Since genre fiction loves series, and since I love looking at things from more than one angle, I usually have more novels planned in any setting I create. Most of them never get written. In fact, most of them never get beyond the “rough outline” stage. Here are some of the stories I thought of but never told in all my various published series (including some you may have thought were one-shots) — all their titles are provisional, of course:<\/p>\n
The Lords of Dus<\/a>: Four published volumes telling one complete story, but I also planned (but never wrote) a spin-off, A Handful of Gold<\/i>, and a sequel, Skelleth<\/i>.<\/p>\n War Surplus<\/a>: Two novels, but I planned a third, The Exile and the Empire<\/i>. I also plotted (admittedly not in much detail) a couple of novels about other IRU cyborgs: Werewolf<\/i> and Defender<\/i>.<\/p>\n The Obsidian Chronicles<\/a>: A trilogy. I’ve had several fans ask me for a sequel, but I have never planned one and don’t ever intend to. I did, however, plot a prequel, Lord Dragon<\/i>, set centuries earlier, about how Enziet became what he was.<\/p>\n Annals of the Chosen<\/a>: Another trilogy with no sequels planned. The series as published, though, is missing a piece; it was originally planned as either four or five novels. I cut out one of them entirely. Untrue Names<\/i> (I later cannibalized the title and central concept for a not-yet-written volume in a different series) would have come between The Wizard Lord<\/i><\/a> and The Ninth Talisman<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n Ethshar<\/a>: Thirteen novels and a short story collection so far, but I have an entire separate page<\/a> about other planned stories in the series. That page, unfortunately, is incomplete and out of date.<\/p>\n Worlds of Shadow<\/a>: Another trilogy. I don’t remember plotting any sequels or spin-offs.<\/p>\n The Bound Lands\/Fall of the Sorcerers: Only two published, but many were planned, right from the start. The two that were published, A Young Man Without Magic<\/i> and Above His Proper Station<\/i>, were supposed to be followed by On A Field Sable<\/i><\/a>. After that the order wasn’t set, but there’s Swordsmen of the Fallen Empire<\/i><\/a>, Untrue Names<\/i>, Assassin in Waiting<\/i><\/a>, The Prince’s Return<\/i>, The Siege of Vair<\/i><\/a>, and several more. (All of these are set in the Bound Lands. Not all of them are part of the Fall of the Sorcerers.)<\/p>\n Gregory Kraft: Only one novel so far, One-Eyed Jack<\/i>, but I plotted two more: Suicide King<\/i> and Queen of Hearts<\/i>.<\/p>\n Ragbaan: Again, only one so far, Vika’s Avenger<\/i>, but two sequels are planned: One-Ninth of Catastrophe<\/i> and A Sea of Slaves<\/i>.<\/p>\n Carlisle Hsing: There are two novels about her, but I also plotted two different versions of a third one with the working title The End of the Night<\/i>.<\/p>\n Shining Steel<\/i><\/a> appears to be a one-shot, but (a) it’s actually set in the same universe as Denner’s Wreck<\/i>\/Among the Powers<\/i> and the Carlisle Hsing stories, and (b) I did plot a sequel, Silver Stars<\/i>, that I never wrote.<\/p>\n I never plotted a sequel to Denner’s Wreck<\/i>\/Among the Powers<\/i><\/a>, but it actually was<\/i> a sequel to a much earlier novel I never finished, Rise and Fall of the Second Imperium<\/i>.<\/p>\n While I had hoped to write more horror, The Nightmare People<\/i><\/a> never had any sequels, prequels, or spin-offs planned, so far as I can recall. Neither did The Rebirth of Wonder<\/i><\/a>, or The Chromosomal Code<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n “The Final Folly of Captain Dancy<\/a>” was supposed to have sequels, but I decided against writing them because they were too dependent on the first story. The working titles were The Further Adventures of Bartholomew Sanchez<\/i>, The Triumphant Return of John Hastings Abernathy<\/i>, and My Days with the Caliburn Witch<\/i>. Tor asked me about prequels about Jack Dancy, but I never came up with any plots that satisfied me.<\/p>\n Esther and I did plot a sequel to Split Heirs<\/i><\/a>, to be called Putting On Heirs<\/i>, but Tor wasn’t interested, so we never wrote it.<\/p>\n I could never figure out a decent sequel to Touched By the Gods<\/i><\/a>, but I did come up with an idea for a prequel, Rubrekir the Destroyer<\/i>.<\/p>\n I’m not going to get into series where nothing’s published yet, or where only short stories have seen print; maybe in another post.<\/p>\n Did I miss anything?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since genre fiction loves series, and since I love looking at things from more than one angle, I usually have more novels planned in any setting I create. Most of them never get written. In fact, most of them never get beyond the “rough outline” stage. Here are some of the stories I thought of… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}