Author’s word - From the Ashes
I wrote the first draft of this in 1985, and then abandoned the project. This is a far cry from that. So much has happened to me since then, and the characters have grown and developed in major ways in my mind.
It took a while before I realized why I was unsatisfied with that version, why I left it alone for so long.
It’s the only novel I’ve written, the first and only time where I caved to censorship, in the hope of increasing my chances of getting published. I was so disgusted with the result that I put it in the drawer and let it rot.
I’ve most certainly fixed that with this version. I spent six months rewriting it. I usually spend eighteen months on average on a novel of this size.
The rewriting is extensive. I’m practically doing everything from scratch, just keeping a few lines here and there. My writing and my understanding of storytelling are far more developed, now, compared to then, of course, and it shows. My understanding of everything is far more developed. It’s the same story, but told with far greater detail and analysis and knowledge behind it.
It is a Janus Clan companion book, an introduction of sorts, and was always meant to be. But in those forty years, I’ve pretty much written the Janus Clan in its totality. I know the story far better, including the story behind the story not included in the books.
The tapestry has become so much bigger and better.
It can easily be read on its own. There is no backstory you need to know. You discover that with the characters.
I’ve always been fascinated with Vikings. It’s one part of my Scandinavian inheritance I haven’t disowned. I find all the stories I’ve read extremely fascinating, and the people living in Norway a thousand years ago far more real than today’s sorry lot.
The story takes place more or less in the present, in the eighties, before cell phones, Internet and stuff. I’ve kept that, deliberately, also because it fits with the Janus Clan series. It is kind of funny. The story took place in the present when I first wrote it. Now, it is happening in a time that has already become history.
But all the pieces I chose deliberately at the time remain. All the details on where and when the various movies mentioned were playing for instance is true. Everything is still there, but while the first version was woefully superficial, this is nothing but. The first version was practically a children’s book. This most certainly isn’t.
The real-life events in Brixton and Tottenham Hale in London in late September and early October 1985 are covered in far more detail. The police maimed and killed lots of people, acting very much like the police always do, and none of those involved have ever been charged with anything, far less convicted.
The police eventually did apologize for shooting Dorothy Groce, but not until March 2014, well after her death in 2011, when a public commission stated that her premature death was due to the bullet wound. They’ve never apologized for subjecting the protesters to abject brutality.
I hope the story will pull you away from the mundane human society, and into a world most people know very little about, and that it will have a profound effect on you. At least some people are changed in the right way by the act of reading my stories, and I just love when that happens.
To learn more about the Curse of Tuth Ankh Amun and also the ancient city of Thebes, read my novel The Valley of Kings.
I’ve kept the paper manuscript in my possession all this time, with a lot of moving around, so I guess I did see a future for it.
Rewriting the story also made my fond memories of my time in London return in a much stronger way.
The events in this book take place before the start of Eyes in the Sky, book nine in the Janus Clan series. The story of Lillian, Martin, Jennifer and the rest continues there, and in The Iron Cage, ShadowWalk and Phoenix Green Earth.
One Sherwood Forest 2024-06-13
Printed version 2024-09-09
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