All the site news posts are archived below, for fun.
12/29/2020 –
Hey, sorry about the continued delays; I told you about them before but I still feel bad about them anyway. ATL will be returning to a regular weekly schedule very soon, hopefully in mid-January, so please be patient just a little bit longer. I promise, it’ll be worth it!
Now, for one of the major reasons for ATL’s recent delays, guess what? I have a whole new book coming out on January 1st, 2021! It’s called The Gay Gatsby. That’s right; Gatsby goes public domain on January 1st, and I’m releasing a whole damn novel on the same exact day. If you like the humor of ATL, you are going to really enjoy the way I turn Fitzgerald’s original work into a satirical sci-fi head trip, so I HIGHLY recommend buying this book as soon as you can. (Also, if I can sell 50 copies on the first day, it has a shot of being the #1 LGBT Sci-fi novel on all of Amazon! That would amazing and I really hope you’ll help it reach that goal.) The URL is really easy to remember: http://gatsby.gay. Got that?
Anyway, yeah thanks for sticking with ATL through the past year of sporadic updates. Barring any unforeseen disasters and/or career changes, that’ll all change in 2021, and I’m pretty excited for it.
If everything goes well, ATL will be publishing twice a week in no time at all!
12/8/2020 – There’s a few housekeeping things that will be done over the next few weeks for our lovely ATL: Stories from the Retrofuture website. Hopefully some site revamps, including easier navigation and updates to certain pages. And there will also be changes to Patreon to make it better for y’all. Also, I may not manage to figure it out, but if I do, we’ll also start a Quinlan Circle Newsletter to come out 1-2 times a month that you can subscribe to. (If you know how to do newsletters without it being really difficult, please let me know!)
I’m releasing a book for sale extremely soon and if you stick around in any of my social medias, you’ll be hearing about it for sure. I hope you’ll support the book when it comes out… It’s gonna be a real doozy and I bet you’ll enjoy it. (But it’s top secret until it comes out so you’ll have to figure it out through cryptic hints)
Also, ATL-specific news: ATL: Stories from the Retrofuture will return to two updates per week, Monday and Friday, in January (PROBABLY January 18th but we’ll see).
The past year has had very sporadic chapter updates and word is that basically nobody liked it! So the story will go back to regular schedules as soon as I gain a large enough backlog. Sorry for leaving off on a huge cliffhanger and all!
Lastly, y’all best read Tower of Somnus if you like cyberpunk type stories.
11/14/2020 – A whole bunch of chapters for Dog Days in Hotlanta are coming very soon. Be prepared for that. They will at first be locked behind the paywall of the Quinlan Circle Patreon, but they will become free a little bit afterwards. However, I’m not sure the best way to notify people other than sending an extra tweet about it on Twitter, since e-mail and RSS notifications only go out once. Maybe I’ll put the unlock date in the chapter title?
Anyway, I got two requests for ya this update:
- One, please read the web serial Synth on Royal Road. It’s so good.
- Two, please subscribe to Hands Held in the Snow on the site/app Tapas. Soon, that site will do its Inksgiving event, which is a really good chance for the story to break out even though it’s already finished. Read more about Inksgiving here!
Thank y’all for your patience. Honestly, it’s real obvious that the sporadic update schedule was a big bust. Not many people are reading the story anymore compared to a year ago… But due to real life I won’t be able to get back to a regular schedule until early 2021. So, enjoy the rest of Dog Days in Hotlanta now. Then get ready for the third Season 2 story to blow you away at a rate of two or three chapters per week.
10/6/2020 – Sorry that I haven’t gotten a new batch of ATL chapters out as quickly as I had hoped; I unexpectedly moved to a new house at the start of September and it has completely wrecked my schedule. But I swear I’ll publish more as soon as I’m able!
In the meantime, Quinlan Circle has started a new project, a webcomic series called Starcrash!! with Jeff, by Joi Massat. You experienced Joi’s artwork and sense of humor in the ATL side stories “Table Manners” and “ATLantis,” and Starcrash!! is just those but even cuter and more ridiculous. It currently updates every single day, and I highly recommend keeping up.
Also, please read Jesse Pirnat’s short story “Justice Never Dies.” In the current news environment, this story is suddenly a whole lot more relevant…
8/18/2020 – The tenth ATL story, Dog Days in Hotlanta, has started. You better enjoy it or else.
For this next batch of chapters, there will be daily updates. That’s right–Morgan Harding’ll be gracing your computer screen every single day for the next couple weeks.
A few other notes:
- I want you to read Jesse Pirnat’s 5-chapter novelette Running. You will enjoy it.
- Last month I discovered Jesus’s grave (it’s in northern Japan!)
- Have you ever seen the Chuck E Cheese movie where Chucky pilots a starfighter in a racing circuit and all the actors are in mascot suits the whole time? Well, here it is for you to see.
6/16/2020 – ATL: The Dial-Up Demon is out!
I hope you’re excited for ATL Season 2. Updates will be sporadic, based on whenever I complete enough content that I’m satisfied with sharing it with you. I feel like this update schedule will work better for most readers rather than three times a week, but please let me know what you think of it!
12/16/2019
ATL Season 1 is over!!! Yay!!! Read more about that fun fact here.
ATL Season 2 will start fairly soon. Be excited for that. But moreso, be excited for:
Hands Held in the Snow, my second web novel. It just started today and will update every Monday and Thursday. Morgan Harding is not in this story. But you will still enjoy it regardless of our favorite jerk’s tragic absence.
12/8/2019 – Hey… Psst…
What’s this over here? Oh, it’s nothing…
(Don’t tell anyone where you got it from, kid.)
11/9/2019 – I got four things for you. You must comply with all of these things:
- Vote for ATL on Top Web Fiction every week for the rest of your life.
- Read my blog post series about various topics in the past decade, the 2010s Retrospectives Series.
- Read Joi Massat’s ongoing web serial, Invisible Werewolf Dracula meets Vampire Mummy Frankenstein! It updates Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it is amazing for you. The Quinlan Circle is ascendant! The first chapter is here.
- Look at this great artwork and be even more convinced to read it:
10/26/2019 – Into the Retrofuture has now started. It’s really got that finale feel to it, doesn’t it? That’s all thanks, of course, to the amazing, stupendous, wonderful cover artwork by Richard Gung. Check out that cover with the first chapter here.
Also, over on my blog, I’m starting a series called “2010s Retrospectives,” which is about me reflecting on various things throughout the past ten years. You should read them.
Also also, I have a second web serial that may be starting in the extremely near future… keep your eyes and hearts peeled for that…
10/21/2019 – The next ATL story, Into the Retrofuture, starts on Friday. Follow on Twitter for a preview of the next cover coming in a few days.
9/24/2019 – It’s been almost a month since The New Knights started, and I somehow never noticed about the front page news post:
Tragic.
Oh yeah, also, something a little bit more important than a typo I missed for three weeks:
ATL has reached its first anniversary. One year ago, the first chapter of The Social Media Killer was posted. Twelve months, three hundred and sixty-five days, 8760 hours. It’s really been an entire year since ATL began.
Can you believe it?
Here’s a blog post I wrote on the subject.
Thanks for reading for the first year, and let’s hope there are several more years to come (but not too many because I don’t want to write this for six years or something).
9/3/2019 – The seventh ATL story, The Worst Mystery, has started today! This one’s a bit longer than the last few, so get prepared for some cool intrigue and maybe a couple narrative gimmicks that I’ll be testing out. Read the first chapter here!
Also, holy crud Setz did an ATL cover. Setz, the world-famous Touhou artist did a cover for ATL! How cool is that?? In the meantime while you wait with a furious fever for the upcoming The New Knights chapters, you should check out Setz’s webcomic Lotta Svärd: Women of War.
I’m excited about all this new cool stuff. Oh, by the way, did you know I have a blog? Did you know I posted a travel blog post about a shrine I visited on Golden Week? Look at it here.
8/6/2019 – The new ATL story has been posted, and its name is Chocolate Insomnia. I very much hope you will read it. The cover art is by Beep Skeet, and it is evocative.
(Also, vote for ATL on Top Web Fiction.)
Now, I would like to point out that, yes, you are a loyal follower and avid reader of this tales from the retroworld or whatever, but you most certainly need to be a loyal follower and avid reader of Endless Stars, the best ongoing web serial on the internet. Here’s the review of it I wrote on Web Fiction Guide!
Have a good August, and have many safe travels as you make your way through this blazing hot summer. Just be thankful you don’t reside in the hellish environment known as Hotlanta. Unless you live in Hotlanta, then you’re out of luck as far as being thankful goes.
7/6/2019 – Another month, another new ATL story; this time it’s The Worst Mystery, and before we find out just how Morgan and the gang live up to the title’s promise, we are treated to a cover by Emmanomia, a great artist who everyone should check out. The cover is fashioned in the style of old Sega Master System box art, so if you’re a giant fat nerd you might get a few laughs out of it.
As promised, I bought Super Mario Maker 2 and have played it quite a bit. Here are two of my first levels: 3GR-FFN-V6G, and P5Q-9K7-04G. Please play them and remember to have fun.
Also, I would like to give great attention to two individuals in relation to ATL: First is Hejin, who makes comments on ATL chapters all the time like a complete soldier and is the example to set for all readers. You guys’ve got a lot to live up to. (also, he writes the serial Music Masters, which you should read). The other is Elliott Thomas Staude, whose recent Web Fiction Guide review has been a very good source in new readers. Thank you kindly for that (he, too, has web serials for you to read).
If you are a good reader, you shall be spotlighted in the next ATL news update. Just think about what that will mean for your internet points.
6/11/2019 – Crossword Conundrum has begun in earnest. Read the first chapter here and get into the silliness to come. The cover art is by Kat Ozkozar who, despite already being a great artist, also runs a webcomic called Afraid of Monsters (though it’s not up at the moment, so you have to bookmark the page and come back in a few months).
June brings to us many things. The scorching weather of the summer season, the eponymous Hotlanta, is soon upon us. (Well, not me because I’m in Northen Japan, ha.) Summer break for high schoolers means ATL is soon to be inundated with thousands of new readers who cosplay and argue about the social politics of the cast. Super Mario Maker 2 is about to come out and imperil the future of the web novel because I am gonna play the crap outta that game.
Let us pray that June finds us kindly, instead of delivering to us its wrath.
(Amen.)
6/2/2019 – Embed is already over?! That’s crazy?! What’s going on here?!
That’s the power of three updates a week. And now you’re playing with power. Retrofuture power.
Also, check out the new Lamar-centric artwork by Funay on the newest chapter!
While The Social Media Killer and Trials of the Cybermancer! were quite long stories (and were also released at only two updates per week), the next few stories are all going to be a lot shorter, more self-contained, each running about a month. This will last throughout the summer, so be prepared for a whole new wave of Atlanta-y goodness. Maybe read the story on the beach?
As always, vote for ATL on Top Web Fiction, read every update the moment it comes out, leave comments to ingratiate me, and share the story with every single human being you come in contact with. I promise your small actions will reverberate across the globe, creating a worldwide revolution of happiness and web fiction readership spikes.
5/21/2019 – I published the new chapter of Embed today extremely early compared to usual. That’s because usually I schedule the post to come out early in the morning each EST, But today, I felt like switching things up, and posting midday in my local time. That means the chapter is coming out basically right at midnight, and for western timezones, that means it’s still Monday!
What do you think about that? What time of day do you usually read ATL chapters, and what time do you prefer them to come out? It’s a lot easier to manage stuff for me when I’m actually awake for the chapter releases, but that also means releasing chapters in the middle of the night for most people…
Also, don’t forget to vote this week on Top Web Fiction! We must beat Everybody Loves Large Chests at the polls! ATL cannot be considered a true web serial until it passes Everybody Loves Large Chests!
5/14/2019 – Hey, there’s a new Embed chapter today. That’s pretty alright, but what about Friday? Yep, there’s a new chapter then too, because ATL updates on Tuesdays and Fridays.
But wait… what’s this coming on Sunday you hear about? That’s right, another new chapter…!!!
You heard it here: ATL is now updating three times a week, on Tuesdays, Fridays, and now Sundays! You get 33% more chapters, and 33% more chances to see if Karina will finally get sick of the sarcastic jokes and punch Morgan in the face.
Spread the word to everyone you know.
5/8/2019 – Table Manners is over, and I’m back from Golden Week vacationing. That was really some stuff, by the way. Did you know you can technically ride the local trains across the entire country, if you’re an idiot and want to waste literal days to travelling? Somehow, it was a highlight of my trip to spend fifteen hours between Tokyo and Aomori and transfer eleven times. Expect to see an ATL story about that someday.
Anyway, the important part is that Embed, the next retrofuture story, is starting really soon. In fact, it’s starting on Friday, May 10th! What, you say that’s right now, and you’re reading this after the date of May 10th? Well you’re in luck, because that means Embed is already out! And check out the amazing new cover done by Leo, or hellspawnmotel on Twitter.
Are you excited? Yeah, me too!
To sign off, here’s something that retrofuture fans may enjoy: a Youtube video about the XBAND, a dial-up online gaming peripheral from the mid-90s. It’s a long, passionate retrospective on the pioneering but released-too-soon technologies that this web novel is all about.
4/23/2019 – Oi! Here’s the surprise I was talking about last week. Our very own Joi Massat has created the first ATL Side Story in the form of a four-panel comic strip. It’s called Table Manners and you can start reading it here. One new page will release every single day!
Again, the next main story, Embed, begins in May.
And if you like Table Manners, make sure to read Joi’s blog post series about reading through the Harry Potter series over here. I highly recommend it.
Also, because it’s going to be Golden Week in Japan starting this week, I might be away from my computer a lot. In that case, I’ll schedule some of these posts in advance and you’ll have to bear with those ==> links that turn into 404 errors, sorry 🙁 If you want to avoid the annoyance entirely, keep up with ATL by subscribing by e-mail, so you know exactly when each new post comes out!
Anyway, let’s hear what Morgan has to say:
I agree, Morgan. Very good advice.
4/19/2019 – Today’s a double-chapter update, two final chapters to finish off Trials of the Cybermancer! once and for all. I hope you enjoyed the second story of ATL as much as the first. And I hope you’re looking forward to the next Retrofuture story, Embed, coming in May.
That’s a couple weeks away, but don’t fret about time without your favorite web serial… there will be a special surprise coming on Tuesday. Check back here next week and find out what it is…
Also, my bud and ATL character artist Joi Massat has a new blog series out about reading Harry Potter for the very first time, in the year 2019. Check it out here.
3/10/2018 – It has come to my attention that my 2017 serial Rainbow Destructor has now been listed on Web Fiction Guide for all to enjoy!
I can’t say that you’ll necessarily enjoy it if you like ATL, because it’s quite a different ride, but it is still a Thedude3445 story and so I must implore you to read it, vote for it on Top Web Fiction, and leave a scathing review on its Web Fiction Guide page after you have finished.
If you don’t care for any of this, though, then I can assure you that ATL will update this Tuesday and this Friday, just as the sun sets and rises.
3/1/2018 – Trials of the Cybermancer! is running as smoothly as expected, and I hope you’re enjoying the antics Morgan & Co. are being put through at the moment. But I thought I’d use this news post to talk about something different for a change:
Did y’all see Super Mario Maker 2’s coming out in June? Came outta nowhere and it’s gonna be here in three months. How the heck’re we gonna be prepared for a thing like that? Stay tuned for the inevitable cancellation of ATL because I decided to continue the series as Mario Maker levels instead.
This has been an ATL News Update.
1/30/2019 – Trials of the Cybermancer! is now beginning, complete with a great cover by the artist Yukimaru, who also does the art on the brand-new webcomic Magical Heroines?!. Despite this being a web novel and that being a comic, I’d say there is a wide crossover demographic between the two, so I highly recommend that if you like ATL, hop on board and read Magical Heroines?! too.
This new story is gonna be crazy. I really hope you enjoy it, as it updates once again every Tuesday and every Friday!
1/23/2019 – ATL is still on break, at least until Trials of the Cybermancer! begins on January 29th. But, I wanted to announce my personal blog of rambling posts. Here’s the first of these. I noticed how long these site news updates were getting and realized if I don’t nip that in the bud, we’re gonna get novella-sized posts every couple weeks and nobody wants that. Nobody wants that at all.
In slightly unrelated news, I wanted to thank the people over at Tuesday Serial for their work in maintaining a real good website that has been a good support for ATL so far, and especially in its earliest days. Quite a few readers have come from over there and I’m eternally grateful for that.
(I love all of you, ATL readers.)
1/15/2019 – And here we are with the final chapter of The Social Media Killer! Thank you to everyone who has read the story so far across these past few months, and hopefully it was a pretty good ride solving this case with Morgan and pals.
As the newest chapter notes, ATL will resume again with its second story arc, Trials of the Cybermancer!, on January 29th. It’s gonna have a cool cover and fun adventures and you better be excited for it.
In a sheer coincidence of timing and a public holiday on Monday, today not only had the final chapter of The Social Media Killer, but was also my very first day as an assistant language teacher in Japan, so fate really handed me that endings/beginnings shtick you see in the movies sometimes. It was a pretty rough first day. But hey, we have those sometimes. Especially Morgan Harding. Anyway, enjoy ATL and get ready for the next story!
1/4/2019 – The Holiday Season is over and ATL is back on a normal schedule. And just in time, too– The Social Media Killer is almost complete! That’s really gotta be one of the most exciting pieces of news of 2019 so far.
Also, it appears that 2019 is a VERY IMPORTANT YEAR in retrofuturism! I don’t know why so many stories of sci-fi past took place in 2019, but I gotta say, I’m quite a fan of our own universe’s version of reality. Even if we quite didn’t get any flying cars. Come to think of it, there aren’t any flying cars in ATL either… I’m pretty glad ATL doesn’t have any vampires though…
12/22/2018 – Here’s an early Christmas present: the ATL site’s got some new design to it! The logo is new, there’s some image-based menus, and that weird fractal background that I had made in five minutes as a placeholder has been eradicated. It’s still in-progress but enjoy the upgrades.
IMPORTANT NOTE, THOUGH: There will be no new chapters on Christmas or New Year’s, both of which fall on a Tuesday this year. So there will only be one update per week for these two weeks. The posts on Fridays will remain the same, though, so don’t worry about that.
Have a nice time during the holiday season, and make sure to have a very retrofuturistic 2019.
11/30/2018 – We’re getting close to the end of ATL’s first story arc, The Social Media Killer! Isn’t that exciting? By now, I was supposed to have set up a personal site and spruce up this site and such, but it turns out I am moving to Japan for work all of a sudden so I haven’t been able to do anything special so far. That won’t affect ATL, but it will mean the site won’t look pretty and spiffy just yet. Just remember to follow ATL: Stories from the Retrofuture on Twitter and Facebook!
10/26/2018 – The Social Media Killer has been making its posting onslaught for a month now, and I’m glad for the attention it’s gotten so far. I apparently have actual readers right now, which is way more traction than I ever thought it’d get by this point. I’m really excited for people to read the rest of the story as it continues to update!
Also, if you want to subscribe to the story and get more ATL-related content, you’ve got some fun avenues for that:
- Subscribe to the site via e-mail! It’s on the sidebar. I recommend it.
- Like the page on Facebook!
- Follow the page on Twitter! @RetrofutureATL
- Tell all your friends about the site and get them to all read it, and then start a book club where you discuss the two new chapters each week, so you never have to miss anything because you have a whole circle of friends collectively following it at any given time who will remind you if you miss anything.
All of these are fun and equally-attractive options.
9/25/2018 – Hello, and welcome to the very first Site News post for ATL: Stories from the Retrofuture. Everything on the site right now is kind of a placeholder, mostly because I have no idea what I’m doing, but eventually it’ll sort itself out. Right now, the first THREE chapters are all available for your reading pleasure! And make sure to keep up with the chapters as they continue to release, every Tuesday and Friday from now until the end of eternity, probably. Start reading here. Any comments are highly appreciated, as well!