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.

Lords of Kobol Ch-ch-ch-changes!

UPDATE: A lot of the info in this post is now obsolete or just plain wrong.  For the latest info and ETA on Colonies of Kobol, read this post.

In this post, I'm going to lay out the future of Lords of Kobol, as well as Colonies of Kobol, my plans for writing it all, my plans for releasing it all, and more.

First off, Lords of Kobol - Book Four - Tales from Ancient Days is dead.  It has been unpublished.  Simply put, I've found it a distraction from the narrative through-line between the trilogy and Book Five.  I never intended to write a Book Five, so having a disconnected, alternate universe Book Four wasn't really an issue six years ago when it was published.  At any rate, it's gone and sequestered to the back of Book Three as Lords of Kobol - Alternate: Tales from Ancient Days.  It's bonus footage, if you will, on the Blu-ray of Book Three.

Also, Book Five is dead.  Long live Prelude.

Since Book Five is a prequel to the trilogy, retitling it Prelude was an obvious decision, plus it mitigates the confusion caused by Book Four.

So, again, if you visit my page on Smashwords, you will no longer find Book Four and you will see that Book Five has been renamed.

Now, on to Colonies of Kobol.

If you haven't been following me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc., shame.  Secondly, you may not know that I've been doing a Battlestar Galactica rewatch and reread.  I started with the original series back in the spring, followed by Galactica 1980.  Then, I tackled the BSG-verse in chronological order.  First, I read Lords of Kobol - Prelude, then Book One, Two, and Three.  Then I watched Caprica, followed by Blood & Chrome.  As of this writing, I'm at the beginning of Galactica itself's second season.  As I watch each episode, I take notes and livetweet info about the show, both what's on screen and behind-the-scenes.  I also tweet about connections to my Kobol books.  Just look for the hashtags "#BSG #TotalReWatch."

Obviously, the main purpose behind the rewatch and reread is to get my head into the universe so I can start writing again.  I'm making notes, making outlines, and - believe it or not - I've already started writing some scenes that got into my head because I was afraid they'd leave me if I didn't put cursor to screen, as it were.

Volume One will begin with the end of Earth and the fleeing of the Final Five.  It will be followed by a few other books about different colonies, primarily in the years after the flight from Kobol (beginning with the first settlements on Gemenon).  The Earth part of the book is largely outlined already and I like it.

Volume Two deals with the middle ages, sorta, of the Colonies.  Lots of growing pains as humanity rules itself for the first time in millennia without gods watching over them.  (Fans of the original series may like that logo as it's the symbol for Galactica.  Here, it's the seal of the Virgon Empire.)

Finally, Volume Three will take us up to the Fall of the Colonies, fill in some blanks that surround Caprica and Blood & Chrome, and so forth.  I don't want to spoil anything, but part of what I've already written is in the final pages of this book.

Do I have a timetable on when these will be finished?  Well, no.  If I start in earnest in early 2017, maybe it'll be done and ready to publish in 2018.  I can't be more specific than that.  (Writing the Lords of Kobol trilogy took about six or so months, but the words just flowed, man.  Writing Book Five [Prelude] took a couple of years because I fell into a creative funk for a bit.  Who knows if that'll hit me again.)

Is there anything after Colonies of Kobol?  Well, YES.

I'm calling these the "Marble Editions."  I intend to provide author's commentary on the books by means of a link at the end of each chapter that will take the reader to the back of the book, where there will be details on why I made certain choices, images from the writing process, and more.  (I will probably publish this as one, big-ass book.)

Naturally, after those "Marble Editions" will come these "Marble Editions":

Same deal: author's commentary, images, and more woven throughout via links at the end of each chapter.

OK, now here's the big deadline I've set for myself.

March, 2019.

Why then?  The final episodes of Battlestar Galactica aired in March, 2009.  I figure ten years is enough time for me to write all I'm going to write and close out the universe for good.

Stay tuned for more!

"Lords of Kobol" and "Colonies of Kobol": Big Plans Ahead

I have plans.  That's not to say they will be fulfilled as they are in my head presently, but I do have plans.

"If wishes were horses ..." something, something.  Is there a similar saying for plans?  "If plans could stand, I'd have a mansion."  There.  Just made one up.

Oh.  Right.  "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."  Yeah, OK.  Same diff.

At any rate, it's no secret that I plan to get back to the BSG/Kobol-verse in the near future.  I've teased my next series, Colonies of Kobol, for the last couple of years.  Well, now I have a plan.

If you don't mind a few minuscule spoilers, hit the JUMP and I'll fill you in.

Welcome!

First thing's first: my name is Trey and I'm a dork.

A few years ago after watching the end of Battlestar Galactica, I knew there were some things I wished had been explored further.  Though I enjoyed the end very much, I understood that the producers and writers didn't necessarily want to answer every question posed.  So ...

I decided to explore the ancient history of the show.  Since I like mythology, that era had some of my biggest questions.  I pondered it for a couple of months and then I thought I would undertake the writing of that history.  Fast forward a couple of years, I've got three books on the matter, spanning more than five thousand years ... the end of which is set some two thousand years before the show and yet inextricably tied.

First, let me say that if you haven't seen all of Battlestar Galactica, perhaps this isn't for you.  (Caprica isn't as necessary to see for these books.)  Skip down to Displaced and read that non-BSG scifi book.

Next, check out this "video" I posted which sort of sets up the books.  After you've read the books, please know that you can hang out here on the blog and check out all sorts of "bonus materials," almost like a DVD. Pictures, maps, commentary and much more.


"But wait," you're saying, "how do I know these don't suck?"  Well, I appreciate your candor.  Feel free to read this collection of reviews to assuage your concerns.

Lords of Kobol - Book One: Apotheosis can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: introduces you to the gods at the height of their power, as well as the creation and later exodus of the Thirteenth Tribe.

For Book One, here's the post detailing the map in the book, along with a larger version.

Lords of Kobol - Book Two: Descent can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: primarily a flashback to the gods' descent from Mt. Olympus and the beginning of their reign over mankind, strife between Prometheus and Zeus, etc.

For Book Two, here's a post on the map I made for that book and here's one about asteroid impacts.

Lords of Kobol - Book Three: The Final Exodus can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: the end of the Lords' dominion, rise of Cylons, the "Blaze," Tomb of Athena and the exodus of man.

For Book Three, here are a few maps (including the City of the Gods), propaganda of the gods and details on the Book of Pythia.

Trilogy-wise (all with major spoilers), here's a post of deleted scenes, a glossary of terms and, finally, an article to address the questions of how I tied the books to the show.  Here's that huge post on the theology of the show and my books.  It includes Book Four spoilers, so beware of that.

That's the trilogy.  But wait, there's more ...

Lords of Kobol - Book Four: Tales From Ancient Days can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: this is tough.  Essentially, I wanted to explore some things I couldn't in the original trilogy.  This is a completely different version of the story and told in a Tolkien-esque fashion.  There's more mysticism, mythology and so on.

For Book Four, here's the map for this book and here's an article addressing how I tackled certain show-related questions in this volume.

*** For all of the Lords of Kobol books, here's a huge post that outlines the theology of the two TV shows and the four novels.  Please, only read that after you've read the books.  And seen the show.  It's in-depth and addresses many questions.  Very important. ***

Lords of Kobol - Book Five: Of Gods and Titans can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: we go back to the trilogy with this prequel that details the creation of the Titans and how Zeus and his Olympians overthrew them.

For Book Five, here are the maps, designing the Caesar's seal, the look of Cylons, world-building with language, mythology, real-world theology & history, and a glossary of terms.

ALSO (and trilogy-wide stuff is discussed), there's the prequel trap, the problem with BSG, my workspace, BSG theology 1, BSG theology 2, and a finale Q&A.



BUT WAIT; THERE'S MORE.

Not only have I written these four BSG-related books (free to download, I remind you), but I'm in the process of publishing non-BSG works, too.

Displaced can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for $2.99 at Smashwords here.  Also available at B&N, Kobo, iTunes, and Amazon.

Basic synopsis: Baltimore cop wakes up in his car on a farm far from home.  Lots of weirdness happens after that.  (Prehistoric animals, robots ... you get the idea.)  Sci-fi, action packed, kind of a mystery.  Think Lost but set on a farm and with a more solid ending.

For Displaced, here's a post with a map of the farm and here's one with another spoilery map and a size comparison chart for the various animals.

Diary of a Second Life can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for $2.99 at Smashwords here.  Also available at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.

Basic synopsis: three centuries after an apocalypse wrought by the undead (yes, zombies), a teen named Wess Marin decides he must leave his insular community in order to survive.  This book details his attempts to leave the past behind and maybe even cure the evil that has destroyed the world.

For Diary of a Second Life, here's post number one on the illustrations, post number two on the illustrations, the original outline and plan for the novel, an article explaining the science of my zombies compared to other fictional zombies and a post on the real-world geography in the book.

Sexcalation, my very adult erotica novel, can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for $3.99 at Smashwords.  Also available at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo and Barnes & Noble.

Basic synopsis: semi-autobiographical account of a guy getting laid, getting married, trying to get laid with his wife and then the couple becoming involved with the sexy couple who moves in nearby.

(Read the Sexcalation blog, the porn-laden Sexcalation Tumblr and Sexcalation Twitter, all of which are basically inactive at this point.)

The Red Kick, my superhero erotica series, can be downloaded in one compilation for $3.99 from Amazon, Smashwords, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.

Issue #1 is FREE and can be downloaded from Smashwords.

Basic synopsis: a masked citizen works as a stripper to learn the evil plans of her city's ne'er-do-wells and then gears up to fight them.  Fun "Batman"-style "BIFF! POW! BANG!" narrative both for the fighting action and the bedroom action.



There you have it.  Please, commence the downloading and then the reading.  Feel free to let me know what you think by leaving comments below, following me on Twitter, following me on Tumblr or by 'liking' my Facebook page.

And, please, whenever you buy and download my stuff, don't forget to rate and review.

Thanks for your time.

Book Five: BSG Theology 2 - The Song

Continuing from yesterday's post on how Book Five fits in with the Lords of Kobol trilogy and the greater universe of the show, this one deals with the last two or three chapters only.

Heavy SPOILERS.  Everything after the JUMP.

Book Five: BSG Theology

My SPOILER-heavy dissections of Lords of Kobol - Book Five: Of Gods and Titans continue ...

As the title promises, this is about The One True God, its Messengers and the greater Galactica universe.

Since it is so SPOILER-laden, we'll commence after the JUMP.

Writing, Part III: Deleted Scenes

SPOILERS galore in this post, natch.


I won't bore you guys with why I chose certain things (yet), but I will pepper you with hints of what may have been.  Stuff that I changed mid-writing.

Now Book Four is a whole book of "what may have been," so that's not covered here.

Book Three had a pretty rigid structure from the start, thanks to all the talk in BSG itself about the end of days on Kobol.  Other than the occasional stylistic choice or character motivation, nothing really changed until I was done.

Books One and Two are different stories, though.

(Full examples will follow after the jump.)

Again, SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven't read the trilogy yet, please do so and then come back.

In Book One, the revelation about the gods came much later in the novel.  Also, there was more focus on the makers of the Thirteenth Tribe (Helena & Thersites).  I came to realize that there should be greater attention paid the Lords.  Seems pretty obvious, right?  Well, part of the reason I didn't want to shine the spotlight on them too much was because doing so meant it would be harder to conceal their secret for as long as I wanted.

I decided that the reveal should come earlier in the book, some of the extraneous stuff about Helena and Thersites would be dropped and more gods stuff can be inserted.  (I no longer have the deleted Helena & Thersites passages.)  So I added more chapters focusing on the Lords, but a new problem arose.

A big theme for the gods in Book One is that they're feeling stagnant after three thousand years of dominion.  It doesn't do much for the mood of your novel/show/movie when characters are standing around lamenting how bored they are.  I dropped the chapters relating to the non-central Lords and moved some of their dialogue into scenes with the more important characters.

There's a scene with Hecate that gives some more background for her (wait 'til you see who she was shacked up with), one focused on Aphrodite and her feelings of being "just a pretty face" in the experiment, another with her and her son, Eros and, lastly, a different version of the Pegasus' return to Kobol with Athena and Apollo in attendance (and not Zeus - I later realized Zeus needed to be there).  Full chapters are posted after the jump.

Another big thing with Book One.  Once the revelation about the gods came, the focus shifted exclusively to the gods with the occasional Thirteenth Tribe tidbit thrown in.  Yes, there was Aurora and the Iole Cylon, but not much else.

That's right: the second Iole Cylon, Tydea, was not in the first pass.  Nor was her realization about the Lords or the Cylon beach massacre.  The Thirteenth Tribe was, as a whole, pissed at the gods and the Draco were bombing stuff, too.  Very disjointed.  I had to reread it a few times to pinpoint the problems and add in the intrigue with Tydea.  Looking back, it's hard to fathom why I didn't do this from the start.  I mean, one of Zeus' greatest fears was that the Olympians would be found out so why wouldn't I have one of his "cousins" figure it out?  Stupid author.  Hey, at least I recognized the problem and fixed it.

On to Book Two.  Posted below you'll find a one-off chapter with Hermes walking on another planet in the last gasp of Kobol's space program.  I dropped it because it just felt like a bit of unneeded fluff.

Now here's the big thing with Book Two.  This is one of those where I got pretty far along in the writing before I realized the error of my ways.  Originally, Larsa was going to be a planet on the far side of the galaxy, and Kobol was a planet they knew about that they would be jumping to.  So, I typed and typed.  It wasn't until I got to Zeus' big speech (outlining the "Experiment") that I realized why this wouldn't work.

I'll get into the rules I set for myself in a later post, but here's a preview.  I wanted to preserve the uniquity of much of what we knew from BSG.  It was almost too late before I realized that I had violated this rule.

Baltar says in "Daybreak" while viewing the early humans on the plains of Africa that these people, on a world so far from Kobol, indicates a divine hand.  OK, fine.  In my first pass, I would have had humans on Larsa, Kobol and then Earth II.  The absurdity of this crept up on me while Zeus is in that meeting and Prometheus is trying to tell him about God.  Having humans on this planet, too, should confound Zeus and it would have given more credence to Prometheus' position (convincing more than just a few to go along with him).

Why didn't I see this before?  Frankly, I was obsessed with maintaining Pythia's cycle.  Humans make Cylons; Cylons and humans war; survivors flee the planet and start over somewhere else.  It didn't occur to me at the start that the planet they flee and start over upon could be one and the same.

There's a sample passage from the old way posted below after the jump (no need to post full chapters, since most of the rest is the same as the published version):

Another Book Two bit.  I really liked this one, but I got rid of it because it was too long and at the very end of the novel.  Once Ares finishes off the Draco and we see Zeus slump in his chair as he can't shake Hades and Leto from his thoughts, we need to tie the bow with Kaladen and the Draco's revenge and get the other side of the bookend with Apollo and Acastus.  The Zeus chapter you'll find after the jump was interesting and includes lots of cool tidbits, but it just wasn't necessary.

So.  If you want more Lords of Kobol, click the JUMP and start reading.  Thanks again.

Of Pythia and Her Book

Pythia is, of course, a frequently referred to person in BSG.  Her contribution to the Sacred Scrolls influences much of what happens and she's the only named author of those Scrolls in the show.  Since my books take place during the time of the Lords and that's when Pythia lived, I knew I would have to include her as a character.

As you've seen in Lords of Kobol - Book One: Apotheosis, I decided to use her as a framing device, for all intents and purposes.  I depict her as a young woman in the priesthood, high off her ass on chamalla so she may channel whatever powers she has and being visited by her ex-fiancé, who is intent on dispensing loads of information for her to transcribe.  (If you've read it, you likely already know the truth of Ino, the fiancé.)  She also bookends the forthcoming Book Three: The Final Exodus.  Some might be disappointed to know that she's not more heavily featured, but I believe she serves her purposes well in these small doses.

Now, about Pythia.  The show vacillates a bunch on how much she wrote, what she wrote, how much was prophecy and how much wasn't, did she write all that stuff about the Thirteenth Tribe, etc.  I had to make some choices and I decided to draw from real-world history when it comes to religious texts.

You ever hear of the Council of Nicea or the Council of Trent?  These were two conventions (among others)  of Christian leaders as they huddled up to decide what they really believed.  As they decided what they liked about their church's history, they tossed aside a bunch of stuff they didn't (look up Lost Gospels).  Point being, even Holy Bibles and Sacred Scrolls have editors.  In order to make Pythia get credit for writing stuff she couldn't have known about (like Athena's suicide) and not simply saying, "Oh, she's a prophet," I thought the most credible thing to do was say that she was an editor and compiler of the Sacred Scrolls, like a one-woman Council of Trent.  That way, even with her own contributions to the Scrolls, it's easy to see why people might make the mistake of assuming she wrote all of it.

Long winded, I know.  Here's the fun stuff.  You saw in a previous post how I used Propworx to find a good Kobollian eagle for my art.  I used them again to find awesomeness in the form of the Sacred Scrolls, namely the Book of Pythia:

If you click that pic, you'll see that someone added a pullquote referring to the Temple of Five (nee Temple of Hopes) for use in those Algae Planet episodes.  But if you read the stuff around it, it's all Final Exodus stuff.

Even though the screen-used prop states that this is from the Book of Pythia, I don't necessarily believe that means it's purely canon.  And if it is, then my editor/compiler excuse can come into play.  Here's a portion of that text, which appears only very slightly altered in Book Three:

They huddled together on the shores waiting to board the Great Ship Galleon.  They brought with them as much of their worldly possessions as the could hold.  Most had nothing but for what they had in their hearts.  Large and small they began to move, lining up they spoke aloud of their name and heritage one at a time as if this were their sole possession, a final piece of KOBOL that they were not to leave behind.  They were ready.
And on the Cliffs of Aragon, the Gods gathered and bore witness to the gathering below.  They watched as each member of each tribe walked up the gantry, turning only once to say farewell to the lords they knew they will never see again.  Though heavy of heart, they continued to board all through ...

Again, I placed that whole passage (with only minor tweaks) in Book Three, so credit to the writer or props guy who came up with that.

Since I'm standing by my interpretation that Pythia herself did not write these very detailed passages on the Final Exodus 1,600 years before it happened, someone had to be there to witness it and survive to write about it later.  Thus, I created the character Alexandra Gideon.  She's named "Gideon," and not after the Old Testament bloke who needed a bunch of proofs from YHWH, who slew pagan hordes and even his own people, who destroyed places of Baal worship, who bore lanterns and blew horns, etc.  No, she's named "Gideon" because that name popped up a couple of times in Caprica and was the name of a transport ship in the ragtag fleet of Battlestar Galactica.  I figured it bore some significance.

Another Pythia-related tidbit on Earth I (that's Cylon Earth and not Earth II, on which we reside): in the Sacred Scrolls there is a picture of the Temple of Aurora, and since that's the only god mentioned in relation to the Thirteenth Tribe, that's why I have Aurora playing such a large role with the Thirteenth Tribe's exodus in Book One.

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.

Time to Start Reading

The day is here.  I've been waiting for it quite a while, but some of you may have, too.  The novels are all done and you can start by reading Apotheosis for free.

Yes.  Free.

Before the link, two things.  One, if you haven't seen all of the episodes of BSG, you may not want to click the link.  There are some spoilers, but mostly I believe you just won't get much of it or get as much out of it.  Two, before you start reading, get yourself into the right head space by reading/listening to the pseudo-preview video I made HERE.

Now, the book.  It's available in multiple formats at the awesome Smashwords.

CLICK HERE TO GET IT.

Download, read it and let me know what you think.  If you like it, let other BSG fans know.  I'd appreciate it.