February 2021
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The Long Trail Home

Here we are in 2021.

Ten years. A decade. The original FAR WEST Kickstarter was in 2011. Ten years is a long goddamn time to ask people to wait, I know.

It’s been the hardest decade of my life. Professional and personal challenges, like I’d never experienced before. Physical and mental heath crises requiring damn near all of my focus and attention. The work on FAR WEST definitely suffered. You know it. I know it.

Honestly, I’m all out of apologies.

2021 is the year where FAR WEST finally gets released. I have not abandoned the project. I am finishing it up (currently adding some things, suggested by my editors, to various parts of the manuscript, mostly in the final chapter (the Narrator’s chapter). My business partner, Eric Trautmann, has begun layout of the completed chapters. Things are proceeding. PDFs will go out first to the long-suffering Kickstarter backers, and then will be released commercially, followed by the printed book (again, to backers first, and then wide).

We will release this year– delays, disasters, pandemics or societal collapse be damned.

Home is on the horizon. We’re racing the sunset, but we’re gonna get there.

謝謝你的好意
Gareth-Michael Skarka
Lawrence, Kansas
22 February, 2021

24 Comments

  1. Chad S. says:

    Will you commit to releasing the pdf to backers, in whatever state of completion it may happen to be, before the end of 2021?

  2. Thom E Shartle (Darq) says:

    And the long suffering Pre-Orderers who didn’t have the benefit of all the secret “backer only” communications and releases, I hope!

    • admin says:

      That’s one of the reasons why I’ve moved all updates to this site and our social media accounts.

      • Michael says:

        Would those be the social media accounts you blocked people on when they asked once every 4 years for an update?

        • admin says:

          Nobody has ever been blocked for asking for updates. Several people have been blocked for being rude jerks.

          • Grumpy says:

            So, are you simply planning to surprise the backers on New Year’s Eve with an update? Because backers have been waiting, patiently or not, and it appears you have made enough progress in the past 18 months to offer an update on the Kickstarter page.

          • admin says:

            Simply put, I don’t see any point in further updates beyond “It’s finished, here you go” — which I am still planning on posting before the year is out.

            Further updates on the Kickstarter page don’t change the minds of people who are pissed off, and the folks who are patient know that I’m working on it, so it doesn’t really serve any purpose to say so.

  3. Joe says:

    Can we get an update? Been a few months and I was hoping maybe some of that layout was done.

  4. Michael says:

    Thanks G!
    Hope this lifts some stress and gives you some head space back.

  5. Antoinette Hines says:

    When will it be released?

  6. Marco Mueller says:

    Ten years is an awfully long time to wait but depression is an awful demon too and if you suffered from it I´m willing to cut you a lot of slack. I was not a backer but pre-ordered a couple of months after the kickstarter closed so I think I´m also pretty close to the 10-year mark and I´m pleased to read that the pre-orders are also supposed to be send out.
    On the positive side I wrote a couple of vignettes back in the day. My Winds Bride is still online and more are waiting to be published if they meet your standards. So if I find my pre-order PDF under the Christmas tree (the Christmas tree of 2021 please) I´m more than happy to re-activate the old stories and lend as much fan support as I can to help make this site come to life again as it once was.

  7. Jakob says:

    Hi there, I’m not a Far West backer, but I stumbled over Adamant Entertainment recently when I read that you’re planning (or were planning?) to publish a New Crobruzon rpg. Whether that will work out or not, it prompted me to check out the Star System anthology and this webpage. I’d only heard of Far West as this kickstarter project that’s six … eight … ten years overdue before, and wasn’t that interested in yet another Weird West steampunk rpg anyway …

    However, then I checked out this site and must say that Far West looks pretty unique. So, the long and the short of it is that I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy Far West as soon as it get’s published (especially since I’ve read that it has moved from a d20 system to a WEG D6 variant). Despite all the delays and problems, Far West looks like a great project, and I hope you’ll be able to finish it!

    (Also, if New Crocruzon Tales ever happens, that would be an auto-buy for me).

    • admin says:

      Thank you, Jakob, for your kind words! Yes, we’re 10 years since the Kickstarter, but we’ll be releasing Far West by the end of this year. As for New Crobuzon, we haven’t heard from China Mieville in a while, so I’m not 100% sure of the status of that project. Once we’ve gotten Far West out the door, we’ll be able to give it more attention.

      • Jakob says:

        Great to hear! Reading the vignettes, I gather that Far West is not set in some kind of Alternate History world like Deadlands, but is its own fantasy western setting, which really is something I haven’t seen done before. I’m looking forward to reading the tales book!

  8. Alex says:

    So it’s been about 7 months since you posted this, what work have you completed for Far West in that time?

    • admin says:

      Final drafts of 2 of the 3 chapters that remained (I’m making the final requested edits on the last chapter now), as well as a number of spot illustrations that Eric felt were needed.

      • Alex says:

        Only about a month left! Still planning to release this year?

        • admin says:

          Yes — at the very least, you guys will have the entire manuscript. I’m hoping that Eric will have the layout done as well.

          • Mike says:

            Must be getting close. I’m actually really excited for this.

          • admin says:

            Mike:

            PAINFULLY close. So close that I’m getting panic attacks because it’s not as close as I’d like. I wanted to have the whole thing done like two weeks ago, but everything takes longer than I want it to. But yes, it’ll be soon.

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