Matthew Stienberg

I fully support this Canon.

"Problem-solving is a collective endeavour and selfishness spells doom. These stories are worth telling, too, and they may be closer to reality."

Great coda to the article below!

As a part time prepper, this is a great article about survivalist fiction and its darker side, alongside what it says about our views about society in general!

A very good read!

Stakes in Writing Good SFF One thing that I enjoy as a student of history is that, in military history, we can often observe the point at which one side is going to fold by tracking army strengths, economic data and the age/…

It's not just guns and ships, but days and the amount of maggoty bread the heroes have which really invest readers in a story!
matthewstienberg.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/s...

The current word count for my fantasy Western sits at 51,791. Projected word count is 60k, so maybe I can wrap this first draft up by the end of August!

Stakes in Writing Good SFF One thing that I enjoy as a student of history is that, in military history, we can often observe the point at which one side is going to fold by tracking army strengths, economic data and the age/…

It's not just guns and ships, but days and the amount of maggoty bread the heroes have which really invest readers in a story!
matthewstienberg.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/s...

Is this a perfect fantasy Western? No. Is it a good crack at it with some well done moments that blends the two genres? Absolutely!

Yeah, that finale is very Joe Abercrombie! Bloody, violent, and plenty of betrayal and gore with an extremely bittersweet ending! I do have a fonder feeling for Red Country on second reading.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of five is my feeling.

There would have been some hand wringing, but they would have dropped the bomb and turned Hitler into a shadow seared into the wall without pause.

The whole Dragon/Ashranc arc in RED COUNTRY is probably the best example of dark tragedy that Abercrombie has written. It hits all the right notes, horror, human conflict, the Western progress over the inhabitants and even the fantasy idea of magic fading from the world!

"The world out there is a red country, without justice, without meaning."

Damn Abercrombie can write a line. I do wish he'd do a subversion of his normal subversions one day. He has the chops for it!

While it's not necessary to have read any of the other stand alones in the First Law series to understand this book, this one probably has the most call backs to the others.

Techno-Fascism and Generative AI | Dorian Dawes Get more from Dorian Dawes on Patreon

Newsletter is up, death to AI www.patreon.com/posts/techno...

Spelling of my name as "Matthew Spienberg" instead of Stienberg.

I have seen my name creatively misspelled many times. This however is unique.

I'm seeing Americans unironically call Canada a communist country. Yeah, that tracks with our banker Prime Minister and monarch head of state!

I'm rapidly coming to the opinion that every Confederate flag not captured in battle and displayed as a trophy should have been burned.

Anyone ever written a scene and said "well this is trash, but its there" with every intention of deleting it?

Crease though, the whole arc, is peak fantasy western. The gold prospecting town built atop ancient ruins and the two big bosses duking it out for control of the town, brilliant!

To pick up, yeah in hindsight while the Ghost attack on the fellowship is a good action scene, it's not a great stand in for Indian attacks on wagon trains from history. The Ghosts veer too much between beastly and pathetic for the scene to hit home for me.

My art commission form showing samples of my work and pricing. I'll go into more detail in the specific call out images.

Sketch style commissions. Busts: $120 USD Full Body: $175 USD Concept Drawings: $80 USD per page Full Creature Sketch: $100 USD Prop art spot illustrations: $50 USD per item Sketch Maps (Single Region/Continent $150) + 50 per additional continent

Full Paintings Busts: $175 USD Full Body: $200 TTRPG character art + licensing: $450 Concept drawings: $200 per page Full Creature Art: $200 Prop Art Spot Illustrations $100 USD per item Painted maps -Only regional/single continent $500 USD

Extras -Sketch extras -Simple background +$50 USD Complex Background + 80 USD -Color +25 USD Greyscale or cel shading -Ask about discounts for greyscale or cel shaded work. Discounts start at 20% off full paintings Art Consultation $35 USD per hour Contact: commissions@aaronradney.com website: aaronradney.com

It's time and long overdue. But I'm officially opening up for commissions once again!

I have 7 slots available! You can claim one with the form here: forms.gle/VeiiiQkBiYNq...

Anytime I work overnight I tend to get disoriented on the date. Takes a full 24 hours to get my brain on track for the days again.

If you leave a bad review the Starbucks drones shall be instructed to comply maliciously with all future orders to the point your windows will be broken by baked goods and one will be waiting outside your door every morning like a sentry with boiling oil.

I'm getting a weird amount of ads on social media trying to convince me to go work in the mines. I don't even think the algorithm knows what it wants for me anymore 😐

Good excuse to use one of the best images Japan produced of the black ships.

Ah yes, the Ghosts, our Native stand ins for this book. It doesn't quite work from a story standpoint and is one of the pieces I felt didn't mesh so neatly with the low fantasy style of the story. Needed a bit of tweaking I thought.

If the Trump admin weren't agents of chaos what would they be doing differently indeed?

And we have Temple. His deep down do gooder nature and fundamental cowardice makes him almost endearing. I remember him fondly from my first read!

Hostomel Airport was famously made unusable for the Russians by a combination of Ukrainian artillery and Su-24s doing within visual range CAS missions

Map of the Near Country and Far Country from Joe Abercrombie's RED COUNTRY.

I do love that the stakes and background is relatively simple. The immediate quest of Shy and Lamb, but then the political machinations to annex the Near Country into the Union brings us back to our favorite drunken mercenary! Brilliant little quest!

Ah not even a hundred pages in Lamb (IYKYK) is choosing extreme violence as a means of solving his problems. Wonderfully true to form for Abercrombie!