It’s been such a long time since I came back to the MetalReviews website I almost didn’t remember my login credentials. It’s also been a long time since my last review, and well, today isn’t the day for that either.

Back in 2014, after I burnt out at my job as an IT System Engineer, I decided that I needed to follow my dream instead of doing a job that made me miserable. While under anti-depressors, I dusted off an old unfinished copy of the science fiction, space opera book I had started writing back in 2003. A few weeks later I had finished the first draft, and the rest is history.

I have self-published that book on Amazon in June 2015, and to my surprise, it sold more than 2000 copies in less than two months. This was a sign from the universe that I had finally found my calling. And so, I kept writing full-time ever since. I’m not making a comfortable living yet, and I’ve struggled to pay my bills, but you know what? I’ve never felt so happy in my entire life. I still feel somewhat successful since I'm selling more and more books doing what I love. I'm also looking forward to getting my writing career to the next level, and I feel 2017 will be that year.

But what does it have to do with metalreviews.com you ask? Well, it’s quite simple really. If it weren't for that site we’ve created back in the year 2000, I would not have been able to do this. Metalreviews taught me how to write. My first reviews were barely English if you remember :). And I’ve always been more of an emotional reviewer than an objective one too. And emotion is required in fiction, so the transition was a painless one. At the end of the day, I owe my current author status to this site and would like to thank everyone of you, both reviewers and readers for it.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve sold more than 25000 books. I’ve written 8 full novels, 7 as part of an ongoing series (Universe in Flames), 1 Cyberpunk with a time travel Twist (Rewind 717), A novella also set in the UiF series (Ryonna’s Wrath) and I’m halfway through book 8 at the moment.

And I’m loving every moment of it. I also do my own covers (except one, the cover for Rewind 717 which was more of a collaboration with talented artist Tom Edwards, even though he deserves all the credit for it, I just directed him so much that in the end the cover looked a lot like one of mine, minus the amazing painting skills that is). I take great pleasure in doing both the writing and the artworks for the books, as some of you might remember, I did a few metal cover CDs back in the days (for Steel Prophet, Manticora, Astral Door and more).

Tomorrow I (re)launch my first trilogy. It’s a box set with the first three books: Earth – Last Sanctuary, Fury to the Stars & Destination Oblivion. I've use metal bands (with their permission) for some of the destroyer names (Axxis, Far Beyond, Euphoreon and Iron Fire). Though I think not many of my readers are metal fans cause none brought it up in the feedback I got :).

I’ve also created a trailer for the series with After Effect, and of course, it wouldn’t satisfy me if there wasn’t at least a bit of metal riffing in it, so I invite you to check it out here:

youtu.be/eDyszqLc4rk

If you miss reading me (except a few die-hard readers, I’m sure many of you are like: “Who’s this bozo, already?”), and if SciFi is your game, then I can only encourage you to check out this release. It will be a no-brainer at its launch price of 0.99$ (will go back to full price in less than a week). And if you enjoyed my reviews over the years and would like to make me happy, then you know what to do ;).

I miss writing reviews for and on the site, and I wish I had time to do so again; but releasing that many books requires quite a tight schedule and like I said earlier: I was never a very objective reviewer to begin with. But what was clear from the length my reviews over time is that I needed to write. It’s in my blood and I just found the perfect medium to do so: Sci-Fi books.

In closing I'll say this: If you have a dream, just follow it. Otherwise life will be what happens now while you're letting it escape your grasp. Money, financial security, fame... none of this matters if you ask me. But when you wake up in the morning and feel like you're doing exactly what you're supposed to, that my friends, is priceless and in my opinion the closer to true happiness as you'll get.

Now since I've paid for most of this site's existence, here is a bit of shameless self-promotion on my part ;)

Link to the UiF Trilogy book: http://mybook.to/UiFT1
Link to the series: http://mybook.to/UiF7 (hint: the first one is free ;) )
Link to Ryonna’s Wrath: http://mybook.to/RW (also free ;) )
Link to Rewind 717: http://mybook.to/R717 
Link to my author website: www.christiankallias.com

And while I don’t have time to write metal reviews anymore, I can at least tell you which albums I’d be writing reviews for if I did. And let you check them out. Here are the last few gems I've been listening (and greatly enjoying) to lately:

Eclipse – Monumentum
Battle Beast – Bringer of Pain
Tokyo Moto Fist – Tokyo Motor Fist
Kreator – Gods of Violence (but if I like it, it probably means most Kreator fans won’t LOL, like the Endorama classic fiasco on my part, if you remember)
One Desire – One Desire
Brothers of Metal – Prophecy of Ragnarök
Dead by April – Worlds Collide (that’s not going to be a popular choice :D but I love this album just the same)

Live long and prosper my friends,
In Metal we Trust!