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THE FUTURE OF AMARANTHE - MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

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I’m going to avoid significant spoilers for Duality as I talk about what comes next, so feel free to keep reading if you haven’t finished it yet.

Was Riven Worlds an epic saga, or what? Telling a single story arc over six doorstopper books was, honestly, the greatest challenge I’ve faced as a writer so far. I hope I delivered.:)

Our intrepid heroes deserve a break now, don’t they? My goodness. So let’s all take a deep breath alongside them, exhale…and forge ahead into the stars.

Because guess what? The story of Amaranthe is STILL just beginning.

Next up is a series called COSMIC SHORES, and it’s going to be a little different from what’s come before. I’ve colloquially been referring to this series as “adventure novels” for a while, and it’s an apt descriptor. My vision for Cosmic Shores is three (for now) independent, stand-alone novels that can be read by newcomers and Amaranthe veterans alike, in any order.

Each novel represents a fresh entry-point into this universe and an opportunity for new readers to discover its wonders. Each one will be a self-contained story with a complete resolution at the end, free of cliffhangers—isn’t that a crazy notion? They will be shorter than the Riven Worlds novels by a fair margin (I’m targeting 70-90K)—not because they won’t be as deep, but rather because they will focus on a single main plot and 1-4 POV characters. This will be a new experiment for me, but I never want my books to become dull, repetitive or predictable. It’s time for a new challenge!

So what are they about? Well, following the events of Riven Worlds, some of our most beloved characters are going to venture out beyond the safety of Concord’s borders, encounter new and exciting alien species, and get themselves into bucketloads of trouble.

Here’s a brief, preliminary blurb for Book One, MEDUSA FALLING (you can preorder it today):

A first contact encounter isn't supposed to kick off with a dead body. But when Deputy Ambassador Marlee Marano arrives for an all-important first meeting with a newly discovered species, she unwittingly enters a world on the brink of collapse. Government conspiracies, ruthless terrorists bent on revolution, historical grievances boiling over and mysterious genetic experiments are the least of her concerns, however. For she finds herself wanted for murder, trapped in a dangerous alien society and hunted by all sides.

 So Marlee’s first up. Book Two will follow Eren (with a solid assist from Nyx) on his own sure-to-be-wild adventure, and Book Three will feature Alex, Caleb and Valkyrie doing what they do best.

While this nominally makes Cosmic Shores a trilogy, I’m thinking I’ll leave it open-ended as an avenue to tell more stand-alone stories in the future. With that in mind, who else would you like to see get their own adventure? I’m not even going to make suggestions—you just tell me who you think deserves a book of their own (see the poll below or go HERE to vote).

What comes after the three Cosmic Shores novels? This is still very much in the planning stages, but I’m interested in telling a series of prequel stories—and I need your help to decide which ones. What events in the history of Amaranthe do you want to deep-dive into? You can vote for more than one (but help me out here—don’t vote for all of them unless you really mean it!):

 

DON’T FORGET TO CLICK “SUBMIT” WHEN YOU’RE DONE WITH THE POLL (scroll to the end of the widget).

(If you don’t see or can’t interact with the embedded poll above, go vote HERE.)

Depending on which ones and how many of these events I decide to explore, this series might be a combination of lengthy short stories and novellas, rather than full-length novels. It depends on how much space each story needs to be properly told. We’ll see.

Great—we’ve got stand-alone character adventures and prequel stories galore. What then?

Well, then we’ll return to Concord and all our friends for a new, absolutely epic space opera trilogy. We left a couple of loose ends unresolved and one major shadow looming on the horizon at the end of Duality, and if you’ve finished it, you probably have an inkling as to what this trilogy will center around. But it’ll be a couple of years before we get there, so we’re going to let this one sit to the side and simmer for a while while we go off and have some fun.

I hope you all will join me for these and many more incredible adventures.