Novel Release: White Smoke and Black Death

Today we release a new novel, and a new setting!

White Smoke and Black Death is a fantasy novel set on Zenaran, a setting we’ve been writing about for more than twenty years. It will be the first in a series, an Antifascist Fantasy, following the lives of a crew of resistance fighters in the Zintaian mountains of Kogaku. It is a very Appalachian story, deeply personal to me thematically and politically. Naturally, it is a very trans, queer, and autistic story.

In true Winter fashion, this novel is interactive. You will choose a starting character, and at the end of each chapter decide to stay with that character or to stray from their path and follow someone else. There are many paths through this interconnected story of five perspectives, but it is not a branching paths narrative, rather what you control in this interactive story is your own perspective. I call this concept a narrative labyrinth.

The novel is now released to you, for a price of whatever you wish to give me for the experience, or nothing. It is available in two formats--the web version readable here:

White Smoke and Black Death: web version

Or you can download it in epub format here:

White Smoke and Black Death: epub version

The epub is also fully navigable as a narrative labyrinth, as long as your reader supports hyperlinks. It definitely works on Kobo ereaders but I have not been able to test it on other types.

Enjoy, keep your comrades close, and strike as one.

~winter-type-04 Winter