Are the Chronicles Headed for the Movies?
The Mysterium Newsletter for June 2025
“Get away from me, imp,” groaned the wizard. “Let me die in peace.”
The imp hovered, holding a steaming cup. “You’re not going to die. Stop whining and drink this.”
Reluctantly, the wizard grabbed the flagon, downed the liquid, and grimaced. “This is disgusting. You think this will help me get better?”
“Probably not.” The imp shrugged. “But if it doesn’t, there are twenty other terrible drinks we can try.”
The wizard tossed the cup at the imp and threw off his covers. “I’ll teach you to torture me!”
The imp didn’t look concerned. Instead, he hovered just out of the wizard’s reach. “See? You’re not dying. You just needed some incentive to get out of bed. Now, get back to work on the Wrath of Order!”
In case it wasn’t clear, I came back from LA with COVID and I feel quite bad about not making forward progress on WoO.
But that’s not the big story here. Instead, let’s chat about…
The Meeting with Rick in Hollywood
If you’ve met me at a signing event, you’ve likely heard this story.
When I appeared on the Dusty Wheel WoT podcast, someone was listening to it: the Executive Producer of the Wheel of Time TV show, Rick Selvage. He contacted me and, together, we relaunched the game to coincide with the launch of the TV series. But in so doing, I introduced him to my series and he began to evaluate them for a potential TV series or movie.
Truth be told, many projects like this just don’t work out and I’ve tried to keep my hopes in check. That said, even though this effort has been on a slow burn, it never stopped, and since I was going to be in the area for my daughter Amanda’s graduation from UCLA, I reached out to schedule a meeting to discuss the property moving forward.
This was my first time meeting Rick face to face and we spoke for around an hour. We covered the new Age of Legends movie that’s currently being cast. We talked about the new game studio he’s spinning up. And we discussed the state of the Wheel of Time series, both the reasons behind its cancelation after three seasons and his efforts to try and find a path forward (there is a lot of momentum to make this happen, which is heartening).
And then we got into the possibility of taking my series into other media. I acknowledge that the Chronicles of Chaos is not a household name, however he respected its awards, reader reaction, and potential. His biggest problem has been his own bandwidth, which is understandable.
We ended the meeting with Rick saying he’d start looking for a show-runner to champion my books, not an easy task. This would have to be someone that would both fall in love with my material and be someone the studios want to work with.
While there’s still no guarantee any of this will pay off in a series or movie, Rick followed up with a text that asked for all of the books in electronic format so he could have someone research them and compile a report. That is undeniable forward progress. I would love to see that report when they’re done.
More here as things develop. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe you’ll see the Chronicles on the big screen someday!
The Wrath of Order Update
While I’d love to keep my initial target of Xmas 2025 for WoO’s release, I suspect it may be too ambitious. Recently, I ran into a creative block that took me two weeks to untangle (I’m so excited with how it resolved, though—this book is going to be amazing). Add that to the fact that Sabrina and I both caught COVID during our trip to LA, and my work schedule has been badly beat up.
That said, I’m almost 75K words into the manuscript and the story is awesome. I can’t wait to share it with you. In the seven years after the events in the last book, a lot has happened—and it’s all coming to a head now.
My current dilemma is figuring out how much to include in this first book of the new ‘Order’ story arc. Even though each of my books has been part of a larger series, each has also been a self-contained story with huge, satisfying ending. I want to keep this tradition alive, but I also want to focus on a larger story arc that is told over multiple books (something I didn’t prioritize in the last trilogy). We’ll see if I can juggle both.
What’s more, Miblart is narrowing in on the new cover and it looks fantastic. I hope to do an unveiling soon. And with this new cover, I’m redesigning my book marks to include it, which I’ll include with every order and hand out at signings.
Last Month’s Events
There are many places I love to return to, but the Dublin area is outstanding. It just happens to have both a Barnes & Noble and Half Price Books that always deliver great numbers.
This month was all about hanging out in Dublin.
Half Price Books Dublin
What a day! Series flew off the table, even before we set up. And we met some fantastic people there (and their pets).
One family dearly wanted the series but were worried about the price, so the husband searched through the store and found a full hardback set on the shelves. It was the first time I’ve ever seen that! She bought the short story so I’d sign something to her (the others were already signed to someone else) but I was happy she found a way to get them (and her kids were so cute).
Another customer was a fellow author who does signings there as well. He didn’t have his book, but he found it in HPB, signed it, and presented it to me, which I was quite moved by. I’ll definitely have to take a look (it’s a cozy SF story about an alien in Amish country in the future).
And yet another who bought the whole series is working on screenplays with people quite involved in the Beetlejuice franchise. So exciting!
While I love selling books, interacting with new readers is a huge reason we do this. And we nailed down two more dates at this HPB so you’ll see us again here soon!
Barnes & Noble Dublin
At this signing event, hardback series flew off the table! We had to get an emergency shipment from home to keep from running out.
So many wonderful new readers picked up the books, I don’t think I stopped pitching the entire time I was there, except to sign their purchases.
As always, I’m so grateful to my wife and son for their help. It was an exhausting day, but made so much better for them. And we got to go to our favorite restaurant in the area to celebrate: Outback, where the servers are all fans!
Catch Me if You Can!
Here’s my upcoming schedule for the next month. If you’re around or local, come meet me!
Saturday, June 28 at 1:00PM
1600 Gateway Blvd
Fairfield, CA 94533
Saturday, July 5 at 1:00PM
39152 Fremont Hub
Fremont, CA 94538
Saturday, July 26 at 1:00PM
Plaza Escuela
1192 Locust Street Unit D400-500
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
You can always check out my event calendar at my site to see or confirm times and places. It always has the most up-to-date information.
Art Attack!
Once again, it’s time to unmask last month’s character and introduce the another’s silhouette from resident artist extraordinaire Emmett Dahlgren.
Free Fantasy Fare
Extraordinary authors banded together to provide free fantasy (and some SF) stories. And this month, I have a number of promotions to peruse. Click on the banners below to check out these collections and grab some free stuff!
By the way, just clicking on those links helps my own Bookfunnel rating so that I can continue to get the Dice of Chaos to a larger audience. I appreciate you giving them a chance, but definitely do so because there’s some great fiction there!
So much has happened in the last month, it’s hard to know what to include in this space—but the most impactful event would have to be my daughter Amanda’s graduation from UCLA.
We attended not one, not two, but three of Amanda’s graduation ceremonies. Each ceremony was unique. The first was inside an elegant theatre for honor students, the second was in a stadium for the college of Letters and Science, and the last was outside for her major. We were lucky to find seats under the tents, otherwise we would have gotten cooked.
UCLA is so huge with so many graduates it’s overwhelming, but each ceremony underscored how much of an accomplishment it is to get that degree, especially from her department (Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology).
Now, she is truly launched into her new life, starting with a job right at UCLA! We couldn’t be prouder of her.
To celebrate her (and Father’s Day), we decided to spend a day in Universal Studios Hollywood. We’ve been a Disneyland a bunch, but never Universal, so we wanted to check it out. One of the best features was the backlot tour, where we got to see locations from a bunch of favorite movies, including the clock tower from Back to the Future! It also incorporated a couple of older rides from Orlando (BART disaster and Jaws).
We enjoyed Super Nintendo Land, but it wasn’t the place we spent the most time. Honestly, Jurassic world may have been the most fun, followed by hanging out with all the crazy characters (so much fun to watch Fred chase after Dracula with a wooden coffee stirrer).
The week-long trip was exciting, fun, and exhausting—and gave us all some great memories, which is really the point. Of course, we ended up paying for it later when both Sabrina and I came down with COVID. It’s my first time and I’m not fond of the experience, but it wasn’t that much of a surprise given how many super-spreader events we attended.
Hopefully our Paxlovid will kick in and shave some time off of our recovery so I can get back to writing. I’m pretty excited to see how I finish the latest section (entitled “Righteous Fury”: a clue for fans).
Finally, here are some links in case you’re interested in learning more.
You can always stop by my website for more info about me, my games, and big events.
First, if you haven’t yet read the award-winning prequel short story, the Dice of Chaos, grab it here.
And if you would prefer to listen to the audiobook version, check it out here. If you enjoy my narration, make sure to listen to the whole series on audiobook here.
For anyone who hasn’t even started collecting your signed copies of the series (and why is that?), you can get 15% off if you purchase the entire series of signed soft or hard covers! Find it all at my webstore.
Looking for ebooks (especially if you’re a KU member, who can read my books for free)? Head on over to the series page on Amazon. And leave a review!
If you’re an audiobook fan, you may be interested to know that I narrated all my own books—and people seem to like them! You can find them all on Audible,
Thank you so much for being a part of my inner circle. I appreciate every one of you and hope you’ll continue on this incredible journey with me.
Remember: if you reply, so will I.
