Tyler Kimball
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Tyler Kimball
@tylerkimball.bsky.social
25 followers 47 following 12 posts
Writer, game designer, artist. Author of the "Whom Gods Would Destroy" trilogy, "Bathwater,""That Great Leviathan," and the "Starless and Bible-Black" series. Contributor to Mothership RPG.
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tylerkimball.bsky.social
People seem to like images of book covers with tropes on them, so that's what you're getting today #Tropes
#booksky
January 24, 2025 at 4:58 PM
tylerkimball.bsky.social
An excerpt from my new weird/fantasy novel "Bathwater."
Direct sales (tinyurl.com/44akhp7r); Amazon (tinyurl.com/ytuztaas). #booksky #fantasy #newweird #weirdfiction
An excerpt from the novel Bathwater by Tyler Kimball, featuring the following text next to the image of a giant purple baby head in the harbour of a tropical city: That Godchild were a non-being, the scholars say. A divine abortion, the stillborn god of concepts that mortals can't ken or no longer conceive. Ay, there's that double-edged word, conception. It looks like a purple babe pushing into stranger colours we have no names for, not past violet into ultraviolet but sideways off the spectrum. It were so big that its head still visible above the lower lip, and some four hundred metres wide. Men, those witchdiggers, still go into it to this day, tearing it apart for its prana-packed flesh and bone and baby oil, just like folks scrap down shipwrecks. There were always victims of conjure on the Chain, those calibans twisted by its prana and the touch of the Bewilderness. But the Wartorn were the boom after the Godfall. That abomination and the arcane bombs and exotic fuels were in the water and in our food, passing through the food chain from the scavengers of the divine. We all a touch mojo-mutated.
December 27, 2024 at 10:26 PM
tylerkimball.bsky.social
A bit of happy, wintery elf fun from from "That Great Leviathan."

Direct purchase link: tinyurl.com/36xx8cks
Amazon: tinyurl.com/2buz6c5e
December 24, 2024 at 9:13 PM
tylerkimball.bsky.social
An excerpt from my novel, "That Great Leviathan."
#booksky
Direct purchase link: tinyurl.com/36xx8cks
Amazon: tinyurl.com/2buz6c5e
An excerpt from the novel "That Great Leviathan" by Tyler Kimball, set over a faded sepia background. It reads: “What is a knight?” the harpy asked. “Oh, dear,” he said. “That is a question we've been grappling with for ages. A knight should be a warrior of valor, duty, and magnanimity. But too often he is simply an armed man in a keep.” “There was so much... chaos after the Cousins' War. Three decades of it. The war left behind bands of monsters, both man and chimera. The ogres and horsemen, mad salamanders burning with foul oil, twisted giants, and even horses clad in iron for flesh. But there was heroism, too. I won't lie to you, Romashka, there is great evil in the world. There are monsters. There is unfathomable cruelty. But there are also truly good people that will fight them. And be victorious. Good people who will rise up to heal the wounded and tend to the sick and succeed! The plagues pass. The doctors and nurses win out. I have watched people bring comfort to the dying for no motive, beyond seeing that someone truly needed that comfort in their final moments… Even when nothing can be done or won, people will help. Is there no other proof of a common decency than that?”
December 17, 2024 at 8:13 PM
tylerkimball.bsky.social
An excerpt from my new weird fantasy novel "Bathwater."
Direct sales (tinyurl.com/44akhp7r); Amazon (tinyurl.com/ytuztaas)
An excerpt from the novel Bathwater by Tyler Kimball, accompanied by images of pale blue cockroaches. “Do ya want to die?” Roach said. “Not since Morgan,” I said. “And not before she grown and happy.” “Would ya like to strike a bargain?” Roach said. “I got nothing left to sacrifice,” I said. “I don't need ya sacrifice. I only need ya to endure,” Roach said. Frankly, I don't think Roach had much time left either after Otherwise Owl struck, playing to be better off for a better bargain, an admirably scumbag move. “And finish a Roach-tale with pride. And at this point, taking anything from ya would be egregious sinful. I'm an insect eidolon that eats shit but even that's gross.” I wondered if enduring was, itself, a virtue, going on and on with no breaks. Hard work, sure, but that's driving yaself hard towards a goal. Survival at any cost sure ain't, that's a wolf virtue, a dog moral. But maybe enduring is the gateway to real virtues, buying ya more time.
December 16, 2024 at 9:46 PM
tylerkimball.bsky.social
An excerpt from my novel, "That Great Leviathan." #booksky
To the right, a painting of a spectral, Death-like figure looming behind an armored knight, Edmund Dulac's El Dorado. To the left, a passage from Tyler Kimball's "That Great Leviathan": “Did you kill anyone?” she asked. He must have been a killer, too. These were all justifications. “Yes,” he said in a strange way. It was soft and weak, despite his obvious survival and victory. The harpy couldn't understand how that worked. He didn't revel in his triumph. “I had to do it. I was left with no choice. But it had to be done.” “I don't understand,” the harpy said. “What do you mean?” he said. “I tried, my girl. But there were hostages at stake, and they would not be reasoned with. Nor bribed.” “No, I understand that,” she said. “Why do you celebrate these warriors if you do not like war?” “No, no, it's not about war,” he said. “It's about who isn't killed, what isn't destroyed. I'm a knight. That armor… that armor is my duty. It's heavy, and protective. I needed help putting it on, even in my youth. It was forged by smiths in the manner of Los, blessed by the priestess of Our Mother Incano, marked by Craethion and Enitharmon. My sword was given to me just as Urizen gave the world order and law. These are my traditions, my duty, my honor. I am nothing but a mortal man without it… but all those things, all those good things, made me a knight. My armor was steel, but I was armed by gods and men.” “Honor?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. “It was an honor. I am a man of privilege and power, land and title. I was no great lord, but I could run and ruin lives. If you can destroy, spare. If you can ruin, build. If you can trodden peasants beneath your boots, raise them up and speak to them with courtesy. Speak honestly. Keep your word. Never be cruel or spiteful. I was given rights and powers… and I had terrible strength, once… Oh, if you could see me at the tilt.”
December 16, 2024 at 12:45 AM