Kane: A Promise Kept (and Long Overdue)

Let me start off by officially saying that Kane has been completely finalized and is ready for publication. After years of talking this book has finally, officially arrived. It's a little weird to finally see it in front of me, and to be honest it kind of changes things,but I think it's important to go with these feelings as a writer... I would never want to force myself into something simply because I thought others wanted it, if my heart was not in it.

But first, let's talk about Kane. It's been five years since I wrote the ending of Sunrise, the third book in the American Vampires trilogy. Ever since then, I have been developing Kane in my head. I knew that one day I would revisit that character and examine where he fit into this world remade (or unmade). Initially, I thought a short story might suffice. I'd catch up with Kane for a night and see what he had been up to, and it would serve as a nice little epilogue.

Well, it was a nice thought, but like so many things, it grew. I decided a novella would really be the way to go with this story, after I thought about it. As time went by after completing the trilogy, I had no idea what to do without those characters. I embarked on other journeys, but it always felt like there was still a hole. Yes, I thought Kane's journey warranted some space and time, but the truth was that I also, personally, needed to go back into that world and write something again. So a novella was planned.

And a novella was written. When I completed the first draft of Kane in February 2011, that's what it was. It was a nice, quick-paced niblet of a book that would stand somewhere between 100-150 pages. Around the length of the second American Vampires book. It seemed fair, especially having been conceived as a short story, and I stepped back from the first draft and moved onto other things (I was also drafting all of the Nightmaria books at the time.)

With the first draft of Kane written, I still felt unfulfilled, I came up with many ambitious plans to write in the American Vampires mythology, even managed drafts of a few of them (Better Off Red and Over the Red Rainbow) and have not altogether abandoned the other ideas. So I kept talking about Kane, kept promising, and time still went by and the promises were more and more empty. So as soon as I put out Bully for publication, my first book in two years, I had a sudden, determined thought: Kane will be published, and it will be published soon.

And as it was thought, so has it been. Frankly, I'm amazed it happened in this amount of time without being delayed again because something happened to that little novella as soon as I began to work on the second draft: it became a novel. The final, completed version of Kane, the book you will soon hold in your hands will average out to around 300 pages. That is 200 pages longer than the first draft and something that has never happened to me while writing before.

It is not a massive book, it is in fact probably just the length it was meant to be all along, I was simply too lazy to get it there. It is a deeper, more complex (and much, much tighter) narrative than it had been initially. The characters have more to do and the plot, as it were, has expanded exponentially while keeping consistent throughout. There are some definite, absolute surprises in this book. It has grown much bigger, established a larger universe around Kane himself than even the American Vampires books went into. It is altogether a more adult book than the books of the American Vampires. As much as it is about catching up with old friends, it is also about telling a very different story with genuine surprises (I know they'll surprise you, because they surprised me.) It's not only a book I'm proud of, but honestly a book I'm much prouder of than I expected to be.

The true success of Kane, having now well and truly finished it, is a personal one: it filled the hole. For five years there has been the nagging, burning desire to return to the stories and characters and world of American Vampires. A very deep need. I don't have it anymore. Yes, there will be American Vampires: The Series, don't worry, but that's an entirely different thing. That's an old story in a new format and completely different than approaching a new story and furthering that universe altogether. Yes, I'm sure you'll be seeing the world of American Vampires again, with all good hope you'll be seeing it on the screen very soon. But I'm already backtracking on an entire earlier blog post by saying, "don't expect a return on the page anytime too soon."

Kane was an exciting return to some old characters, and some very new ones. It might be the most fun I've ever had writing a book. But, simply put, it filled the hole. It was a revisit to that world and, in some ways, the only one I'll ever need. I'm not sure what else there is to say about the world these characters inhabit. Yes, some things were built up, and some things left unanswered, and very intentionally. No story like this is ever abandoned, but it is left to gestate for awhile. I promised a new vampire book series, a collection, you might still see these things... but I think, in the end, if you read this book, you'll feel as satisfied as I do.

The vampires will return someday, but until then, walk through Kane's adventure with him, and then leave the man in peace. Believe me, he's earned it.