iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

It's a really cool book! The worst parts are kind of boring but the best parts are bloody awesome

Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

yeah, I really liked that throughout the book I couldn't say what genre it was (sci-fi? fantasy? "literary"? er... slipstream?) and the ending actively resisted putting a bow on it and saying "it was actually (this particular thing) all along"

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

It was really good. I can understand stalling out at 60 pages, I thought the opening was a bit slow as it set up a lot of things that don't seem important until later. But that twist halfway through was so good, it gave me chills! I'm not sure what I think of the ending, though.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

2027: short fiction editors now require that every submission must include a section that explains to the reader how to build a nuclear bomb and/or biological weapons

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Thank you! I'm really glad you liked it. The comparison to LotR kind of makes me blush, but I do see what you mean. I think LotR is a deep inspiration for almost every fantasy writer, so if I captured even a little bit of that old magic, then I'm happy.

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Damien Lawardorn @damienlawardorn.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

New book review is up! This week, I'm recommending House of the Rain King by @gnipahellir.bsky.social. It's a tightly contained myth-fantasy infused with a hint of Australian worldbuilding. I found it really compelling. #BookSky medium.com/@lawardornd/...

medium.com

Should You Read: House of the Rain King by Will Greatwich

House of the Rain King would go down well with people who love fantasy but are maybe a little jaded with how tropey it can be.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I've got a new short story "Public Labyrinths for All" - a tale of liminal spaces and community organising - read it now in CRUX vol. 1: meridianaustralis.au

meridianaustralis.au

Meridian Australis

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Thank you! I'm really happy you're enjoying it :)

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Steph ✨ @thesenesx.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

just finished this and if you love mythic fantasy I cannot recommend this book enough!! 🤩 it has such a great blend of folklore and australiana, making it read like a fairytale

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Thank you so much! I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it :)

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Some of the most underappreciated fantasy novels of all time.

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Here, the ghost is me. @highway62.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

"In the Hills, the Cities" (Barker, 1984)

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I love the Alan Garner comparison. I haven't read him since I was a kid, but I DO vividly remember a scene in Weirdstone of Brisingamen with a character crawling through lightless tunnels deep beneath the earth. So it probably did have a distant influence.

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Slow BOO!s Dave @wellingtonskeleton.space · 11/12/2025

Landing in the middle of a venn diagram that includes Piranesi, Black Company, and Alan Garner, but in a very Australian sort of way, I can't recommend this book highly enough. I loved it, and I hope you — who are reading this post — read it and love it too. willgreatwich.com/house-of-the...

willgreatwich.com

House of the Rain King – Will Greatwich

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

thanks, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

military theorists emphasise that even the best strategy will fall apart if the soldiers on the ground are not motivated to fight. that's because no plan survives contact with the anomie

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

The Night-Bird's Feather by Jenna Moran. would need to be a cartoon though

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I really like the line in Aladdin when Robin Williams sings "who sent those goons to their lords? Why, Prince Ali" because it implies the film is set in a polytheistic universe where a range of different deities can take charge of the souls of the dead

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

The Changing Land is part of what I think of as my "Wiz Biz" canon - my favourite stories of capital-W Wizards - alongside Bellairs' "The Face in the Frost", Hugh Cook's "The Wizards and the Warriors", and Ashton Smith's "The Double Shadow"

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

easy... I'll simply attach a cage to my drone that releases a small pigeon, diverting the eagle's attention

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

I haven't read the short stories, but I loved "The Changing Land". Didn't realise until after reading that the character had a history behind him.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazine @bcsmagazine.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Archives w BCS #432: "Another Tide" @gnipahellir.bsky.social, BCS #420, Aurealis Award winner. "situating myself in another’s cultural viewpoint. Yet, presented with a real enemy of the empire, I found myself sinking into the role of bourgeois scold." www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/anot...

beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Another Tide by Will Greatwich

At the university I had studied radical repositioning: the art of situating myself in another’s cultural viewpoint. I considered myself an open-minded woman, an opponent of cultural hegemony. Yet, pre...

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Great deal! This book is awesome if you didn't already know!

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

greatly underrated game. "vaporwave + Cthulhu" sounds like such a stupid combination but somehow they make it fit perfectly

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Reading 'Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City'. Buckets of fun

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

make a TV series out of Dancers at the End of Time you cowards

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tisane al-gaib @dallaninvictus.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

finished this the other night and it was an incredible read: beautiful, evocative (particularly if you like birds) and high stakes on a small enough scale that you can feel what the events are doing to everyone involved - especially as it becomes clear what's going on and the choices thereby forced

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Underwater Owlbear @underwaterowlbear.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Just finished the excellent #HouseOfTheRainKing by @gnipahellir.bsky.social. What an amazing debut novel. Anyone with an interest in mythology or #OSR #TTRPGs should go read it ASAP. Thanks for the recommendation @throneofsalt.bsky.social

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

listening to this song as a kid in Australia in the 90s I had no fucking clue what it was about and I still don't

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Aaron Jacobs @ajacobs.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I read House of the Rain King over the weekend. Wonderful book. Feels like Gormenghast and The Black Company had a love child nannied by Name of the Rose, but it's also wholly its own thing. Tells a self-contained story well but left me wanting to hear more about the people and the world.

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mouldwarp @mooncalfed.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

y'all this is one of the best books i've read in a long time, please check it out. stayed up until midnight finishing it out, it's that good.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Did an interview with Melbourne writers' collective Meridian Australis about House of the Rain King and my short stories: meridianaustralis.au/an-interview...

meridianaustralis.au

An Interview with Will Greatwich – Meridian Australis

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

thank you! it means a lot to hear that!

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Made a little graphic to show what's in my novel. Some writers I know think these graphics are cringe, but I kind of like them. However, I wasn't keen on listing a bunch of tropes, so instead I listed some significant Objects that appear in the book. All Objects' significance is guaranteed.

The cover of my novel House of the Rain King. It shows a monastery surrounded by floodwaters and birds. Around the cover are little arrows pointing to words that say "Feather Cloaks" "A bloody spearhead" "The pinion-stone" "sacred books" "a skeletal hand" and "a bag of cockle shells"

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

lovely review of House of the Rain King from RPG blogger Throne of Salt: throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2025/03/book... "it’s D&D as fuck without being married to the trade dress of D&D... it feels like a book that a D&D adventure would be based on, rather than a book that is based on a D&D adventure."

throneofsalt.blogspot.com

Bookpost Special: House of the Rain King

(Disclosure: Author gave me an ARC and asked me to write a review.) House of the Rain King is a good fucking book. That’s the short versi...

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

To be honest, even as I hit publish I thought, "No one will buy this." I'm the kind of reader who will put a book on my TBR and then buy it 2 years later. So I'm incredibly flattered that people are taking a chance on an unknown author and reading the whole book within a week of its release.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

House of the Rain King has been out for a bit over a week. The response has been way better than I'd hoped for. One reader called it a "tremendous first novel". Someone else told me they stayed up till 3am to finish it. I'm very happy.

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H.B. Tyson @hbtyson.bsky.social · 07/08/2023

Linocut from 2021

Scanned image of a black and white linocut print. A person with shoulder-length hair stands in the foreground. The figure's face lacks any facial features, but instead has a cavernous hole in its place. From this hole a mass of smoke flows out. Mountains and a speckled ground are visible in the background.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

it's so funny that every single AI guy's idea for a short story is "write a story about AI"

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Just got an email from Apple Books saying they can turn my novel into an audiobook, for free, with "digital narration". Interesting thing is the email doesn't use the term "AI" anywhere. Almost like they know we fucking hate it!

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Ah ok, maybe it's changed since I last checked

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Well, the idea is that it keeps spam to a minimum. Also they want it to be like Substack, where a lot of writers only open comments to paid subscribers. But I prefer the old blogspot days where anyone and everyone could offer their 2c.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Ghost has been good for me. Only thing I don't like is they make people put in their credit card details to post a comment, which kind of kills casual discussion.

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Will Greatwich @gnipahellir.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

afaik Saunders has never done any marketing for his books and only the bare minimum in terms of blurb and cover design. Yet the books still sell for one reason: the people who have read them never fucking shut up about them.

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