(Spoilers for Chapter 13 follow)
And here is where we leave our protagonist. Personally, I really enjoyed the struggles that Joshua experienced: the desire to be a good partner while doing good in the world, and the ways that those can conflict. I hope that you have enjoyed them too. The conclusion may be sad, but it is in keeping with the story's broad theme that great achievements aren't possible without tremendous costs.
Overall I've been very pleased with the reception to Resonance: it was consistently in the top 10 of the "ongoing serials" category on SOL, and broke into the top three several times. It's also my top-voted story, at least at this point. Several readers wrote to say that they felt it deserved to be rated higher, which is always very nice to hear.
Some readers objected to the ending. Part of the point of the story was to write against genre, including the tendency for "happy ever after". Folks, sometimes things just end. They don't always do so prettily or well. This may be challenging to read, but there's no rule that says things have to be otherwise.
That being said, I have deliberately limited the scope of this story: very aware of the temptation to keep adding to the text, I've left the final manuscript at approximately 40,000 words: novella length, essentially. As a result, I have some 20 pages left over that have become the outline and conclusion of a sequel, tentatively titled Echo, and the barest sketch of a third book, as yet untitled. If you're interested in those, please let me know: publication will be based on demand and available time.
This story was primarily written during five blistering weeks over summer vacation. As promised, I've also added a glossary and maps as an end-piece to the book, which I hope readers will find helpful. I'm particularly proud of the maps, as I convinced the SOL sitemaster to support SVG as a format: as far as I'm aware, they are the first SVG images on the site.
As always, your feedback, comments and corrections are very much welcomed.