I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
You should definitely give them a re-read! Maybe it’s because I’m older now, but I’m catching so much stuff this time around that I missed. Also, the humor. The book is subtly funny AF. The foreshadowing is brilliant as well.
About the author though—do you think he’s retired and possibly given up on the series now? As far as I can tell, he hasn’t published anything in a while.
Doesn’t seem like his personal website is updated but according to Wikipedia he came out with a 2-book series called The Hero of Thera more recently with the last one published in 2019 which isn’t that long ago. Looking at it, it kind of seems to have a similar vibe as Mortal Coils. I might give it a try.
For some reason I thought that was published in 2017. Also, I think it’s a Lit RPG. I’ve never played/read one of those before. I may give it a try too.