This week, I released The Death Bringer, the last book in my “four book trilogy.” It was supposed to be three, but book three was so long that I had to split it into two. It’s also my twelfth published novel.
It’s been a long time coming. In late 2019, I finished Dropnauts, and was casting about for the next thing I wanted to write. I was torn between three potential projects – the long-felayed “middle trilogy” between The Ariadne Cycle and The Oberon Cycle, the second book in the Redemption trilogy, or something new – jumping off from The Last Run, a novella I’d written a few years earlier.
The story had sprung from a discussion I had with a dear friend, Jim Comer, who maintained that faster-than-light travel would never be possible. So I constructed a tale around a world that was receiving its last supply run from a supposedly destroyed Earth, something that took decades to accomplish at lower than light speed.
Tharassas, the world in that story, fascinated me. It was full of parasites – bits of local fauna that adapted themselves to the human colonists. And speaking of adapting, I had already adapted another story from its contemporary roots to become a tale of Tharassas – The Emp Test.
So I dove into the tale of Raven the thief and Aik, his friend in the city Guard. I jumped forward a couple hundred years from The Last Run, starting my new tale on the eve of an epic war between humans and something else, a war no one saw coming. In addition to Raven and Aik, I added Silya, Aik’s ex and an aspirant in the Hencha Temple, and Spin, a mysterious AI creature in a spherical silver shell.
I finished the first book and sent it off to my editor. He liked it, but surprised me with his analysis – “This is the first two-thirds of a young-adult trilogy.”
I hadn’t meant to write a YA series, but here we were – and yes, it was basically the coming-of-age story of my three primary protagonists. So I split the book in two, put my nose to the grindstone, and forged ahead on it in the midst of the pandemic.
By summer of 2022, I was about done with the trilogy and my beta reader comments. Then on June 30th, the day before BayCon, I flew off my bike and basically destroyed my upper humerus bone. Seriously – if you look inside there, I have a two-inch piece of cadaver bone, two plates and twenty-four screws holding my upper right arm together.
Given my condition, I decided I was in no shape to put out the trilogy on my own. The doctor said I could go to BayCon with my newly-broken arm, as long as I could stand the pain. So we went.
Luckily, I met Steve Radecki, the publisher of Water Dragon Publishing, at the convention. We started talking, and he said he’d be happy to take a look at the series. He loved it, and now, two years later, the final book is out. I’m immensely proud of it. With every new project, I work to perfect my craft, and I feel like this is my best to-date.
I just hope you love reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
AIK WILL NEVER BE THE SAME… AND NEITHER WILL HIS WORLD
War is coming. Aik has become the Progenitor, and the Seed Mother has released him to transform the world for her alien brood. Silya and Raven, Aik’s former friends, are the only ones who can save him and the world. But what if the cure is worse than the invasion?
As Silya rushes to prepare Gullton for the battle to come, she’s determined to save as many people as she can. But new crises emerge that demand her attention.
Raven has his own hands full, keeping the dragon-like verent in line, while helping Silya to save the world. But what if the only way to do so is to sacrifice Aik, the man that he loves?
It’s the end of the world … or could it be the start of something new?
About the Series:
The Tharassas Cycle is a four book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.
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Chapter One
Regroup
He floated, weightless and naked, surrounded by a reddish light and suspended in fluid. Something connected to his mouth and wrapped around his head, like a lover’s embrace.
He used to have a name. He searched his mind for some clue to his identity. I exist, so I must be someone. Or something.
That made sense, but got him no closer to an answer. He blinked. Who am I?
There was no immediate reply.
He lifted his hand. It was encased in metal. The gauntlet. That much he remembered, though it meant nothing to him. Except… it seemed different, somehow. Thinner.
He moved his arms in the liquid, and it sparkled around him where his shifting disturbed it. The metal extended down his wrist and along his forearm, like before, but now it went farther, around his elbow and up his bicep. He touched it with his free hand.
I can feel it. It was as if the metal had become a part of him, his nerves growing through it. He held out his metallic hand and flexed his fingers. What is it?
We call it uurcaa. It’s a sacred metal—it will protect you, and if your host dies, it will collect and save your soul.He could feel the emotions she held back from him. It is the last of its kind from our homeworld. Like us.
He blinked. Then what am I?
You are my son, Iihil. The progenitor, the one who has come before and the first of many more like you. The voice was deep and comforting.
Mother. Warmth infused him at her voice, and an eagerness to please her.
Still, something wasn’t right. He was more than that. He searched his mind, running up against that stubborn blankness. Somewhere beyond it were the answers he needed.
He’d been someone else. Before.
Who was I? Memories of a face—dark hair, intense eyes that nevertheless twinkled at him. Raven.
It came flooding back to him. His mother. His life in Gullton. Training to be a guard and meeting Raven for the first time. My name is Aik.
He reached for the mask that covered his face. It was suffocating. Something was stuck in his throat, and he coughed hard, trying to force it out, whipping around and causing the liquid around him to flash red in alarm.
Calm yourself. The voice was as thick and heavy as an ix hide, and just as soft and warm.
Aik pushed back. What are you doing to me? I don’t want this! Let me out! He thrashed about, trying to force his way through the suffocating liquid. The metal crept up his shoulder. If it covered all of him, he would be lost.
Calm yourself! It was more insistent this time.
Aik stiffened as an enforced lethargy settled over him. He lost control of his limbs, falling still in his floating prison. The voice pressed against his mind. You’re safe. Be calm, my little one.
He closed his eyes and thought of Raven, trying to stay fixed on that face. I can’t let myself forget again.
Then the world around him dissolved, and he was swept up in a torrent of memories that weren’t his own.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and was the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for almost three years.
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