The GENERAL follow-on series:

I outlined four books in this series. The Chosen was my take on a group not dissimilar to that of Steve's solo Draka novels; The Reformer, based on a Roman model; The Heretic, with a setting like New Kingdom Egypt; and The Green Planet, AKA Jane Fonda Planet, which was a vehicle for Jim to get out his irritation with liberals.

After The Chosen, Steve Stirling, Jim Baen and I all decided that Steve wasn't the right person to write The Green Planet. It was dropped from his four-book contract and replaced by splitting the plot for The Reformer into two books. The Green Planet was assigned to Eric Flint... but he didn't really want to do it either, and by this point I wasn't sure I really wanted the book written myself. (I did get paid for my work.) Jim has had various notions of what to do with the plot, including developing it as a round-robin on the bar at Baen.com, but at the back of my mind there's the awareness that if I just keep my mouth shut the plot may quietly sleep through eternity in a filing cabinet somewhere.

More recently, Steve Stirling has been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and has gotten a couple big solo contracts from another publisher. He and Jim have cancelled the original contracts on The Redeemer and The Heretic, and Eric Flint will be writing the books.

Eric is at present working on The Tyrant, which is the new title for The Redeemer. Publication is projected for March 2002 from Baen.

--Dave Drake