The Imperial Rebellion

My sequel problem

Now that my schedule has loosened up a bit, I'm able to seriously think about writing.  The question then turns into what I should write?

After 11 books, I've covered many of the topics that have interested me.  Scorpion's Pass has scratched an itch from my college days, as have both Long Live Death and Walls of Men.  

Battle Officer Wolf got the whole authorship rolling, and it's got a sequel built into the original concept.

The Man of Destiny series allowed me to work out my Star Wars prequel hate and create a new universe of my own.

Similarly, Vampires of Michigan has the potential to be a franchise if I want do go that way.

Three Weeks with the Coasties was originally intended to be an introduction into semi-autobiographic writings on my military experience.

Finally, there's plenty of space for more game designs and even an update of Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Given this vast amount of open terrain for creativity, why am I not using it?

The answer, I think, is boredom.  Having done a topic, I'm done with it.  I simply cannot relate to authors or filmmakers who want to constantly revisit their earlier work.

That being said, I'm now looking at things a little differently, and seeing if a story I'm turning over in my head might fit in an existing setting rather than needing a new one.

And yes, there is some commercial element to this as a new title will bring the older ones to the forefront and timed with a discount, could boost my sales.  However, since my motivation is pleasure rather than profit, this is not persuasive to me.

A better argument is that I enjoyed creating my characters and settings and revisiting them could be a fun way to tell new stories about people I haven't talked about in a while.  This is beginning to resonate with me.


The Man of Destiny Post

Looking over my site, I realized that I don't have a comprehensive discussion of the Man of Destiny series.  I have updates on its composition, publication announcements, but nothing to give an interested reader detailed information on why this would be a worthwhile read for them.  This post is intended to remedy that.

Like many people of a certain age, I was excited when I learned that George Lucas was going to finally tell the backstory of the original Star Wars trilogy.  I had been a huge fan back in the day, though by my 20s I'd gotten rid of most of the toys and apparel.  I enjoyed Episode I, but didn't feel it had measured up to the older films.  As the rest of the prequel trilogy came out, my disappointment deepened.  Episode III was something of a breaking point.  I hated that film and the only time I've seen it was the midnight premiere all those years ago.
 
As the years passed, I lamented all of the wasted creative opportunities the prequels had presented.  The core of the story has such tremendous possibilities of showing how a decadent Republic could fall into civil war and then become the Empire.  I felt that the key to the whole story was Senator Palpatine, whose rise to power would be fascinating to watch, but of course George Lucas had other ideas.  I'd sometimes outline my ideas at social gatherings and one day my wife suggested that I write it all down because she thought it sounded interesting.
 
I told her I didn't have any interest in fan fiction, and if I was going to write something that lengthy, I'd want to at least have a chance of selling it.  At the time of that discussion, Fifty Shades of Gray was a surprise best-seller, and my wife explained to me that it started out as Twilight fan fiction.  The author circulated it online and after getting positive feedback, she re-wrote it in a new setting while retaining the core story.  Why didn't I just do the same?
 
So that's what I did.  Over the course of a weekend in December, I sat down and cranked out a 20,000-word novella - the heart of the first book, A Man of Destiny.
 
Over the next couple of years the story took on a life of its own, which was only to be expected.  I've spent most of my life in or around politics and by that point had more than a decade of military service.    The Man of Destiny series was a place for me to share and explore what I had learned.  By the time I reached the end of Fall of the Commonwealth, it was clear that a trilogy did not complete my story, and thus The Imperial Rebellion came into being.
 
People who have read the books have told me I've "fixed" Star Wars, but I think the story goes beyond that.
 
Once you flesh out the various characters - not just Maxim Darius, Adam Flyte and Cristen Morra, but ones who have no clear parallel to the Star War films - the story has to move in a different direction.
 
The Man of Destiny series therefore stands on its own.  It can still be read as a rebuttal to the creative bankruptcy of the Star Wars franchise but I think it should be taken on its own terms.
 
After all, Star Wars borrowed heavily from The Hidden Fortress and 1930s serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
 
These books are available exclusively on Amazon.  Here are the links to purchase them:
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 


The series is now complete!

Today The Imperial Rebellion went up on Amazon.  The series is done and available for purchase.

The complete "Man of Destiny" series runs 250,000 words and more than 1,000 printed pages.  I often wondered if I could write a trilogy.

Well, I guess I can't, because I had to add an extra book.

Still, it's pretty cool having it done.  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.