Colony, Jungle, and Starforge – My Look Back at the UNSEC Space Trilogy

Six years.

That’s how long the UNSEC Space Trilogy took. Not for me to write and edit, mind. That time period was even longer—though I do note that I had other, smaller projects in between each book in the series. But even so, six years.

Colony, the first book in the trilogy, released in November of 2016, and I’m sure at the time few expected anything from it, even my readers. Prior to Colony, I’d only released a few books, each of them much smaller and far less grand that what Colony promised within its pages. One Drink and Dead Silver, while respectable, were both regular a novella and novel, respectably. Unusual Events, a collection of “short” stories I’d worked on while editing Colony that made it to print first, had sold a few copies, but not lit any fires (in fact, it remains my lowest-selling work to date by a large margin).

Then, with some fanfare but little attention from the world at large, I dropped Colony. An epic Sci-Fi adventure, first book of three in an at-that-time unnamed trilogy. from an author who had only published Urban Fantasy and shorts? There were definitely a few raised eyebrows. I recall that Christmas, when I returned to my hometown to visit my parents, garnering confused questions from people as to my reasons for jumping genres, or whether or not I thought people would buy it.

By then however, I’d already seen the numbers. November was over, and with it came more money than I’d ever seen in my time as an author. Reviews were rolling in too, readers gushing with praise and urging others to “Buy it, now!” Colony had struck, for my tine authorial imprint at the time, gold. Those readers that had trusted me and picked up the book found themselves “immersed” (that’s a deliberate pun) into the underwater colony world of Pisces, wrapped up in far-reaching mysteries as a search for a missing computer programmer by three complete strangers slowly but steadily expanded into an earth-shattering and action-packed conclusion full of big Sci-Fi ideas and tantalizing hints of what was to come.

Not everyone enjoyed it. A few people left one or two star reviews, citing complaints of one form or another. My personal favorites were two reviewers who each left Colony two stars, one angerly citing that there was ‘too much worldbuilding and not enough action,’ the other citing ‘too much action and not enough worldbuilding.’ But those reviews largely slipped to the bottom, mud for those who fed at that level to sling while above them the rest of the world purchased copy after copy, rapidly outselling every other book I’d released at that time and still maintaining a strong lead today despite stiff competition from one of my other books.

Colony was a hit. By my standards, at least. And now, six years later, by indie book standards as well, its sales numbers well above the average for indie titles.

Oh, and did I mention it was huge? It didn’t shy away from the “Epic” part of its genre. The finale alone ended up being more pages in length than my first published book.

And readers loved it. They loved the characters, with fans evenly split over which of the three protagonists was their favorite character (to this day one my favorite questions when someone starts talking to me about Colony is “Who’s your favorite of the trio and why?” because never has one of the three won out, and everyone always has a wide range of reasons why they prefer Sweets, Anna, or Jake as their favorite protag). They loved the setting, the dark future of Earth, the underwater environs and cities of Pisces, that Colony painted. They loved the mystery, even if some questions went unanswered by the end of the book. They just loved it.

Speaking of those unanswered mysteries, one of the most common questions I’ve been asked about the series as a whole is “When you released Colony, was all this planned? Or were you just making it up as you went along?”

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Three Years Ago … Jungle’s Pre-Order Went Live

Today I got an interesting reminder. Jungle, the second book in the UNSEC Space trilogy, had its pre-order page go live today, three years ago.

Now, this is relevant because I’m currently hard at work on getting Starforge, the third and final book in that same trilogy, into the same state.

As you might have guessed from the lack of a pre-order, I’m a little behind. Jungle released November 19th, three years ago, and right now that day is just two weeks a few days away. I’m not certain Starforge will be able to match its release date. At this point, shooting for the 29th seems more likely.

Why post about this? Well, two reasons. The first is that I want to reassure you folks that I am doing everything I can short of burning out to get this book out, and in as polished a state as I can get it. Right now the changes are all small. In fact, I’ll bet if it were to release in the current state, many of you wouldn’t even notice what typos I haven’t caught yet. Yesterday I went through almost 30,000 words and made something like four changes, most of which were “eh, that comma doesn’t need to be there.”

But I want this book to be as polished as a work of 500,000 words can be before I get it out, so the work continues.

The second reason I bring this up is because well, it is kind of a notable moment that three years ago today Jungle‘s pre-order went live. Since Jungle there have been several other projects, Axtara – Banking and Finance the most notable, but also Fireteam Freelance and a couple of other large projects atop Starforge.

Things have been busy. Getting Starforge out, combined with all those other projects (Axtara, Freelance, Stranded, etc) is no small feat. Combined that’s well over a million words of writing. And that’s just the fiction, and what’s been released. Or about to release.

My point being, I know the wait may seem long. But three years is a pretty speedy pace, all things considered. I know that hearing that the Starforge pre-order page isn’t live yet might be a bit grating to some of you, because you’ve been on this journey for six years now, starting with Colony, and you just have got to know how it ends.

I’m doing what I can. Starforge‘s pre-order isn’t live today, but it’s going to be soon. We’re close. And with luck, every book in the trilogy will have come out in November.

Now, back to work with me!

Oh, and I should probably do a Jungle retrospective if I haven’t already in the coming weeks. It feels apropos.

Fireteam Freelance: A Creator’s Look Back

All right guys, I’ll level with you right from the start.

I wasn’t actually that impressed by Fireteam Freelance.

Don’t get me wrong, there was definitely some gold buried in there. There are some scenes that were absolutely awesome, some great fights, and some good moments of character. But there were also a lot of issues. Oh man were there some ruthlessly brutal issues and constraints. A lot of which I expect most readers noticed. And the further along the series got, the more I tried to break free of those constraints, which helped a little but at the same time … made things a bit messy.

If you’re thinking by now that perhaps Fireteam Freelance isn’t my strongest showing, you’re right. It’s not. It was an experiment. And in light of the entire series being done, while I don’t consider it a failure (after all, it was an experiment, failure is part of that) I definitely see it as one of the weaker things I’ve written.

And a lot of that, I feel, grew out of one rule that I couldn’t escape, by the design and nature of the experiment itself: Freelance being an episodic series. That was the core point of the experiment. To test the idea out and see how it worked. Now, I don’t feel I’ve wasted my time with Freelance, nor do I believe that there aren’t worthwhile moments in it (there definitely are) … But I do believe that the weaknesses of the format really hurt it.

So. you’ve given me your thoughts (and if you haven’t, well it’s too late now). Now it’s my turn to offer you mine. Hit the jump and let’s get started.

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The History of Dead Silver

This post was previously a Patreon Supporter Exclusive! Patreon Supporters get advance access to articles and bonuses such as this monthly. They also can receive other bonuses! In return, their support helps keep Unusual Things a premium site (read: NO ADS). If you enjoy Unusual Things‘ content and would like to see it continue, please support by becoming a Patreon Supporter today!

If you’ve not read Dead Silver, be forewarned that this post contains many spoilers. Then again, the book came out four years ago, and you can always grab a copy for the low price of $2.99 to catch up before spoiling anything!

Anyway, that’s your warning. Now, let’s take a look at the history of my second book, Dead Silver.

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The History of One Drink

Greetings and salutations readers! I’m hard at work trying to wrap up Jungle‘s first draft (it is, if you’ll pardon the pun, a jungle), but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep you guys in the know. And today, I’ll be doing that with a recap of the creation of One Drink!

Yes, this post was a Patreon reward. Supporters got to see this all the way back in May. Now that Halloween is almost upon us, however, I feel that the time is right for a revisiting of One Drink with its ghosts and its necromancers and—of course—its straightforward protagonist. Where it all came from, how the first book came to pass, and naturally, what came next.

If you’ve not read One Drink, then be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. Seriously. For a 99-cent book that’s been out for almost five years now. Nudge nudge, why-haven’t-you-just-read-this-already? There’s a link to it right here!

But yes, spoiler warning.

And now? Let’s take a look at the history of One Drink

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