I recently released my latest novel Kwelengsen Storm which features Logan Twofeathers from the Joe Ballen novels as its main character. The book continues chronologically from Transformation Protocol, and follows Logan’s adventures on the world he discovered in that book. I won’t say too much about it, but I have more information and the first chapter available if you’d like to check it out.
Eagle-eyed readers might notice a small detail at the front of the book where it’s tagged as being a “Ugan Confluence” novel, and might be scratching their heads wondering what that means. Let me explain!
When I first started writing Mathematics of Eternity (many years ago!), I had an idea of doing a whole series of books that would follow my imagined expansion of humanity into the depths of space. I sketched out some ideas and a rough timeline for what might happen and how the events might pan out.
This was inspired by classic science fiction author Robert Heinlein who, early on in his career, mapped out what he called “future history”–a timeline of future events. It was an ambitious plan for a novice writer like me, and I never had the confidence to mention it before. But after publishing four novels and a number of short-stories, I guess I’m “seasoned” enough to “let Schroedinger’s Cat out of the quantum bag” and reveal the idea in all its glory (but no spoilers! 🙂 )
The idea is that there will be several novels set in this timeline, all connected in a “historical” sense, although not necessarily with any continuance of characters or setting. The stories will draw from this common background, so events in one book may influence others, or just pop up from time to time as part of story background. In fact, this has already happened to some extent in the Joe Ballen series and now in the Logan Twofeathers book, with a number of references to other events or happenings that occurred earlier in the timeline. Again, those who read a lot of my writing will spot some of these connections to my short stories.
It’s still an ambitious plan, and I reserve the right to be flexible in how I approach it 🙂 , but I think it will deepen the whole series of books and give them a greater sense of continuity. None of the cross-links will be vital–the plan is to make the books as independent as possible, but I hope they will add depth and increase the enjoyment for those who like to tease out the connections.
Here are the stories (released so far) connected in “historical” order.
- Fenton Treeby is Missing
- First Contact*
- Reboot*
- Dead Reckoning*
- One For the Money*
- Inser
- Murphy’s Law*
- Version Control*
- Atoll
- Mathematics of Eternity (Joe Ballen, Book One)
- Perimeter (Joe Ballen, Book Two)
- Transformation Protocol (Joe Ballen, Book Three)
- Kwelengsen Storm (Logan’s World, Book One)
- Three Lives of Mary
* Found in Dead Reckoning and Other Stories
All together these span about one hundred years, starting around 2050–but there are more to come. There are some gaps, some stories already written that are (as yet) unreleased, and many more to come.
I’m excited about the idea and hope you are too!
