Drew Wagar's Blog

It’s been a long time in coming, the impact of Covid-19 needs little explanation, but it certainly put a crimp in my plans – which definitely did not survive contact with the enemy! Nonetheless this is a significant milestone in getting this book out to you all. We have a story!

First drafts are, by their nature, pretty rough things. I do tend to edit a bit as I go along, so it’s not quite as rough and ready as it might be, but there is still quite a lot more work to do. However, the major elements of the story are in place and now it just needs a thorough review and detailed going over. Dialogue, pacing, description, detail… all of it will come in for considerable scrutiny over the next few weeks!

I’m pretty happy that I’ve done justice to the new realm of the Icemark as we experience it through the senses of our protagonists and antagonists. Tarithel and Shareth have been huge fun to write in this story, which has turned out to be quite complex and tricky to manage. I hope as I read through I feel I’ve done enough – doubtless a few extra bits will have to be written to clear things up.

The word count at present stands just shy of 155k words, which means it’s about the same length as Lords of Midnight. I think this will rise during editing, as I’m pretty sure I need a bit more scene setting and dialogue in places, some bits were definitely a little rushed in the first draft. Overall though, it feels about right. Next up will be a good solid second draft, review by Chris and then on to the editor for the real process of turning it into a book!

From a creative perspective now, my thoughts are turning to my Hegira Space Opera. This will be set in the same universe and time period as my Shadeward Saga, but featuring planets and situations with much higher levels of technology. So far, all I have are ideas, but elements of plot and story are already forming in my mind. This will also be a 4 book series, so plenty more to come.

So, as ever, it’s back to the keyboard!

Feel free to join me on my twitch broadcasts (I’m now a Twitch Partner!) or follow me on YouTube if you wish to watch offline. I’m regularly posting up bits and pieces as I work!

With my Lore and Astro Tours complete, I promised that I would use my Thursday evening Elite Dangerous streams to showcase the “new player experience” and give some of my thoughts on what that was like – inviting other players to join me and “start over” in the game once more, giving us something to do prior to the arrival of the new Odyssey DLC.

With the availability of an “extra CMDR” with the recent Epic Games giveaway, quite a few other notable streamers and players have done something similar, so… in order to do something a bit different and make things a little more interesting, I’ve decided that I would do something rather more ambitious.

I’m not in a position to write another official Elite Dangerous novel, despite the success of both Reclamation and Premonition, but that doesn’t stop me from being creative and wanting to involve the playerbase in new adventures in Elite Dangerous.

So… I’m going to attempt something that I’ve not tried since 2017 and the end of Premonition – an Elite Dangerous in-game story. It features a new NPC controlled by me, “Sassia Bianchi” who you will be able to interact with in-game and the story will be told through the outcomes of her adventures and interactions with the player community. A story called “Elite: Retribution”.

As a story teller, I’ve penned a little background to Sassia’s story of which you can learn a little of in the trailer below. More will be revealed on a weekly basis as an episodic story unfolds within the “Drew Wagar” Private Group in Elite Dangerous on PC. Players can contribute to that story and the outcome will, once again, be decided by the players. Season 1 should take us up to the beginning of the Odyssey DLC availability, we’ll see if the story continues after that…

We begin at 8pm game time on Thursday the 14th of January, in the Drew Wagar private group, broadcasting live on twitch.tv/drewwagar and available afterwards on Youtube.

To join the PG, send a friend request to “Drew Wagar”. You can also send friend requests to “Sassia Bianchi”.

See you in the void.

It’s time to write on, Commanders.

It’s rather difficult to come up with anything non-cliché about 2020, certainly it wasn’t the year any of us expected. Many have had to wrestle with drops in income, huge uncertainty and separation from their loved ones.

From my perspective it threw a large spanner in my plans, requiring a significant U-Turn in various ways. This impacted my book and recording schedule, but did through up quite a few new opportunities too. I’ve arranged two “tours” in the universe of Elite Dangerous and summarised some of the lore in a series of videos – they’ve been well received!

In short then, I didn’t make as much progress on my books as I wanted to. The Shadeward Saga was completed earlier this year and the final installment of Kiri, Zoella and Meru’s adventures seems to have been well received. I’ve also completed my first 4 book series, which is a milestone in itself, bringing my list of published full length novels to a total of 8.

I’ve been working through my back catalogue with a view to “audiofying” them all as well. So far 3 out 4 Shadeward books are done, the third reaching Audible in just the last few days. If you haven’t seen Shadeward Enervation yet in audiobook form, you can find it here! Part 4 will be recorded early in 2021 and hopefully be available by the Spring – and that finishes it complete!

I’m also planning to record the Lords of Midnight and make that available as an audiobook, so that will follow on from the Shadeward Saga.

I’ve also launched a “shop” for Shadeward merch (mugs, t-shirts and so on), so have a look here if that interests you. Amongst other things you can get a copy of the official Shadeward Map of Esurio, which is a definite help in navigating the stories!

Alongside that I have the current WIP book – Doomdark’s Revenge – apologies for the delay in this as it should have been done by now – my writing time has been trickier to manage in the pandemic and there have been many calls on my time. I recently hit 115k words and am getting close to a first draft. I’m aiming for a publication date of Spring 2021 for that too!

After that I can begin to get my head around my next great undertaking – the expanded Shadeward Universe, another series of books starting with the Hegira Hegemony (working title for the moment!). I’m really looking forward to that, but Doomdark’s will take priority until it’s finished.

So to finish up, thank you to everyone who has supported me in this bizarre year by buying books, following my streams, watching my youtube videos and listening to my audiobooks. It’s very much appreciated! More material is coming – as soon as I can create it. 2021 should be another year of new stories and adventures!

The post Farewell to 2020, but more is coming in 2021! first appeared on The official website of Drew Wagar.

Despite the fact that both “The Lords of Midnight” and “Doomdark’s Revenge” were written by Mike Singleton over 35 years ago, an eternity in computer and video game history, the odd surprise can still be thrown up and a little more of the history around the games revealed.

You’ll be aware of the genesis of my Lords of Midnight novelisation (if not read here) and how a novel was originally promised to the first person to win the game and provide evidence of so doing – by printing out their adventure on paper and sending it in by post… there was no internet in those days. That story is a bit of a legend in its own right. However, in the last few weeks, I’ve been privileged enough to get in contact with some of the individuals who were involved at the time, allowing me to shed a little more light onto this ancient history of times long past… or 1984 as we like to call it!

The first ancient artefact unearthed was a letter from the “Beyond Robot” (Beyond Software – the original publisher of the games) to a competition entrant, thanking them for their entry, but informing them that they had sadly not been the first to submit a winning entry…

Following on shortly after this was an example of one of those entry competitions… a record of the game printed out on thermal paper. The ZX Printer of the time (and many of its rivals) didn’t use the common 9 pin or 24 pin dot-matrix affair, hammering against a coated ribbon to create text on ordinary paper, but rather used heat transfer onto a special roll of thermal paper to produce the text and images. The ZX Printer was affectionate known as the “Bog Roll Printer” for reasons which are fairly obvious.

I have, without any shadow of an excuse, rather neglected my blog. Oops. There’s a list of things every writer is supposed to have; websites, blogs, youtube channels, social media presence, bookmarks, free giveaways, posters, signage… trouble is, if you spend all your time doing this you’ll never actually sit down and write a book. Anyway. I do intend to get back to the blog a bit more often.

As per the previous post, I’ve spent some time rejuvenating the website, delving into the murky world of html and css, in order to modernise it a bit and put in place the foundations for some future e-commerce activity. More of that in time.

Just a rather short blog update!

As you may have noticed, I’ve been revising my website! This was a fairly major job, requiring an upgrade of PHP, SQL, exporting/importing and then a new theme mechanism, various tweaks and a new look and feel. All this has allowed me to integrate a bunch of new functionality and there are some more bits and pieces to come.

I have brought back all the previous blog entries from the old site, but I’m not going to go through nearly 400 of the wretched things to reformat them for the new look and feel, so a retrospective through those older articles may through up a bit of visual oddity for which I apologize, at least the content will be there! I intend to do some more blogging on progress and the new content will fit better.

So this blog post is a bit of test. If you’ve read this, it would appear that the upgrade was successful!

More content is coming soon.

The post New Website! first appeared on The official website of Drew Wagar.

The Shadeward Saga comes to an end!

10 years in the making, the Shadeward Saga is about to reach its explosive finalé with “Expiation” – the fourth and final book in the series. Expiation is available to pre-order now in ebook and paperback form. It will be released on June 15th 2020.

Memorable characters, drama and excitement

Expiation picks up the story after the tumultuous invasion of Amar and the impending threat from the blazing star Lacaille, but also the growing drama between Kiri and Zoella, resolving the cliffhanger at the end of Book 3.

Book 4 resolves many of the mysteries of the series overall and concludes the stories of all the characters in the series. Here’s the blurb from the paperback version.

The all-powerful priestesses are whipped to a white heat of vengeance in defence of their god, Lacaille, the star that blazes in the skies above.

Coran and the Mobilis crew are unravelling the keys to survival, but tradition, myth and the vengeful priestesses stand in their way, as Lacaille burns ever more fiercely above them.

Kiri, Meru and Zoella, tied by bonds of hatred and devotion, know they must act, but have no idea how to turn the tide of fate. The answer when they find it is wholly unexpected and horribly inevitable.

I reckon it’s my best book yet and I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it! It will be launched on June 15th 2020.

PRE-ORDER SHADEWARD EXPIATION IN EBOOK OR PAPERBACK

And here it is my friends! The cover of Shadeward Expiation.

This is the final book in the series and it’s going to wrap up pretty much all the threads you’ve been following, but perhaps leave you asking just a few questions as to the wider universe of Shadeward.

Each book has a particular theme and a colour associated with it. Emanation was a yellow/orange hue, with Exoneration a striking purple. Enervation had a green tinge and Expiation… well, here it is!

With the conclusion of the story this will be the last book in the Shadeward Saga itself, reaching the end of the tale of my three protagonists Kiri, Zoella and Meru, the supporting cast of the crew of the Mobilis and the priestesses of Drayden.

As ever, it’s full of character interaction, high stakes, drama, desperate choices, action and adventure with a dash of real science. Two of my proofreaders were reduced to tears during parts of the story, no punches are pulled in how the story pans out.

So, do savour it when it arrives. We won’t be returning to Esurio for quite some time, if at all. More will come in the wider Shadeward Universe. I’m planning the ‘Hegira’ series next!

On that note here’s the paperback version of the cover with the blurb included to whet your appetites! Once I have a date for the book itself I will let you know. It won’t be long.

A little while ago I asked my fans whether they would be interested in a prequel to the Shadeward Saga detailing what happened prior to the colonisation of Esurio and the exodus from Earth, or a ‘Side-quel’ set in the same era as the Shadeward Saga exploring what was going on in the rest of the Shadeward universe.

Both have appeal to me, and both will be completed eventually, it was more feedback on the order of creation I was interested in. A put up a poll on twitter and facebook; both came up with different answers! I’ve decided to go for a side-quel for various reasons.

Firstly, it gives me a chance to write my own Space Opera.

The existing Shadeward books are planet bound (with occasional flying machines) but are essentially not a Space Opera in the classic sense. My Elite Dangerous books were, very much, a Space Opera, though obviously constrained by being set in the Elite universe and having to adhere to its lore. However, what I enjoyed most about writing in the Elite universe was the political scenarios, the variations on location afforded by multiple planets and systems, and the space travel components.

Secondly, I can also, dare I say it, do a better job of the lore, background, consistency and integrity of the stories if I do it myself.

Writing in the Elite Dangerous universe was fun, a huge privilege and very much a ‘bucket list’ item for me. However it was also a compromise of creativity, having to incorporate some of the ‘oddities’ of the Elite Dangerous game and the constant ‘retcons’ of the lore in question. My two Elite books had to be written effectively as stand alone novels as there was no guarantee I could hook them up because Frontier would not take a long view of ongoing narrative, something they now appear to have given up on entirely. As a result my Elite books are simply not as good as they could have been, and pale alongside the quality I achieved with the Shadeward Saga.

Those of you who have read Shadeward throughout know the level of detail I have gone into in order to make those stories work. I take the lore of my worlds extremely seriously because I fundamentally believe it makes the stories better. Clearly you still have to be a good writer, but a solid foundation you can rely on is crucial.

Thirdly, there seems to be no opportunity to write another Elite Dangerous novel.

I have great affection for the Elite franchise, huge respect for many of the people who work at Frontier and vast debt to the loyal fans who put me in a position to write those two books. I will continue streaming about Elite, going to conventions and meeting the fans. Frontier had the opportunity to ask me for another novel to mark the beginning of their ‘New Era’. It could have been ready alongside whatever this new version of the game is. They haven’t asked, now it’s too late.

Its time for me to create my own space adventures, unfettered and unconstrained. Frankly, I can do a better job without Elite Dangerous than with it. I have a purpose built universe. The Shadeward universe is internally consistent, with detailed lore, background, technology, timeline and characters. This won’t be retconned, ignored, changed or tweaked for ‘reasons’.

So, Hegira?

The name refers to the journey undertaken by Muhammed from Mecca to Medina in 622AD. It also has more general interpretation meaning Exodus or Migration.

It will be a series of 4 books like Shadeward, set in the same time period, but covering the structure of the universe in and around Sol as alluded to in Shadeward. As we know, we abandoned the Earth and set out into space, attempting to colonise other worlds in order to survive. Esurio was one colony that did manage to survive. The question is, what happened to the others and what are they doing now?

Hegira will answer this.

What can I tell you at this stage? There will be spacecraft and spacestations, there will be interstellar travel. There will be adherance to the laws of physics, though with a nod to potential future technologies we don’t currently have, some of which are required to make stories work. The action will all take place with twenty lightyears of Earth, as that is as far as we’ve managed to reach at this point in the Shadeward lore.

There will be interstellar politics, there will be various planetary locales of different types, adventure, set pieces, grand escapes and crises to deal with. Naturally, as you’d expect from me, there will be a cast of memorable characters you’ll love, hate… or both.

In terms of production I will be finishing Doomdark’s Revenge first before embarking on any writing, so expect that to be out during the summer this year. In the interim I’ll be working on the world-building essential to make this work.

If you enjoyed my Elite Dangerous stories you will love these too, they’ll share some similarities, but you’ll have a deeper and more contiguous set of adventures awaiting you. If you enjoyed Shadeward the same blend of mystery, adventure and characterisation will be present again. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see Esurio from another perspective too.

I’ve also grown as a writer in the intervening years. As in anything you do, the more you do it, the better you get. Hegira will be more epic, more expansive and engaging than my Elite books, and will flesh out the universe you’ve already seen glimpses of in Shadeward.

It’s time for me to write on … and I will!

“How does it feel to be rich?”

“Empty,’ Alex said, and Rafe Zetter laughed.

“You’ll do for the Dark Wheel, Alex. You’ll do…”

The Dark Wheel by Robert Holdstock

Elite Dangerous has a history and lore that dates back to the year 1984, the launch of the original Elite game. Much of this lore is hidden, buried, inaccessible – even forgotten, lost in the void.

Time that changed, Commanders.

So join me, the author of the official Elite Dangerous Novels Reclamation and Premonition, alongside special guests, online and in-game, on a quest to rediscover the lore of this decade spanning game.

Commences 2nd April 2020

Starting Point : Earth, Sol System (Permit Required) 

More details to follow

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