Writing Colonies XLIII: SITREP - "Paper Edit" of Volume One is complete

 

The "Paper Edit" is complete.  As before, seeing the words on pages is a different experience than having them on a screen, so I see things I missed before.  Once those changes are made, I'll proceed to the next edit, likely the "Kindle Edit" wherein I read it on a handheld device.  Again, the different medium helps me see things I've previously missed.  Since I've pegged the release of Volume One for February 7, the next few edits/passes will focus only on those books.  

This is probably the last update for 2021, so let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays.  2022 promises to be a big one for me, so I hope I can count on your help to spread the word.  Thanks for reading.

Colonies of Kobol RELEASE DATES

Well, it's been nearly five years in the making, and I appreciate your patience, but the time has nearly arrived.

Colonies of Kobol - Volume One: Foundation ...

That's ten days shy of five years from when I first created the Word document and got the ball rolling.  

That's the first Monday of the month, so I continued that into the next books, too.

Colonies of Kobol - Volume Two: Evolution ...

Colonies of Kobol - Volume Three: Revolution ...

The cool thing is, Volume Two is out on 4/4/22 and Volume Three is out on 6/6/22.  Not important.  Just neat.

The dates are subject to change due to calamity or what have you, but I'm pretty determined to get them finished and published as I've listed here.

For Lords of Kobol, I released them one month apart.  Then again, those books are only about two hundred pages each.  With Volume One being more than four hundred, Two nearly eight hundred, and Three pushing a thousand, I figured two months in between releases would be better for the readers.

(Speaking of Lords of Kobol, now would probably be a good time for you to go ahead and re-read those four great books.  If you haven't already, you can download them for free HERE.)

More news and info to come.  Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XLII: SITREP - Phase II editing done, release date announcement soon, and an IMPORTANT request

Graphic:

So I've finished two read-throughs, editing as I went.  Largely for spelling, word choices, clarity, tone, etc.  Next, I'll be printing out the books and reading them, marking errors and such with a red ink pen.  Good ol' fashioned editing, that is.  (With about 2,100 pages, I fear for how much that'll cost me in toner.  If you'd like to make a donation, here's my tipjar.)

In other news, I think I've settled on a release date for Volume One and a schedule for the remainder.  Assuming my editing continues at the same rate, it should work out, but I'm not going to reveal it just yet.  Maybe I'll post it next week as a Christmas present, of sorts.

Lastly, over the last couple of years, I've sent out PDFs of various parts of Colonies to winners of contests and so on.  If you were a recipient, PLEASE email me at ety3rd@ety3rd.com to let me know what you think, any detailed criticism you might have, suggestions for clarity, whatever.  I'd like to incorporate any good suggestions into the books before publishing.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XLI: Maps of Caprica and Battle

Phase two of editing continues apace, however, I realized I had not shared a couple of maps with you.  The first is Caprica:

Click to embiggen

It's based on the limited landmasses seen in BSG and Caprica, plus the image from the QMX map.  Some places were seen first in Book Eight: Picon as a revolution ended the era of imperial puppet nations on the planet (the Virgan-aligned nation of Rhodia was in northern Andros with its capital of Rhodes; the Leonan-aligned nation of Dordogne was in southern Andros with its capital of Lato).  

The second map is specific to a single, long chapter in Book Thirteen: Caprica which focuses on a siege:

Click to embiggen

I'm sure that's fairly impenetrable without the context of the story itself, but, hey, it's another map you can look forward to.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XL: All About Editing

Here's the graphic:

The green Roman numerals mean I've completed the first of my planned edit phases.  Here they are:

1. "Run-and-Gun Edit."  Basically, I read the book and fix misspellings, word choices, etc., as I go.  Pretty quick.
2. "Tone Edit."  I read everything a bit more slowly and make sure the "feel" of each chapter/book works.  Sometimes I find that I can get flowery in some places and not flowery enough in others.  Maybe the difference comes down to the mood I was in the day I wrote it.  I'm not sure.  Regardless, this edit will be about evening things up a bit and making sure the tone fits with that portion of the story and ones adjacent to it.
3. "Chronological Edit."  This one's unique to Colonies of Kobol.  Because I've separated the story into sixteen separate books covering each of the Colonies of Kobol, I've had to jump around in the timeline a bit.  I could have written everything in order, but that would have been one massive book and not sixteen more manageable ones.  (For those interested in a chronological read, I intend to include a chronological table of contents so, once you've read it through once, you can read it again in a more linear fashion.)  With this one, I'll start at Book One: Earth, then go to the first part of Book Two: Gemenon, then the first chapter of Book Four: Virgon, then all of Book Three: Leonis, then the first part of Book Eight: Picon, then the first part of Book Five: Sagittaron, ... you get the idea.  All to make sure the continuity holds up and everything makes sense across the different worlds  (mentions of events in one book frequently appear in dialogue in others).  I may even throw in a re-read of Lords of Kobol and a re-watch of Caprica and BSG in the appropriate spots to make sure it fits the universe.  Depending on time, we'll see.
4. "Paper Edit."  Basically, I print the whole thing out and read it, red pen in hand, so I may make the pages run red with the blood of its errors.  Reading the book in different media helps me find mistakes I've missed in other read-throughs, I've found.
5. "Device Edit."  Similar to the "Paper Edit," I read this on a handheld device of some sort, again, so I might catch mistakes that slipped through previous edits.

And that's it.  Five different edit phases.  So, when that graphic is full of green "V"s, you'll know it's time to move toward publishing.  Wow.

And when will that be?  I have a plan, but much like the show, I'm not telling just yet.  Let's see how the next editing phases go.

Thanks for reading.

RIP Dean Stockwell: A Cavil Chapter from Colonies of Kobol

 

Known mostly for Quantum Leap, we know him best as Number One (aka John Cavil) from Battlestar Galactica.  

When writing Colonies of Kobol, some of my favorite parts come when writing scenes for established characters, and none were more fun to write than scenes with John Cavil in Books One, Fourteen, and Fifteen.  After the JUMP, I'll share a couple of moments and a nice long chapter.

Writing Colonies XXXIX: Managing Expectations

I'll be honest: I don't know who I'm talking to with this post.  Me?  You?  Dunno.  Mostly me, I suspect.

I've long been worried that people would be disappointed with Colonies of Kobol.  That people have liked Lords of Kobol so much is a surprise in itself, so, naturally, I'm concerned about the follow-up.  I'm just going to type and hope it ends up being therapeutic for me and any release neuroses I happen to have.  Maybe it'll help you readers, too.

1. If you're hoping to read Colonies and get 2,000+ pages of hot Cylon action, you're going to be disappointed.  Cylons appear in ... checks memory ... Book One, and then not again until Book Thirteen - Sixteen.  (Not counting a brief "cameo" in Book Eleven.)  There's plenty of action throughout, however, and that leads me to the next point.

2. A great deal of Colonies reads like an "alternative history" of Earth.  This may or may not surprise you.  The vague backstory of the Twelve Colonies was laid out in Caprica's bible and various other associated sources (including the famed QMX map), including allusions that Virgon and Leonis were essentially England and France, respectively, and they carried out an on-and-off thousand-year war of colonization, imperialism, etc., utilizing their many proxy worlds and nations against each other.  Spoiler alert if you haven't studied Earth history: that's pretty much what happened here, too.  So there will be plenty of battles with each one steeped in a different era of the past reflecting different weapons, armor, ships, and so on.  There is some cross-pollination of the high tech among the low, but I'll talk about that more thoroughly in a different post, likely after release.  

Simply put, I took advantage of the time frame and settings in these books by writing wholly different genres of stories among the sci-fi.  You've got knights, castles, a western, a police story, "Age of Sail"-type warfare, politics, romance (kinda), mobsters (a little), and horror (a little), all mixed up with a huge continuation and conclusion of the Caprica TV show, more Cylon warfare, and an epilogue with some of the people from Battlestar Galactica set on Earth II (our Earth) about a decade after settlement.  And that leads to the next point.

3. I'm worried about the ending.  When I wrote Lords of Kobol, the ending of the story was one of the few things everyone knew about: there's a "Blaze," Athena died, there's an exodus, and Zeus said, "Don't come back."  The hard part was writing a compelling story that got us there, but I never really worried about the ending.  Same thing with Prelude.  Sure, it was a prequel, but again, I didn't have to worry about the ending.  The ending was the beginning of Lords of Kobol.  (Well, not really.  Book Two, sure, but ... you know what I mean.)

For Colonies, however, I'm out on a limb.  The closest guidance the series gave me was the epilogue of "Daybreak."  I've watched that scene many times and read its transcription often enough, too.  I took it to heart and crafted a story set in our own future that seeks to fulfill something "Head Six" said.  The problem is ... I worry that people may not like it.  It is, however, the ending that I feel must happen, so that overwhelms my concerns.  Mostly.

As for what's around that ending, there's flashbacks to the crew of the late Galactica.  I have no worries about that stuff; I think it turned out great.  However, there are some elements of the portions of the story in our future that bother me.  I'm writing about real nations now and not something pulled out of thin air for Sagittaron a thousand years before the Cylon War, for example.  Invariably, that means politics are injected into the story somewhat and that concerns me, too.  Though all dramatic sci-fi inevitably comments on the world around its creators when it was written and produced, this feels more on the nose since I'm typing words like "United States" instead of "the People's Revolution of Scorpia."  In the end, I don't think it can be helped.  I tried in my latest rewrite to tamp some elements down and shift others, but when I was finished, it felt as though I was left with a hole in the story that had to be replaced.  

Alright, alright.  Enough of the therapy session.  Now that I've gotten it off my chest, maybe I won't fret about it too much more.  Maybe.

Thanks for reading.

(PS: I'm starting to read/edit in a day or so ... it'll be a slow process of reading and immediately changing word choices if needed, fleshing out if needed, etc.  It's been a while since I've read Book One so I'm kinda looking forward to it.)

Writing Colonies XXXVIII: "Pickups & Reshoots" are done

 Graphic:

Fixed some things, added some things, took away some things, moved some things around.  In the end, about one hundred pages of new stuff was added.  (Important stuff, I believe.  I've had other ideas for stories, vignettes on these worlds if you will, but I've not written them down and included them because I don't know what they would add that the others have not.)

Now comes the work of re-reading and editing.  I'll start on Monday with Book One: Earth and I'll be reading it off my computer monitor.  (Later edits will come as I read with paper and then a handheld device.  I've found that I notice different things as I read with different media.)

I'll have another post for you soon.  Perhaps next week.  The title I have in mind right now is "Tamping Down Expectations."

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XXXVII: Wrapping up Tauron, PICKUPS & RESHOOTS

 In case you missed it last week, I've finished the first draft of Colonies of Kobol.

(Hold for applause.)

What I didn't do in that post was my typical wrap-up for the book I had finished, so let me do it now.

Tauron is, like several others, a two-parter.  The first takes place as the beleaguered people manage kick the Leonis and Virgon Empires off their planet (for a time).  The second is all about the Tauran Civil War, the conflict that gave birth to the Ha'la'tha, and ends with refugees going to Caprica.

Here's the map I made of Tauron, germane primarily to the first part:

Click to embiggen

For those keeping track (me), Book Twelve is 116 pages long, which means Volume Three is 969 pages.  That, plus Volume One's 429 pages and Volume Two's 721 pages means the first draft of Colonies of Kobol is 2,119 pages long.  (Lords of Kobol was 1,095 pages total.)

In the next phase, it's going to get longer.  Here's the graphic; I'll explain after:

In the movie biz, "pickups and reshoots" are things they film after principal photography is complete.  Pickups are scenes that they plan on filming later to supplement the story (sometimes the decision to film a pickup comes while they're doing principal photography, e.g.: "Oh, it'd help if we had a scene where this character says this thing"); reshoots are do-overs of scenes that didn't go right the first time. 

I've kept a list for the last several months of things I want/need to do, and that list is now the graphic above.  The red asterisks indicate books where I intend to do some of these pickups and reshoots before I dig into the editing process.  For example, in the case of Gemenon, it's more of a reshoot (rewriting) of a key scene; in Leonis, it's a pickup because I need to add a scene to make later stuff make sense; Aerilon and Aquaria just need a few lines of dialogue added; and so on.

I'm not going to update this graphic with a single green asterisk each time I finish one of these pickups/reshoots.  In a couple of weeks (hopefully), I'll just post one with all green asterisks and then discuss my editing process.

That's what's up.  Don't know how long this will take, nor do I know how long the editing/reading/re-writing process will take.  As soon as I can pencil in a date on the calendar for a possible release, you'll be the first to know.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Writing Colonies XXXVI: SITREP - DONE!

 Let's look at that beautiful graphic, shall we?

I started on February 17, 2017.  Today is August 13, 2021.  Four-and-a-half years, more than two thousand pages ...

Holy frak.  It's done.

And yet, it's not.

I'll make another post next week to detail what's next, provide a map of Tauron, etc., but for now, today, I will revel in its completion.

Thanks for reading.

TEN YEARS of "Kobol"

 

It's hard to believe, but Lords of Kobol - Book One: Apotheosis was released on August 3, 2011.  I'd like to thank everyone for reading it and, most importantly, liking it and its sequels/prequel so much over the years.  Please, keep reading it AND keep telling other people who like BSG to give it a shot.  Your word-of-mouth/social media is the best way to get new readers.  (And rate/review it where you got it, too.)

If you haven't gotten it yet, pfft.  What are you here for?  Download all four books in the trilogy here.  (Don't forget, I've written several more books, too.)

So ... what's next?  Despite my desire to have it ready to go at this point, Colonies of Kobol just isn't there yet.  I've almost finished writing it (seriously, give me a few days and I'll be able say it's done), but that would still leave the lengthy reading/editing/re-reading/re-editing phase to go.

I will not, however, let a tenth anniversary go without something to mark the occasion.  How about a giveaway?

I'm going to give ONE lucky reader a first draft copy of Colonies of Kobol - Volume One: Foundation.

(This includes Earth I, Gemenon, and Leonis.)

How do you get it?  Simple.  Email me at ety3rd@ety3rd.com before noon ET on Friday with just a paragraph or so on A) what you like about Lords of Kobol and B) what you hope to see in Colonies of Kobol.  That's it.  I'll pick one of the entries and email the winner Friday afternoon.

Thanks again for ten years of reading.  Here's hoping there's at least ten more.

Writing Colonies XXXV: The Culture of Tauron

Caprica itself is, basically, modern-ish America but with hats.  Sagittaron, we know from Galactica, is largely made up of religious types who eschew medicine.  But, thanks to Caprica, Tauron is the world with the richest depictions among the Twelve Colonies.  

Of course, as I'm writing, I'm including all sorts of aspects of the culture we've seen, and I have to fill in some blanks, too.  This means I also have to tackle the origins of some of this stuff.  Not to worry; I won't be giving Taurans tattoos, mourning gloves, the "dirt eater" epithet, and ancient Greek as a language in one fell swoop like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade did (wherein Indy got his whip, his chin scar, his hat, and his fear of snakes in one day).

Let's hit a few of the big points and I'll give you a peek at how it's handled in Colonies of Kobol - Book Twelve: Tauron.  After the JUMP.

Writing Colonies XXXIV: SITREP - "Aquaria" is Finished (as is Volume Two)

Handy-dandy graphic:

Wow.  Look at that.  Last year when I first started doing these SITREPs, here's what the graphic looked like:

Crazy how much writing you can get done when you lose your job, huh?

So, Aquaria is finished and it went to some crazy places.  Yes, you saw in the last post that it includes a glimpse of the Colonial holocaust but I'm here to tell you it gets far crazier than that.  I won't spoil anything, however.  

Here's a map of Aquaria, though:

Pretty simple because it's a frigid, desolate place.

Now, to remind everyone of the "Volume" structure of these books, here's this handy-dandy graphic (ignore the incorrect switched Picon/Libran positions):

With Aquaria being complete, so is Volume Two.  Huzzah.  It was a long road, getting from there to here.  Empires, violent settlements/colonizations, battles, politics, ... it could've gotten repetitious and boring, but I switched styles and genres a few times to keep things interesting.  I think I succeeded and I hope you'll agree.

For those keeping track, Book Eleven was 71 pages.  That makes this first draft of Volume Two 721 pages long.  Volume One is 429 pages; Three (plus whatever Tauron ends up being) is 853 pages.  My prediction was true.  It looks like the final version will be a 2,000 page monstrosity.  Coupled with the 1,095 pages of Lords of Kobol, I think 3,000 pages is a nice round number for a universe of tales.

Now it's on to the first book of Volume Three, Tauron.  I currently have two parts planned: the first will take place about 850 years before Galactica as the beleaguered people manage to kick the Empires off their world (temporarily) and the second will take place about eighty years before BSG (about thirty before Caprica) and follow the rise of the Ha'la'tha as the resistance against an oppressive regime propped up by Caprica.  Aquaria took three weeks to write, compared to the two weeks each for Libran and Scorpia.  How long will Tauron take?  I dunno, but I'll keep you in the loop.  

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XXXIII: A Sample of "Aquaria"

I'm about a third of the way through Book Eleven right now, and I've just started the portion that may intrigue you the most.  

If you want to read part of it, click the JUMP.

Writing Colonies XXXII: "Scorpia" is finished; on to "Aquaria"

 Graphic:

Man, it's weird seeing how full that is.

Scorpia is done.  It was rather fun to write, and I won't spoil too much, but there is plenty of talk about their orbital facility as well as the creation of a certain sport.  Oh, and here's a map of Scorpia, too: 

Click to embiggen

It ended up being the same length as Libran somehow (47 pages), even though it feels like more happens in Scorpia.  Whatever.  I'm not gonna cram more story in there if it feels good where it is.  After all, Volume Two is already well over 600 pages long.

Speaking of, Book Eleven: Aquaria will finish Volume Two.  You might think this will be another "novella" of about fifty pages like Libran and Scorpia and ... you might be right.  I won't know 'til it's done, but I have something surprising in store for this one.  I'll just have to start typing and see where it goes.  (And why "Aquaria" instead of "Aquarion?"  In the story, I've made "Aquarion" the older name, used primarily by Virgon as they claimed it and started to "kobolform" it.  This project was abandoned a century or so before the start of my story and the inhabitants are keen to move away from the trappings of their one-time imperial overlords.)

Bigger picture stuff:  I finished both Libran and Scorpia in just two weeks each.  Let's pretend Aquaria takes three or four weeks and Tauron takes a full month, maybe a little more.  That could mean the writing portion of Colonies of Kobol will be complete before my self-imposed deadline of fall 2021, the tenth anniversary of the release of Lords of Kobol.  Naturally, just because I've finished writing it doesn't mean it's ready for release.  Still ... that's a mighty big hurdle, wouldn't you say?

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XXXI: "Libran" is finished; starting "Scorpia"

That was fast.

Graphic:

Book Nine comes right after the events of Book Eight and deals with the creation of the first (failed) uniting of the colonies, as well as the establishment of the inter-colonial courts on the neutral world, Libran.  Because that planet has no culture of its own, no "natives," etc., it was a fairly short jaunt (47 pages, for those keeping count), but I got to do a little bit more politics without dwelling on it, and I created a pretty terrifying jungle creature.

Book Ten: Scorpia also follows, narratively, right after the events of the previous book.  This wasn't really planned, but that's where the writing took me.  The nascent League of Colonies is fractured and withers because Leonis won't stop its stranglehold on its vassal, Scorpia.  This book will see Scorpia freed and that agrarian world struggle as it tries to become more technologically advanced so it can trade with the other worlds.  (Yes, expect to see the start of the famed orbital shipyards as well as another surprise.)

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XXX½: Poll on the cover for "Libran"

UPDATE: The winner was number three.  Thanks!

I was creating Book Nine: Libran the other day and I inserted the pic of the cover (not the flag one; that's the flag so there's no changing that).  Just then I realized that I didn't really like it.  Can't say why ... just don't.

So I'm going to ask you, loyal reader: which cover version do you prefer? *  

Here's the cover that started this, ONE:

Here's TWO:

Here's THREE:

(All three are of an Athena statue in Greece via pics from the free image site, Pixabay.)

Thanks.

* Disclaimer: I may decide to overrule the poll results and choose what I like best anyway.

Writing Colonies XXX: "Picon" is finished, Starting "Libran"

 Handy-dandy graphic:

Picon was a load of fun, starting with a chase across the ocean with sailing ships in the Napoleonic style and finishing with a glance around the colonies during the collapse of the Virgon and Leonan Empires to see what's what, and culminating in a massive battle in orbit of Picon.  Very enjoyable to write.  (And I hope so to read.)

With the completion of Picon, that means I'm three-quarters done with Colonies.  Maybe.  I won't know 'til it's over.  Regardless, Book Eight totaled 118 pages, for those keeping track.  The total thus far for Colonies of Kobol is 1,830 pages.  That's ... a bunch.

I've already outlined Book Nine: Libran.  It picks up mere months after the end of Picon as the various colonies try to find their footing without the Empires to support them.  It also marks the creation of the first (short lived) inter-colonial government.  To this point, Libran had been a nature preserve, of sorts, and the jungle world was chosen to be neutral ground.  I don't imagine this one will be terribly long, but it will again bounce around the colonies for different points of view.

Thanks for reading.  More to come, as always.

Writing Colonies XXIX: SITREP - Half of "Picon" is complete

 Handy-dandy graphic:

As Picon has a rich naval history, I got to call upon my memories of Horatio Hornblower and the like for a fine chase across the seas, complete with mizzenmasts, monsters from the deep, and more.  In case you'd like to see it, here's the map I created for this part of the story:

Click to embiggen

It was fun, but now I move into more familiar territory: space.

The second half of Book Eight deals with the spread of revolution across the colonies and the last, great battle between the imperial powers takes place in Picon's orbit with proto-battlestars.  I've got a basic outline of everything, but there are still plenty of details that remain to be put in place.

Thanks for reading.  More to come.

Writing Colonies Part XXVIII: SITREP - "Aerilon" is finished

 Handy-dandy graphic:

With the completion of Book Seven: Aerilon, I have now finished four books out of the eight books slated for Volume Two.  So I'm kinda halfway done with Volume Two.  Yay.  And I now have "only" five books left to do out of sixteen.  Bigger "yay."

How's my pace?  Well, Aerilon took just over a month.  That's on par with both Virgon and Sagittaron, which also took a month.  Canceron was an aberration thanks to a false start and my diversion into Jonathan Swift, so that was two-and-a-half months.  I think Picon, barring unforeseen wackiness, will take about a month or so as well.

I've mentioned it before, but Aerilon provided the opportunity for me to write a western, of sorts.  It was rather fun and ended up lasting about 77 pages (for those keeping track) and it was a departure from my usual ___ of Kobol style in that there weren't chapters that bounced back and forth, telling the story from other characters' perspectives.  Instead, it focused on one person and his task on this planet.  

I did end up creating a map for it, so here it is:

Click to embiggen

(The long lines are trails that link the far-flung towns.)

Now it's on to Book Eight: Picon.  As this is "The Ocean Colony" and they have an established naval tradition, I think it's rather obvious that I shall have to channel my inner Hornblower and set off on the high seas.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XXVI: "Aliens" in the Colonies

For those interested in a SITREP (sans graphic), I'd say I'm about two-thirds done with Aerilon at this stage.  

A while back, someone asked me if there would be any unusual wildlife on the colonies, something we never saw in any of the shows.  As these were, essentially, alien worlds to humanity, it made sense that we could see something of that nature.  I've sprinkled a few around (the single-horned mountain rams of Gemenon, the wild cats of Leonis, various varieties of birds and flowers, etc.), but none were very prominent in the story.  That changes with a scene in Book Seven.

Ready to be grossed out by the lizard vultures of Aerilon?  Click the JUMP and read on.

Writing Colonies XXV: Gaius Frakking Baltar

 Since I'm writing about Aerilon now and I do those "interview" chapters between the Messengers and various characters, it seemed only right to check in with Gaius Baltar, the only regular character from the show from Aerilon.  

If you want to read his chapter (which includes a glimpse of his life with Caprica Six on Earth II), click the JUMP.

Writing Colonies XXIV: SITREP - Canceron is finished; starting Aerilon

 Handy-dandy graphic ...

My attempt at a Gulliver's Travels-style tale within the Kobolverse is complete.  It was fun, but perhaps a distraction.  I don't know if I will include in Canceron as it does not directly impact the story (a few characters reference it and some themes jibe), but for now, it's in there. 

If you're interested in such things, here is the map of Canceron included in Book Six:

Click to embiggen

For those keeping track, Book Six: Canceron is currently 164 pages long.  That's 354 pages in Volume Two and a grand total of 1,636 pages in Colonies of Kobol thus far.

Now, on to Book Seven: Aerilon ... I'm doing something a bit different again and focusing on a singular story that bridges the period between its initial colonization and them being (and wanting to remain) on their own.

Thanks for reading.

SITREP: What's ahead for 2021

Happy New Year, first off.  It would be difficult for 2021 to be worse than 2020 for most of us, but let's not invite that particular jinx, shall we?

The thing I'm still working on, of course, is Colonies of Kobol.  I still believe that I am more than half-finished with this sixteen-book epic and it could easily top 2,000 pages (across three volumes) when it's complete.  I am currently working on Book Six: Canceron and still have six to go after it's done.

While it has been lengthy, writing Colonies has proven very enjoyable.  In large part, this is due to the fact that I'm able to dabble in multiple genres as I tell the prehistory of BSG.  I got to do some good ol' Cylon action in Book One; some knight-type religious warfare in Book Two; some Game of Thrones-ian castle and political intrigue in Three and Four; a soupçon of Lovecraftian horror in Six ... That's on top of me finishing what Syfy wouldn't when they cancelled Caprica (I rounded off that show and started the Cylon War in Thirteen); showing the arrival of the Final Five, the creation of the humanoid Cylons, and the forming of Cavil's "plan" in Fourteen; and writing an epilogue to BSG itself with a story set on our Earth, both after the Colonials arrive as well as in our own future, in Sixteen.  Still ahead: a western, some Hornblower-style naval action, the origin of the Colonies' favorite sport, a deep dive into the history of Tauron, and more.

2021 marks the tenth anniversary of my publishing Lords of Kobol, so it is my hope that I can publish Colonies this year.  I don't know if I can pull it off, but I'm certainly going to try.  I managed to write some seven hundred pages in 2020, so I guess it's possible.

Your continued support is appreciated.  Follow this blog or my Twitter or Facebook pages for the latest updates.  If you'd like to help me out, you can buy and read my previous books here (please rate and review), or if you'd prefer, I have a PayPal "tipjar" here.

Thanks for reading.