Jason Russell's Blog
June 28, 2023
An Interview With Jason Russell
Starry Eyed Press is pleased to announce release of Axiom Limit – the first full length novel set in our 224-Verse which just so happens to conclude The Zan Dane Cycle.
We sat down with the book’s author and series creator Jason Russell to get the scoop on both the book itself and all things 224.
Tell us a bit about this 224-Verse. What inspired it?
As much as I’d like to pretend the entirety of the idea arrived in a single stroke of genius, the concept sort of rattled around for a couple of years. Zan Dane actually came first – the idea of this gunslinging, wild west antihero whose greatest assignment was one driven out of love for his daughter.
I had only a single chapter of the first story (Bountiful Pursuits) written about a year prior to the development of the universe and its laws. I wrote those out for myself but ended up using them as the intro of each 224-Verse entry so that readers, too, would be up to speed regardless of the order in which they entered the continuity.
Is there an order to the series?
Honestly, no. And it’s not just the publisher wanting me to say that.
Why would the publisher want you to say that?
(Sighs) – I was hoping to avoid all this but since you asked… Have you ever found yourself gazing upon the crowded shelf of your favorite bookstore, trying to remember the order of the titles of the series you’re currently reading because the publisher refuses to make it easy on you? A big number 4 and 5 on the cover and spine could surely take the guesswork out of this, you think to yourself, so why don’t they do that?
The answer is less about trying to confuse the readership and more to do with the simple reality of the publishing world and the way books have traditionally been purchased. Simply put – if you were to graph typical sales over the life of a series, it would start highest at the left side of the page with book one and continually dip downward as you traveled right. The lowest number of sales, as you’d probably suspect, would belong to the last book on the line.
The reason is simple – the first book has the benefit of curiosity and often serves as the testbed for the reader as to whether or not they enjoy the author’s prose, characters, pacing, style, setting and so on. Some readers discover that they do and will allow themselves to become invested in the story across however many entries it takes to tell. Others will invariably not; whether by incompatibility with any of the factors listed above, lack of time or interest, or, there are even some who enjoyed everything about the first but move on to other things without bothering to continue on with the later entries of the series.
Now advance a few years up the timeline. The first entry into a lengthy series could very well have gone out of print and the only entry available on store shelves happens to be the fifth. If we had that big number 5 displayed across the cover like mentioned in the first paragraph, how many readers could really be expected to pick that book up as a starting point?
The way publishers have typically gotten around this was really quite clever – treat every book released, even if it is a direct series sequel/prequel as a stand-alone piece. Give the book a new name, do away with labels like “Part V” and hope that the material contained within can make some semblance of sense for the reader tricked into picking it up not realizing that four entries precede it.
Electronic books and print-on-demand technology has done away with some of these concerns, as we now live in a time where the ability to purchase any entry in a series is pretty much a given. Couple this to the fact that the internet provides dedicated fans the platform to very clearly explore the correct order of a series and even voice their opinion as to the best order to approach them and the fear of numbered covers isn’t nearly so much a concern as it once was. However, so long as the book rack continues to exist at places like convenient stores and airports, that old technique of keeping all talk of a book’s place in a series under wraps will not be going away any time soon.
So there is or isn’t an order?
Well, no. Each entry, whether by me or another author, is designed to function as a standalone piece with a beginning, middle and end. Now, whether or not they weave a larger tale within the background, that’s certainly a possibility. That’s what I tried to do with what is now known as The Zan Dane Cycle. It’s six entries in total, each a standalone work, but with a connected narrative. This latest book we’re celebrating, Axiom Limit, concludes the whole story arc.
What can you tell us about Axiom Limit?
Well, it brings together all of the pieces set up in the four prior shorts. All of the questions fans have been asking me will be answered at last. The big news, for me anyway, is that Starry Eyed agreed to simultaneously release an omnibus containing all four of the shorts in a single collection (first time in print) so that readers who haven’t yet taken the journey can find them all in one place – and flow along from literal start to finish.
What were the four prior shorts, for those who may not know?
Bountiful Pursuits
Engineered Civility
Brightest at the Bulge
People of the Spire
And Axiom Limit fits in where?
Continuity-wise, Axiom Limit is the direct sequel to Bountiful Pursuits, picking up literally where the first tale ends and concluding the entire Zan Dane arc. If character backstory isn’t necessary for your enjoyment of a linear adventure, one could think of Bountiful Pursuits and Axiom Limit as the bookends of this arc, with the trio of entries in between serving to fill in the gaps/ further flesh out the characters and their motivations.
I thought you said it consists of six entries, if my math is correct, that is only five?
The Omnibus will contain a never-before-published short story called The Lost Bounty on Orp-77 that takes place shortly after Brightest at the Bulge in the overall timeline and again contributes directly toward the events of Bountiful Pursuits.
What does the name Axiom Limit mean?
Axiom is another word for a fundamental law, or accepted reality and limit means an end point. In other words, the termination of the established system has arrived.
What does 224-Verse even mean?
The 224, in this case, refers to NGC224 – The New General Catalog entry labeling our neighboring galaxy Andromeda; the backdrop for which all entries in the 224-Verse take place.
Why Andromeda?
For one thing, it’s very similar to our Milky Way, only far larger. To cross its disc from one side to the other, you’re looking at a little over 200,000 light years (which is double our own) and while we have somewhere in the tune of 250-billion stars, it’s got over four times as many (one-trillion +). When searching for a setting, it’s hard to imagine ever running out of room in Andromeda.
So there are no humans in the 224-Verse?
No – there are common hominids much like us that have originated from presumably any one of (or several of) the estimated 64-billion Earth-like planets that exist in Andromeda, but there is no interaction with our own galaxy, much less lowly Earth.
But with jump technology, wouldn’t it be possible to zip on over to any galaxy you want?
Theoretically, yes but with one major caveat – space is so much bigger than rational thought would lead us to believe. Yes, jump gates allow for instantaneous travel across several lightyears at a time, keep in mind that it would still take a lifetime’s worth of jumps to attempt to cross the entire 200,000 lightyear-wide disc. Now consider that 2.5 million lightyears of empty space separate our galaxies. In space, the term “neighbors” can be very misleading.
How could a single government possibly control that much space?
It can’t. We have a Galactic Assembly composed of several million planetary systems but when you’re talking a trillion of them in total, that’s obviously a drop in the proverbial bucket. They are still the largest and most powerful attempt at a unified government made up of planets the way our United Nations functions with countries but they are far from the only game in town. There are certainly thousands, if not tens of thousands of empires, syndicates, and individual planetary governments out there. Billions more yet undiscovered.
You’re right, space IS big.
Imagine this – if you took the Milky Way and Andromeda and the next closest 50 galaxies and drew a giant border around them all – you’d still only be looking at one-hundred billionth of 1% of the visible Universe. Yes, of just the sliver of the Universe that we are able to observe.
What’s the wildest thing Zan Dane has ever seen?
Tough one! Whatever it is, he hasn’t seen fit to tell me yet. But if he does, I’ll be sure to write it down.
In closing, a final question. Since the 224-Verse is clearly your baby, what made you decide to open it to contribution from anyone?
It comes back to that scope mentioned above. I set up the rules and the technology, the cultures who got the ball rolling and even some of the myriad of governments attempting to keep order. I then used these things as the backdrop to my Zan Dane story arc but to think I came close to exhausting the potential for stories set in this expansive galaxy is absurd.
Authors like James Pyles, Gregg Cunningham and A.S. Charly have stepped up and contributed tales of their own into the collective and the call remains open to anyone. Sandboxes this big become even more fun to play in when you invite the whole neighborhood over.
We sat down with the book’s author and series creator Jason Russell to get the scoop on both the book itself and all things 224.
Tell us a bit about this 224-Verse. What inspired it?
As much as I’d like to pretend the entirety of the idea arrived in a single stroke of genius, the concept sort of rattled around for a couple of years. Zan Dane actually came first – the idea of this gunslinging, wild west antihero whose greatest assignment was one driven out of love for his daughter.
I had only a single chapter of the first story (Bountiful Pursuits) written about a year prior to the development of the universe and its laws. I wrote those out for myself but ended up using them as the intro of each 224-Verse entry so that readers, too, would be up to speed regardless of the order in which they entered the continuity.
Is there an order to the series?
Honestly, no. And it’s not just the publisher wanting me to say that.
Why would the publisher want you to say that?
(Sighs) – I was hoping to avoid all this but since you asked… Have you ever found yourself gazing upon the crowded shelf of your favorite bookstore, trying to remember the order of the titles of the series you’re currently reading because the publisher refuses to make it easy on you? A big number 4 and 5 on the cover and spine could surely take the guesswork out of this, you think to yourself, so why don’t they do that?
The answer is less about trying to confuse the readership and more to do with the simple reality of the publishing world and the way books have traditionally been purchased. Simply put – if you were to graph typical sales over the life of a series, it would start highest at the left side of the page with book one and continually dip downward as you traveled right. The lowest number of sales, as you’d probably suspect, would belong to the last book on the line.
The reason is simple – the first book has the benefit of curiosity and often serves as the testbed for the reader as to whether or not they enjoy the author’s prose, characters, pacing, style, setting and so on. Some readers discover that they do and will allow themselves to become invested in the story across however many entries it takes to tell. Others will invariably not; whether by incompatibility with any of the factors listed above, lack of time or interest, or, there are even some who enjoyed everything about the first but move on to other things without bothering to continue on with the later entries of the series.
Now advance a few years up the timeline. The first entry into a lengthy series could very well have gone out of print and the only entry available on store shelves happens to be the fifth. If we had that big number 5 displayed across the cover like mentioned in the first paragraph, how many readers could really be expected to pick that book up as a starting point?
The way publishers have typically gotten around this was really quite clever – treat every book released, even if it is a direct series sequel/prequel as a stand-alone piece. Give the book a new name, do away with labels like “Part V” and hope that the material contained within can make some semblance of sense for the reader tricked into picking it up not realizing that four entries precede it.
Electronic books and print-on-demand technology has done away with some of these concerns, as we now live in a time where the ability to purchase any entry in a series is pretty much a given. Couple this to the fact that the internet provides dedicated fans the platform to very clearly explore the correct order of a series and even voice their opinion as to the best order to approach them and the fear of numbered covers isn’t nearly so much a concern as it once was. However, so long as the book rack continues to exist at places like convenient stores and airports, that old technique of keeping all talk of a book’s place in a series under wraps will not be going away any time soon.
So there is or isn’t an order?
Well, no. Each entry, whether by me or another author, is designed to function as a standalone piece with a beginning, middle and end. Now, whether or not they weave a larger tale within the background, that’s certainly a possibility. That’s what I tried to do with what is now known as The Zan Dane Cycle. It’s six entries in total, each a standalone work, but with a connected narrative. This latest book we’re celebrating, Axiom Limit, concludes the whole story arc.
What can you tell us about Axiom Limit?
Well, it brings together all of the pieces set up in the four prior shorts. All of the questions fans have been asking me will be answered at last. The big news, for me anyway, is that Starry Eyed agreed to simultaneously release an omnibus containing all four of the shorts in a single collection (first time in print) so that readers who haven’t yet taken the journey can find them all in one place – and flow along from literal start to finish.
What were the four prior shorts, for those who may not know?
Bountiful Pursuits
Engineered Civility
Brightest at the Bulge
People of the Spire
And Axiom Limit fits in where?
Continuity-wise, Axiom Limit is the direct sequel to Bountiful Pursuits, picking up literally where the first tale ends and concluding the entire Zan Dane arc. If character backstory isn’t necessary for your enjoyment of a linear adventure, one could think of Bountiful Pursuits and Axiom Limit as the bookends of this arc, with the trio of entries in between serving to fill in the gaps/ further flesh out the characters and their motivations.
I thought you said it consists of six entries, if my math is correct, that is only five?
The Omnibus will contain a never-before-published short story called The Lost Bounty on Orp-77 that takes place shortly after Brightest at the Bulge in the overall timeline and again contributes directly toward the events of Bountiful Pursuits.
What does the name Axiom Limit mean?
Axiom is another word for a fundamental law, or accepted reality and limit means an end point. In other words, the termination of the established system has arrived.
What does 224-Verse even mean?
The 224, in this case, refers to NGC224 – The New General Catalog entry labeling our neighboring galaxy Andromeda; the backdrop for which all entries in the 224-Verse take place.
Why Andromeda?
For one thing, it’s very similar to our Milky Way, only far larger. To cross its disc from one side to the other, you’re looking at a little over 200,000 light years (which is double our own) and while we have somewhere in the tune of 250-billion stars, it’s got over four times as many (one-trillion +). When searching for a setting, it’s hard to imagine ever running out of room in Andromeda.
So there are no humans in the 224-Verse?
No – there are common hominids much like us that have originated from presumably any one of (or several of) the estimated 64-billion Earth-like planets that exist in Andromeda, but there is no interaction with our own galaxy, much less lowly Earth.
But with jump technology, wouldn’t it be possible to zip on over to any galaxy you want?
Theoretically, yes but with one major caveat – space is so much bigger than rational thought would lead us to believe. Yes, jump gates allow for instantaneous travel across several lightyears at a time, keep in mind that it would still take a lifetime’s worth of jumps to attempt to cross the entire 200,000 lightyear-wide disc. Now consider that 2.5 million lightyears of empty space separate our galaxies. In space, the term “neighbors” can be very misleading.
How could a single government possibly control that much space?
It can’t. We have a Galactic Assembly composed of several million planetary systems but when you’re talking a trillion of them in total, that’s obviously a drop in the proverbial bucket. They are still the largest and most powerful attempt at a unified government made up of planets the way our United Nations functions with countries but they are far from the only game in town. There are certainly thousands, if not tens of thousands of empires, syndicates, and individual planetary governments out there. Billions more yet undiscovered.
You’re right, space IS big.
Imagine this – if you took the Milky Way and Andromeda and the next closest 50 galaxies and drew a giant border around them all – you’d still only be looking at one-hundred billionth of 1% of the visible Universe. Yes, of just the sliver of the Universe that we are able to observe.
What’s the wildest thing Zan Dane has ever seen?
Tough one! Whatever it is, he hasn’t seen fit to tell me yet. But if he does, I’ll be sure to write it down.
In closing, a final question. Since the 224-Verse is clearly your baby, what made you decide to open it to contribution from anyone?
It comes back to that scope mentioned above. I set up the rules and the technology, the cultures who got the ball rolling and even some of the myriad of governments attempting to keep order. I then used these things as the backdrop to my Zan Dane story arc but to think I came close to exhausting the potential for stories set in this expansive galaxy is absurd.
Authors like James Pyles, Gregg Cunningham and A.S. Charly have stepped up and contributed tales of their own into the collective and the call remains open to anyone. Sandboxes this big become even more fun to play in when you invite the whole neighborhood over.
June 7, 2019
No Wrongs, Only Write
Analyzing Fantasy: Fantalyzing?
Fantasy literature can be an odd conundrum. We go into it, we cherish it, we crave it for certain trappings and yet when it delivers too thoroughly on many of these, we criticize it for being unoriginal, a rehash, trope-ridden.
Perhaps it is up to fantasy authors, then, to juggle all of the components so that they at least feel fresh to the reader while maintaining the perfect balance of staple ingredients as not to stray too far from the roots.
As an author, I find myself thinking of these concepts often. As a reader I find myself frequently frustrated with the fantasy of the day doing its best to differentiate itself from the tropes. All too often I find myself flowing along in a decent piece of modern fantasy literature but putting on the proverbial brakes because it’s “too modern”, “too snarky”, “too dark”, too whatever. Then, so as to clean the proverbial pallet, I must spend some time with what I consider to be the true classics of the genre until I’m ready to venture into other subcategories once more.
I suppose some of the frustration in all of this stems from the simple fact that it’s really difficult to pinpoint precisely what separates the really great from the rest. Who among us hasn’t picked up a fantasy novel, excited to dig into it, only to discover it feels stale, cliche’, all too familiar?
The trouble, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that we crave the universe that has been pre-built in our folk tales, epics, fairy tales and myths but the trouble is these stories have been told for a long time now!
From a literary standpoint this is true to an extent- though not nearly as popular as Lord of the Rings in hindsight, 1954 was the same year Poal Anderson’s epic The Broken Sword saw publication. The Worm Ouroboros, a heroic high fantasy novel by English writer Eric Rücker Eddison, was first published in 1922. And even The Broken Sword is oft considered a successor to the 1891 novel The Saga of Eric Brighteyes, by H. Rider Haggard. John Ruskin wrote The King of the Golden River back in 1851. And that’s just talking about contemporary fantasy literature. The real roots of the experience can be traced back so much further; to before the written word in fact!
So really, a lot of what makes a piece, even one riddled with familiar trappings, feel fresh is the combination of two things: 1) The Characters and 2) The Prose.
Let’s start with the second. I like to think that post-Tolkien epic fantasy scribes like Robert Jordan, Janny Wurts and Patricia McKillip (to mention a few) realized that flowery, often borderline poetic prose could bring a gravity, a richness to the material. Granted, it’s not for everyone. Some readers want just the facts, ma’am. I personally find their approach in cavalier use of the English language to be strangely satisfying in such a context. Perhaps one of my absolute favorite literary phenomena to experience is the one where the prose is tricky, bogged down and slow-going from the onset but before you know it, somehow the feeling disappears and you’re able to find perfect flow within it. It all just clicks; an instant and sublime gateway into the worlds being created. It’s rare but when it happens, I simply cannot help but admire what the author has accomplished when it does.
On the flip side, authors like George RR Martin and Brandon Sanderson have managed to do something equally rare and wonderful in creating characters (and worlds) that keep the reader riveted. Martin in fact has gone on record stating that it is the struggles of the human condition that make a story engaging, regardless of its setting. In realizing this, it becomes clear that ASOIAF is essentially an exercise in the human psyche’ that just so happens to be wrapped around a fantastical setting. It’s no wonder, then, that it has grown to become one of the most popular contemporary fantasy series of our time. Sanderson creates worlds and magic systems that are characters in and of themselves. It’s very easy to get lost in the fantasy he creates as a result.
In conclusion, I will just keep on zapping this well-worn credit card in constant need for fantasy literary purchases in the school of reasoning, which happens occasionally to be proven wonderfully accurate: Freshness and fantasy do not need to be mutually exclusive terms.
Fantasy literature can be an odd conundrum. We go into it, we cherish it, we crave it for certain trappings and yet when it delivers too thoroughly on many of these, we criticize it for being unoriginal, a rehash, trope-ridden.
Perhaps it is up to fantasy authors, then, to juggle all of the components so that they at least feel fresh to the reader while maintaining the perfect balance of staple ingredients as not to stray too far from the roots.
As an author, I find myself thinking of these concepts often. As a reader I find myself frequently frustrated with the fantasy of the day doing its best to differentiate itself from the tropes. All too often I find myself flowing along in a decent piece of modern fantasy literature but putting on the proverbial brakes because it’s “too modern”, “too snarky”, “too dark”, too whatever. Then, so as to clean the proverbial pallet, I must spend some time with what I consider to be the true classics of the genre until I’m ready to venture into other subcategories once more.
I suppose some of the frustration in all of this stems from the simple fact that it’s really difficult to pinpoint precisely what separates the really great from the rest. Who among us hasn’t picked up a fantasy novel, excited to dig into it, only to discover it feels stale, cliche’, all too familiar?
The trouble, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that we crave the universe that has been pre-built in our folk tales, epics, fairy tales and myths but the trouble is these stories have been told for a long time now!
From a literary standpoint this is true to an extent- though not nearly as popular as Lord of the Rings in hindsight, 1954 was the same year Poal Anderson’s epic The Broken Sword saw publication. The Worm Ouroboros, a heroic high fantasy novel by English writer Eric Rücker Eddison, was first published in 1922. And even The Broken Sword is oft considered a successor to the 1891 novel The Saga of Eric Brighteyes, by H. Rider Haggard. John Ruskin wrote The King of the Golden River back in 1851. And that’s just talking about contemporary fantasy literature. The real roots of the experience can be traced back so much further; to before the written word in fact!
So really, a lot of what makes a piece, even one riddled with familiar trappings, feel fresh is the combination of two things: 1) The Characters and 2) The Prose.
Let’s start with the second. I like to think that post-Tolkien epic fantasy scribes like Robert Jordan, Janny Wurts and Patricia McKillip (to mention a few) realized that flowery, often borderline poetic prose could bring a gravity, a richness to the material. Granted, it’s not for everyone. Some readers want just the facts, ma’am. I personally find their approach in cavalier use of the English language to be strangely satisfying in such a context. Perhaps one of my absolute favorite literary phenomena to experience is the one where the prose is tricky, bogged down and slow-going from the onset but before you know it, somehow the feeling disappears and you’re able to find perfect flow within it. It all just clicks; an instant and sublime gateway into the worlds being created. It’s rare but when it happens, I simply cannot help but admire what the author has accomplished when it does.
On the flip side, authors like George RR Martin and Brandon Sanderson have managed to do something equally rare and wonderful in creating characters (and worlds) that keep the reader riveted. Martin in fact has gone on record stating that it is the struggles of the human condition that make a story engaging, regardless of its setting. In realizing this, it becomes clear that ASOIAF is essentially an exercise in the human psyche’ that just so happens to be wrapped around a fantastical setting. It’s no wonder, then, that it has grown to become one of the most popular contemporary fantasy series of our time. Sanderson creates worlds and magic systems that are characters in and of themselves. It’s very easy to get lost in the fantasy he creates as a result.
In conclusion, I will just keep on zapping this well-worn credit card in constant need for fantasy literary purchases in the school of reasoning, which happens occasionally to be proven wonderfully accurate: Freshness and fantasy do not need to be mutually exclusive terms.
October 8, 2017
No Wrongs, Only Write
So I've been meaning to come by here and get a blog underway since August of 2015 if the official Goodreads clock is accurate. A little over two years later I'm finally sitting down to accomplish precisely that (whoever told you authors were sticklers when it comes to deadlines was lying).
And while this is the spot where readers can come to for updates on what I'm working on next, when they expect future releases, sources for inspiration etc. I figured it only fitting to dedicate the first official post to anything but such useful information, instead satisfying my own curiosities about the origin of the whole blog concept itself.
It seems by and large the blog ideal has been replaced by social media. Why waste one's time reading actual sentences and paragraphs when a Tweet doing its best to make the most of 140 characters can tell you all you need to know? Then we're surprised that young people struggle to make a sentence without ridiculous acronyms? Or StoMaSWRA as I've just now coined it.
Anyway, the blog dates back to 1994 in an era where I had yet to secure an email address. Back then it was just known as somebody's personal webpage but there's almost nothing kitschy about that.
The concept of dedicated web logging wouldn't hatch for three more years and it would take two more after that (1999 for all non-math majors) that the term "blog" a combination of the words weB and LOG came to be.
All of this considered, I'm a little more than two years late to the blog party huh? Something more like 23-years late - but who's counting?
So there's my random but hopefully useful bit of web history to kick off my first official blog post. The real question, though, is whether or not I could have managed all this in a single Tweet. I'm thinking not on your life. Er I mean NOYL.
And while this is the spot where readers can come to for updates on what I'm working on next, when they expect future releases, sources for inspiration etc. I figured it only fitting to dedicate the first official post to anything but such useful information, instead satisfying my own curiosities about the origin of the whole blog concept itself.
It seems by and large the blog ideal has been replaced by social media. Why waste one's time reading actual sentences and paragraphs when a Tweet doing its best to make the most of 140 characters can tell you all you need to know? Then we're surprised that young people struggle to make a sentence without ridiculous acronyms? Or StoMaSWRA as I've just now coined it.
Anyway, the blog dates back to 1994 in an era where I had yet to secure an email address. Back then it was just known as somebody's personal webpage but there's almost nothing kitschy about that.
The concept of dedicated web logging wouldn't hatch for three more years and it would take two more after that (1999 for all non-math majors) that the term "blog" a combination of the words weB and LOG came to be.
All of this considered, I'm a little more than two years late to the blog party huh? Something more like 23-years late - but who's counting?
So there's my random but hopefully useful bit of web history to kick off my first official blog post. The real question, though, is whether or not I could have managed all this in a single Tweet. I'm thinking not on your life. Er I mean NOYL.
