for Nexus before there was anything to buy, just to be counted. That’s not a mailing list. That’s a tribe.
Here’s why that number means what it means. Mike Baron and Steve Rude launched Nexus at Capital Comics in 1981 and have kept it alive ever since. This is the 45th-anniversary book, 10+ years in the making. A major publisher set out to make it for the 35th anniversary and never finished a draft. Steve hired a former Dark Horse editor, she wrote it, Steve laid the whole thing out, and as a team we’re bringing it across the line. A thousand of you following is the reason it finally gets made. Nexus has survived this long because people refused to let it disappear. Today there are a thousand of you on the record.
And you unlocked it: the Crystal Ballroom Library Card is UNLOCKED. It’s the physical mirror card that carries the exclusive Nexus archive, the art, history, and pages that didn’t fit in the book. Because you followed before launch, it’s yours free when you back any level during the campaign. You earned that by showing up first.
We’re not done, we’re aimed. The campaign goes live September 10 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on BackerKit. No Kickstarter this time; it all lives on BackerKit. Between now and then, the same one favor: send this to one person who’d love Nexus, then ask them to send it to one more. Every pre-launch follower who joins still gets that card free when they back, so there’s every reason to keep pulling people in.
Headed to Dragon Con? We’re in Atlanta September 4 through 7 at Booth C5, straight down the main aisle from the main entrance, you can’t miss us. Come by, show us you’re following (a screenshot works, or follow right there at the table), and we’ll hand you the exclusive Dragon Con trading card. Booth only: it’s not shipping, it’s not going online, and it’s not in any pledge tier. We printed 1,000 and will never reprint them, so while supplies last means exactly that.
One heads up: no regular Saturday stream this week. We’ll be going live on the fly from the booth, the floor, and the panels all weekend at Dragon Con, no schedule, no warning. Subscribe at youtube.com/steverudethedude and turn on ALL notifications to catch us. Regular Saturday streams at 1:30 PM Arizona time resume after the con.
