As you might recall, one of projects I’ve been working on for my Patreon supporters is a serialized version of The Echo of Memory, which is a heavily revised take on my first published novel.

The book was first published in 2004 as Black Fire by James Kidman, and there was a paperback edition from Leisure and a signed Limited Edition hardcover from Cemetery Dance Publications, but it’s been out of print since then.

Now that my Patreon supporters have given me the opportunity to tackle this one again, I’m restoring my preferred title and my real name for all future editions.

So far, there has been a ton of fine tuning and some serious excising of unnecessary material through Chapter Twenty, but something really surprising happened in the following section:

I discovered a bunch of chapters that really, really, really were NOT needed.

The reason why this happened is actually rather simple: the first finished draft of the novel was only 50,000 words, but in the early 2000s, that wasn’t long enough to sell the book as a novel to a trade publisher.

A good friend gave me some tips on how make the story zig and zag, to add more words and stretch things out, and that added material got me to the word count needed to sell the book to Leisure, but…

None of what I added really helps the story.

And my rule these days is simple: if the material doesn’t develop the characters or move the story forward (and preferably it does both things), out it goes.

So, yep, this will be one of those very rare “Author’s Preferred Editions” where stuff is being CUT out instead of crammed back in, and I’m certain you won’t miss the things I’m editing out.

Reworking this section is taking me a little bit more time that expected, but I’ll have some more news to share soon, and I thank everyone again for all of your support!

Brian