Answers, Part I

Thanks to all who downloaded the book for free HERE.  Please, go there and download it yourself.

Thank you also to those of you who emailed and tweeted me.  I appreciate the responses and will address your concerns right here.

If you haven't read Lords of Kobol - Book One: Apotheosis, stop reading this, go to paragraph one and click that link.  Feel free to come back when you've read it.

If you've read it, let us JUMP.




Seriously.

Download the book and read it.  I don't want to wreck this for you.  (Rather, you shouldn't wreck this for yourselves.)

OK.  You've been warned.


3




2




1


To discourage prying eyes, I will be cryptic.  If you've read the book, you'll have no trouble understanding what I'm saying.

Every question I've received thus far has been, "Why did you make the Lords of Kobol that?"  (Thankfully, only one person seemed perturbed about my choice.  I hope she can forgive me.)

You may recall from an earlier post that I created an Excel spreadsheet early on to keep track of the various ancient events that had been alluded to in the series.  I neglected to mention in that post that I had two columns next to each event.  One column contained ideas for addressing the events in question if the Lords were A (the choice I eventually made).  The other column contained ideas for those events if the Lords were B (characters that do appear in the book and in the show, but aren't the Lords).

The A column filled up rather quickly while I hit stumbling blocks in the B.  But that's not the main reason.

Galactica was a show known for its grounded and realistic nature.  Sure, they were in space, but the technology they had seemed within our grasp, to varying degrees.  The phones had wires, for Zeus' sake.  In this realistic universe we were shown, there were elements of the supernatural sprinkled among the grounded bits.  But on the whole, the show was about 95% "real" and 5% "other worldly."

I knew that if I tipped that ratio too far, these books would not feel like they were part of the same universe.  That, to me, was paramount.  In my stories, there are no Adamas.  There are no battlestars.  Across the millennia, it is hard enough to maintain a connection to the world we saw on our TVs.  I can drop names like "Athena" and "Pythia," but that's it.  Sure, I have Cylons, both chrome and skinjob, but there's sword fighting, massive armies, gods dwelling on mountaintops and so much more that could pull people out of the story.

To keep you in the tale, I need to maintain the gut feeling that this feels familiar.  I need people to feel that they are within that universe they've already seen.  Thus the Pythia bookends with "All of this has happened before ..."  I had to keep that ratio of "real" to "other worldly" in check and that's why I went with column A.

I hope that answers your questions on that matter.

Please email me or tweet if you have a follow up or any other query.

Thanks again for reading and get ready for Book Two in September.

Just remember: the eagle is red because it represents blood.  (Spoiler alert: it's badass.)