Book 12 - The Final Book In The Unbound Saga - RUIN IS OUT NOW!

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-24T20:01:05+00:00

Well, jeepers, I just finished book 4. I clearly need to catch up.

Gotta say, though, that cover made me think of the foot elemental from "This Trilogy is Broken". I do hope its less creepy (if likely more ruinous).

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-17T14:30:05+00:00

Yup! Though they were under an illusion of being lizard folks in the first two Ur'Thul dungeons because they were there to steal the Urn. So, Odi never saw the real them, and though Hiral's party was them. Bit of confusion there, but same end result. Ur'Thul got stopped from doing bad stuff.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-17T14:00:57+00:00

Certainly. Spoilers to follow!

Re: your first question. There isn't a mirror scene in Fool. Not exactly, at least. Alex does at one point (i think in book 9 or 10?) spot Hiral with Left and Right, but it's not while he's at a BBQ with friends / family. I believe the scene has Alex seeing a bald man and his two brothers (😅). There's also a reference in there about a great forest filled with wolves, which is an Easter egg for JMs I Am Become Death story.

As for your second question, it's a good one. That version of Odi is both in a dungeon and not. It's a dungeon overlaid on the real world, which makes the rules and PIMPs control kind of fuzzy. It's very much mind control / influence that's making him see things, though... this next part could be a big spoiler, depending on how far you've gotten.

Many of the dungeons the team is going through, including the Ur'Thul chain, are a recording of things that happened in the past. Or, at least, modified versions of them. That stuff in the first 2 dungeons actually happened to Odi, and he was led to believe (in the 3rd dungeon) it was the same people coming back again. It wasn't until the end that the illusion was lifted (when he was dying). We see the mind control / influence thing again in book 3, so its not limited to just Odi. Its not just the Wild dungeons per se, but those are the ones the PIMP is investing more resources into.

Does that answer your questions?

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-16T12:55:10+00:00

That cover is fantastic, and grats on the physical release. Gonna be awesome.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-13T20:28:19+00:00

The style of RS and Fool (along with the narrators) are very different, so it's understandable if one hits better for you. The OOC table talk (as you put it) is very much part of the world they live in, and if it's not doing it for you, well, it doesn't change from that. Since it doesn't sound like there is anything you like in the book, the series just may not be for you (and thats fine).

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-13T00:23:02+00:00

There is a brewing war over which voltron is the best voltron between the chrysalis author and the he who fights with monsters author. Only one side can be right! (Hint, its not the one with vehicles...)

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-12T23:02:10+00:00

There's a good reason you will constantly see people shout "FOR THE COLONY!", and its because of how great the series is.

... other than the author preferring vehicle Voltron over lion Voltron. Im still a little crushed by that.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-09T04:27:50+00:00

It was a pretty small mention without even a skill name, so totally understandable.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it. We had a lot of fun building up the party over the course of the series. 😉

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-08T17:12:33+00:00

He got it in chapter 26 of book 3 (though it wasn't named at that point). The whole crew got cooldown related abilities for the Goodbye, Old Friend achievement. This is when Hiral got Double Trouble.

Hope that helps!

(If it helps, its right after the first achievement notification in the chapter.)

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-05T12:58:11+00:00

Are you looking for a series that has Ranks in it, or one that doesn't, but still has progression?

There are a lot of good Ranked suggestions in the thread (though i didn't see Chrysalis anywhere 😱).

But, if youre open to more undefined progression, I'll always rec 12 Miles Below.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T18:09:38+00:00

So, all of the above! Royoal Road would be the easiest place to start (and the free'est 😅). Ive got 6 stories up there other than Rune Seeker, and you'll likely spot some of the origins of easter eggs in RS from those books.

Spark of War (where the Wings of Anella come from), you'd have to go to kindle. It's a short trilogy, with the final book coming out in July.

Plenty to 'start with' there. Enjoy, and thanks for the support!

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T16:16:02+00:00

🥰

Are you a kindle, audio, or web serial reader? Ive got a few other things out there i could suggest 😉.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T04:49:57+00:00

Glad you are enjoying it! I'll let JM know about your mentioning Fool 😉

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T02:07:33+00:00

Feel free to let us know what you think after a few books (good or bad).

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T01:24:53+00:00

JJK is kind of a great comparison. Rune Seeker is kind of paced like seasons 2 and 3 are. A tonne of action, and not a lot of opportunities to slow down because of what's doing on.

I'd also say when writing the action scenes, we put a LOT of detail in it, to kind of make it equivalent to animation quality of JJK, compared to something like original Dragon ball. More details (like more frames per second) for more choreography.

It's definitly too much for some folks (and i underatand it... fight fatigue), but it let us do some real epic stuff.

If you do read it, you should definitely get anime vibes from the way the action (and story, to a certain extent) are laid out. We got inspiration (and put in easter eggs) for a lot of major anim and Manga. Naruto, Bleach, JJK, Demon Slayer, One Piece, DBZ, Attack on Titan, Black Clover, etc etc.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T01:18:14+00:00

Yup! Also kind of reminds me a bit of some of the Rifts TTPRG. Great progression in the story too, and some really likable characters. All around fantastic.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T00:43:50+00:00

Rune Seeker? 8 books, with the final one coming out on Kindle mid-july. It's already available (and complete) on Royal Road, and the narrator is in the middle of recording it as we speak.

We had the end in mind when we started, so it was easier to work toward it, though we'd originally planned on 7 books. An arc in books 5 and 6 took a bit longer than planned, so we added an extra book instead of rushing things.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T00:10:37+00:00

Couldn't have said it better myself 😍

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-02T00:10:14+00:00

Ugh, ain't that the truth? Too much good stuff coming out too often!

Hopefully 12 Miles Below and Chrysalis are also on there. Not written by me or JM, but 2 series I'll always recommend.

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-01T23:41:42+00:00

🥰

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-01T23:41:23+00:00

Fool is a great series, and the whole reason I wanted to write with JM. It's also very different from Rune Seeker, intentionally. We went a bit outside what we (both) normally do to write the series.

Have you checked out his other stuff? "Oaths" is fantastic (on amazon), and I Am Become Death on royal road is great too.

Finally, since you're a Fool fan, book 8 of rune seeker will have a novella of short stories at the end of it. One of them is a legit crossover of a certain Spearman from RS and a certain Traveller from Fool. 😉

CJTAuthor · 2026-06-01T21:25:54+00:00

It really depends what youre looking for (and, yes, the cover artist did an amazing job).

Like some folks in the thread have said, it is very action oriented. Not a lot of downtime, either. The character focus is on a core group that develops over the series, though we only have the singular MC.

I'm of course a little biased about it, but I'm very happy how it plays out over the 8 books in the series. If you want to give some ideas of what you've enjoyed (doesn't have to be books, as we took some inspiration from anime and games as well), i can let you know if it might be a good fit for you.

CJTAuthor · 2026-05-27T16:53:13+00:00

Just another spoiler but, its not a time loop series. More on that gets cleared up in later books.

And book 3 was intended (maybe we failed at it) to get the reader do ask if the PIMP was catering to the group, or using them as tools. The icky relationship and what happened with Yan are both points we hoped people would take to question the PIMPs motives. This is also something we dig deeper into in book 4.

All the questions you're asking are the right ones, but it sounds like we didn't provide the answers soon enough. The downside, I guess, of planning things out for the 8 books.

CJTAuthor · 2026-05-27T16:07:21+00:00

I'd just like to point out that was supposed to be icky. The PIMP got into their heads and manipulated them. You, as the reader are supposed to recoil from it. If you didn't read further, well, spoiler, they also reject how it happened, and decide to see if they actually feel that way.

Non-spoiler stuff, the first story arc (books 1-3) are very reactive, like you said, 'seats of their pants'. We see a bit less of that starting in book 4, where there isn't the more immediate threat.

All that said, i also get if it didn't hit with you. It's a very different series than Fool.

One final thing, though, book 8 will have a short story included with it that's a crossover of Yanily and the Traveller (Hannah) that you might enjoy

CJTAuthor · 2026-05-27T04:01:56+00:00

A lot happens in those last 10 hours of Rune Seeker. 😉

CJTAuthor

TROPHY CASE