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Wanderer's Tales #15 - Resistance

Welcome to Issue 15 of Wanderer’s Tales. In this issue is news about membership tiers.

Chris Struble

24 Feb 2026 • 4 min read

Image Credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-pulling-the-resistance-band-6339612/

Welcome to Issue 15 of Wanderer’s Tales, the newsletter of Ancient Roads, the website of Seattle writer and songwriter Chris Struble. Here you will find fantasy fiction set in ancient worlds where music makes magic.

In this newsletter is Chapter Eleven of Shield of the Goddess, the adult fantasy novel I am releasing chapter by chapter as a web serial.

This chapter finds Shala, now a fifteen year old girl, a year after arriving at the temple in Feros, about to write home to her parents.

Also in this newsletter is a new song Weave the Threads, a spell that Shala discovers in Chapter Eleven.

In this newsletter, I am also sharing some exciting news about this website. I have set up membership tiers.

The first tier, a free subscription called Traveler provides access to all my free subscriber-only content. If you are a free subscriber, you are already at this tier.

I have added a paid subscription tier called Scribe that will provide access to paid-subscriber-only content for $36 a year. To keep transaction fees as low as possible, this tier is only available as an annual subscription.

In 2027, I will move all the book chapters and songs I released here in 2025 to paid-subscriber-only content. In 2028, I will do the same for all the content I will release here in 2026.

This means that there will always be a year of free subscriber-only content. Keep reading, and you can keep reading for free.

Newsletters and public content will always remain free and public.

I arrived at this approach after doing extensive market research and considering the value of my annual creative output.

The theme of this newsletter is Resistance.

In Wanderer's Tales #6 I wrote about the first empire, when Sargon of Akkad conquered neighboring city-states more than four thousand years ago.

When I see the actions of today's authoritarian leaders like Putin, Xi, and Trump, I see the latest form of the imperial project that started with Sargon. These modern dictators and those who support them are trying to make a world of unrestrained violence where there are no laws, and hearkening back to ancient times to justify it. One Trump administration official, who I will not name, recently declared the following:

Unnamed: "We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time."

I could not be more opposed to this statement. I admire those who call it out and condemn it. But I am also reminded of a quote by one of my favorite writers:

Ursula K. LeGuin: "To oppose something is to maintain it... You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road."

The different road I am walking now is to use speculative fiction and music to describe a world of freedom, equality, and peace. A world where slavery, patriarchy, and empires do not yet exist, and where brave people fight to keep it that way. The dream of such a world inspires my writing and songwriting. I hope you find it inspiring too.

In times like these it is essential to live with intention, and to think about what road one is walking, and what roads one should walk away from.

When I was laid off and decided to take an early retirement, but to still look for a new job, I felt a need to be very intentional about my job search. I have created a list of companies that are openly supporting the imperial project, and am not considering jobs at those companies. I go somewhere else.

I also support businesses owned by people I know that have similar values to mine. Check out my new Recommendations page with a list of artists, authors, bookstores, musicians, news outlets, and service providers I recommend.

What are you resisting this year? What are you walking away from? And what new road are you walking now? Please share in the comments below.

Need to catch up? Visit my Books, Music, and Reviews pages to see everything I have published here to date.

If you've just wandered here, please sign up for free to stay up to date and receive emails when I publish new content! You can also help by sharing this newsletter with someone in your life. You’ll have my gratitude for spreading the word.

I also hope you'll consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support my writing.

See you on the road!