So this is how it goes. We figure out that I have a newsletter due, and me and Bekah sit down and brainstorm ideas. Doesn't usually take long, maybe five minutes, to discuss it and figure out what I'm gonna write. This time wasn't like that. This time was immediate. First thing she said I decided upon. This article is coming way too early. About six months too early, six months and two days, actually, but I'm just so excited about it I need to talk about it. I want to talk about the book I have up for pre-order right now. It's called Bladesport.
Bladesport is a city that was first created in 1994 in a 21-hour Dungeons and Dragons game. There are quite a few features of the city. I don't want to get into it. Bladesport is a very unique place. Over the years I've been crafting it and shaping it and making it into what you are going to read April 15, 2023. So in that way, if you want to count inception to presentation, this book has been coming for 29 years. I wrote it in 2019, and have been writing the ramifications ever since. And it is a central book, a hub book for my world. A lot of things came together in order for this book to be what it is and ready when it is.
First time we got a glimpse of Bladesport was April 15, 2018. I released a book called Hemlock. The beginning of the book takes place in Bladesport. I jump around in my timelines constantly, and Hemlock takes place at that time. So there it was. One of the main characters of the book was bought as a slave in 2018. By the end of that book, he is headed back to Bladesport to help his companions. Then I backed way up, and I showed that same character and his companions eight years earlier in my timeline. I led them all the way through a war so you could understand why he was the way he was in Hemlock.
I wrote the books pretty much in order, for the most part. But it didn't seem that way. Hemlock hits the ground running pretty hard, so you miss certain questions because the action is constant and the plot is moving. First question you forget to ask is why is this character and his three friends selling themselves into slavery? The next question you forget to ask is why is he bought by an enemy and tortured for killing a character you have no idea even exists and/or you have not read about? The action in Hemlock is moving forward so fast you have to accept these and keep going. The fact that you do not have these answers does not get in your way. You hear that the character is a veteran of the Madness Wars, and a year and a half later, when I released the first Madness Wars book, it's moved on so much that it's hard to focus. You forget to ask yourself why this character is here, and you just get overwhelmed by the fact that he is.
After The Madness Wars, I went into a completely different direction, but that book was setting up for Bladesport, too. After The Madness Wars we went to Scorch, and created characters that would lead to Bladesport. We bounced over to a different series, a different set of characters, and finally in 2022, it was revealed to everybody why, why these four characters sold themselves into slavery. And we saw the beginning of the book Hemlock at the end of the book, Beacon. We went back to the other series, the same series Scorch was in, on October 5 of this year. And we saw the true gravity of the book Bladesport coming up. Now it's up for pre-order. A story I've been wanting to tell since April 15, 2018, or if you wanna look at it more accurately, a story I've been wanting to tell since spring of 1994, will finally be available on April 15, 2023. I've been building up to this book for five years. And it is the story of a city I have been crafting for 29 years. Everything in some way has been leaning toward this. And I'm more than excited about it.
So read everything I've released since 2018. Or if you want to, and you would like a complete satisfying story, skip all of that and just read the two books that are in this series. The book before Bladesport, called Beacon, and then Bladesport itself. Both paths will give you a satisfying experience. Again with my work it's the same as it always has been, you as the reader have the right to choose your level of involvement in my world.
