I spend most of my time on Kickstarter in the tabletop games section, but there are a couple of book projects running now that I thought I’d share with you.
Sithrah Book 2: Propositions by Jason Brubaker
I backed the first Sithrah project back in 2014. I love the story so far, but it just ended too soon! So I was excited to hear that the second volume is in the works (and there will be 6 books total). Brubaker’s books are gorgeous—hardcovers with cloth binding, full-page bleeds on the beautiful illustrations. The story is about a young girl who’s searching for her dad after their small plane crashes. There are weird creatures and mysterious characters. Brubaker worked at DreamWorks Animation before leaving to work on his comics full-time, and I’m excited to see where this story goes next.
AZR-0: Robots in the Wild by Curio & Co.
Curio & Co. isn’t just another book publisher—it creates artifacts. The Gadabout Time Machine User’s Manual isn’t just a piece of fiction, but looks and feels like an actual manual from a time machine manufactured in 1953. Finding Frank and His Friend was a collection of “lost” images from a newspaper comic from the 1970s and ’80s… except that the comic in question didn’t actually exist then. Kirstie Shepherd writes and Cesare Asaro illustrates these books in a style that fits the time period they’re supposedly from.
Their latest book is the first one to be funded on Kickstarter, and it’s a journal of a scientist sent to another planet to study wild robots. The book looks like a hand-written and -illustrated notebook, and based on what I’ve seen of Curio & Co.’s previous publications, I’m sure it will be beautiful.
Sidekick Quests by James Stowe
James Stowe has a really fun webcomic called Sidekick Quests, about a couple of kids who wind up on an adventure when the “real” heroes are off doing something. The comic is chock-full of RPG references—like when a character attempts to do something, there will often be a die roll, and then the results are illustrated as part of the comic. (I thought for sure I’d written about Sidekick Quests on GeekDad before, but I couldn’t find it. Shame on me.) But Sidekick Quests is also a role-playing game designed to introduce kids as young as 6 to RPGs.
Stowe is now running his first Kickstarter campaign to fund a print book of the first Sidekick Quests storyline along with the RPG module for you and your kids to play through that storyline yourselves. There are a variety of pledge levels, from digital-only packages to custom quests and in-person game sessions. Check out the Kickstarter page for more, and be sure to watch the video so you can hear Stowe say “Secret of the Sewer Wizard” a bunch of times.
Hen & Chick: The Marauders’ Island by Tristan J. Tarwater
I’ve forgotten exactly how I first connected with Tristan J. Tarwater, but she’s a geeky mom and a writer here in Portland, Oregon, and although I haven’t met her in person, we’ve been following each other on Twitter for a while. Her latest book kicks off a new young adult series that has a bit of swords and sorcery and pirates. Azria is a young mage; her mother, Apzana, is a pirate captain. Azria has been tasked with raising an island that was sunk by the infamous mage, Iyzani.
What’s exciting to me about Hen & Chick is that Tarwater really wanted to write an exciting story that overturned a lot of the usual tropes. Her main characters are people of color, and you’ll note that Azria is not an orphan. (Tarwater explains why that’s important in this update about Dead Mom Tropes.) You can read the first chapter for free before you decide!
Have you found any book projects that you’re excited about? Let us know in the comments!
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