There’s an old adage in writing: If it doesn’t move the story forward, it doesn’t belong. So those scenes had to go.
The trouble was, with those scenes gone I had no natural way to lead the reader into the rest of the book, in a way they’d even remotely care about. I was literally jumping from the end of one completed story to the beginning of another story that might or might not make any sense. Because it was just rambling nonsense.
I can admit that now.
This was a crisis.
Since November 2018 I've been on quite a jag when it comes to writing. I completed The Antarctic Forgery and released that in December.
I wrote and released The Stepping Maze—perhaps the most complex story I’ve ever written—by January 25th.
I wrote a new short story, The Jani Sigil, to give to readers who joined my mailing list (https://kevintumlinson.com/joinme if you'd like a copy of your own—though eventually, I will have a whole new story to offer there. So hurry!).
And, of course, I started the book you are now reading. Plus all the other things I’ve written and published, both related and unrelated to my fiction. I estimate that since November 2018 I’ve written and published a minimum of half a million words. That’s a lot for anyone, even a full-time writer.
But suddenly I found myself stymied on a writing project. At least a little.
I was still plugging away on this book, but it had become hard work. Where the previous two books had flowed from me almost like someone else had written them, and I was just typing them up on their behalf, this book was forcing me to fight for it for every inch.
I could tell it wasn’t working, and I could tell why. And for about a week, though I kept writing, I didn’t know what to do about the way the story was failing.
Until, finally, I realized that I did.
I knew exactly what was wrong.
That novella did not belong in this book.
True, I was writing a sequel—or more accurately, a continuation—of The Brass Hall. But that story was done. It had been finished years earlier, had its own readers and fans and detractors. It had its history, and it had run its course. All of the momentum for that story was spent.
So bringing it back now, cramming it into the front end of a new book, was like trying to graft a dead limb onto a young tree. The limb isn’t coming back to life, and it’s just going to bow the tree into a deformed and sad version of what it could be, never allowing it to grow tall and reach for the skies.
I knew what I had to do.
I pulled the novella out of the book. I retooled the prologue to actually be a prologue. And I gave the book a new title—the title you know it as now—so that I could start telling the story the way it was meant to be told.
This book is a continuation of The Brass Hall, there is no doubt. The plot builds on the events of that book, though it’s not necessary to have read the novella before reading this novel. But by casting the dead weight off of it, I was able to make The God Extinction into the book it was meant to be.
And I love it.
I love comparative mythology. I love the idea that cultures all over the world, even cultures that should have had nothing to do with each other, all share commonalities and themes and even literal connections that can't entirely be explained. The idea of a shared culture, long lost to history, is just about the most intriguing thing I can imagine.
The examples I share on this subject, in the early chapters of this book, are just the beginning for this. I could easily have filled an entire book on the topic, with the research I’ve uncovered about common mythologies, shared artistic and historical themes, even language and iconology that is literally the same across the cultures. The gods, and their tales, are not unique to one culture. They got around.
I can’t say what it means exactly, that so many ancient cultures share commonalities in their mythologies. But I do have theories.
I believe that there was an age of man that is no longer a part of our recorded history. I believe that humanity underwent some great cataclysm, in the mists of our past, that wiped our memory and set us back to a more primitive culture, where we were forced to start again. I believe the gods, as we know them, were remnants of a civilization that knew it was on its way out. They used their technology and wisdom to prepare a new generation as much as possible, leaving marks on ancient, primitive cultures that we are only slowly starting to interpret today.
True?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Intriguing, though. And from my personal research, it feels likely. It’s at least cohesive enough that it’s driven me to write about it more than once and will probably inspire me to write about it again in the future.
I wanted to explore some of these ideas in this book. I’ve hinted at it in the past, but I wanted to really get the ball rolling in these pages. I saw, in The Brass Hall, an opportunity to start looking closer at this idea, to explore it a bit more.
I’ve left gaps and holes in it, of course. I’ve left room for interpretation and for speculation. The Otherworld, as I describe it here, has only revealed a very small part of itself to us. I’m absolutely certain that won’t be the last of it. I’ll be revisiting this world, someday. Maybe someday soon.
Until then, I have more Kotler stories to explore, more questions to ask, and more riddles to solve. Among those are questions about Kotler himself.
For the past few books, I’ve introduced what we in the writing biz call a “B-story.” I’ve done this before. If you’ve read my work from the beginning, the Gail McCarthy storyline was a B-story that ran through several books, until it became the A-story for The Antarctic Forgery, where it was finally resolved.
Similarly, I’m now exploring some of Kotler’s past, as well as digging in on a few questions that have naturally arisen throughout writing these books. Not the least of which is: Why Historic Crime?
I admit, when I first introduced the idea of a new division of the FBI, aimed at solving history-related crimes, I meant for everyone to take it on faith. I needed an excuse for Kotler and Denzel to continue working together so that I could use their dynamic to help with character development. Lashing them together into a new division of the FBI seemed the best way. It would allow me to bring new challenges to Kotler, in the form of history-related FBI cases that had modern-day and immediate implications.
Sort of an X-Files of history.
And it worked. It held up well enough, at least, that no one really seemed to question it. I did have some people point out that the FBI would never waste resources the way it does with this department. Agent Denzel would never have the sort of latitude he has, would never be able to go to the sorts of locations he ends up visiting, in an official capacity. I was asking readers to suspend disbelief, and I make no apologies for it.
But as the series has evolved, I’m finding that it’s not enough to merely suspend disbelief. Not long term. If I want to tell the sorts of stories I have in mind for Kotler and Denzel, I’m going to have to pick apart the mythos I’ve built.
In thinking about that, I realized that I might actually have a story right there in the open. A gold nugget half-buried in the muck of a river bank but peeking through just enough to catch my eye.
These books, after all, have a question at their heart, driving the rest of the story.
“What would happen if Viking remains were discovered in Pueblo, Colorado?”
“What if Atlantis was an island destroyed by a tsunami in the Indian Ocean?”
“What if a lost technology was rediscovered and put to a nefarious use?”
Every one of the Kotler books asks a question like this and then attempts to answer it in a fun and exciting way. So, I wondered, what if I applied that sort of question to the series itself?
The first hint of this was when I questioned the name of the department. After all, “Historic Crimes” technically isn’t correct. It should be “Historical Crimes.” I had made a goof, early on in the series, but I’d more or
less been stuck with it., once the book was published.
In reality, I could have gone back and fixed that, doing a “find and replace” across those early books, and re-releasing them as new editions. No one would even know or care, by the time the dust settled.
But I thought it would be more fun to call it out, to have Kotler question it since he's such a smart guy. And even more fun to have Denzel tell him to shut up about it.
Now that I’d picked at that thread, though, I started wondering what else I could ask. And so “why Historic Crimes” came up. Also “Why Kotler?” And “Why Denzel?” And “Where does the funding come from?” And “Who founded and championed the division?”
And it grows from there.
Answering these questions will be a B-story throughout the next few books until eventually, everything comes to a head and our heroes have to deal with the story directly. At which point, I'll come up with a new B-story, and we will journey on.
That’s part of the fun of this. I have to weave these stories so that they can stand alone, as new readers come into the series. But I also have to make them cohesive, as a growing and expanding universe, with its own rules and its own consequences.
Part of that, ultimately, had to include coming back around to expand on The Brass Hall. And though this book isn’t exactly as I had planned it to be, I hope you’ll agree with me that it’s all the better for it. I hope, also, that you agree that this fulfills the sort of unwritten promise of The Brass Hall, letting the reader see how it all turned out without rehashing the original story.
In other words, I hope you enjoyed it.
There will be more Dan Kotler thrillers. The character is such a part of me now, I can’t imagine not writing in his voice. I’m as excited to see how things turn out as you are, believe me.
Until the next book, take care of yourselves. Keep reading. Keep reaching out. Visit me at kevintumlinson.com, join my mailing list (you get a lot of emails similar to this note, if you like this sort of thing), find more of my books. And just say hello. I respond to emails, and I adore hearing from readers. We have a lot to learn from each other.
God bless,
Kevin Tumlinson
Sugar Land, Texas
February 11, 2019
Here’s how to help me reach more readers
If you loved this book, you can help me reach more readers with just a few easy acts of kindness.
(1) REVIEW THIS BOOK
Leaving a review for this book is a great way to help other readers find it. Just go to the site where you bought the book, search for the title, and leave a review. It really helps, and I really appreciate it.
(2) SUBSCRIBE TO MY EMAIL LIST
I regularly write a special email to the people on my list, just keeping everyone up to date on what I’m working on. When I announce new book releases, giveaways, or anything else, the people on my list hear about it first. Sometimes, there are special deals I’ll only give to my list, so it’s worth being a part of the crowd.
Join the conversation and get a free ebook, just for signing up! Visit https://www.kevintumlinson.com/joinme.
(3) TELL YOUR FRIENDS
Word of mouth is still the best marketing there is, so I would greatly appreciate it if you’d tell your friends and family about this book, and the others I’ve written.
You can find a comprehensive list of all of my books at http://kevintumlinson.com/books.
Thanks so much for your help. And thanks for reading.
About the Author
Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling novelist, living in Texas and working in random coffee shops, cafés, and hotel lobbies worldwide. His debut thriller, The Coelho Medallion, was a 2016 Shelf Notable Indie award winner.
Kevin grew up in Wild Peach, Texas, where he was raised by his grandparents and given a healthy respect for story telling. He often found himself in trouble in school for writing stories instead of doing his actual assignments.
Kevin’s love for history, archaeology, and science has been a tremendous source of material for his writing, feeding his fiction and giving him just the excuse he needs to read the next article, biography, or research paper.
Connect with Kevin:
kevintumlinson.com
[email protected]
Also by Kevin Tumlinson
Dan Kotler
The Coelho Medallion
The Atlantis Riddle
The Devil's Interval
The Girl in the Mayan Tomb
The Antarctic Forgery
The Stepping Maze
The God Extinction
Dan Kotler Short Fiction
The Brass Hall - A Dan Kotler Story
The Jani Sigil - FREE short story from BookHip.com/DBXDHP
Citadel
Citadel: First Colony
Citadel: Paths in Darkness
Citadel: Children of Light
Citadel: The Value of War
Colony Girl: A Citadel Universe Story
Sawyer Jackson
Sawyer Jackson and the Long Land
Sawyer Jackson and the Shadow Strait
Sawyer Jackson and the White Room
Think Tank
Karner Blue
Zero Tolerance
Nomad
The Lucid — Co-authored with Nick Thacker
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Standalone
Evergreen
Shorts & Novellas
Getting Gone
Teresa's Monster
The Three Reasons to Avoid Being Punched in the Face
Tin Man
Two Blocks East
Edge
Zero
Collections
Citadel: Omnibus
Uncanny Divide — With Nick Thacker & Will Flora
Light Years — The Complete Science Fiction Library
YA & Middle Grade
Secret of the Diamond Sword — An Alex Kotler Mystery
Wordslinger (Non-Fiction)
30-Day Author: Develop a Daily Writing Habit and Write Your Book In 30 Days (Or Less)
Watch for more at kevintumlinson.com/books
Keep the Adventure Going!
Read the Next Dan Kotler Archaeological Thriller Now
★★★★★ “Half way through I was waiting for Harrison Ford to leap out of the pages!”
—Deanne, Review for The Coelho Medallion
★★★★★ “Kevin has crashed onto the action-thriller scene as only an action-thriller author can: with provocative plot lines, unforgettable characters, and enough adrenaline to keep you awake all night.”
—Nick Thacker, author of Mark for Blood
★★★★★ “Move over Daniel Silva, James Patterson, and Dan Brown.”
—Chip Polk, Review for The Atlantis Riddle
★★★★★ “Move Over Indiana Jones, there is a New Dr. in Town!”
—Cycletrash, Review for The Coelho Medallion
★★★★★ “[Kevin Tumlinson] is what every writer should be—entertaining and thought-provoking.”
— Shana Tehan, Press Secretary, U.S. House of Representatives
★★★★★ “I discovered Kevin Tumlinson from The Creative Penn podcast and immediately got his novel, Evergreen. I read it in like 3 seconds. It’s the most fast-paced story I’ve encountered.”
—R.D. Holland, Independent Reviewer
★★★★★ “Comparison to Clive Cussler is a natural, though Tumlinson’s ‘Dan ‘ is more like Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon than Dirk Pitt.”
—Amazon Review for The Coelho Medallion
FIND YOUR NEXT FAVORITE BOOK AT
KevinTumlinson.com/books
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