Michael G. Thomas's Blog

Q & A - Part 2

Following the success of the last Q&A session that I posted up it seemed the time for a follow-up. This time there are eleven people with questions and I will do my best to answer them all. There is a chance that some of these questions might reveal plot points or details that would be considered as spoilers. Please understand that these answers are relevant as of September 2013. In six months time things may have changes or been modified, that's just the way it works. My plan for Star Crusades for example has changed considerably from when I planned out the first book. I have posted the original questions as written on my official Facebook page so you can see who proposed them, and specifically what they actually asked at the time. Let's get started:

Q. Jacques Duvoisin: How do you think of futuristic technology?
A. That is an interesting one as there is always the desire to give my guys the latest in high-tech gizmos to save the day. I tend to be as conservative as possible and make use of what is considered feasible or cutting edge today. Coil guns and rail guns are all known technology as is the use of particle beams. Obviously I have to make exceptions such as the recovery of anti-gravity technology and the Rifts for plot reasons, but in general I try and keep things grounded and simple. The secpad is just a new version of a datapad, something that is barely more advanced than an iPad mini. I don't want my marines being able to win using technology, I want it to be about men and women using weapons to win the day.

Q. Joshua Campbell: Any chance of getting an illustrated guide to your universe?
A. I have a detailed document that covers everything from plot outlines, history and locations through to character summaries and ideas. This will never be released in its exciting form as it is messy and for reference only. I would love to release large parts of it though, ideally combined into a detailed colour book that can utilise some of the great art already created.

Q. Dean Robinson: Will any of the major characters be killed?
A. Well, I can't really say too much about this other than to say it would be difficult to fight the coming war without sacrifice and loss. I won't do a G.R.R Martin though and simply wipe out lots of characters on a whim, or just for effect.

Q. Steve Yakubik: Don't end series, I only read you a another author's series!
A. Thanks for the vote of confidence. The individual series in Star Crusades will each end, but I have no intention of ending the overall 'Universe'. When Nexus is done there will be plenty more to investigate. What happened before Legions of Orion? There is a lot to explore in Star Crusades and as long as you keep reading them, I'll keep writing them.

Q. Michiel de Lepper: Will we ever find out Spartan's background?
A. Yes!

Q. Cemgil Kurt: What's your plan for future new series etc?
Q. Brad Nash: You pushed your series number from 6 to 8. With yet more books focusing on this story (Woot btw) after this 8 book series is done. What was the reason for two more books and not lumping it into the next series?
A. I have combined these question together as I think they are best answered in one go. Hope that's okay chaps. This is a weird one because as soon as I say what I'm planning, things change, even though I am still following my original timeline and plan. It was my intention to have the Uprising series to  be completely standalone and that the Nexus series would move events into the wider sphere. Nexus was to have ended once the Alliance had embedded itself firmly in the politics of Helios and its neighbours. I then planned on the third series concentrating on the coming war with the Biomechs. This whole divide seems too artificial to me and instead I want the ideas of the Nexus plotlines to properly merge with the Biomech thread. This will tie together element of the Great War of the past far into the future. This way we learn more of the Twelve, the Biomechs, what happened in their war with the Helions and their Allies and how they became embroiled in the human wars. I want all of this to play out in the Nexus series and for it to come to a logical and satisfying conclusion. The end result of this change is that Nexus is going to be a lot bigger than planned. Instead of 6 it is going to be more like 9 books so that I can fit in everything I wanted. It might sound like the story is being stretched but in reality it is me moving things from the third series and into the second so I can properly round it all out. After all, do you really want to wait till the third series before you get to a full-scale war in Orion?

Q. Blake James: how many kids will Spartan and Teresa have?
A. A good question and unless anything changes I am thinking just the one. Spartan's not a big fan of children and we've yet to see Teresa's other children get involved in the story yet. Something tells me sparks will fly.

Q. Ashley Payne: What gave you the inspiration for such a good series?
A. Siege of Titan has a lot in common with classic military films like Full Metal Jacket and the movie version of Starship Troopers. I think the best stories come from classical stories, especially the plays and poetry of Xenophon, Euripides and Homer. It is hard not to be influenced by what is going on aroudn you though. Many will have noticed how the Star Crusades Uprising series had a lot of current events mixed in. We have insurgents, terrorism, suicide bombings, fundamentalist religions and government responses to those threats.

Q. Pamela Jary: As you are also an instructor in HEMA, how much of this knowledge do you use in your books? Which is your favourite sword?
A. Well, I try to involve lots of detail in regards to hand to hand combat and edged weapons in my books. I've trained for decades with them so I can imagine myself in the actual scenario and ensure the moves are logical and workable. So to answer the first part, quite a bit. As for my favourite sword? Well, I like big two-handers, especially the lighter zweihanders. In terms of aesthetics I'd go for complex-hilted dussacks and the Venetian Schiavona.

Q. Andrew Lancefield: Who's series sells better, yours or your brother? And what are your thoughts on e-books are they good for authors and the industry? Oh, and how did you find out you could write?
A. They sell about the same, there is little difference between them to be fair. Mine are obviously much better written though! Ebooks are happening whether we like it or not. I've actually bought a load of sci-fi in paperback recently, and then got hold of the eBooks to read instead. Much more convenient and unless they are large reference books, I'd rather not have the clutter. I keep my shelves clear for old books and research volumes. E=books are great for writers and readers, not so great for the book shops or libraries though. I've been writing since I was a child so I suppose I knew back then. When my first novel came out and people actually bought it, then I truly knew.

That's it for now. If you have any more questions please pop by my Facebook fanpage and let me know:

https://www.facebook.com/starcrusader

Look back on the first Star Crusades trilogy

With Call to Arms due for release in a couple of weeks it is time to re-look at the first events of the Star Crusades series. The first trilogy concentrated on the training of Spartan, his first meeting with Teresa Morato and their foray into the Great Uprising. Here's a recap of the first three books:

Siege of Titan was the first book in the series and consists almost entirely with Spartan's training. The book culminates on the bloody Siege of Titan.

Tears of Kerberos continued the story on to other worlds, specifically the odd world of Kerberos, in the same star system as Prime (Proxima Centauri). We learn of the growing insurgency and the rise of a number of cults and underground movements. At the same time Spartan fights his first major battle on the surface of a planet at the massive battle of New Carlos.

Fires of Prometheus rounds out the first trilogy of books as the fighting appears to calm down. Spartan and General Rivers have vanished though and what is discovered on Prometheus will change the course of the Uprising and Spartan's life forever. It is here where we are first introduced to one of the series more enduring characters...Gun.

Have you read the first three books? Which was your favourite part?

Q & A - Part 1

This short blog article is based upon a number of questions asked over the last few weeks by my fans on Facebook and on my blog. I’ve chosen the most popular topics and hope you find the answers satisfying. I have posted the original questions so you can see who proposed them, and specifically what they actually asked. As more questions come in I will put them together and do additional articles. So here we go with questions from P. Jary, D Robinson, M Peterson, B Knox, J. Harris and D Read. 

Q. P Jary: What authors have influenced your work?

A. My favourites are Frank Herbert, J. R. R. Tolkien, R. Heinlein, Philip K Dick, Capt W.E Johns, H. G. Wells and John Wyndham as well as any of Bernard Cornwell's better works. Herbert and Wells are probably the two that influence me the most.

Q. D Robinson: Have you ever based any of characters on your friends or family?

A. Not on any of my family, but I have based many characters on people I know. This is mainly with secondary characters, of which there are many. If a character gets a few pages before getting killed they were probably based upon somebody I know. There are quite a few people that are even given the same names.

Q. M Peterson: I really like the way you wrote you last series with the historical arc. Are you going to attempt that again and are you going to use an Asian arc in the future?

A. I assume you are referring to the Black Legion series here. This is actually a very interesting question and is more down to you all as readers rather than me. Black Legion specifically follows the plot of the Anabasis but I absolutely would like to expand this to include great chunks of ancient history. The Greek Social Wars (not Obamacare I might add), rise of Macedon, retaking of Ionia and the march of Alexander would of course all fit nicely into the background. Then there are the other regions in the same period. The Greeks in southern Italy, the rise of Rome and the conflict with other European and Oriental peoples.

Q. J Harris: What was your first computer?

A. A Philips G7000 Videopac circa '78-79.

Q. P Jary: If you could be a space tourist, where would you go and why?

A. Where would I go? Well, Proxima Centauri of course, assuming we find a more promising set of exo-planets.

Q. B Knox: Tell me about the people on the covers. Are they models, cgi or people you know?

A. Good question and one that is a bit of yes and no. Some of the covers such as Fires of Prometheus and Black Legion have a few people I know. We have held a number of photoshoots in the past and these form the basis of many of the covers you see today. Spartan is often portrayed by a good friend back from when I was at college. The lady that plays the part of Teresa was a fencing buddy from a few years back, as was the lady on the cover of Champions of the Apocalypse.  If you leave near me, let me know, you could end up on the front of a future novel!

Q. D Read: How do you write your stories?? Do you have a plan? Vague outline? Or just start tapping the keyboard and see where it goes?

A. This is a very popular question and one often asked by aspiring writers. I will take my two main series as the exemplar for this. Before I start a new series I to a one paragraph summary of the plot, much like a movie’s one page. If I think it has the potential to be more than one book I then write a second paragraph outlining where this book fits in and a few ideas for the long-term arcs. After that, I split up the story into a number of acts, usually three and then summarise them. Following that comes a twelve chapter list with a few sentences for each, and then I am off.

As I add characters I put them into a separate document along with any useful details. This file comes in very handy later on. The Star Crusades document is over sixty pages long now.

Q. P Jary: If money were no object, what car(s) would you have? 

A. Well, I am a big fan of V8s so any car I choose would have to have one. Classic American cars like a '69 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 or '70 Plymouth Road Runner in perfect condition would work. Saying that, as some of you already know I am a fan of British muscle, so anything recent built by Jaguar or Aston Martin would be just great.

That's it for now. If you have any more questions please pop by my Facebook fanpage and let me know:

https://www.facebook.com/starcrusader

The future of Star Crusades

 
I receive many questions regarding my expanding series but none is more common than ‘how many books will it be?’ My original plan was just to write the first book ‘Siege of Titan’ to see if there was any interest at all in this kind of novel. It was a radical departure from my previous historical and zombie related fiction but also one that i wanted to write more than any of the others. Luckily the interest was massive and I’ve expanded the original plot to include new locations, themes and characters. Even so, right from book 1 i have had a second book called the Star Crusades Encyclopedia. This is a companion volume that is just for me that I used to record al my ideas as well as every single person and location in the series. By the time Titan was finished I had lots of ideas that could move the books on to a trilogy or perhaps even more.
 

Back to the present. I am please to announce that the Star Crusades series is now fully planned out to three complete series of at least six books a piece and that this means you can expect no less than eighteen books in total. The first series ‘Star Crusades Uprising’ was made up of six novels that introduced are characters, the uprising itself and the emergency of new tech as well as the Alliance. The second series, known as ‘Nexus’ concerns these new regions of space such as T’Karan and Helios and how the Alliance will establish itself with its new neighbors whilst dealing with the specter of the old enemy. This will be approximately six books and lead to the third and final chapter, ‘Star Crusades Apocalypse’.
 

Will that be the end? I hope not but it will be the end of the story cycle that I planned for the Morato family. I would definitely like to go back and visit other locations in the universe I’ve created both before, during and after the current time line. What was Spartan up to in his days as a pit fighter? Perhaps stories set on the individual worlds or even the outer colonies where something has been lurking since their establishment just a few years ago.

My new series - Star Crusades Nexus

As many of you have noticed, my original Star Crusades series is complete. Six novels divided up into two trilogies that chronicle the Great Uprising that ripped the Centauri Confederacy apart, much as the Great War did fifty years before that. I've taken a short time out to work on my Black Legion series but am now back and pleased to announce that the Star Crusades is far from over, in fact you are only a third the way in! My original intention was to write Siege of Titan as a test novel, to see if there was interest in this kind of old-school science fiction. The sales of the first book were massive and I've used subsequent books to flesh out the world including backstory, characters and an entire star system. This world has now become so complex that I am receiving lots of requests for prequels and side story novels to cover different parts of the series. Some want the Spartan story prior to Siege of Titan while others want something new like a Corsair trilogy set in the middle of the Uprising. Even the Jotnar are a possibility for a spinoff. Even so, I have a strict schedule to follow over the next year or two and my new series is the beginning.

I am therefore pleased to announce that Star Crusades Nexus is the second part of my long-term story arc that extends the timeframe and the story of the Alliance. Rifts are artificially constructed out of the technology taken from Hyperion and humanity travels deep into space, initially to the Orion Nebula. Here they discover other races as well as the background to the Biomechs and where the motivations for the Zealots came from. This series is projected to be six books and will see the Alliance make great discoveries and hit some major problems. This series is stand-alone and does not require reading the Uprising series though it will add some great backstory. It is my intention that each block of novels can be enjoyed on its own and serves as a chunk of a much greater story.

 


 

What next? Well, that is a very good question. I have other book series such as my psuedo-historical Black Legion series but Star Crusaded will always receive the lion share of my attention. Nexus is the middle of my planned series and when complete the stage will be set for the grand finale, something that will make any even so far seem almost insignificant. I don't want to say to much but suffice to say it will be a truly epic conclusion to a massive science-fiction series.

If you want to know anymore please contact me through my Facebook fanpage or via my publisher.

Slaves of Hyperion (Star Crusades, Book 6) is in the wild!

Slaves of Hyperion is now out and marks the end of the six-book cycle that is the Star Crusades series. It has been sometime since I visited the world of Spartan and his friends as I’ve been writing the new Black Legion series. With so many requests for this book I had to put Black Legion III on hold to get  this final book competed.

This book ties up many of the loose ends from Fall of Terra Nova and gives closure to most of the characters. The book moves the story to the planet of Hyperion, a mysterious jungle world and hides a secret. Old enemies and characters from all five previous books show up in this conclusion to the story. Expect to learn more about the Zealots, the Biomechs and the religious cult of Echidna that has been the driving force in the war.

The Star Crusades series will be continued by Star Crusades Nexus, an exciting new stand-alone series that is set seventeen years after the end of Slaves of Hyperion.

Star Crusades: The First Trilogy…and onwards!

I have several exciting pieces of news for you concerning my latest novels. The first is that my publisher is releasing the first three novels in the Star Crusades series as a combined edition. This is the cheapest way so far of obtaining these exciting novels. The combined edition contains some great new artwork that shows our eponymous hero Spartan, in yet another of his favoured warzones.  Previously you could purchase the entire five-book series at a much higher price. This has now changed in readiness for the next piece of news…
As you might have already guessed, the title for the combined edition kind of gives the game away. If you haven’t already guessed it, there cannot be a first trilogy unless there is more than one. So in answer to all your questions, yes, there will be a sixth novel and yes it will form the last part of the second trilogy. This means ‘Fall of Terra Nova’ will actually be the middle title in the second set of books. I will announce more of this over the next few weeks once the second book in the Black Legion is released. For now just know that book six is coming and that there will be more to follow!

A new series and a new book...BLACK LEGION

It is 2012 and after a number of delays my latest novel has been released. This is novel number nine and the first in this new series. Unlike the Star Crusades saga of five books, this series is set far into the future. It is a world populated by aliens, advanced technology and characters with no memory of Earth and its ancient past.

My background is ancient history, advanced computing and European martial arts, so this new book combines the lot into a new and exciting work. The story is influenced by the famous story of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand Mercenaries. I studied this work in great detail when working on my Masters Degree in the original Ancient Greek, and have always found its themes influential in my writing.

It is my plan continue the Black Legion story into a series of at least three books. I would them like to jump ahead a couple of generations to continue the story with new characters with stories to tell. This will all follow the framework of Ancient European history, mixed with renaissance intrigue, politics and style.


The Black Legion is an army like no other. Paid for by the blood money of a sinister alien race and filled with ten thousand of humanity’s best warriors. They are an unstoppable force with their number taken from every known Terran planet in the Galaxy. They have little in common, other than their love of wealth and adventure, and a bitter hatred for each other. Ten thousand savage mercenaries, exiles, thieves and criminals, each looking to make their name in the greatest enterprise in living memory.


Into this world of space travel, war and intrigue comes Xenophon, the exile from the Alliance planet Attica, Glaucon the rich playboy, Roxana the experienced starship officer, and Tamara, the blue-haired castaway with a hidden past and a violent personality. Fate brings them together, to serve on board one of the mighty Titans, the great floating fortresses and the most powerful starships known to mankind. There are only twelve of these in existence, and just one is powerful enough to take on an entire fleet of enemy ships.


With only a few weeks to train with their comrades, nothing will prepare them for the carnage that awaits them at the infamous Gates of Cilicia. This fortified sector serves as the entrance to the Median Empire, the largest and most powerful empire in the known Galaxy and ruled with an iron fist by the tyrant, Emperor Artaxerxes.


An epic science fiction novel that retells the ancient tale of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand Mercenaries.