Hey everyone.
Volume 1 is done.
It was a rough process. Lots of mistakes, some moments I'm genuinely proud of, and in the end I finished it with a bitter taste in my mouth. This volume fell short of what I originally planned to deliver.
What bothers me most isn't the structural problems. It's the wasted potential. Cassian Merrow is the clearest example I can pull from memory — he had real weight in Gepetto's story and in the elven faction of Elysion, but I rushed him off the page and he only came back as a name in reports. The consequences of his arc never landed the way they should have. He deserved better. A few others did too.
I could rewrite the Volume 1 middle section, chapters 10 through 80, but that would mean erasing the learning curve that's visibly recorded in how I told the story. I'm not willing to do that.
Combining an experimental structure with AI-assisted writing has made it harder for this work to find an audience. The prejudice is real and, in many cases, justified. That's the cost. I accept it.
Writing is brutal. I like to judge authors who write for the market instead of writing something genuine, but honestly, who am I to do that? They write to make money and they're right. I'm the one who's broke and writing from the heart. That's a choice I made. I don't regret it.
I'd rather fail trying than spend the rest of my life with the bitterness of never having attempted. I've seen what that looks like in people older than me. I don't want to end up there.
On Influences
House of Puppets is a Frankenstein of things I love: classical theism, Dostoevsky, Reverend Insanity, Lord of the Mysteries, Fear & Hunger, Elden Ring, and others. They built the foundation of the world, the metaphysics, and the central questions of the story.
Three people who don't even know this work exists helped shape the closing of Volume 1: Jonas Kilker, Harry Miller, and The Great Dane. Their work gave me a model for characters that have real weight and resistance instead of feeling mechanical. That influence will keep showing up.
On Volume 2
It begins shortly after Volume 1 ends. It will be written with complete arc planning from the first chapter. More POVs, stronger world expansion, and the two main arcs draw heavily from the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history.
Volume 1 was the foundation. Volume 2 is where House of Puppets starts becoming what it was always meant to be.
On Patreon
I'll launch a Patreon during Volume 2. No exact date yet, but it's coming. My goal is to make this my life, and that requires building something sustainable. When it launches, I'll announce it in the chapter notes.
If you've read this far: thank you. That's not nothing.