The Shattered Empire comes out this weekend and I thought I’d write a bit about it. The Fallen Race was the second novel I ever completed. I was deployed to Iraq when I wrote it, in about a two week stretch while I was moving from one position to another, with basically no internet access, no job other than to get from one spot to the next, and two weeks of total brownout (which meant I couldn’t fly and convoys weren’t driving). I edited and rewrote sections of that novel, on and off, for five years before I finally grew tired of rejection letters and self-published.

Fast forward to today. It took me considerably longer (two months, more or less) to write and edit The Shattered Empire. I’m a bit busier now, though, with a full time job, a wife, and a new baby. The Shattered Empire is a different book, too, written with a better perspective on the universe and with a better idea of where I wanted this all to go… and most importantly, I knew that I had an audience and people wanted to read what I wrote. That gave me a bit of room to expand and experiment a bit.

A bit of warning, The Shattered Empire has a lot of politics, character interactions, and drama. It also has exploding space ships, assassins, mercenaries, and heroes. So I think it’s a better book for having some depth. It is also a huge book, at over 170,000 words, it’s almost half again as long as The Fallen Race. It’s a long read. There are a lot of characters… though the action remains focused around Baron Lucius Giovanni. I do, however, get to explore some of the side characters who didn’t get enough time in The Fallen Race.

All in all, I am happy with The Shattered Empire. I’ll admit, I don’t think it’s perfect, but given the time constraints and current events in my life, I’m proud of what I accomplished. Give it a read and write a review, let me know what you think.  It’s available here from Amazon.