Neural Wraith 4 is Live

After three years, the android hivemind of Neural Wraith returns. The police commissioner is assassinated and Nick is trying to stop the whole city from going up in flames as the series heads to its finale (this is the second-last book, FYI).

Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRW6DZV5

Reviews are very welcome for this book, and I’m thankful to everyone who reads it and shares with others. Especially given how the third book went down like a lead balloon on Amazon. This series is something of a passion project and I feel it’s very unique in the genre for that reason.

This book is both long (it’s my third-longest book by word count) and complex. Lots goes down, characters reappear from across the series, and plenty of references to past books are made. It should be very enjoyable for fans of the series and good fun if you’ve just binged it after hearing about this book. I hope the various twists and reveals are lots of fun to read, and that if you give a reread, the true perpetrator and their plans make sense in hindsight if you didn’t get them on the first readthrough.

Writing this was difficult. Coming back after three years was one thing, but the format of the series is another. Writing a mystery requires a lot of planning, thinking ahead, and makes writing more mentally taxing than usual. There were days I’d write something cool, realize it actually messed with future plans and I’d spent a day unpicking what I’d just written instead of forging ahead because I couldn’t work it into the narrative. Shit was hard. With normal series, I can push plot or character elements to a future book and come up with new climaxes and events to keep things moving. In Neural Wraith, the mystery and plot needs to wrap up in a single book and make sense with the clues at the start. This was probably the first time in many years where I felt I may have bitten off more than I could chew and questioned if I was a good enough writer to pull off the story I wanted to tell. I think I’ve succeeded, and that it’s an enjoyable book. You’ll have to be the judge.

I don’t have any news on the audio yet. The Spellblade Epilogue audio should (tentatively) be out in July, for those waiting on it.

I’ll be taking a break after this and working out what I’ll write next afterward, when I’m less mentally exhausted (I’ve barely touched a video game since early March and want to veg a little). That means no news until June.

See you then and enjoy the androids!