My book is finally available today!! If this looks interesting, you can read some of it for free on my website. If it looks really interesting and you're feeling adventurous, the epub is cheap and you can get it from my ko-fi or from amazon! For the slightly less adventurous, maybe check out the reviews we got so far on Goodreads or Storygraph.
All the buying info for both the print and digital editions is under the cut, along with a text transcript of the synopsis!
First: I was asked to remind y'all you can request this one from your library, so here's me doing that!
The ISBNs for both covers are:
Variant cover (Phin and Ulrich): 979-8-9994625-0-3
Destination cover (Tower): 979-8-9994625-2-7
My distributor is Ingram and Sprawlworks is the publisher, if you need those too. If you know of any place that might be interested in working with me by carrying this and they need to get at me, you can direct them to the contact page on my author site!
For individuals, print copies are in my shop, and if you're in the US or the UK specifically you can also order a Destination or Variant edition direct from the distributor if you prefer (the only difference will be less cute packaging and no signature)! Despite the listing's confusing lack of cover images, both paperbacks are also available on the amazon page and through pretty much any bookseller in the Ingram network, but it'll be a bit more expensive in those places.
You can get the digital version of this book from:
My ko-fi shop and itch.io - DRM-free epubs!
The Kobo store and Amazon - Files automatically delivered to your account, and your device if you've got one! By the way, the Kobo file should be available through Overdrive too, so even if your library isn't interested in the print version for whatever reason you can still rent the epub that way with your library card.
Here's that text transcript for the back of the book:
In a world under the boot of its gods, Phineas Kidd is a heretic with a chip on her shoulder.
After her murder by the sun god, Phineas Kidd was resurrected as a commander- one who trades their soul for the ability to rewrite reality through sheer grit. Phineas uses it to punch things. Now grown and armed to the teeth with weaponized optimism, she sets out to catch the sun: an urban legend that will either help her liberate the world from the deities tearing it apart or destroy her in the process.
But first she'll need a ship, and a crew too.
When Phineas rolls into the desert outpost of Last Chance the only ship in sight belongs to Cold Hazard, the wizard terrorizing the town and its mining operation. Fortunately she also meets Ulrich, a perpetually irritable stage magician who only wants to kill her some of the time. With his pistols and her fists, it should be no trouble to climb the town's radio tower and deal with one crusty old dude.
...though, the things lurking in the depths below Last Chance might be more trouble than they or anyone else can handle.
Grist is the first novel in a humanist series about monsters who love each other, thriving in a world that wants them dead.
And hey, if you decide to give it a shot, please consider leaving a review or posting about it on social media! I'm all on my own out here, so visible reader interest really helps me out with those libraries and cute little book shops.
Thanks so much for being here for this! I hope it's a fun time! :D
By the time this posts Kidd Commander's first novel, Grist to the Cannon, is out!! Available at Aria's Ko-fi shop and Amazon in both physical and digital form! Tbh there are tons of ways to get this book, check out the author, Aria Bell’s, post here for full details.
I've been very excited to read this re-imagining of the webcomic's first arc (Mile High Engage) ever since I first heard about it! And now that it’s out I’m gonna be insufferable about it!
In celebration, I’m gonna post my thoughts/reactions to each chapter! One chapter a day! There will be plenty of spoilers, both for the book and the webcomic, so this is your warning!
If you don’t wanna see this you can block the tag ‘#kidd commander’ or ‘#grist to the cannon’ or ‘#gttc’. If you dont wanna see spoilers, you can block '#kidd commander spoilers' or '#grist to the cannon spoilers' or '#gttc spoilers'. I'm thorough like that.
Anyway, each new chapter will be its own post. I’ll figure out how to link them all to each other as I go, so that’s future me’s problem. XD
Enjoy Chapter 0 thoughts under the cut! Things in brackets [] are excerpts from the book!
Yeeeesss, our first glimpse into how she percieves souls/auras/hearts! I’ve been interested in learning more about it since Phineas first mentioned it and every time it’s come up in the webcomic hasn’t disappointed me! It’s very exciting to get her perspective and insight in prose form! God, I am SO EXCITED for her to meet Ulrich EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! I am SQUEALING, I am KICKING MY FEET!!
[Phineas could tell he was a working man from a distance. Long, faded spines of hardy reliability make straight and spartan lines in the air around him]
I am continuing to read. XD
[Taking a minute to think about trucks lulls the conversation, which Phineas tries to avoid since it gives people time to notice that something about her makes them feel nervous.]
MY (not) giiiiirl!! 😭 Having recently gotten the inside scoop on Phineas’ childhood and why she is the way she is in the webcomic (hint hint read the webcomic it’s so good hint) makes this hit so hard! She just wants to find her people that she can be unapologetically herself with!! She knows she makes most people nervous and uncomfortable! Augh! Ulrich cannot show up soon enough, and not just because I love him dearly.
[“There ain’t even a road that comes this way, I was surprised when this one just showed up after ‘while. Like it fell out of the sky or somethin’.”]
=)
[His name is Larimer, but Phineas never learns that because she forgets to ask.]
I love this line. I love this line so much. I love the writing voice that comes through so clearly here. It’s information Phineas doesn’t get but we, the readers, get it and it’s so smoothly done!
[“You ain’t even got a pack or nothin’? Water?”
“I got big pockets,” Phineas says, spreading her arms to drag out her coat like wings around her…It’s too big for her.]
=) Yeah, it is too big for her. How about that? Anyway, I am ALSO curious about what she needs for travel and how she carries it. Does she need less than the average person or?
[Phineas had been able to feel the neon jab of his anxiety as soon as he caught sight of her…the only other sapient soul out here lighting up with fear had looked like a signal flare.]
Oohh, I love the imagery! Phineas’ perspective of the world is so vibrant and alive!
[The lines in his face cut even deeper, probably at the circles burned into the palms of her fingerless leather gloves. They match the ones on her back.]
=)
[Phineas doesn’t think of herself as manipulative; that’s usually the longer way to get somewhere, and she doesn’t have the patience for anything but a straight line. But she does like to get what she wants, and she’s come to understand some stuff about other people after being Phineas Kidd for most of her life. From Larimer’s perspective, inherent commander creepiness or not, she’s a small, unarmed person in the desert carrying nothing but a glorified bed sheet on her back. She’s an adult for sure, but still young enough that people like this tend to pity her if they don’t pay attention to the battered skin across her knuckles or know what those circles on her hands mean. People also think she’s a woman, which usually drives all those sympathy meters further along in out of the way places like this. Being underestimated is good, most of the time, and right now she hopes it will get her on this wagon and down this road.]
I love this whole thing. Character perspectives is what I LIVE for and this is some good fucking food.
She doesn’t have the patience for anything but a straight line! Leaning into all the things that others interpet as non-threatening to offset "inherent commander creepiness!" And that’s not even touching “she’s come to understand some stuff about other people after being Phineas Kidd for most of her life.” There’s just. So much there I don’t even know where to begin. Wow. I love it. This is gonna marinate in the back of my brain for a long time, I can feel it.
[In the air around him, in some colors Phineas never fooled with naming, those spartan lines are getting a little bit less faded, hanging a little bit straighter in the air. Larimer is a decent man. Phineas wonders if he might have a grandson with a haircut like hers, or maybe his wife’s hair is the same shade of blushy pink.]
Aaaaaawww, so soft. =3 And more souls/auras! Man. She really is very insightful. Makes it even funnier when Ulrich doubts her later. XD And I LOVE the “in some colors Phineas never fooled with naming”! It tells us the colors are unique AND that Phineas isnt the kind of person to bother naming them. She knows what they mean, and that’s enough.
[She checks “wagon” off of the list of potential shapes she’ll have her ship’s heart take.]
Haha, this made me laugh! 😂 I can definitely understand why it’s not to her liking.
[The sun is still working on setting in the direction they’re heading, bleeding frenzied warm colors into the cooling purple of the night.]
This imagery is gorgeous. I love it. 😍
[Abject joy flies from her throat in a stab of laughter, yellow sparks lighting up the darkening space she’s balanced in and latching onto debris in the whirling dust to send them back the way they’d come.]
AAAAA, HER JOY!!!!! Her laugh always looks so exuberant in the webcomic and this version compliments it so well! Literally lighting up the world around her with her joy! 🌟🌟🌟
[This old, weathered wood conducts energy as good as anything, and there’s plenty of momentum to redirect. As soon as they leave the ground Phineas commands the wheels back down before she thinks to stifle the reflex.]
Oohhh, it’s so interesting to see her commanding like this, from an inside perspective! I’m so excited to see more!
[She also twigs that he’s a patron saint; she can feel the distinct shape of his spirit, ancient and heavy with faith and obligation.]
Oohh, so that’s how they feel to her! Fascinating!
[Her own spirit thrums unseen and greedy along the desert floor, sailing through all the spaces between the grit where the sunshine gets caught, but it turns out he’s further away than she thought. Too far to touch.
Sulking, she reels herself back. But then: a spark, a battery on her tongue that tastes like hot leaves.]
I wish I had something clever or insightful to say, but I am just reveling in the descriptions, the vivid imagery I’m enjoying so much!!
[The patron saint of this desert is watching her. Her body hums with the feeling of endless wandering, displacement, determined longing. Nothing and no one around for miles and miles and miles,
Innumerable veins writhing with life like eels in a river, a throbbing pulse rushing to some unspeakable buried heart in the center of this place, the red earth and the bleeding sky.
Phineas laughs for real this time; the match that starts the fire in a house that begs for it, joyous and terrible light.
It’s the first time she’s done it properly today. Longer if she’s being honest, and she loves how it spirals out in the air as a searing orange, dragging sunlight all the way up from her heart.]
SPEAKING OF GORGEOUS IMAGERY, THIS SECTION IS JUST DRIPPING WITH IT AND I LOVE IT I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!!! Joyous and terrible light!! Dragging sunlight up from her HEART, I am on my KNEES!!! 😭 Beautiful, stunning, captivating!! 💖💖
[Larimer…and his answering shudder brings her down enough to put it away again. She wants the hell off this wagon so bad she itches with it, all her muscles twitching and jumping to run. Away from this desert and its flinching faces, further away from the ones who flinched at the last place she passed through and even further away from the ones at home who flinched first. There have to be people she can laugh with somewhere, she’s gotta be getting close to finding them.]
AUGH AND THE PIVOT TO HIS SHUDDER, TO REMEMBERING ALL THE FLINCHING FACES. I AM CLAWING AT THE WALLS, I WANT PHINEAS TO BE HAPPY AND JOYFUL AND UNRESTRAINED IN IT!! 😭😭😭
Okay, I’ve retrieved tea and lemon cookies and calmed down. Let’s finish Chapter 0, shall we?
[For the first time, Phineas wonders if something is amiss. From the way Jo talked there ought to be a city here, a real one, not a pile of dried-out lean-tos.]
=)
[They’re both staring back at her more intensely than animals would…It tilts its head unnaturally, even for a hare, bending its neck alarmingly until the stump of its bad ear is parallel to the ground…it folds its arms like a humankind, bent wrong at the elbows.]
I love how unnerving and unnatural the desert hare saints are!! Reading the webcomic I was just like “yeah talking magic hares, I accept this” but in reality I WOULD be unnerved by animal-shaped things moving and acting like this! One of the benefits of a written medium, it’s harder to miss details like this! Of course, the downside is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Some of the stunning art I love will be hard to translate into prose, but this book is chock-full of stunning imagery!
[The thing that’s really getting Phineas’ hackles up is that they don’t have any discernible spirits, no halos or anything, which means they’re hiding…patron saints hiding in their own territory probably isn’t a good sign.]
Oohh, fascinating! Learning this so early, goodness!
[She tries not to think about how she shouldn’t be able to reach so far in. She’s up to her elbow in fur when something pricks her finger. The hare shudders.]
This is DEFINITELY unnerving and I love it. Got half her arm jammed into its ear.
[The sun is only a sliver sliced above the town now, the encroaching moonlight is threatening to spill everywhere like ice water.]
Fucking gorgeous. This book is going to be a DELIGHT.
(Spoilers - it was a delight! All the way through!! 🥰🌟)
[She tucks the antler away in her coat pocket where it promptly slips from this plane of existence. Phineas slides her hands over the lapels of her coat, up around her neck, until the fabric shifts and extends along with her touch. Straightening her back, she pulls the newly formed hood over her head.]
WHAT? OH MY GOD, WHAT?! HOW DID I MISS THIS, DO I NOT HAVE EYES?? OMG I AM VIBRATING HOW DID I NOT KNOW HER COAT WAS CAPABLE OF THIS?! WELL THAT EXPLAINS HER “BIG POCKETS!” Oh I definitely need to re-read the first arc, Mile High Engage. I was going to do that anyway, for comparison’s sake, but there is obviously stuff I missed and I am GOING BACK FOR IT. After I finish this chapter, of course.
[She meets the man’s eyes and even through the glaze of alcohol the screwturn of her years bolts him in place. “Rooster screams herself hoarse ‘cause that’s all she can do, but it’s not fuckin’ crowing. Crow is for good things.”
The man swallows.
“H-her? The rooster is female?”
He feels a month of his life burn away under her contempt.]
YEAAAAAAAAH JOCASTA!!!!!! This is so good, I love this!! Crow is for good things, huh? Damn, what a sentence.
And what a place to end Chapter 0! So excited for Phineas to finally get into town! Oohh, I really hope she meets Ulrich next chapter. SOON!!!
My thoughts/reactions to Chapter 1 will be posted tomorrow, so I hope you're looking forward to that!
I think I've talked about this line before or posted something someone said about it maybe BUT regarding "teaching people how to read my writing" I'm pleased that people like, remark on it as often as they do. It comes up a lot in feedback as a bit early on where readers kind of get cued in that I'm actively thinking about them and what sort of things they can expect from the prose, in addition to how characterization and perspective colors the narration and all. I remember being nervous about how it would go over once it came in contact with The Audience and I'm really glad it mostly seems to be working how I wanted
