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Welcome back to the history behind Gemini Man! Today we will be moving on to the second book in the series. As an aside, if you have not yet seen it yet, please check out the most recent update in the campaign and leave a comment. I wish to know your opinion on a very important aspect of the production process going forward.
With that out of the way, let us continue.
When we last left off on our story, it was summer of 2019 when Gemini Warrior released after being in various stages of production throughout all of 2018. Most of the rest of the first line of Heroes Unleashed also released at the time and the PulpRev and Superversive movements were also in full swing, ending 2019 on a pretty good note for stories. Silver Empire, too, was doing quite well. As far as NewPub was going, the times were good for readers and writers. Things were looking up.
Not so much for me, though. While I was editing Gemini Warrior, my aunt died of cancer. This was the same one I dedicated the book to. There were also other personal issues from the time weighing me down, mostly things out of my control. In all honesty, this period was more or less a mirror flip to the one I actually wrote the first book in. It was through this time that I outlined the second book, Gemini Drifter, and I expected it to end up also being the complete inverse of the first. Believe it or not, the times do affect artists, writers, and creatives, and what they produce. It's a bit of an unavoidable truth.
I'm not certain it shows as much in the final story as I thought it would, though. I was a lot harsher self-editing this one then I probably was with any book before it or since. Whatever happened, I wanted the story to be what it was--not dragged down by what my brain thought it should be, if that makes sense. The final result, however, did actually end up being a very different story than the first, which is exactly what I wanted from a sequel to something as different than the original. But the mood and the tone matches as much as it should.
Book Two was also my chance to really expand the world the main characters were operating in. Most of the other Heroes Unleashed books at this time were still mainly taking place in their cities and establishing their home ground, but I wanted to stretch out further instead. As a consequence, Gemini Drifter covered a road trip across America to a new destination, and ended up having a completely different supporting cast to the first book as a consequence.
This isn't out of the usual for me, though it was one of the first times I had written a direct follow-up to another story I'd done. The last thing I wanted was to make more of the same. We have more than enough sequels like that these days that are just rehashes of the first. If I'm going to write a sequel, I want it to matter as much as the original.
By the time I actually wrote and finished Book Two, I believe Book One had just officially come out. However, since Heroes Unleashed was a multi-author line with different works needing to be swapped between, it ended up going to the back of the line to be published after everyone else's first books had been released. Remember, Silver Empire was not a major publisher, they only had limited means to operate in. The original book had also been a part of a Kickstarter campaign (weird how that comes around!) with other first entries. This meant those works had priority to be released for backers. And they all did.
So I didn't think the follow-up would be out anytime soon. I spent some time working on other projects for awhile. In fact, I released two other books in 2020, (Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures and The Pulp Mindset) and worked on other projects, fairly confident that Gemini Drifter would not release that year.
It didn't.
What I didn't account for, and what I doubt anyone else did, would be what happened in 2020 to effectively shut the world down. It affected the planet, and there was simply no ignoring it. You know what happened next, everyone does, because it happened to everyone in the world at the time.
Coronavirus ended up shutting most things down, and bringing others to a crawl. Publishers like Silver Empire were no exception, though they still managed some releases. Gemini Drifter didn't release in 2020 or 2021, even though it was done and ready, because they simply had too much on their plate in both as the publisher and in the real world. Not much to be done about it. This was simply common for the time, nothing else to say. However, by the start of 2022, Gemini Drifter actually was gearing up for release, completed cover art and all. I think it was even listed on amazon itself for a short time. It looked like readers would finally get to read the sequel to Book One after a huge delay.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Silver Empire shut down not long after the beginning of 2022 and returned all the books back to the authors to release as they wish. The pandemic had simply hit them too hard, just as it did everyone else, and they could not continue on. I've yet to meet anyone who walked out of the pandemic unscathed in some way.
This let what was a fully completed book sit unreleased in my files while I spent the year of 2022 being published in Cirsova, Pulp Rock, and Sidearm & Sorcery Volume One, as well as putting out both The Last Fanatics and Y Signal, as well as the Gen Y book with Brian Niemeier and David V. Stewart. Last year was one of my most productive on a publishing level, and I am very proud of all of the above projects. I recommend them all.
On top of that, I had already begun planning out a whole new series, which has since landed itself on the backburner. Trust me, this one will be wild once I finally get to focus on it. I did finish my final draft of book one some time ago, but haven't had the time to get back to it. 2022 was a busy year, and I didn't really have the spare time to address three other books needing release in addition to everything else already mentioned.
Thankfully, with the Kickstarter, I can now finally release all of the books into the world. It's been a long time coming. Now you get to see how different all three of these books truly are. Even I was surprised when re-reading and re-editing them for this release.
For context, Gemini Drifter was written around the time of the stories that were put out in the now OOP Planetary Anthology series (one of which is now in the recently released Swords & Maidens anthology), a time when my stories were a tiny bit more morose than I probably intended them to be. Mood really does effect creativity, whether we want it to or not. But, again, I'm not sure that shows as much in the final edit of the book. I was very harsh as an editor on this one.
The actual writing process for this one was smoother than the first. In fact, each book in the series was much easier to write than the one before it. This one, however, was the quickest one to edit as it had the clearest vision after the outline and initial draft was done. I was just completely merciless with it, though for good reason.
When I finally sat down to write Gemini Drifter, I wanted to make sure to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump, or middle book lull, that a lot of follow-ups to first entries in series suffer from. I'd seen it happen so many times that I knew the one thing that had to be done was that whatever happened needed to be more than a mere transitional story. Book Two actually had to matter, a lot, as much as the first one did or the third one would.
I decided the best way to avoid all the usual issues would be to make Gemini Drifter entirely different plot-wise from Gemini Warrior. Whereas Book One was a John Carter-like sword and sorcery story of our heroes landing on a different planet and trying to escape back home through bizarre odds, Book Two ends up being a road trip story of our heroes searching for a specific target to rescue. After the events of Book One, Matthew and Jason end up untangled in a larger, loosely related plot their enemies have crafted and have to deal with a whole new threat on top of it. In this one you'll meet like bounty hunters, even stranger powers like a man who lives in blood, a serial kidnapper cult, and the first appearance of the Gemini Man (?!) himself.
One thing I wanted to avoid was having these books feel like an "origin story" or one long tale with breaks in it, the fate of many modern series. Book One is more or less a standalone story and Book Two, while an actual sequel, also can be read by anyone who is unfamiliar with the first. For those who have read my work, you know that I have done this before. Book Two is where I tried it out for the first time, however. Gemini Drifter is a new episode for our main characters, continuing on from the first with a whole new problem, like older series used to do it before the major publishers decided to get rid of them.
New characters, new locations, new threats, new situations, but also a lot of story progression as well. In every way, I think Book Two is a step up from the first. It was also written when I was a bit more experienced of a writer so I was more prepared for a lot of the weird turns this one takes. I had a few more books and short stories under my belt. Road trip tales are far too rare these days, even rarer from an action adventure tale, never mind a weird one. I also actually got to do more with Primes (the Heroes Unleashed term for superpowered characters) in Book Two, including coming up with some fun powers applied in interesting ways.
As I've said, Gemini Man is bizarre in that it is a series that takes place in a superhero universe where the main characters are not superheroes and don't even deal with legit supervillains. That just means the characters with powers that do show up have to be more low key and off the beaten track from the hardcore ones already out there causing problems. They also have to be a match for someone with the powers of Castor and Pollux, abilities with quite a lot of potential for destruction, and I think the villains in this book definitely manage that.
There is the previously mentioned ability of a man living in blood, but what about someone who can track targets through the cracks in the road itself, or one who shifts his whole momentum through sheer will, or another who can see everything coming by staring at the approaching opponent? There is much one can find in the back roads of a world of heroes and villains, some of them even more wild than a world shaking beatdown between behemoths might be. That was the atmosphere and vibe I wanted to give off with Gemini Drifter.
There's also a bit more about the history of the relics of which the bracelets themselves are a part of, as well as the planet Tyndarus as well. Essentially, Book Two expands on everything in the first one, making it an indispensable chapter in the series while also treading new waters. What happens here also has major consequences for the events of Book Three, the final book.
But we'll get to that one next time!
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| The next chapter... |
At the end of the day, Gemini Drifter is the only book I've done so far as a deliberate reaction to one I've written before. It had to be that way. It also helped me to grow as a writer. I really wanted this series to be unique with each entry, and I think it really shows from the transition between the two books here.
It also was a bit of a transition for me to actually write. Going back for one last edit pass recently on this one was wild, even more than the first was. I remembered a lot of the feelings and experiences going on from the outline stage to the final draft, and was glad to finally be able to put the bow on this one after far too long. Don't worry, readers of Book One, you will soon finally be able to read the sequel and see what happens to Matthew and Jason.
Going back over the entirety of Gemini Man one last time really was a trip, both as a piece of my history as a writer, and as different stages in my life over a few years. It turned out that it meant more to me than I originally thought it did, so I'm excited that you can finally get to experience the entire story for yourself as a complete package. The Kickstarter is really going to allow me to flesh it out as best as I can and put a bow on the whole project, and with extra stories on top of it! I can only thank the readers for allowing me this chance.
But there is still one book left to cover in our journey. I'll see you again next time when we go over the final part of the story and where it all ends up.
You might be surprised!
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