School’s back in session, and while the weather hasn’t yet turned the change in life patterns has felt dramatic. I don’t have many deep thoughts to share - all that blood’s being used elsewhere at the moment, on projects I hope to be able to share with you soon.

I’m writing this on Sept 4, the release date for the long-awaited Silksong, sequel to Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight. I identify with gamers more than I actually am one—I’ve been playing games since I was a kid, I have a couple hundred hours on Slay the Spire, and so on, but I tend to buy big titles years later on super-sale and sit on them, thinking I’ll get around to them someday. Hollow Knight I actually finished - well, it’s one of those games where “finishing” can mean a lot of things, so: I beat Radiance, then bought myself a congratulatory t-shirt with the cute bug guy sitting on a beach drinking a fruity drink and the legend “MAHALO KNIGHT,” because if anyone needs a break and a drink, it’s that cute bug.

Anyway, Team Cherry is a small team in Australia, and they’ve been working on Silksong since before the pandemic. They’ve let so little slip about their work that fans started to stunt on one another with memes about how Silksong would never come out. The launch announcement came out of nowhere last week, and its timing was hilarious to me for reasons I cannot disclose. But I loved this Bloomberg interview with the creators: “Why Did Silksong Take So Long to Make”? The answer turns out to be, more or less, because they kept working on it and that’s how long it took.

It’s so easy to feel rushed to finish a work of art. It’s important to finish, of course, and if you’re working with publishers or other folks with schedules and contracts and budgets involved it’s important that you all communicate so that nobody feels disrespected or taken advantage of. Also, perhaps your ability to pay rent depends on the timing of your next milestone. Nothing wrong with that. But it’s also easy to rush yourself to finish a project simply because the unfinished is uncomfortable. We want to have an answer, to know how it all turns out. It’s one of the many tensions that inform and shape the work: the need to finish, the need to finish properly. I’m excited to see what Team Cherry has come up with. If the Steam servers ever stop being so overloaded by day-one buyers that they let me purchase the dang game!

I do have a couple bits of news to share:

Trade reviews are coming in for DEAD HAND RULE! In a starred review, Library Journal says that the book is “a dizzying climb to the heights of the gods”!

Also, since DEAD HAND RULE is coming next month, it’s currently 25% off through B&N's preorder sale! Members get the discount with code PREORDER25. Let this link be your guide: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dead-hand-...

Take care of yourselves, friends. Work for the liberation of all sentient beings.