CLOAK OF SPEARS now underway!

Now that DRAGONSKULL: CURSE OF THE ORCS is out, my new main project is CLOAK OF SPEARS!

I am pleased to report that I am now 21,000 words into the book, on Chapter 4 of 22 (but maybe 23).

What will CLOAK OF SPEARS be about? There are three unanswered questions that have been bouncing around the series for a while:

1.) Why does Neil Freeman feel compelled to ask strangers about Ashford-Carr Syndrome?

2.) At the time of the Conquest, Earth’s population was around 7 billion, give or take. By Nadia’s time, it’s just over three billion, and most people don’t know why it’s so much lower. Some people think the Conquest killed enough people that the population was permanently lowered, or that it’s a result from centuries of Archon attacks. The official record doesn’t address it at all. So what really happened to cause the population drop?

3.) Why did the High Queen destroy Catalyst Corporation?

As it turns out, all three questions have the same answer…and that answer will be the main plot of CLOAK OF SPEARS.

When I first started writing Nadia as a character, I envisioned her as a bad person who very slowly and against her will starts becoming a good one. But it didn’t work that way in practice – her character arc has been more like Catwoman slowly evolving into Gandalf. We might see some more of that in CLOAK OF SPEARS. 🙂

If all goes well, I am hoping CLOAK OF SPEARS will be out in July.

-JM