Author's Note: After being in virtual isolation since my return to Los Angeles, besides work and the occasional dinner with friends, I have had time to emotionally settle and think about what's most important. Two weeks later, I still didn't have an answer. I had a desire to write—not the best literary project or the best genre project, but just write, and there was no good explanation for it. So… I threw that whole "gotta find yourself before you write" shit out the window. I'm deciding, for now, that there doesn't really need a good reason to write or to share your writing. Maybe this will last me for a few good months, maybe some years, if I'm lucky.

People shouldn't go back and forth wondering if they're good enough. You're never good enough. It isn't healthy to dwell on how much you suck at Life. This is the thing though: if you push, and push, and push, hell, it doesn't even matter what you're pushing or why, just fuckin' push it, and then try to figure it out later, it'll ease the burden of living clueless. Figuring out why the hell you did so much shit is half the joy of Life! So, while you're young and you still have the energy, just do it. Whatever you like doing, writing, masturbating, bungee jumping or spelunking or having lots of sex, just do it.

That being said, this book is a prequel to an old story I had up here a while called Thread Breaker. This one is about tribal pioneering, tribal warfare, strangers trying to get along, you know—the usual. It has annoying short chapters, fantasy elements, hard-to-pronounce names, character dialogue that bounces between being Medieval and total 90's-speak, harem romance, and ninjas. Anything you could ever want in a bad fantasy book! Enjoy.

Author's Note: Hrm. I still stand by what I believe. Write to write - but yeah, my shit detector kicked in and told me I have to start again. This story got 100,000 words in and I wasn't feeling it, so now I am writing a prequel to this story, which, in essence, is a prequel to my prequel of my original story. Though - I am going to put World Chicken: A Libertine back up. I've been getting too many requests for that story. April 28, 2010.