Terms of use
This site is run by James Robertson, an author in Birmingham. It publishes his fiction a chapter at a time, free to read.
These terms are the agreement between you and him about using it. They are written in plain English because you should be able to read them without a solicitor.
In short: the stories are his, reading them is free, and please don't republish them or feed them to a machine.
The writing belongs to James
Every chapter, every character and every word on this site is James Robertson's work, and copyright in it stays with him. Nothing here is public domain and nothing here is free to reuse.
You are welcome to:
- read everything, as often as you like, without paying or signing up;
- share a link to any chapter, anywhere;
- quote a short passage when reviewing, recommending or discussing the story, as long as you say where it came from.
Please don't:
- copy chapters onto another site, app or forum, in whole or in part;
- publish translations, adaptations, audio recordings or printed copies;
- sell anything based on the stories.
If you want to do something not on that list — a fan translation, a reading, a podcast — just ask. The answer is often yes, and it costs an email: james@jamesrobertsonauthor.com.
Not for training machines
James expressly reserves all rights to use this work for text and data mining, and for training or developing artificial intelligence systems. Reading here is free; using this writing as training data is not permitted, and no licence to do so is granted by the text being publicly readable.
This applies to automated collection of any kind, including crawling, scraping and bulk downloading.
The story will change
This is a serial being published as it goes, not a finished book sitting on a shelf.
Chapters may be edited after publication, renumbered, renamed, taken down, or put back. Names change: the band in this story was called something else until August 2026. Nothing here is a permanent record, and no version of a chapter is guaranteed to stay available.
Publication runs to a rhythm rather than a contract. There will be gaps — James has said there will be a pause after the sixth chapter — and when the site says a chapter arrives on Fridays, that is an intention, not a promise you can hold him to.
This site sells nothing
There is nothing to buy here. No payment is ever taken on this site and no card details are ever asked for.
If you want to support the writing, that happens on Patreon, which is a separate company with its own terms and its own payment handling. What you get for supporting is whatever Patreon and James say there — not something governed by this page. The same goes for Facebook, Bluesky, TikTok, or anywhere else linked from here: follow a link and you are in someone else's house, under their rules.
The mailing list
Joining is optional and free, and everything about what happens to your email address is in the privacy policy. You can leave at any time using the link in any email we send you.
What we can and can't promise
The site is offered as it is. James writes the stories and the site is kept running with care, but it is one author's website, not a utility — it may be unavailable, slow, or briefly broken, and no promise is made that it will always be there.
Nothing in these terms limits liability for anything that cannot lawfully be limited, including death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud.
Changes to these terms
These terms may change. The current version is always the one on this page, and if something changes in a way that materially affects you, it will be said in an email to the mailing list rather than quietly edited in.
The law that applies
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute. If you live elsewhere in the UK, you keep whatever protections your local law gives you.
Getting in touch
james@jamesrobertsonauthor.com — for permissions, corrections, or anything on this page.