Hemlock and the Wizard Tower Permanently Free

Photo by Ed_45 .  licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

A few announcements about Hemlock and the Wizard Tower:  first and foremost, it is now free across all platforms in the US (I'm still working out how to offer it for free on Amazon's international sites).

Second, I've gone all "George Lucas" on your collective posteriors and re-written the beginning of the book.  Why?  Well, if you've read the book recently, then you may remember that it was a bit difficult to "get into".  After some recent, candid feedback, I've finally admitted to myself that the first chapter had some severe issues.  It was very heavy on backstory and it was particularly flashback heavy, which several reviewers had commented on.  Although most readers grow to enjoy the flashbacks, I feel that their onset was too abrupt and extreme, and therefore I've dialed them back a quite a bit at the beginning.  Plus, there was the matter of Hemlock's confrontation with the 'legendary defenses' of the Tower.  Many months ago I said in an interview that there was no reason for those sequences to be flashbacks rather than part of the action.  Their origin as flashbacks came from the seat of the pants way I wrote the book.  For this revision I ended up integrating them directly into the action.

You may wonder if there are any new scenes.  The answer is yes.  There is a new scene between Safreon and Hemlock that sets the stage for her entering the Tower against his wishes, and there's also an action scene detailing her encounter with her first Tanna Varran (rather than recalling this encounter as a flashback).

I really think it's a positive revision, and, to be honest, I wish I'd done it a year ago.  Better late than never, I suppose.  For those of you who want the revised version, I will be asking Amazon to offer an update (and Smashwords always offers updates, if you bought there).  For those that can't or won't update, I also plan to post the revised first chapter here on this blog.  Keep an eye out for the link in the toolbar, above.

I'm dubbing this new edition of Hemlock and the Wizard Tower "4th edition".  Just so you know, I've made a vow not to go beyond a 10th edition.  Of course I haven't ruled out non-numeric editions (eg: "Ludicrous Edition").  Like any good politician or lawyer, I've left myself a loophole!