Everythings on Fire!

I'm burning up the keyboard!

Metaphorically. 

We've been writing. We've been brainstorming. We are plotting.

Yes, we are currently working directly on Book 3, which we've now named "Beneath the Torn Sky." It's still slow work. Both of us work full time jobs and have full time families with real human problems. The stories we write are passion projects, but they do not pay the bills (omg... so many bills). 

We enjoy writing together. It's so energizing to hear excitement and encouragement from each other. I can't tell you how validating it is to get instant feedback from someone you respect as a writer tell you how "incredibly cool" something you have been working on is.

(Here is the inevitable...) BUT we are two people, writing two stories that we are trying to thread together. We are working on a giant puzzle and although we are closer to done than before, making sure all the puzzle pieces go together correctly takes more time as we approach the close of the story. Sometimes it even feels like we have to cut new pieces just to fill in some of the gaps.

We try to be each other's harshest critic, while also trying to be each other's most supportive editor. It's a process, even for one book. But since we plan to end this series on the book after this ("Untitled Book 4"), we're trying to thread together several individual character arcs while also pointing them all in the direction of the big ending(s) that happen on the close of the third book and the series conclusion at the end of book 4.

That being said, we are trying to do some special short drops along the way. We'll say more about that as we move closer to the drop dates (which are not set yet). 

I know it's been a long time since Between the Darkness and Dust dropped back in 2018. It's even been a while since we've been graced with great reviews and a fantastic SPFBOX runner-up award that brought us even more readers last year.

We are here. We are meeting and writing and editing and revising and excited to get this out.  We haven't abandoned you. We're just old, slow and demanding of ourselves and each other.

There's a lot of tumult these days. Even for those of us that have the luxury of escape through shows, games, books or whatever your flavor of distraction, it can still feel like a burden we can't quite put down. We can tell ourselves to relax, but with everything going on around us, it can be hard to listen, much less comply.

I don't have a solution to that, but if we figure it out, promise that we'll make it open source for everyone.

Take care out there.

-Tim & Wade

Pillaging on the High Seas (How the Robots Stole our Stories)

Days ago, The Atlantic dropped an article about how Meta decided to "get books ASAP," in order to train their Large Language Model AIs (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/libgen-meta-openai/682093/). To do that, they went to LibGen to get those books. The problem is that LibGen hosts pirated works.

Disclaimer: I'm not really here to talk about piracy. There are arguments for and against pirating, and I have opinions, but that's not this post.

In the most basic of terms, all Large Language Models are trained by reading and analyzing text and compiling probability metrics that are most likely to be statistically "correct" for any prompt. To keep the models growing, they feed a lot of data into the ever hungry maw of the LLM.

Meta (and we should just assume the others, too) decided to take books for free from LibGen to feed the machine, choosing not to notify or compensate those authors. This shouldn't be a big ask from a company worth $1.46 TRILLION dollars at the time of this post, but they decided to do it under the table. Odds are they're probably not the only ones.

META should be held accountable, but it probably won't be. The other AI companies should be audited to see how pervasive this is, but they won't be.

We couldn't find our books on LibGen, so it looks like we were not personally affected by this. That doesn't make us any less angry at massive tech companies for knowingly stealing from authors just to buff their profit margin for models that are far from perfect. (https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/ai-search-engines-give-incorrect-answers-at-an-alarming-60-rate-study-says/).

What's to do, then?

First off, you can see if you're affected by using the link at the top of the post.

This is a great bluesky thread about the litigation already pending and how as a class action, odds are you're already covered if your works were stolen: https://bsky.app/profile/meredithmooring.bsky.social/post/3lkvmozwyec2t

Here's a link to the author's guild on that existing page (it's older because apparently this had begun filing well before this new evidence was discovered): https://authorsguild.org/news/ag-and-authors-file-class-action-suit-against-openai/

And the final link is to another author's guild page on some more background, but more importantly, some action you can take, like a template to send to Meta and other AI companies if you find your work in the LibGen breach. Some of these options require an Author's Guild membership, but you're not required to join in order to use some of the resources. Other resources are available on becoming a paid member, but you should look at and decide for yourself if it works for you: https://authorsguild.org/news/meta-libgen-ai-training-book-heist-what-authors-need-to-know/

It's easy to be angry, so be angry for a minute. There's a lot going on out there right now and this is just one more thing to throw on the rage fire. You can be mad, or upset, or whatever emotion helps you to process all this. Take some time for that. It can feel overwhelming and exhausting So take some time for yourself. Read a book. Listen to some music. Watch a show.

We often joke to ourselves that the Empire needs more Lions. Honestly, we could all use a little more help from each other right now. So once you're ready to pitch in, look at ways you can support your fellow artists, let your followers know you appreciate them and feed your soul by donating where you can to promote art and community.

- Wade & Tim

Front Matters

Since we have some new readers, we wanted to make sure something is clear. When the two of us started this back in the long forgotten days of the 2010s we had a different book forward than the one we have currently. If you're new to the Lions Book-o-sphere, then here's the short version of what you should find in the front:

Sharing is caring. 

Yup. If you have one of our physical editions, feel free to share with a friend, if you think they'd like it. It's not 2010 anymore and stuff is hard at this moment. There's a lot of unpleasantness in the world. If you think that a friend or loved one might enjoy the distraction of being whisked away to another world, we have no problems with that. To be fair, currently two of our books are from worlds that are at least as equally messed up, but there's also magic! And at least one dragon!

If you happen to have one of our old editions where we ask you not to duplicate or re-sell the book or even to share it, then congrats, you are holding a relic of the olden times.

Thanks to everyone who's reading, rating and/or reviewing our work. We appreciate that you are giving us a chance to distract you for a bit.