Chronicles of Empire
This is my magnum opus, and will be 6 books when completed. I began working on this project in 1995, and finally published the first book at the end of 2016.
The series follows the lives of a group of characters and how they grow to change the world – and how it changes them in turn.
I wrote about 30% of book 2 and still had over 70k words of notes to go through, when I realized that it would still take a few more years to finish this. As I was utterly broke and committed to a career as an author, I decided to pause this project to write a faster series of books….
Destroyer series
It was always imagined that the original Chronicles of Empire series would be followed by a trilogy set over 2,000 years from the events covered there. I still have a draft of one of these books, and have the major plot elements planned out.
Events in the Destroyer series run in parallel to that project. I wrote it because I thought I could write and publish it fast to push my writing career forward. To do so properly took longer than expected, but I had all three books ready within 3 years. Then, just before they were ready for publishing, I suffered my illness from which I still haven’t recovered.
Although complete as a trilogy, at some point in the future I’m tempted to write a 4th Destroyer book to really complete the entire Chronicles of Empire arc.
There is also a standalone SF book I’d begun that could be thought of as a prequel to the Destroyer trilogy. I began this while the Destroyer trilogy was going through editing. This book is plotted, chapter 1 written, and I even have the cover. This is what I was going to focus on until illness stopped everything.
The Living Universe
This is something I’ve wanted to write since 1995, when I first came up with the core ideas. I knew I couldn’t write it then because I didn’t have the evidence I needed to make a solid scientific argument for it. Over the following years and decades I regularly read the science press and added notes. I also made a couple of abortive attempts on this book, but I couldn’t find my writing voice.
Then in 2024 I started re-watching David Attenborough’s Life on Earth TV series, as a kind of easy viewing and nostalgic comfort food for my mind, as my illness means I mentally struggle to watch any TV for long. After I finished watching each episode, though, his voice continued in my mind – and I realized I had what I needed to write The Living Universe.
I therefore brought together all my notes and organized them (while still continually adding to them) and began writing this book. It hasn’t all been smooth – sometimes I lose my voice – but it’s always at its best when I imagine I can hear the voice of David Attenborough narrating it.
Although it was a challenge, I found it easier to write non-fiction than fiction – with fiction you need to engage a creative part of your brain to make up everything you need for your writing, which I still find too difficult. With non-fiction, though, it’s more about organizing facts and information, and I found I was able to do this for short bursts in the early morning, and tidy it up at weekends.