The Descendants of Prontoth – Release Date Announcement!

The Descendants of Prontoth, book 2 of the Galactic Civilizations Series, will be released Tuesday, February 21, 2023. Preorders are available now.

I am so excited to share this book with you. It is written as as stand-alone novel that continues many of the character threads from Felan’s Rescue. Felan, Sandra, Dash, and Shira each have important parts to play in the story, and events from Felan’s Rescue shape their perspectives. However, the plot is a completely new story, dealing with issues foreshadowed in Felan’s Rescue, but you don’t have to have read Felan’s Rescue to follow it. Here are a few of my favorite aspects of The Descendants of Prontoth (in no order):

1. We get to better understand more of the Alien Species that constitute the Galactic Civilizations. While Felan’s Rescue was largely focused on Humans and Amons, and their connections (as well as the Primans, a developing civilization), we spend more time exploring the other 5 Galactic Civilizations, particularly the Timions and the Perioks (in fact both species have point of view characters).

2. The main antagonist is a point of view character, in fact he gets the most page time of any character. I had so much fun writing this character. I view him as my own Lord Admiral Thrawn (From the Star Wars EU), if Thrawn were a politician instead of an Admiral. He is our lens into Timion society.

3. I experiment with story structure. There is a standard narrative that follows a normal, beginning to end timeline. But there is another narrative that spans thousands of years. I don’t want to spoil too much of how this narrative fits into The Descendants of Prontoth, but I love the way it turned out. I hope readers will enjoy the structure of The Descendants of Prontoth as much as I do.

If you enjoyed Felan’s Rescue, I think you will love The Descendants of Prontoth. While Felan’s Rescue is special to me, and I’m thrilled with how it turned out, I think this one works even better. I felt the history and connection of the characters writing it. The scope and galaxy-spanning aspects of the universe really expand. I don’t want to say too much more, but I’m excited to hear what everyone thinks after they read it.

I hope you enjoy reading The Descendants of Prontoth as much as I enjoyed writing. If you like reading on your ereader, preorder it today. If you prefer another format, they’ll be available too. Sign up for my newsletter to get the latest news and developments.

How Felan’s Rescue Was Born

I’ve been an avid reader since I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card in the eighth grade.  It was assigned to me by one of my least favorite teachers in one of my least favorite classes (an advanced English class that was tedious and boring).  However, in assigning us to read Ender’s Game that teacher gave me a lifelong appreciation for Science Fiction and Fantasy novels that has never waned. You never know where important moments in your life will come from.

I remember putting off reading the assigned chapters until the last possible second.  I think she’d assigned us to read the first 5 chapters the first week.  The night before, I laid in bed around 9:00 picking up the book to read those chapters. I didn’t put the book down until nearly 4 in the morning.  I’d finish it the next day after school. 

From that day forward I plowed through the Ender’s series (It was 4 books at that time), the Foundation Series, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and every other piece of science fiction I could get my hand on.  I dabbled in fantasy with Watership Down and Lord of the Rings but struggled to get into some of the big series at the time like Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth.  Eventually, my tastes expanded, and I dove into the Hyperion Cantos, the Culture Series, Game of Thrones, First Law, etc. 

At some point I started coming up with ideas of my own.  I wrote out some vague plans for an ambitious series and even wrote a rough draft of the prologue and first chapter of what would eventually become Felan’s Rescue.  But ultimately, I never committed the time to following through and in my twenties, when there was plenty of time to be had, those pages stayed mostly blank.

Then came law school and limited reading beyond law school assigned readings.  Then came getting my law practice off the ground.  But shortly before the birth of my now four-year-old daughter I had an epiphany.   I knew I wanted to write these, but if I didn’t commit, those pages would always remain empty.  I wanted to tell my daughter that I gave it a shot.  That I had something I really wanted to do, and I took the time to do it.  So shortly after she was born, I began revisiting Felan’s Rescue.  Over the next seven months I wrote during my lunch at work, sometimes at night, sometimes if I had a light day, I’d write during work hours (the beauty of owning your own practice) and I finished a draft of Felan’s Rescue.

Several edits later I had a draft I was very happy with.  In the meantime, I wrote a second novel, a direct sequel to Felan’s Rescue and began work on a third.  Maybe the only people that will read these novels will be close to me, but I’m proud of the work I’ve put into them.  I love the characters and love how the pieces of both stories fit.  I hope one day they’ll be on bookshelves everywhere, but until that day I’m happy my daughter inspired me to commit to the writing process and write two novels I’ve intended to write for over a decade.