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Dauntless
A couple of years back a fellow writer (John M. Davis) and I had an idea. Out of that idea came a universe that we shared and developed. We were excited by it and pulled out all the stops. I wrote a couple of books in this universe and he wrote a book in it. We had grand plans. Our ambitions had us slated to keep on filling this universe with stories and characters until we couldn’t do it any longer – and hopefully others would follow in our steps. Heck, I even put together a website that encouraged feedback and ideas in the form of new technologies, new characters, new… everything! And the submitter would then get credit and become a part of this universe as well.
Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? I still think it does… but if this is the first you’re hearing of it, then it must be obvious that it flopped. The books sales weren’t there. No for me, and not for John. We retreated to our more established series and universes / worlds / characters, knowing that we had an audience there and the ability to continue paying the bills that way.
But this universe never left me. The simple truth is that writing is a labor of love and passion for me. The income is a must-have as well, but I supplement it with a day job. After a couple of years of letting the characters languish, I knew I had to go back to them. I had to know what happened next. I had to share their victories and their pain. Even if that meant a couple of months spent working on something that didn’t sell in a system where I very much needed to make sales, I had to try. I was determined and, while I was sharing the experiences and lives of those characters, I was fearless.
It was only natural that the book be titled the very word that embodied those words : Dauntless. Dauntless is science fiction and adventure, but like any true sci-fi story, it’s about the people within its pages and how they live and think and feel. There are space battles and gunfights, amazing new technology and bitter feuds. Family rivalry, betrayals, and even a solar system-wide civil war. Dauntless was a pretty big undertaking, but it was sheer joy to write and, I have to say, even more fun to read. If you haven’t given the Terminus series a try yet — and I’ve seen the sales numbers so I know most of you haven’t— you really should give it a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
The crew of the Raptor must save an unruly princess from a solar system-wide civil war. A simple escort and run job — what could go wrong?
The Nelanian culture is based on aggression, war, and battling with themselves. Everybody’s got a stake in the war — profits and power to be had. Betrayal and sacrifice are justified under the pretense of the Greater Good. Earning a slightly dishonest paycheck has never been seemed so admirable.
Even the Princess Tor has been contracted to save has her own agenda… an agenda that doesn’t take Tor, his crew, or his ship into consideration. When escape is no longer an option there’s only one way left to get the job done. There’s no right or wrong side to this war, just a winning side. That’s the side Tor intends to be on.
Will there be more Terminus books – I plan on it! Not quite yet though. First I’m back into my Dark Universe setting, with Aden, Twyf… and so many characters I don’t dare to name them all or this will end up being far too long. The new book is titled Under the Dark and I have to say that I haven’t had this much fun writing a DU book in a long time… since the first trilogy, to be entirely honest. Honestly I’m hoping this book sets up a new three story arc. That’s my current plan, at least.
But that’s a month or more away, so to pass the time don’t forget to pick up Dauntless and get sucked into another amazing setting!
To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
New Book, New Setting, New Universe
I just fired off my newsletter and I still have post pics to my Facebook page and update my personal website. I’ll get to that in a minute though, first I want to write this and get it out there because I can hardly contain my excitement. I teased a new series and concept in a recent blog post. This is the culmination of all that work: Terminus.
The first book in the series has been available for more than a week already but it wasn’t free yet. Now it is. And not only that, but my second book in that setting is also available now. Between that, John M. Davis’s book (Ghost Planet), and the website being published and available – it’s time for the reveal!
Terminus is the name of the setting. It seemed fitting, given how a terminus is an end or a final destination. So it is for the characters in the first few stories in this new setting, but as with any ending, it is also a beginning. A beginning of new lives, new adventures, and new stories we get to tell.
The backdrop is four hundred years into the future, give or take. Humanity has spread to the stars. Even more than that, we’ve been met by aliens and they aren’t so different from us in many ways. Then again, some are – there are a lot of different races out there. So many that we’re not even sure who they all are yet.
We’ve got faster than light travel, we’ve got blaster rifles and pistols (pulsed laser weapons), conventional weapons, massive navies in space, an overreaching central government (called the Continuum) trying to control everything, and hundreds of smaller governments ranging from controlling systems to individual planets that are at odds with one another. Oh, and did I mention the Gifted? They’re a new order of psychics with some wicked and truly unpleasant powers.
Now here’s where John comes in (other than helping to brainstorm and create what we’ve come up with). I whipped up a novella for an introduction to the setting. It’s called Terminus (shocker), and it’s free! It’s actually been out for a little over a week now, but I didn’t want to advertise it until it was available for free. Now it is! But wait, that’s not all! (did you read that in a Billy Mays voice?)
John’s book, Ghost Planet, is also available. And so is my full length novel, Frozen Dreams (book 3 in the series). The way it works is Terminus sets the stage and gets you interested, then Ghost Planet introduces John’s cast of characters that are intertwined with mine. Frozen Dreams happens at the same time as the other two books and ties everything together with my cast of characters. Ghost Planet and Frozen Dreams are not free, sorry, but on the plus side John’s already working on his next book in the series, Fear the Gifted.
There’s a little bit more to Terminus that I haven’t mentioned yet. We love this setting so much, and we know readers will too, so we’re opening it up for contributions. No, we’re not asking you to do our work for us, we’re offering a spot on the Terminus website (http://www.booksofterminus.com) for people to contribute things they’d like to see in it. New planets, new alien races, new technologies or weapons, new characters (good or bad), or just about anything! We can’t promise everything will make it in, but we’ll do our best to work things in and be sure to let you know privately and publicly about the effort.
Terminus |
Ghost Planet |
Frozen Dreams |
| Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble Kobo |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble (coming soon) iTunes (coming soon) Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
That’s it for now, but there’s lots more to come! As I said, John’s hard at work on the next book and both of us have promised 4+ Terminus stories this year. Knowing me, that will probably grow as long as the readers are there. The first two I already wrote were so much fun I tore through them in no time, so I can’t wait to immerse myself in this new setting again and explore it some more.
To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
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