© 2016 David Robbins

     THE LORDS OF KISMET is out! And ENDWORLD fans have greeted it with great enthusiasm. It’s #29 in the basic ENDWORLD canon (more on that in a bit) and sets a whole new tone for the series. The tone that I initially was going for. Permit me to explain.

     I originally conceived ENDWORLD as pure science fiction. The first book was 500 pages of mutants and mayhem. When I submitted it, the publisher said they liked the concept, but would I be interested in doing a series instead of a single novel? Of course I was. I love to tell stories. I love to write. I had a family to feed. They asked if I could break the novel down into three separate books. Thinking fast, and since it meant clothes on our backs, I said I could break it down, with a little extra added, into four. ENDWORLD was off and running.

     But....and this is one of those big but’s.....they wanted me to tweak things a bit. They wanted to market it in the Men’s Adventure genre, not as science fiction. I reluctantly agreed. Remember, food on the table and clothes on our backs.
[The first ENDWORLD. Since all the timelines converge in the future, I've dubbed them the Endworld Universe.]

     Fast forward a couple of decades. All the rights reverted and I could do with ENDWORLD as I pleased. And it pleased me greatly to take the series back to its science fiction roots and expand on them. #28 DARK DAYS was the bridge that brought the old tone, if you will, to an end, and launched the new direction. Which is on full display in THE LORDS OF KISMET.

     It also does something more. Something I had been contemplating for a considerable while but held off doing until the time was right. It explains a few things that might have mystified those of you who like my books. The biggest being the crossover between ENDWORLD and WILDERNESS.

     In case you are unaware, I’ve been writing the WILDERNESS series under the pen name of David Thompson for 27 years. The publisher always billed WILDERNESS as an authentic Mountain Man chronicle. Which is why some readers were puzzled when I threw in things like a lost world, creatures out of Native American legend, and other elements that tended to blur that ‘authentic‘ distinction. They were even more mystified when, in FRONTIER STRIKE, I sent the Warriors from ENDWORLD back in time to meet the Mountain Man from WILDERNESS.

[The first WILDERNESS. From Mountain Men to mutants in a timeline spanning centuries.]

     Now all that has been explained.

     MINOR SPOILER ALERT. Don’t read on if you’re an ENDWORLD fan and haven’t read THE LORDS OF KISMET yet. I’m about to give the big reveal away.

     All my series---by ‘my‘ I mean exclusively mine, not the many books I did on other series for various publishers---are part of a self-contained universe. Everything is connected in a genealogical timeline that stretches from the 1800’s into the far future. Imagine a spider’s web of DNA strands, all connected and interrelated, and you have the basic concept.

     Here are a few examples.

     Nathaniel King, the Mountain Man from WILDERNESS, is the great, great, great, great, great, etc grandfather of Blade, a.k.a Michael King, from ENDWORLD.

     Clay Taggart, the main character in WHITE APACHE, is a forebear of Geronimo, another of the Warriors. It explains why Lone Elk, whose mother was of the Blackfeet nation, chose the name of the legendary Apache at his Naming ceremony. His ancestry includes both.

[The first WHITE APACHE. Another strand in the DNA timeline.]

     The Shannon twins from BLOOD FEUD also play into the ancestry. They comprise part of the family tree of Hickok, one of the more popular Warriors. Another ancestor is Courtney Hewitt from A GIRL, THE END OF THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING, which is actually an ENDWORLD prequel.
 [The Shannon twins. Even they are factored in. (Due out this month, BTW)]

     And on it goes. If you’re a fan of any of the series or of all of them, there’s now an added aspect for you to enjoy.

     THE LORDS OF KISMET! Get your copy today and join in the excitement.