Yesterday, people read 658 pages from the Conqueror of the Sun saga. It doesn't tell me if it is one person or a number of people, but either way, it is great to see people slowly discover and read through the series. I would also assume they are enjoying it since otherwise they would stop reading. In fact, for the first time, people are starting to go into the 2nd book in the series "Mass Conspiracy". All and all, not bad for an author with zero history, self-published, and virtually no advertising.
Sunday, December 6, 2020
The 1st side book to the Conqueror of the Sun series is now published and available on Amazon.
The Cursed Princess takes place right after the events at the end of Conqueror of the Sun - Book 4 - Queen's Chaos.
Ideally, The Cursed Princess should only be read after reading the 5 main book numbered series and 2 Prelude to Destiny prequel novels. Although, given the timeline according to the saga, The Cursed Princess can be read after Book 4.
A few side notes: I had to make the cover for The Cursed Princess a bit darker shade of yellow to counter the white font text. As I have mentioned before, each sub-series for the Conqueror of the Sun series will have a color-coded cover for the chronicles set it belongs to. Thus, all future novels under the "Alternate Light Chronicles" will be the same color.
The next book anticipated to be published is from the "W.A.R. Chronicles" sub-series and entitled "Conqueror of the Sun - Severed Galaxy." Being already around 290 pages and nearing completion, I am thinking early 2021 should be doable, perhaps even specifically in Jan. and Feb.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Without even realizing it until today, I am close to finishing two of my side books: Severed Galaxy and The Cursed Princess. I'd like to get one out before the end of 2020, but that might be a bit tight. But if not, definitely both will be out in 2021.
Friday, October 30, 2020
Been working on a lot to finish the first side book for the Conqueror of the Sun series which will be from the W.A.R. Chronicles and entitled "Severed Galaxy". I have also done a lot of work on "The Cursed Princess" from the Alternate Light chronicles which there is good chance it will be the book to be published after Severed Galaxy.
Currently Severed stands at 280 pages, with a rough estimate of 300-310 for the final version. The Cursed Princess is currently around 130-180 pages.
I ultimately plan to put these images in a "game" version of the Conqueror of the Sun series as a kind of Visual Novel. I have been working in chronological order according to the timeline of the books. This means I have been trying to focus on Conqueror of the Sun - Prelude to Destiny - 1st Light. With already over 100 images completed, I figure I am about halfway done.
Anyway, despite usually keeping disciplined to doing the scenes in order, occasionally I really want to skip ahead and do a scene from much further in the timeline. Such is the case of the following image meant to represent a scene from Conqueror of the Sun - Book 4 - Queen's Chaos:
The moment is a pretty important one for the entire series. The setting is the throne room of the IRF Imperial Sunrise Palace located in the Nevada deserts. From left to right are the following characters: General of the SF Joshua Rikes, Heaven's General Kier in Gold Claw colored Desakar power armor suit, IRF Empress Sarah Arc on the throne, Adjunct Heaven's General Varivies, General of War Horatio Wells, IRF Prince Jareth Arc (at age 15), and IRF Princess Emily Arc (13).
The image is meant to represent the time when Prince Jareth Arc confronts his mother Empress Sarah Arc about the status of the crumbling IRF Empire under her watch.
Overall, I am pretty pleased with how close the image mimics how I imagined it in my head. The following is a breakdown of what is very similar and what things are different than how I pictured things:
Joshua Rikes, Sarah Arc, and Horatio Wells characters look almost exactly how I imagined them. The overall throne room style is pretty close as well. A few differences compared to what is described in the book would be: 1) The entire throne is supposed to be gold (although having cushions makes a bit more sense) and also the throne is meant to be a bit bigger. 2) The number of steps leading up to the throne is only off by one, as it is mentioned to have 5 instead of 6 steps. Also, the steps, as I envisioned them would be wider in length and slightly taller. The Gold Claw Desakar armor is at least gold, but if I could really design the armor more precisely, they would look more bulky all around and the head/helmet would be more box-like in shape and seem more a part of the chest part.
And although not seen from the angle in this image, Jareth Arc and Emily Arc are fairly close to how I imagined them. The IRF Princess dress is also kind of close, but the dress is a little plain. Also, the straps would rest on the top part of the shoulders and have the IRF Princess rank insignia pinned to each side. Nonetheless, the design of the top back of the dress is basically exactly how I envisioned it as well as the dress length. The shoes and socks are fine too. In addition to this, the front top of the dress is basically exactly how it should be, not being a v-cut, but flat, straight line across the chest. Finally, although not seen, Emily Arc is actually wearing the garters designed to hold the IRF Princess Knives, but they are just above the dress bottom length.
The military uniforms for Joshua Rikes, Horatio Wells, and Jareth Arc are very close, but the boot length would not be as tall and not so shiny. However, the biggest change I wish I could get is to make the collars to be more tunic style as well as both the top and pants being more tight-fitting. The IRF symbols at the collar front are how I imagined, but they would be square in shape and again closer to one another due to the tight fit style of tunic tops.
Originally, I wanted the IRF symbol on the spine of the paperback books, but the first time I made an attempt it didn't work out so well. However, with a lot of tweaking and making the IRF symbol more precise, I think I did it. The true test will be when I get physical copies to see if the spine versions are clear and neat.
Oh, and it will be included on the Prologue Chronicles books too, as well as any other future books given they turn out well.
Also during making the new Chronicle covers, I thought about trying to fix an issue that readers often get confused with as to which book one should start reading at for the Conqueror of the Sun series.
Long story short: Conqueror of the Sun - Book 1 - Seed of an Orchid is where first-time readers should start the series and then continue in numbered order 1 through 5.
Even though chronologically speaking the two Prelude books come before the main 5 book series, it is actually better if you read Book 1 through 5 first before returning to the background story. At least this is the way the series was designed to be read.
As to a little more detailed background on why I changed the color covers for the Prologue Chronicles books, originally, way back when I formed the series concept in high school it was always going to be the main 5 books from the beginning. However, later I started to ask myself what was happening before book 1 started, which would specifically be in relation to the two main characters of the entire series: Shawn and Sabrina Arc.
So, at this point, the series was going to be 6 books long. But, with no shortage of ideas, years covered, and content I wanted to do, eventually, it became clear that the Prelude to Destiny story would need to be split into two books. The reason for this was mainly for my own set rule for page length for each book of the main series to be between 300-500 pages. I set this standard for my own psychological viewpoint on if I was to try reading a new book, ideally I would not want to/be less likely to pick up a novel over 500 pages. Not that I haven't read novels/books over that length, but at least it seemed the best marker range in my opinion.
After the two Prelude to Destiny books were completed, they each ended up being over 400 pages, so clearly I had to split them.
Now, for most of the development of this 7 book saga and before being published, I had always numbered each book starting from the Prelude book.
Thus, the original plan looked like this:
Conqueror of the Sun - 01 - Prelude to Destiny - 1st Light
Conqueror of the Sun - 02 - Prelude to Destiny - 2nd Light
Conqueror of the Sun - 03 - Seed of an Orchid
Conqueror of the Sun - 04 - Mass Conspiracy
Conqueror of the Sun - 05 - Reign of Terror
Conqueror of the Sun - 06 - Queen's Chaos
Conqueror of the Sun - 07 - The IIIrd Tear
This is the correct chronological order to the main series, but I always intended readers to start with Seed of an Orchid as the series is designed to be read from first. However, once getting close to publishing, I realized that even though I, as the author, knew exactly where to start; someone discovering the saga would not know the best place to begin and would most likely just go to Conqueror of the Sun - 01 - Prelude to Destiny - 1st light without reading the foreword or back cover descriptions.
I always had "disclaimers" plans to make the read order clear in the foreword. But I quickly realized this would not be enough. Luckily, while talking to a friend that already knew I had a number of other Chronicle sub-series planned, he suggested I turn the Prelude books into their own Chronicles series. I definitely thought this would help lessen confusion as to where to begin, but really, I also always wanted the two Prelude books to be a tightly connected part of the main 5 book story.
So, this is why, originally, I removed the two Prelude books from the numbered series and gave them a Chronicles title of "Prologue Chronicles". But, in order to give the unspoken idea of these two background stories still being a part of the main saga for the Conqueror of the Sun series, I wanted to keep them the same color as the 5 book main story.
However, I have found there is still confusion as to where to start reading the Conqueror of the Sun series, which probably is result of making all 7 books the same color.
My hope is that giving the two Prelude to Destiny books their own color code (as per dividing up the rest of the side storybook chronicles sub-series types) will help resolve this issue.
Following are the new look of the two Prelude books for the Prologue Chronicles:
Currently, the eBook versions have already been uploaded (although it will take a while to update on Amazon). Next, I plan on doing the paperback versions as well.
Incidentally, the color code for each Chronicle series (including the main saga) is meant to be related to each type:
Main 5 book series: Black and Red for the exact representation of the IRF flag/symbol.
Prologue Chronicles: Orange to represent a rising sun as it comes before the main story.
W.A.R. Chronicles: Ideally, using Black and Red for the IRF flag would have made most sense...but...since that color scheme is already used in the main 5 books, I decided to simply reverse the color scheme. Red is also supposed to relate to blood which should be an obvious metaphor for the more war orientated content of this Chronicles sub-series.
Alternate Light Chronicles: Yellow as in relation to "Light".
Memory Chronicles: Blue as to be reminiscent of the sky in relation to if someone was lying down on the ground and looking up and remembering pass moments.
D.A.R.K. Chronicles: Grey to fit in with the theme of "Darkness".
Ice Sanctuary Chronicles: Light Blue to invoke the idea of "ice".
During the process of making the other Chronicles book covers for the Conqueror of the Sun series, I had noticed that the IRF symbol by the artist was slightly off-angle (from the base of the triangle). So, I fixed it before doing the new covers. Today, I redid the main series covers and made both a 1920x1080p IRF Flag and 1:1 ratio avatar for the IRF symbol.
With the main 7 books of the Conqueror of the Sun series completed, I continue to work on the various planned side book novels. Today I made up the eBook cover versions for the next few books that are most likely to be done next. As can be seen in the pictures below, each Chronicles sub-series is color-coded:
Beyond being color-coded, each sub-series generally fits into a certain type of story for the Conqueror of the Sun saga:
W.A.R. Chronicles: as the name implies, these books will more focus on battle and action scenes within the story.
Alternate Light Chronicles: most of the stories in this series will be from different people's perspectives than compared to the main characters. They focus on character development and character interactions, turning many secondary characters into the main ones for each side book. Although not as frequent as compared to the W.A.R. Chronicles series, some of the novels will indeed have action and fighting scenes.
D.A.R.K. Chronicles: Granted, the Conqueror of the Sun series, in general, is quite dark with a number of taboo or controversial topics covered, but essentially novels in this sub-series take things even further.
Memory Chronicles: Generally speaking, the novels in this set are more scenes and tales from major characters that could not be condensed into their perspective base main stories.
Ice Sanctuary Chronicles: being as how mentioning anything at all about this sub-series is likely to be major spoilers, I will refrain from talking about what these types of chronicles are about at this time.
This image represents a scene from Conqueror of the Sun - Prelude to Destiny - 2nd Light. Sabrina Arc is talking to her brother over the phone while on her way to school as a foreign exchange student in Japan.
As a small side note: the cell phone Sabrina uses is actually accurate to the time frame for the series' alternate history as this scene takes place in the year 2002.
In other news, during some work on Conqueror of the Sun - Severed Galaxy, I was inspired to create an entirely new side story novel to the series. The new book will be part of the Alternate Light Chronicles sub-series and is called Conqueror of the Sun - The Cursed Princess.
Incidentally, I swore to myself not only would I not create any new side book stories but also specifically a novel where this new tale takes place. The Cursed Princess takes place almost immediately after Conqueror of the Sun - Book 4 - Queen's Chaos.
*Possible spoilers in the next section*
The story features Ana Arc mentioned in the epiloque of Queen's Chaos. Although similar to The Dead Doll Princess that immediately follows Severed Galaxy, The Cursed Princess mostly focuses on Ana Arc's kids. As briefly noted in the epiloque of Book 4, it is stated that Ana Arc had three children, one with Jareth being the father and the other two via another father.
Originally, I never had any names for these characters and thought I would never create them since there was a conscious effort on my part not to detail this story. However, after being inspired by an idea, I just had to make this new story as it has a very special meaning to me. In theory, The Cursed Princess story could have been inserted to any part of the timeline between Book 4 and Book 5 of the main series, but occurring right after Queen's Chaos turned out to be the perfect fit. And even though I have already in one day fleshed out the basic outline of the entire story, I will as for now, only reveal the main characters for this side book: Jayce Arc, Kane Arc, and Bekka Arc. These are the names of the three children of Ana Arc and her mate, Jerel Konrad. Of course, as mentioned at the end of Queen's Chaos, many of the characters change their names, especially in regards to the last name of Arc. In order to further hide her identity, Ana Arc not only takes the last name of Konrad from Jerel but also changes her first name to Britney. In addition to these characters, there will be two more important new characters, but since they may spoil the deeper parts of the story, I will refrain from even mentioning their names.
Since I decided to officially add The Cursed Princess to the Conqueror of the Sun series list, I further chose to put in another side book novel idea that I had been throwing around. This other book is to be called Conqueror of the Sun - Sun Kite. Although I am not sure if I will ever actually turn this new tale into a full novel. Nonetheless, the basic premise is already set, which I very much like the idea but do not yet know how the story will unfold in detail. This is considering that I even ever get around to working on it more.
I guess now would be a good time to mention again that although the entire Conqueror of the Sun series is now planned to be 32 books (with the 7 main books already published), it is very unlikely I will do all 25 side stories. However, I can say that at a bare minimum I would very much like to finish the following side books:
Severed Galaxy
The Dead Doll Princess
The Cursed Princess
And It Lasted 100 Hours
Distaste
Shawn and Sabrina Arc: The Untold Stories
Infinity Suns
The Last Mission
Rain's Second Vision
Path to Death
This list is also roughly in the order that I would plan on finishing each novel. Severed Galaxy is almost undoubtedly to be the next completed book as it is now 250 pages. After that, The Dead Doll Princess basically would have to be finished as it is so connected to Severed Galaxy. And although a brand new story, I am thinking The Cursed Princess must be done as the third completed side book. This is mostly due to the fact that similar to Severed Galaxy and The Dead Doll Princess, it covers details during the large time gap between Book 4 and Book 5 of the main series.
Severed Galaxy's story basically revolves around the significant event mentioned in the epilogue of Queen's Chaos: the destruction of Earth by an IRF attack.
The Dead Doll Princess will follow off the coattails of Severed Galaxy.
The Cursed Princess picks off from the ending of Queen's Chaos.
And It Lasted 100 Hours which is specifically mentioned as a prelude chapter in the 5th Book of the main series for Conqueror of the Sun, The IIIrd Tear. Distaste and Rain's Second Vision also become full stories from their prelude chapters.
Distaste mostly focuses on the more detailed story of Hailey and Duncan Kurn.
Rain's Second Vision follows the main characters of that book, Noah Oltraunce and Jessica Emery.
Path to Death also takes place in the era of The IIIrd Tear book and gives the background story to the character Cyrus Klaus.
The Last Mission takes place during the Reign of Terror time period, and even more specifically near the end of that story.
Infinity Suns is a story I very much want to do, but do not know if I will ever publish it even if completed as it "may" affect the entire series in a way that might not be the best thing for the series. Essentially it could detract or weaken the main plot points of the main 7 book saga.
Finally, Shawn and Sabrina Arc: The Untold Stories which for the most part will be even more additional background stories and moments from the time period of the two Prelude books in the Prologue Chronicles. However, even though it is the main focus, the book could include other moments/chapters with Shawn and Sabrina during times outside of the prelude book. These instances would mostly come from The IIIrd Tear era, but could also contain additional stories from Book 1's part. Lastly, I may include a chapter or two from even before the first chapter of the first Prelude book.
Well, this has already become a very long blog, but I will end it off with the new official full long list of planned books for the Conqueror of the Sun series:
Conqueror
of the Sun Main 5 book Series
01. Conqueror of the Sun – 01 – Seed of an Orchid
02. Conqueror of the Sun – 02 – Mass Conspiracy
03. Conqueror of the Sun – 03 – Reign of Terror
04. Conqueror of the Sun – 04 – Queen’s Chaos
05. Conqueror of the Sun – 05 – The IIIrd Tear
Prologue
Chronicles
06. Conqueror of the Sun – Prelude to Destiny –
1st Light
07. Conqueror of the Sun – Prelude to Destiny –
2nd Light
Alternate
Light Chronicles
08. Conqueror of the Sun – The Atrocities of Dr.
Abraham Nivel
09. Conqueror of the Sun – Riot
10. Conqueror of the Sun – Dim Light
11. Conqueror of the Sun – To the Highest Honor
12. Conqueror of the Sun – The Cursed Princess
13. Conqueror of the Sun – Path to Death
14. Conqueror of the
Sun – Distaste
15. Conqueror of the
Sun – Strychnine Trip
16. Conqueror of the
Sun – DDK#3377
17. Conqueror of the Sun – Elixir of Life
18. Conqueror of the Sun – Rain’s Second Vision
Memory
Chronicles
19. Conqueror of the Sun – Shawn and Sabrina Arc:
The Untold Stories
20. Conqueror of the Sun – A Girl Sent
to Hell
21. Conqueror of the
Sun – Orchid's Petals
W.A.R.
Chronicles - (War Account Records)
22. Conqueror of the Sun – Black Sun
23. Conqueror of the Sun – Zero Light
24. Conqueror of the Sun – Winter Storm
25. Conqueror of the Sun – The Last Mission
26. Conqueror of the Sun – Severed Galaxy
27. Conqueror of the Sun – Star Tide
28. Conqueror of the Sun – And It Lasted 100 Hours
I setup up a 5 day long free book deal for the first two books of the Conqueror of the Sun series: Book 1 - Seed of an Orchid and Book 2 - Mass Conspiracy. The promotion will start on Jan. 15 and end on Jan. 19.
