This is the first time I've attempted to write a sequel. Anyone who has read my books will know that I'm not afraid to kill the good guys if the story requires it and the one thing I don't do is compromise the ending to allow a convenient in for a follow on story. However when I wrote the Journeymen I was aware that what I was writing was one episode in a long sequence of stories and wondered if I could plunder real history and retell it using the Journeymen back story. That is still an option.
But I realised nearly two years ago that there was actually an unfinished storyline from the original book that needed to be followed and 'Journeymen II: The Day of Reckoning' is the result. If you've read the original book you will recognise some of the characters - John Markerson, the London based policeman who is also one of the Sons of Arlgon, and Alan Thomas, the Cheshire Police sergeant dragged into the Journeymen renegade plot that ended up at Jodrell Bank radio telescope. Both men are reunited four years after that event, at a time when the Journeymen believe that they have completed their tasking to secure all of the Colonist DNA and push the planet to develop the technology to send it back to the Home Planet. Now that job is done they no longer need the Colonists and can drop the pretence that the planet needs to be run by that particular elite - they want to step out of the shadows and rule Earth themselves, directly.
They know that the Sons of Arlgon are their greatest impediment to achieving this goal and to this end they have decided to organise a mass cull. Against this backdrop we find Alan agreeing to work for the Sons to help reverse their fortunes in placing their people in positions of influence. He also starts a relationship with Linda, who is unwittingly helping the Journeymen to prepare for their cull, and Alan is quickly drawn into a web of danger that surrounds a Journeyman Metropolitan policeman named Strong. Ultimately, on the eve of the mass cull, Alan finds himself in a fight to the death with Strong with unexpected results.
One of the hardest parts of writing a sequel is to avoid the situation where you end up telling the original story again, perhaps a bit abridged like a Reader's Digest book, or you end up referring to people and events that only exist in your personal works of fiction so won't make any sense to readers who haven't read the first book. It's a fine line and one I've worked hard at trying to get right. If you end up reading Journeymen II: The Day of Reckoning then you'll find out the gist of the original Journeyman book and you'll pick up the salient protagonists: the Journeymen, the Sons, the Colonists and of course, the long suffering IBs. You'll pick up on some of the events recorded in the original book where knowing them helps to understand what is going on in this book, but without spoiling the first book in the process.
I'm expecting to publish Journeymen II: The Day of Reckoning by early August so keep a look out on this blog for more information.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit my Book Website here
Follow me on Twitter - @RayASullivan
Join me on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me
No comments:
Post a Comment