Follow me off the path. Shoot off with me in two directions—Hell, three—and let’s see where I am headed and the directions my work is going for the next three years. Because I am off-road now. Going rogue. Breaking promises, yet keeping them, in the way I will be releasing my new series and the things I will be doing.
On October 5th I released Scorch, Book 1 of The Burdens of Beasts. My fear was that after having just dropped thousands of pages in my epic series The Madness Wars, my readers thought I might take a break, let this October pass me by and collect myself for the next push. The fact is, I can’t. I don’t have that luxury, because every day my backlog increases and every day my world expands.
I also made a promise to my readers to expect new work on certain days and I will not break that law. I also said I would not release book one of a series if the entire series had not already been written. That also remains unbreakable law. The Burdens of Beasts is complete, every word written. Every scene how I want it. But there now comes forward a lie. I once said I would not deviate from a series until its release was complete. But I am a storyteller, my job is to know what you want to read. My job is to stay true to the art of a good story, and in April, you do not want First Tree, Book 2 of The Burdens of Beasts. You don’t want that at all.
You want me to go off the trail. You want the first book in a new series. You just don’t know how much.
Nothing makes sense until it starts to make sense. You can’t see a thing until it is laid out before you. I need trust. I need you to follow me in a new direction this April to a new series called Nation of Five. You need me to tell it all this way in order for you to see the full madness of my design.
Today in this newsletter I am going to reveal to you the first cover for Nation of Five a full six months before the book comes out. I am doing this to prove to you that this series is finished, too. The cover is done and I am already prepared. So above you sits the cover for Beacon, Book 1 of Nation of Five. You see the ruined streets and the shattered statue, the broken ziggurat in the background and the towers falling over. It is all laid out before you as a promise.
I may be setting a new series before you in April, but as in everything I do with my career, I have a reason.
You cannot make sense of a thing until it makes sense, and this move may look like it makes no sense.
Do you trust me?
