12/23/2017
I finally received copies of OF DIRE CHIMERAS from the printer, the first entry in my new PARALLAX PRIME series, which not only picks up where my long-running Outlanders series left off (with WARLORD OF THE PIT) but blazes away in a different direction.
I'm delighted with the package...the book boasts a beautiful, professional design by none other than beautiful, professional designer Melissa Martin Ellis. Both the front and back covers are great...there's a frontspiece which is my homage to the old Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks which provided the reader with short, "high concept" character descriptions.
PARALLAX PRIME does the Doc books one better with an illustration of the main characters by famed comics creator Darryl Banks.
After a forced sabbatical from Outlanders, I found myself very eager to dive back into that giant toy box of characters and concepts of my creation and start playing.
Although there are plenty of beloved characters I've been fortunate enough to work with over the years (the aforementioned Doc Savage being one of them), I much prefer kicking around with My Own Guys like Kane, Grant, Brigid and Domi...not to mention all of the recurring and secondary characters and places.
More than anything, I enjoyed doing something different with a format that had, over a period of nearly 20 years, become rather static and formulaic.
Coming up with a new Big Bad—Abraxas The Master Breeder—was a lot of fun, too. Heroes are only as strong as their adversaries, so I created a powerful villain whose origins are rooted in the backstory of the Outlanders/PARALLAX PRIME universe, but who has his own apocalyptic agenda...and a sense of humor.
Future novels will build on everything I created for Outlanders, but PARALLAX PRIME will be anything but "Outlanders: Phase II".
Novelist Rex Stout is credited with saying, “If I'm not having fun writing a novel, no one will have fun reading it.”
In case you can't guess, I had a WHOLE lot fun writing OF DIRE CHIMERAS. So that means...
Well...take a look for yourself!
https://tinyurl.com/direchimeras