The wonderful thing about being a self-published author is the freedom to work on whatever strikes your fancy, whenever that fancy is struck. Over the last few months since the release of my 3rd Cthulhu Mythos novella in the Stepping Stone Cycle, Drowned, I’ve been itching to dabble back in the Bridge Chronicles universe. There are so many more stories I want to tell in the cyberpunk genre, and I had begun telling them as short stories, announcing a few months ago that I would be putting out a new short story collection called Tales from the Bridge Chronicles, Volume 2. I had so far completed the rough drafts of four (4) cyberpunk short stories, with a fifth (5) longer one in the works. As I began writing this story, it just got longer and longer in my head. I had initially thought it would end up being about 15,000 words, which along with the other longer one for Tales 2, would make the entire collection probably around 50,000 words more or less depending on what other stories I added beyond these five.
A curious thing happened during the writing of that 15,000 word story. I’m already 10,000 words into it and not quite sure how long it would end up being. It had started as a follow-up to the story I’ve already posted on this site, Incursive Share. This story was to be about the rescue of the 4nasia inhabitants – if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read Incursive Share. The more I thought about how those two stories tie together, the more I realized that all but one of the stories I’d already written had a connection to this story as well. Looking at the word total for the whole thing, I began to see that the story I was really telling was larger than the individual pieces, and would make a fantastic fifth book in the Bridge Chronicles series. As of today, I’m beginning the process of tying all these pieces into one coherent narrative, moving back and forth across the timeline between established Bridge universe history and into “present-day” Bridge time.
With all that in mind, I am happy to announce that the next book in the Bridge Chronicles series will be a novel instead of a short story compilation. The tenative (and pretty firmly decided) title is Reclamation. It will be a departure from previous Bridge novels, which have largely focused on the story from Bridge’s viewpoint with dalliances into other characters perspective. I would estimate that the viewpoint of this one will be more like 40% Bridge, 60% other characters. There will definitely be returns from some old favorites, including Aristotle, Stonewall and Far-El of the Bottle City Boys, as well as a bit more time spent in the Bottle City itself. I hope to have this novel completed and published by year’s end, making for a nice Christmas gift for all you cyberpunk fans!
After that, I intend to complete the first season of the Stepping Stone Cycle, and then it’ll be back to Bridge. I have in my mind at least five (5) more cyberpunk novels in the Bridge universe, one of which will likely be the prequel (yes, the dry-hump of series fiction) I’ve always had in mind covering our favorite characters during the 2027 riots.
Are you excited by this news? Let me know on my Twitter feed!