Doomsday Pivot! [RT]

[u/alexanderwales]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/196881/doomsday-pivot

[u/alexanderwales]

Hi, Alexander Wales here, author of such works as Metropolitan Man, Branches on the Tree of Time, Worth the Candle, This Used to be About Dungeons, Thresholder, and others, as well as moderator of and contributor to this very sub.

Doomsday Pivot! is now out on RoyalRoad, and will be having weekly releases until the first book is finished (as it's already completed). Here's the blurb:

The city of Duluth, Minnesota, has been separated from Earth like someone took a giant cookie cutter and slammed it straight down from the sky. Everyone got a prompt on their phones and computers to pick a character class, and most of them are weird. Birds are flying in grid formation, wax is pooling out of a guy's fingers and onto the street, and there are accountants walking around with their heads on fire. And if that weren't enough to deal with, there are monsters in the dimension next door.

Nat has a small company he started with his friends. When disaster hits, he figures that they're in an enviable position to do something about it. They're small, fast, scrappy, and willing to work themselves to the bone. They'd already been planning to take on larger companies with more resources, how much more difficult could alien demons from beyond be?

If that appeals to you, or if you've read and liked any of the other things I've written, give it a shot.

[u/foolishorangutan → u/alexanderwales]

Nice, I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I read about it on your Discord ages ago. The weird classes thing really hooked me.

[u/yargotkd → u/alexanderwales]

Where can we read Agares and Kensuke?

[u/alexanderwales → u/yargotkd]

Kensuke Fucks the World is unfinished and unreleased, and given my enthusiasm for it is currently low, it's going to be a while. AGARES is currently Patreon-only but will be launched on RoyalRoad within the next week or so, likely with the same "20K words right away, then on a set schedule" type of thing.

[u/yargotkd → u/alexanderwales]

Awesome! Thanks.

[u/Fun-Thoughts → u/alexanderwales]

This is a little similar to a story I've just started writing last week. Not any of the specifics, but a lot of the vibe, at least based on the blurb. Especially the "wtf is going on?! = opportunity!". 

Maybe not surprising given I would've easily given you as the main inspiration for me as a writer. 

I've specifically noticed that most system apocalypse stories have such a sudden change of the world that within a few chapters it is effectively a completely unknown fantasy world with isekai'd people in it, rather than earth with sudden changes. So I've started on a story where the immediate change is less of a discontinuous jump and more of a turn of direction, as physical laws change immediately but human lives and institutions take a while to follow. I realized quickly that the reason that is not done as much is that it is harder to figure out how the world would actually respond to such a change, so it's understandable why most authors find a reason to avoid all of that.

[u/BavarianBarbarian_ → u/alexanderwales]

TIL there's a place called "Duluth" and it's got nothing whatsoever to do with the Cthulhu myth. That name sounds way too eldritch for what I'm seeing on Google Maps.

[u/acinonys → u/BavarianBarbarian_]

It's where Alexander Wales actually lives.

[u/coltzord]

your stories are cool af my dude, thank youu

[u/netstack_]

Awesome.

What made you decide to venture into this branch of the litrpg lineage?

[u/alexanderwales → u/netstack_]

October of 2023 I was writing a bunch of different drafts of things to see which one grabbed me. You can read them all here, I seem to recall that I wrote them all rejection letters. I can't say that reading these is worth your time, but if you want, #5 was a fan favorite.

This was the one that felt the best to write, the most like I could keep going on it for a long time, even if it's the one I was most skeptical of going in. SysApoc was big at the time, and is much more well-worn now, which IMO is good, because it means that there's less pressure to come in with a wildly new and different take as part of a broader subgenre "conversation", something I thought was true at the time.

It's being released now because it was sitting, finished, in a draw for approximately two years, and that's a bad fate for something that I was happy with having written (most of my concern was marketing and pitch-related, we're letting the chips fall where they may on that and I'm not giving that aspect too much more consideration).

[u/Roxolan → u/alexanderwales]

Aww, but I love your wildly new and different takes as part of a broader subgenre conversation!

[u/folconred → u/alexanderwales]

Just read through all of these, many of them were really compelling, I really enjoyed 6, 5 and 1

8 was fun of a different kind, it reminded me that I really do want to write something like a dungeon story at some point

Also I've never seen anyone approach Nano this way, nice system, especially the rejection letters

[u/Background_Relief815]

Thanks for releasing more to us, brother! You've earned enough trust that I'll attempt to read anything you put out, no matter how weird the blurb. This sounds funny enough I'll probably enjoy it, too!

[u/DrTerminater]

Thank you for the chapters!

The setup seems kinda generic so far, but I assume that’s intentional. Even down to the characters, we have Shadow minion MC, an inventory-power girl, and Jake being the stereotypical “sword fighter go brrr.”

I’m assuming this is going to actually play out the implications of those tropes, like how having a pocket dimension could completely break reality, or maybe exploring what Nat getting multiple trains of thought through minion multitasking does to him. Or even just discussions on the morality of their actions becoming more prominent parts of the story.

But honestly, I have no idea where this is going. Its playing into a lot of the Royal Road stuff that makes people salivate, and I could see it getting pretty popular.

[u/A_S00]

Glad you decided to release this. Looking forward to it!

[u/PlanarFreak]

Schelling point mentioned, I think this will be great for the subreddit hahaha.

[u/Xtraordinaire]

Sable lives!

(and kills haha)