Will's brother, roommate, and Raion enthusiast Sam here, hijacking the blog for some news!

As many of you know, the majority of our team lives directly in the path of current category five Hurricane Milton. I would insert an Office Space joke here, but I’ve never actually seen it. So before we lose power and Florida sinks into the ocean where it belongs, a few notes:

-Our Kickstarter for limited editions of Uncrowned, Wintersteel, and Bloodline is pushing $960,000 with four days left to go!!! That is SO MANY OREOS! Reminder that the campaign closes this Friday, October 11th, at Noon Eastern. Huge thank you to everyone that continually blesses us and reaffirms that Cradle fans are the best fans!

If you would’ve told me two years ago that we would see a Kickstarter closing in on a million dollars not once but THREE times, I would’ve called you a liar and slapped Will. What a world.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/cradle-books-7-9-by-will-wight-special-editions

-We have digital rewards for our animatic Kickstarter that were supposed to go out this week. We’ve decided to postpone that to next week so our team can focus on evacuating or getting their houses prepared as needed. We have some awesome updates we can’t wait for you all to see!

-Hardcover novels of Cradle books 1-6 are now available through Barnes and Noble and other big box retailers like Waterstones if you’re international! The rest of the series is available for hardcover preorder as well, with 7-9 coming in February and 10-12 next summer.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/cradle+will+wight/_/N-5

-Threshold, the collection of Cradle stories Will is writing, is further along than we expected. A release in the next few months is imminent. Unlike our “normal” releases, we will give plenty of notice about release date since Kickstarter purchasers will get access to the book a month early. Be extra wary of spoilers!

Our team appreciates all the warm wishes and messages! Even for seasoned Floridians, this storm is no joke. If you are in the path, especially on the west coast, please be smart and safe. Hunker down with some snacks and a book.

​Might I be bold enough to suggest The Knight, book three of The Last Horizon, written by some idio…I mean wise and handsome individual.

First and most importantly, you all are amazing for your enthusiastic support of the Kickstarter! I would call it "overwhelming."

Even though this is our third time running a special-edition Kickstarter, it's still unbelievable to see such a high number. As of writing, we're almost at $900k!

My wrist is about to be sore from signing again. That's a great problem to have.

Speaking of which, I'm not in a wheelchair anymore! [Insert celebration emoji here] I can return to my highly celebrated international soccer career at last.

This week, we at Hidden Gnome have begun our annual Conclave of Gnomish Elders, whereupon we go into seclusion to determine the future of all gnomes, hidden and otherwise. I'll be underground all week, consulting the signs and omens.

The first omen has told me that it's almost time to return to The Last Horizon. My journey with The Pilot will continue soon, which means that Threshold is effectively finished. More news on that...

Well, I'm not sure what I can tell you. I haven't consulted the portents yet.

[Insert crystal ball emoji here]

​-Will

Are you in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend? Do you want to listen to me rant for a while before resuming the rest of your life?

Then come on down to the Embassy Suites by Hilton Atlanta at Centennial Olympic Park* tomorrow at noon! Our event is from 12 PM to about 3 PM, the last section of which will be a signing (we'll have postcards to sign if you don't want to haul your own books).

You don't have to stay for the whole thing, you can just pop in and hear my old man ramblings and leave, or you can just come for the signing at around 2:30, or whatever you want to do. Freedom!

But you do not need a DragonCon badge to attend, since this isn't an official DragonCon event and is more of a secret underground meeting that we happen to be holding at the same time as DragonCon.

See you there! I mean you will definitely be there; I have foreseen it.

-Will

*Address: 267 Marietta St., Atlanta, GA, 30313

Legend tells of a fully animated concept trailer for a potential Cradle animated show. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. It's very cool.

This was the "sizzle reel" that we'd commissioned from Jay Oliva and his team at Lex+Otis before the Cradle animation Kickstarter even started. We wanted something to show off to fans, and even to studios, to demonstrate how cool a full Cradle animated series could be.

I think it does that really well.

Just to clarify, by the way: the animatic we funded through Kickstarter won't look like this. We couldn't afford full animation, like we have in this trailer. But this is what we hope the series will be like, one day!

And speaking of the animatic, just a few minutes ago we wrapped up dialogue recording! All the lines in the feature-length script, which covers the events of both Unsouled and Soulsmith, have now been recorded by our team of awesome voice actors!

I talked about this a little at Comic-Con, but sitting in on the recording sessions is probably my favorite thing I've done for this process. It's amazing to hear these veteran voice actors making my lines sound way better than they actually are.

Speaking of San Diego Comic-Con, it was my first time visiting, and I had a great time! Even though I broke my foot fighting all those ninjas and now I have to hop everywhere. We met way more fans than we expected!

Plus, I got to be on a panel! At Comic-Con! And debut the trailer to a room full of fans! Since I was sitting on the panel, I had a clear view of the audience's reaction, which was very gratifying. Especially when Eithan showed up; that was the biggest reaction out of the whole trailer.

Everybody else on the panel was a real professional, but I had to pretend to know what I was doing. I was clearly the least qualified person on the stage, since they sat me next to Jay Oliva, Morla Gorrondona, Maxine Phoenix, and Phil LaMarr.

Big thanks to everyone involved for putting on the event! And for wheeling me up there and dumping me into my chair so I didn't have to hobble on my own.

It was especially crazy to run into some of you who had no idea we were going to be there and just recognized Cradle from our signs! It's bizarre to be at a convention the size of SDCC and organically run into readers.

Next time, to avoid detection, I'll cosplay as a map. No one will ever suspect it's me.

-Will

For the last few months, I have been completely disengaged from my job, instead spending most of my time meditating under waterfalls and exploring the deepest reaches of outer space. When I came back on Monday, as you might imagine, I had a lot to catch up on.

The Knight releases next Tuesday, June 11th. Just a week after I got back! It feels like I wrote it forever ago, even though it's only been a few months. Now I'm back to being nervous about people's responses to the book, as is tradition.

I've also spent a lot of the last few days working on the script for the upcoming Cradle animatic, which has been extremely cool and encouraging (especially working with Travis as he recorded lines). As Travis read, I got to tweak and change my own lines.

Now I get to reconnect with you online! That was one of the things I missed the most while I was gone; I kept wanting to make a comment, or post a thought, or check fan comments. A couple of times Sam had to slap the phone out of my hand. Now that I'm back, I can engage with you all again, especially around the new book release!

But what did I do while I was off, you ask? Well, off the top of my head, here are some highlights:

Final Fantasy VII Remake
I know I'm years behind on this, because Remake came out in 2020, but the sequel (Rebirth) came out this year and I wanted to play that, so I had to start with the first one. I've been procrastinating on Remake because I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the original FF7, and also because I thought Tetsuya Nomura was going to make it way too much like Kingdom Hearts for my taste.

When I heard it involved time-traveling ghosts, I was sure my assumptions were right. But now I've played it, and I thought it was great. They really hit that delicate balance between making a story that would accurately represent FF7 to new players and would have something new for veteran players, and (at least for me) they hit it dead-on.

Shout out to Andrew Rowe, who told me four years ago that I should play it. Andrew, I should have listened to you, as usual.

I'm only a few hours into Rebirth, and so far I like it even more. Also I hear Vincent is in this one and he was my favorite character when I was a kid, so I have high hopes for Vampire Bro.

Gyoza Ranking
As Sam already spoiled for you, I ordered all the gyoza within ordering distance of my house and ranked them in a text file. I tend to do this every once in a while--I did the same thing with Oreos a few years ago--because ordering fun snack food is serious business and should be taken very seriously.

The winner was Mayaki Sushi & Izakaya, though I also ended up with a recipe that I liked for making at home. At this rate, I'll soon be able to master Gyoza Magic and become the Pork Dumpling Elementalist I've always dreamed of being.

A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation
Some of you, like me, are extremely familiar with both Korean regressor novels and Chinese cultivation novels. Others of you have probably never heard the term "regressor" before in your life.

For the uninitiated, a regressor is someone who (essentially) dies and wakes up earlier in their own life, with a chance to do things differently. Like if you got hit by a truck today and woke up a year ago, memories of the future intact.

Of all the series I read on my sabbatical, A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation was my favorite. It's translated from Korean, and follows a character who is transported from modern-day Korea to a Chinese-style fantasy world filled with dangerous magic. All of his companions have extraordinary talents except for him, so he lives out his life as a normal peasant...until he dies of old age and wakes up back in the first day he arrived in this world.

I love this one for a few reasons, one of which is that it isn't afraid to cover LARGE amounts of time quickly. Like entire lifetimes. He really does learn, struggle, adapt, grow, and then take those lessons and try again in another life. Which leads into my other favorite thing: the author uses the main character's ability to come back to life to RAISE the stakes rather than lower them.

It's a fascinating take on two genres I love, so if you're at all interested, you should check it out.

The Treasure of Nan-Guluhr
Probably the most time-consuming of my sabbatical activities. You probably already heard about this on the news, but yes I did lead a team of miners to a forgotten cave network in eastern Spain, no I didn't know that my excavation efforts would unearth primordial spiders from the bowels of the earth, and yes, the queen of those spiders did offer me wealth beyond imagining in exchange for her freedom.

That has nothing to do with my decision to support her for President of Earth, I just think her ages of wisdom and ability to see into the spectrum of thoughts will help her govern us more effectively. I don't like talking politics, but I'm not going to hide the fact that I think Spider Queen Nan-Guluhr is the best candidate for a unified Earth government. Just because I now live in a spider-shaped temple made of solid gold doesn't mean my judgment is compromised.

And that's all I'll say on the matter.

So now to boring things I have been ordered to include in this post!

We are having a pre-release YouTube livestream for The Knight this coming Sunday, June 9th, at 6 PM Eastern! Come ask me questions about gyoza. And books. If I feel like it's getting too boring, I'll make Sam dance for your entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzIZnjYpFQo

Please preorder The Knight or I will fire one family member a day until our nonexistent quota is met. Starting with Rebecca.

https://tinyurl.com/Ebook-and-Paperback

https://tinyurl.com/Audiobook-Version

That's the end of the links! Now I must return to my golden temple before the spiders grow angry.

​-Will