In May 2017, the rights to my “Old Star Saga” novels reverted to me. Upon getting the rights back, I decided to add a new first novel, revise and update the existing novels, and rebrand the series as “The Space Pirates’ Legacy.” After almost five years, this project is finally complete. Today, I’m proud to announce the release of book four, Heirs of the New Earth.
The Earth has gone silent. John Mark Ellis and the crew of the Sanson are sent to investigate. When they arrive, they find vast alien machines known as Clusters in orbit. Fearing the worst, they land and discover that the once overcrowded, polluted Earth has become a paradise of sorts. The problem is over half the population is dead or missing and the planet’s leaders don’t seem to care. As Ellis works to unravel the mystery, sudden gravitational shifts from the galaxy’s center indicate something even worse is in the offing. Can Ellis save the galaxy from the heirs of the new Earth?
I wrote The Pirates of Sufiro in 1993 while living in Tucson, Arizona. Once I finished, I knew I wanted to write a sequel, and perhaps turn the series into a trilogy. The novel ends with John Mark Ellis, grandson of space pirate Ellison Firebrandt, wanting to pursue a mystery. An alien intelligence called the Cluster had invaded the galaxy. At the end of The Pirates of Sufiro, Ellis had no idea whether the Cluster was a ship or a life form in its own right. He knew the Cluster was dangerous and it destroyed starships, but he had no idea whether the danger was intentional or accidental. If the Cluster was a life form in its own right, could it understand that human ships were vessels with intelligent beings aboard? I knew Ellis would want to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Around the same time as I started thinking about the sequel, a team of observers were at the Mayall telescope using the Infrared Imager we had at the time to take images of the center of the galaxy. During that run, I watched as they captured the deepest image of the galactic core taken to that point. Since then, we’ve taken even deeper and more stunning images, but I was still mind-blown. I remember discussing what one would find at the center of the galaxy with the astronomers in the control room. We talked about the black hole in the center of the galaxy.
As we spoke, an image flashed to my mind. I imaged John Mark Ellis aboard an old-fashioned sailing ship at the center of the galaxy. I knew the rest of the series would tell of the story of how Ellis ended up on that sailing ship in that place. All I knew at the time was that somehow the Cluster was involved. Laura Givens’ cover art for the new edition, captures the image I’d conjured perfectly and I hope it makes you wonder how he got there. And this image isn’t a red herring. Not only does it reflect an image I had way back in 1993, it depicts an important scene from the heart of the novel.
The novel has just gone live in print and ebook formats and will start wending its way through the distribution chain soon. That said, you can pick up the print edition of the novel today at Amazon.com. The ebook is available in Kindle format at Amazon.com. It’s also available in a wide variety of additional formats at Smashwords.com. As always, you can find all the retailers I know who are carrying the book on the book’s page at my site: http://davidleesummers.com/heirs_new_earth.html