Sofie Tholin
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sofietholin.bsky.social
Sofie Tholin
@sofietholin.bsky.social
110 followers 140 following 120 posts
S.A. Tholin, writer of the PRIMATERRE series - military science fiction - and PRIMATERRE TALES - space pirates, space detectives, space submariners.

SPSFC winner with IRON TRUTH, book one of the Primaterre!
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sofietholin.bsky.social
Sofie Tholin @sofietholin.bsky.social · Jun 3
me | my books

back row: military SF/horror
front row: tales of pirate valkyries, a Martian cold case detective, and space submariners

links to books and blurbs: satholin.com/books
Sofie (S.A. Tholin) is posing with her SPSFC raygun trophy in front of several bookcases of graphic novels, and a framed poster of the cover of Summer Empress. The Primaterre/Primaterre Tales series in paperback format, posed in front of the SPSFC trophy and a Summer Empress poster. The books are Iron Truth, Lonely Castles, Chaos Terrain, Summer Empress, and in the Primaterre Tales series, Queen of the Corpsepickers, A Killer in Kirkclair, and Brightwork.
sofietholin.bsky.social
Give me 5 games to get to know you:

- Resident Evil (all of them)
- Silent Hill 2/3/4
- Neverwinter Nights 2
- Suikoden
- Shadowgate

...although I'm wildly cheating, narrowing it down to five is ridiculous when there are so many (Dark Souls 2, Vandal Hearts, Vagrant Story, Crusader Kings... aahh)
helynalc.bsky.social Hel ✨ || Untwining... 🌀🪷 @helynalc.bsky.social · 6d
Give me 5 games to get to know you:

- Undertale
- Disco Elysium
- Outer Wilds
- SOMA
- GRIS
caradelaney.bsky.social Cara N. Delaney 💖💜💙 @caradelaney.bsky.social · 6d
Give me 5 games to get to know you:

- Destiny 2
- Guild Wars
- Age of Empires 2
- Skyrim
- Fallout: New Vegas
November 30, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
dominishbooks.bsky.social
It's overdue, but it's here – my wrap-up of the reading I did in October features not one, but two five-star bangers! Check it out here:
youtu.be/ovlaPU1q5mI
November 24, 2025 at 11:05 AM
sofietholin.bsky.social
Moon Murder Draft 2 progress update: about halfway there. I'm having a lot of fun with it! My characters... maybe not so much, haha*

*and things are about to get worse. Brace for the Moment of Clarity!
A screenshot from Word. The text reads: "The universe is folding in on itself, Grace. Everything is coming undone." It's page 520/982, 265,724 words in total (yes it's a big book)
November 22, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
geektells.bsky.social
Do you support indie SciFi authors? @aealexander.bsky.social has put together a recap of all four SPSFC competitions with the winners and finalists of each one. SPSFC 5 is underway, too.

Support Indie SciFi!

www.aealexander.com/blog/spsfc
All You Need To Know About the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) — Allison Alexander
Key details about the contest for self-published sci-fi novels founded by Hugh Howey.
www.aealexander.com
November 21, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
blog.readindiefantasy.com
It's A Month of Rain & Reads and we wish you a quiet morning.

In today's Guest Post we hear from Sarah Chorn and Ken Scholes who talk about their experiences with Complex PTSD and how it affected their lives and creativity.

www.readindiefantasy.com/complex-ptsd...

#AMoRaR #BookSky #CPTSD
Banner image for our article about Complex PTSD and Creativity written by Sarah Chorn and Ken Scholes. The banner features the book dragon and the ghost cat, as usual, but there is no photo of the article's authors. It was difficult to make the text readable with both author pictures on the banner, so I decided to not include them. /nils
November 16, 2025 at 7:20 AM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
stevewestenra.bsky.social
I was very kindly asked to do an interview with Alex Puncekar at Grimdark Magazine, & it's now up!: www.grimdarkmagazine.com/interview-wi...

If you're interested in my New Edge Sword and Sorcery Novella, The Barbarian at Dream's End, give it a look! I'm surprisingly less incoherent than I thought 🤣
INTERVIEW: with author Steve Hugh Westenra
We got a chance to speak with Steve Hugh Westenra about their upcoming sword & sorcery novella The Barbarian at Dream’s End. We talk about the sword & sorcery genre, He-Man, and the funding campaign b...
www.grimdarkmagazine.com
November 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
warls.bsky.social
Honored to have my illustration Neo Mars featured on the cover of Clarkesworld for November 2025.

clarkesworldmagazine.com
Issue 230
Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.
clarkesworldmagazine.com
November 3, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
eyeofthenewt.bsky.social
Hi #portfolioday
I'm Newt, a freelance artist, roleplayer and a folklore nerd based in Prague, Czechia.

Looking for work at the moment and would love to do more book covers, book illustration, TTRPG art and game/animation concept art!

Portfolio: eyeofthenewt.com
Socials: linktr.ee/EyeOfTheNewt
a cropped detail of a digital illustration showing a crazed village woman mid-transformation into a corvid demon. the light from the moon is red and she is levitating in a corn field, her body contorting and a crazed smile adorning her face. a digifal illustration depicting a sunlit forest clearing on which a ruined fort stands. its built of white stone with ivy slowly overtaking it a d through out the image, there are a few goblins scattered, patrolling the grounds. the one we see most clearly, on the foreground carries a spear and a grin on his face. portrait of a brown haired pale man done in the style of an old looking oil painting. it is contained on a thin oval frame a d lit by a single point above. it shows a man wringing out his hands on a dirty rag. he is dressed in a worn white shirt, daek waiscoat and a pale yellow necktie. his hair is falling loosely around his face in a messy ponytail and gis face bears marks of decay. his eyes are glazed over like eyes of a corpse and he has the look of tightly concealed anguish on his face. digital illustration depicting riders dressed in decorated, east slavic folklore inspired garb, mounted on giant goats, flying thru the sunset-lit orange sky. they have gleefull expressions on their face and are adorned in many shiny pieces of jewelery.
October 15, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
stevewestenra.bsky.social
The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle turns TWO today. 😭

I had wanted to do something cool, like write a blog post or do a giveaway or even just make a new video, but I haven't had time.

Instead, I shall write a (probably) long thread here.

Mainly, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who's given it a chance
October 13, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
tessahastjarjanto.com
Doing another call to #booksky for participation in an event we're doing in November!

If you're a book blogger, reviewer, book lover, I'd love for you to join us with a review of an indie book or guest post about any book-ish topic.

More info ⬇️⬇️⬇️

www.readindiefantasy.com/announcing-a...
Announcing a Month of Rain and Reads… Coming this November! – Read Indie Fantasy
www.readindiefantasy.com
October 12, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
helynalc.bsky.social
Marketing post! But lazy, because I'm deep in edits.

Please gaze at my books. Consider them well. Perhaps read? 💜
Some people really liked them, so you might as well!

books2read.com/skylarkinthefog
books2read.com/imbued
helynalc.itch.io

#BookSky #books #scifi #fantasy #indieauthor #indiebooks
helynalc.bsky.social Hel ✨ || Untwining... 🌀🪷 @helynalc.bsky.social · May 31
I haven't been around a lot these days, but guess what. I have books!

If you like stories featuring lost, trauma-riddled almost-adults searching for home and finding it in each other, searching for agency and trudging through messy pain to grasp it, I write that.

Links on my profile!
📚💙 📚🪐 🌈📚
A trope map for Skylark in the Fog by Helyna L. Clove. The cover of the book featuring starry background, a bright blue, foggy rift in space shaped like a bird taking flight, and a small spaceship zooming out of it is in the middle. Around it, labels with arrows: - a prickly space pirate with commitment issues - a runaway queen with AI powers - a half-brainwashed soldier trying to find himself - shady galactic empire vs rebels - wormhole machine shenanigans - cute robots & alien BFFs - Star Wars and Firefly vibes with awesome women and strong platonic bonds - the cycle of hate and war, the meaning of home - humanity sucks - humanity rules - a swashbuckling adventure, now with extra trauma! (and perhaps healing) A trope map for Imbued by Helyna L. Clove. The cover of the book featuring a lush scene with green-purple vegetation of leaves and thorny stalks surrounding a while calla lily which is grasped by golden, magical threads and being pulled towards the ground, is in the middle. Labels with arrows are around it: - childhood trauma-induced amnesia - VERY reluctant hero (crossed out) villain (crossed out) ??? - manipulation - failed magic experiments and dead gods - telepathic flirting - queernormative society - demisex romance (slowburn no spice) - dreams & visions galore - "I am a weapon" Digital art of the three main characters of Skylark in the Fog by @nightshading on Twitter. Jeane Blake is on the left, a tall, blonde, white woman in her twenties. Her hair is in a ponytail, and she's wearing a brown leather jacket that's slightly big for her, green cargo pants, and a white shirt. And also a gun holster and an unfriendly grimace on her face. Maura Tholis is in the middle. She is a short, curvy, brown-skinned woman with light brown hair in two buns and on her shoulders. She is wearing a long red sleeveless dress. On her left hand, there is a high-tech looking black glove with blue lights on it. Her expression is kind. Roy Philemon is on the right. He is a skinny white, short brown-haired man also in his late twenties. He's wearing a black jacket, grey T-shirt, and brown cargo pants. He's got some stubble on his face and he's holding a gun in his left hand sort of non-chalantly. The two main characters of Imbued by Helyna L. Clove, digital art by Talli Morgan. A man and a woman stand facing each other on blue-green background. The woman, Calla, has brown skin and long auburn, wavy hair. She's wearing a long-sleeved, loose green tunic with golden embroidery on the sleeves. She's holding out her palms and concentrating on a small sphere of light hovering above her fingers with a stark expression. The man, Gray, has brown skin, black, mid-length, wavy hair, and he's wearing a black long-sleeved jacket. His hands are hovering around Calla's, focusing on the light sphere as well, but he's really looking at her with a gentle expression.
October 9, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
dominishbooks.bsky.social
Another month, another TBR, and for some reason I seem to be mostly reading sequels in October. Check out my plan here:
youtu.be/JRbY4kQvTX8
What are you planning to read?
October 6, 2025 at 10:04 AM
sofietholin.bsky.social
#SFFChat Day 4 - Snippet: Haunting.

A snippet from Summer Empress. A villainess makes her spooky entrance!
The creature Haakon had called his moon goddess descended into the oubliette on steps of whirling glass. Veils covered her masked face, the silks shifting over pearlescent metal. She looked like a dead thing, some poet's sweetheart risen from her grave to haunt opium dreams.
October 5, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
spotlightindie.bsky.social
It's time for an epic giveaway! To be in with a chance of winning the complete Dragon Spirit's trilogy by LL MacRae, please comment below with your favourite fictional creature companion. The winner will be announced at our Indie Author Summer Party at 9pm on Sunday 5th Oct. #bookgiveaway
October 4, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
seantcollins.com
The Deep Ones, a comic about sea monsters by me and @thorazos.bsky.social
Why We Fear the Ocean
There’s something down there…
medium.com
September 29, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
sofietholin.bsky.social
Thanks very much to Tim for this lovely interview that really got me thinking pretty hard about my process, and why I do what I do. Check it out! :)
September 28, 2025 at 1:24 PM
sofietholin.bsky.social
Thanks very much to Tim for this lovely interview that really got me thinking pretty hard about my process, and why I do what I do. Check it out! :)
September 28, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
jnb.art
BOOK COVER ARTISTS
QRP with your book covers.

hand-lettered & hand-skulled

#BookCovers #HumanMade #NoAI
A color cover illustration for the Little Wolves TTRPG with muted purples, blues, greens, yellows, and reds, with black line art. The title logo is done in a yellow stylized blackletter ambigram style that reads the same upside down and right-side up. The logo sits in front of a large red moon. The main focal point of the composition is a young werewolf with glowing eyes, running along with two wolves behind them. The werewolf is tangled in the vines emerging from the silhouetted trees that frame the composition. Along the edges of that frame, in four circular vignettes created by the branches and vines, there are cameos of the four queens of the game: the witch queen, the troll queen, the pumpkin queen, and the mermaid queen. A banner along the bottom of the cover reads “A realm of folk and fae from Dinoberry Press" a black and white illustration for the cover of the game HELLPIERCERS. It features a decorative border of metal and gems with skeletons bearing spears. the title text is written in a stylized hand-lettered blackletter typeface. there are arcane sigils and floating geometric forms, as well as two veiled and haloed attendants flanking the composition below billowing clouds. one attendant is holding a hammer and the other, a sickle. an angel wing and demon wing cross below the title text, and at the base of the art, demonic hands and limbs reach upwards. A color cover illustration of a vast abandoned valley flanked by craggy mountains and crumbling castles. a skeleton with a royal crown and cape lays on a rock in the foreground. The title text spells “Dead Reign” and is written in a black letter typeface with a dagger in the middle for the ‘i’ in ‘reign’. The lettering also implies the shape of a crown and sits on top of a skull in the top center of the cover. A color illustration of a planet with an angry face exploding from its middle. The words “10 MILLION HP PLANET” are bursting out of the planet in the center of the composition. Black fractal-like circular forms, sometimes referred to as Kirby Krackle, are drawn around the edges of the image. The limited color palette of yellow, orange, red, fuchsia, and blue, is applied as halftone dots.
September 25, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
verityholloway.bsky.social
The ebook of my short story collection, Cheer The Sick, is a mere £2.49 at the moment. That's a lot of ghastliness per penny. Possibly too much ghastliness for such a trifling sum, actually.

blackshuckbooks.co.uk/cheer-the-si...
On a background of crumpled vintage paper rests the book cover for Cheer The Sick, featuring a plague doctor dropping a bouquet of flowers. The tagline reads "What ails you?"
September 22, 2025 at 1:27 PM
sofietholin.bsky.social
First draft finished! Murder, mystery, mayhem - and one rather important Moment - in an asylum seeker camp on Phobos.

Now onto the edits...
A printed out page with so many notes, just... SO MANY NOTES, haha.
September 16, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
geologyjohnson.bsky.social
We return to planet Consille where the horrifying Awns have eradicated (almost) all land based life. CW body horror for the next skeet. 1/n #SciFiSeptember #Writer #WorldBuilding
Digital painting of an Earthlike planet against a starfield. Half of the planet is in shadow.
September 13, 2025 at 9:19 PM
sofietholin.bsky.social
Captain Flora Lark and the cataphract Sigrid Rokland, exploring an underwater cave system on a planet far more alien than they expected.
At the edge of a bridge that had no railings, for it had been designed for the coiling of sinewy bodies, Lark stared down into the source of the pale light. Her mind recoiled, but her feet stepped forward, because the abyss called to her, sang with the voice of water and pulled with the force of something greater still. Rokland pulled her back from the edge. In the vastness of the city, even the cataphract appeared small. Behind them lay the tunnel, and how comforting those oppressive walls suddenly seemed; how lovely it would be to walk on a red carpet and hear their footfall bounce off old and crumbling, but so very normal, concrete. Ahead, the bridge cut an inky line through the twilight band between the cave dark and the light rising from the deep. The noise, the light, the terror – this was nothing like the cave where a young Lark had once lay dying, but she felt like that girl again. Her hand found Rokland's, their fingers interlacing tightly, and together they approached the edge again. It did not matter how small they were; forward was the only way.
September 9, 2025 at 9:43 PM
sofietholin.bsky.social
A snippet from my WIP (which is 99% complete! Yay!). Still a first draft in pretty rough shape, but as a little teaser, here's a snippet in which our characters are having a bad time in the Big Wet.

#WIPSnips
The fog turned from white to a diffuse orange, lit by enemy encampments along the shore. They skirted them as quietly as they could in their stolen boat, until they were as close to the towermen as it could take them. Back at Exning, the Galateans had drones in the air, spitting missiles like Catherine wheel fireworks. Jackson was grateful for the distraction. Better to focus on the action back there than the mud sucking at his greaves and the splashing, sighing, croaking, bubbling noises of the Big Wet. The ground turned solid under their feet. The fog released its grasp on them, fading to a wispy mist. A dilapidated industrial area to the west, flatlands to the east, the mountain-peak skyline of the city at the horizon, and everywhere the lights of enemies glowed bright. Flashlights, searchlights, headlights, drone lights; the rumble of engines, the footfall of boots, the barking of dogs; there was nowhere to hide, not even for the towermen who came running across the industrial area, their prismatic armour's camouflage flashing off and on. They dragged two crates and one of their own – Haukes, minus one leg – across cracked concrete and collapsed chain-link fences, and hot on their heels a dozen infantry fighting vehicles came bursting through factory walls, a wolf pack of Galatean soldiers loping alongside them. Jackson and Zimmi laid down covering fire, and Jackson had forgotten that sometimes it could be glorious like this, APF-redirected enemy fire bending around him as though he could will himself invincible, his own bullets finding their targets every time as his awareness flowed through the air with them, battling hostile countermeasures. Then he heard the buzzing. Mosquitoes, he thought, but the buzzing grew louder, and with it a strange feeling.
September 7, 2025 at 8:19 PM
sofietholin.bsky.social
#SciFiSeptember Day 7:

At a glance, I think people sometimes assume Iron Truth is all grimdark scifi and military action. It is, but it's also... this, haha. :)
Given the choice of an elevator shaft and a perfectly good ladder; the cold, dark, fall-to-your-deathy option wasn't the one Joy would've picked. The flare looked distant enough to be a star and the drop long enough that she'd have time to think about her landing if she fell. She'd thought of it plenty already, a horror-reel of fracturing bone and rupturing skin playing in her mind. "I'm just saying," she complained to Hopewell, "Cato's one silver lining was the lack of heights. Oh sure, it's got tunnels and spiders and more lunatics than you could swing a cat at, but at least I rarely had to worry about plummeting to my death." "Cheer up," said Hopewell and tightened the straps of a harness around her waist. "One way or another, it'll all be over soon."
September 7, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Sofie Tholin
bethkesh.bsky.social
British writers who hate having to promote yerself: you'll know the cycle of suck well.
bibliotta.com/musings/the-...
The Cycle of Suck
Or, how writers talk themselves out of promoting their own work: UK writers' advice on how to get out of your head and get your book into the world.
bibliotta.com
September 6, 2025 at 10:12 AM