Took about two-and-a-half months, but I've finished the first pass at Lords of Kobol: Special Edition. If you haven't been following along, I read each of the books and created a kind of "commentary track" (like good ol' DVDs) in which I discussed inspirations, languages used, mythology, connections to the TV shows, and so on. I threw in quite a few pictures and sketches and things, too. I tried to keep the commentary fun but I'll admit, it was kinda like therapy for me at times so I got a little "real" once or twice.
All five books plus commentary came out to 1,314 pages in Word. Thankfully, it's still 1MB under the 15MB limit imposed by Smashwords.
I'll let it sit and macerate for a while. I wasn't planning on publishing it until December for BSG's 20th anniversary, so I'll check back in and give the additional stuff another look before locking it down.
"Will there be changes?" Yes. Deleted scenes have been added in, but with "DELETED" in the header of each chapter, so you'll know what's what. I'll leave it up to you to decide if those are truly "in the story." There were about three chapters altogether wherein I was displeased with how it read. More often that not, there was too much "telling" and not enough "showing," so I altered things to do more of the latter. Only one chapter required a true rewrite and it was for that reason. I made a few other minor corrections (e.g. spelling) or additions for clarity's sake. The end product, however, will be the definitive version of those books.
"Are you going to pull a Lucas and remove the originals from the web?" No. I won't go that far. However, once the SE is published, that's the one I'll point people toward. I cannot foresee a time in the future wherein I'll want to add or change anything else, so the SE will be the final word.
"What's next?" Oof. Colonies of Kobol.
Lords of Kobol was "only" one thousand pages. Colonies is 2,000+. AND, the Special Edition will put nearly everything in chronological order. I am certain it will take me days, if not weeks, to arrange the chapters in the new file and then retitle the headers for each chapter. And that's to say nothing of the bookmarking/hyperlinking for the Table of Contents. All of that before I even start on the commentary portions. Plus, don't forget about that 15MB cap for uploads to Smashwords. I will have to degrade the quality of the images in the books (maps, primarily) to try and stay under that cap. It's a good thing I wasn't planning on releasing that SE until next March.
I kid about the tedium. It will be tedious, but I'll enjoy digging into each facet of Colonies again and talking about the various languages involved, why I made certain choices, etc.
That's what I'll be up to. Thanks for reading.
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