Conqueror of the Sun - Severed Galaxy takes place between book 4 and 5, but in the 2400s with humanity already colonizing the Milky Way Galaxy. Significant events in the story: the destruction of the Earth by the IRF, the reveal that the Arc bloodline is still alive, and a new female protag: Orchid Arc.

The depiction below shows Orchid Arc at age 12 in an Apricus Sol temple. Although an IRF Princess, Orchid does not wear the usual white princess dress but instead has a unique one made that allows her still be able to do close-quarter fighting, which she does a lot of throughout her life.

The Apricus Sol shrine is of IRF Founding Emperor Shawn Arc (top) and IRF Princess Abigail Arc (bottom and also Orchid's mother).

 Although the Alternate Light chronicles cover color looks good online, the real paperback version, in person, I am not perfectly happy with. So, I tried to make a new cover and submitted it to Amazon today. After a few days, I will order a new physical copy and make comparisons. 

In the image below, it looks like the Prologue Chronicles, but it should turn out a lighter color of orange. At least that is the hope...

In other news, being now officially into the year 2021, today on Jan. 3rd, I started to do the finishing up work on Conqueror of the Sun - Severed Galaxy. The release date for this remains at sometime in Jan. or Feb. And even though I set a goal for myself of doing one book a year and since Severed Galaxy is so close to being finished, I feel I may be able to do 2 books this year.
If this is to occur, most likely it would be Conqueror of the Sun - The Dead Doll Princess. Since in the timeline, The Dead Doll Princess comes right after Severed Galaxy and make up a kind of mini-saga within the Conqueror of the Sun series.

 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. 

 The 1st side book to the Conqueror of the Sun series is now published and available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Conqueror-Sun-Princess-Alternate-Chronicles/dp/B08NRXFW7H

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.

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.

 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.

New scene image from Conqueror of the Sun - Queen's Chaos

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.