Some WKTH news (plus free stories)

Jun 18, 2025

Hello,

WHO KILLED THE HUMANS? has now been chiselled back to a modest 81,000 words. I am currently re-reading every story individually. I think you’re going to enjoy this book.

I intend to fulfil the pre-orders on crowdfundr still, but if you ever want to cancel your pre-order because it’s taking too long, it is easy to do so and I absolutely will not mind doing it for you.

Signed copies will be made available again as pre-orders on Etsy, just like WBTH was, once the book is in print and I’ve triple checked it. That way, any sudden life events won’t get in the way this time.

So, why is it at 81,000 words when WBTH was 125,250?

It’s shorter than WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? for two big reasons.

It just worked out that way, which is lucky considering point 2
I sell signed copies at book fairs, nerdy events, and comedy shows, and I have noticed that most people find the 350 page tome of WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? (or 450 page if you get the newly formatted special edition) intimidating. Some readers came up to me at my stall and said they didn’t know if they’d ever have time to read it. So, my idea to create more value by squeezing a multiverse into my debut book seems to backfire sometimes.

What this means is that my ‘ADHD-Friendly’ Sci-Fi comedy book, which I designed to make heavy concepts more accessible and funny, could be a bit more accessible, by being less daunting to the casual reader. One upside to this is that my original 2020 idea of it being a ‘best-of collection for a dead writer who is not yet dead’ works. I just need to continue my backward traipse through time and publish the individual stories as individual stories, now the book has been out five years. Lucy’s Universe already has its own cover, and since it’s a fan favourite I think it would go down well at book fairs.

So, as I was saying. People want a shorter, less intimidating tome.

Fair enough. I can’t argue with that.

So WKTH is shorter. Punchier.

Coming to this conclusion during development has been good for the book, too. It’s going through an additional round of rather brutal edits. There was one story which didn’t fit in WBTH, which now won’t fit in WKTH either. It just does not fit the theme. I was going to send it to a magazine instead, but I have other ideas for it…

Oh, about that.

I got into an anthology. More news about that soon.