In August 2004, I signed a contract with LBF Books for my novel Vampires of the Scarlet Order. Lachesis Publishing ultimately acquired LBF and asked me to do another book in the series, which became Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order. Earlier this year, the publishing contracts came up for renewal and both Lachesis and I decided it was time for the publishing rights to come back to me. The deal is now formalized and the rights will revert to me at the end of May. It feels like the end of a fifteen-year long era. I’m starting to get things set up so there’s minimal downtime between the Lachesis editions being taken down and the release of new editions from my Hadrosaur Productions.

As a result, I spent this last week giving Dragon’s Fall a fresh proofread. While it was the second book written, it was always intended to be the first book in the series. Timing my proofread right before Easter was an interesting coincidence, since one of the novel’s inciting incidents is based on the legend of Joseph of Arimathea taking the Holy Grail to the British Isles. It also explores a question that I’ve wondered about occasionally and that’s why don’t we have any writings from Jesus himself since indications from the Bible are that Jesus was literate. Now, there are many possible answers to this and most don’t even have huge theological implications. Still, the speculative writer in me did feel compelled to ask, what if Jesus did have writings that were lost?
Anyway, my proofreading pass is now complete and I just need to typeset the interior and finalize plans for a new cover. I’m excited about the preliminary discussions I’ve had with the cover artist and I hope to have a cover reveal and more news about that soon. Aside from proofreading catches and some stronger prose, the new edition will not be substantially changed from the earlier edition. I do expect the cover will make the title and subtitle a little clearer with “Dragon’s Fall” in a larger font and the somewhat modified subtitle “Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires” in a smaller font.
Once I finish some documentation in the coming week, I also plan to turn my attention to Vampires of the Scarlet Order. I’m thinking this novel will have somewhat more changes than Dragon’s Fall. Little of the actual text will change, but I’m tentatively planning to rearrange the chapters a bit to improve the narrative flow. As those who’ve read the novel know, I originally chose to tell the story in a very linear, chronological format. I’m thinking of revising it so that I start in the present day (where most of the action takes place), then let the characters tell the historical parts of the story when it’s natural for them to do so.

The return to my Scarlet Order world in this past week also coincides with the release of the latest Dance in the Vampire Bund manga’s English language translation. Its title is “Age of Scarlet Order.” The manga opens with the United States military appearing to take out vampire queen Mina Tepes and her werewolf companion Akira Kaburagi Regendorf in a drone strike. We then meet vampire refugees attempting to flee religious extremists in scenes that feel not unlike some that occur in contemporary America. From this opening, the story takes a turn and explores the origins of the vampires. Nozomu Tamaki first started using “Scarlet Order” in the titles of his books about a decade after my Scarlet Order Vampires first appeared. I have to admit, I came to his work out of curiosity about the similar title, but I’ve since become a fan of this series.