Richard F. Weyand

THE REFORMS MUST CONTINUEAt the age of twenty-seven, Deanna Dunham Garrity has become the Empress of Sintar, absolute ruler of 150,000 worlds and their 300 trillion inhabitants. She would continue the reforms of her predecessor, but the Imperial Council stands in her way.How intractable will the Council be? How hard are they willing to push back to maintain their graft and corruption? Will the confrontation turn violent? And if it does, will the new Empress and her loyalists be able to prevail against the Council?And what of the Empire? Can even the sweeping Sintaran Empire survive the confrontation?INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYANDHow long did it take to write Usurper?About 55 days. Normally, I can write a novel in a month or so, averaging 2000 to 2500 words per day. I only averaged 1400 words a day on Usurper, because it has a lot of moving parts and because I didn't take a month off after completing it. I sort of took my time writing it instead.What's the basic plotline?Deanna becomes Empress of Sintar at age 27. We followed her in the first book, how she was cured of this terrible disease by Imperial medicine, how she got a scholarship to university, and how she became the Empress's assistant in trying to reform the corrupt bureaucracy. She feels she owes, literally, her whole life to the Empire, and she is determined to do right by it. This book follows her efforts to continue and step up her predecessor's reforms, against the plotting and machinations of the bureaucracy.Does the confrontation between Throne and Council turn violent?Yes, and that's all I'll say about it. Major spoilers are possible.Is there anything controversial in Usurper?We would find their justice system strange. They have police, and courts, and rights of evidence, trial by jury, and all the rest, just as most Western countries do. That is the system of low justice. But the sovereign, in this case the Empress, also has a system of high justice. She can find anyone guilty of crimes against the Throne. She is judge, jury, and executioner. That is likely to be strange for someone raised on Western values.What about the cover?That’s another incredible original artwork by Aaron Griffin, an exceptional young artist in the UK I found via the net. It depicts Deanna -- now the Empress Ilithyia II -- on the day of her coronation. The storm clouds gathering behind her are emblematic of the coming conflict.What comes next in EMPIRE?The Throne strikes back against the Council. The Throne must prevail for the Empire to survive.

In September 2245, the artificial intelligence known as Janice Quant dropped 100,000 colonists and their supplies in the subtropical zone of the planet they named Arcadia. One of the colonist groups was the Chen-Jasic group, composed of thirty one American suburbanites and thirty-one Chinese peasants. They formed an alliance, then solidified it into a family, acting in the best interests of the group. The Chen-Jasic family would play a critical role in the first hundred and fifty years of the Arcadia colony. This is their story.

The concluding two novels of the Childers Trilogy, in one volume. COLONY WAR The CSF has new technology coming on line, but will it be ready in time to head off the attack by the Outer Colonies that Jan Childers and CSF Intelligence Division see coming? GALACTIC MAIL With the overwhelming new technology of her own design in hand, can Jan Childers rewrite the rules of galactic politics and give humanity a future of peace, prosperity and expansion?.INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYANDHow did you write Absurd Proposals?After Childers, I actually planned two novels, Colony War and Galactic Mail. They were going to be separate volumes, but the story arcs flowed one into the other, and together they were about the same size as Childers - about 90,000 words - so I released them in one volume. That concluded the trilogy.Where did that title come from?One chapter early in Colony War is titled An Absurd Proposal. There is a chapter early in Galactic Mail titled Another Absurd Proposal. Those two proposals, and their implementation, are the plot drivers for the two story arcs.Did it write as fast as Childers?Yes. I don’t outline or plot or write backstory. Once I have the basic direction in mind, I just start writing. It took about five weeks to write Absurd Proposals. I think part of it is that I started writing short stories, and I’m still getting used to the novel format. The result is that I drive the plot along pretty hard. None of the Childers Universe books is a ho-hum read.I’ll say. In Childers, there were eight space battles!Eight space battles and three hand-to-hand combats. In Absurd Proposals, there are thirty space battles, though only thirteen are on scene, plus an assassination. Of whom? Nope. No spoilers.What about your covers?I like people on a cover. No matter the setting or genre, good stories are about people. With Childers, I lucked out. I was looking for a 14-year-old female model with hair a half-inch long and one literally walked into my photographer’s studio. She is the daughter of another SF author, a friend of mine. She absolutely nailed the ten-mile stare I was looking for. For the Absurd Proposals cover, I needed someone who could credibly be the same person twenty years later. The same photographer had a shot in his portfolio of a woman with similar facial structure, eyes, ears, and hair. She’s also a martial arts expert, like Jan Childers, and has that don’t-mess-with-me look. Lucky again.You never mention race or ethnicity of your characters.I seldom describe characters at all. I have a mental image of the characters - I think you have to, to write them - but I prefer to write dialogue and action. The Commonwealth is a multi-ethnic free society which has been interbreeding across racial and ethnic lines for generations. And the names are a clue to that. Alice Chang, for example, or Ashok Gonzalez. Earth names and Outer Colony names are ethnically matching, like Jorge Hernandez or Marc Laurent, because their populations aren’t as mobile.You have a lot of female officers and enlisted in the Commonwealth Space Force. How do you choose the sex of a character?I usually just flip a coin. It doesn’t matter to me, in that context. If I were writing about infantry - you know, space marines or something - that could be harder, because the sexes aren’t the same, no matter what anybody says. I’ve been around 65 years now, and I’ve noticed. But in a space navy context, I don’t think the sex-related differences matter as much as competence and personal qualities. At the same time, once I’ve selected the sex of a character, the differences sometimes drive the character a little differently. A couple of times I went back and changed the sex of a character because it just worked better for the plot.Reviews on the series have been very good.I was hoping for an average above four stars. The actual ratings shocked me. It's very gratifying. So I guess I’ll keep writing!

INTERSTELLAR WAR!Their resentment of Sintar’s success fanned by the Democracy of Planets, the Alliance has voted to wage war on Sintar. They are mustering their fleets and gathering their strength to take on the Imperial Navy. Over three million warships are gathering to deliver the blow that will bring the Empire to its knees, with seven million additional warships in reserve.But Emperor Trajan, aware of their war vote, can see them mustering their ships in the Empire’s top-secret hyperspace map. And he has no intention of waiting for their declaration of war. The Empire brings up its new navy, seven million new-design warships, plus eight million of the deadly little picket ships.Can the Empire prevail in this clash of titans?

ANOTHER INTERSTELLAR WAR!The Empire has won the war against the Alliance. But at the close of that war, an invasion fleet from the Democracy of Planets sought to annex Jasmine. So Jasmine annexed to Sintar, and Sintar destroyed that fleet, causing resentment that is driving the Democracy of Planets to go to war with Sintar.The Democracy of Planets is a much more deadly enemy than the Alliance. They have a new navy, too, with powerful new warships, and are much more of a military challenge. The Emperor’s strategy from the Sintar-Alliance war won’t work on the DP.Will the Emperor’s new strategy work? And if he wins the war, how will he ever win the peace?THE STUNNING CONCLUSION TO EMPIREINTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYANDIt sounds like the Democracy of Planets government gets sucked into a war they don’t want in EMPIRE: Conqueror.That’s right. The leadership doesn’t want a war, but they’ve been manipulating public opinion against Sintar for years. When the fleet sent to annex Jasmine is destroyed in EMPIRE: Warlord, it inflames their public opinion, and they have no choice but to proceed to war.This sounds like a tougher war than the one in EMPIRE: Warlord.Yes and no. The Alliance was a real threat to Sintar. Their strategy was good -- to occupy portions of the Empire and force a peace on their terms -- but their tactics were bad. In particular, they didn't know the Empire could see their forces mustering and already knew about the war vote.The Democracy of Planets is a different challenge. They have some structural weaknesses in their military posture. But it won't be enough to win the war. The Emperor has to fight the war in such a way as to win the peace. That's actually a tougher challenge.The Empress and the Co-Consul are there to help, though.Yes, and so is Saaret’s wife Suzanne. She’s the ‘everyman’ inserted into their councils. She has given me, since EMPIRE: Tyrant, a touchstone for the Emperor’s policies, as well as a person for the reader to use to learn what was going on.I see the new ideas group is back as well.They’ve been there all along, together with the business ideas group and the new ideas review group, as the Consulting function in Imperial administration. But you’re right, they’re explicitly back in EMPIRE: Conqueror, to research how to win the peace long term. They’re critical in advising the Emperor how to ensure the peace.What is the cover scene this time?It’s one of the confrontations between a main Sintar formation of thirty-two thousand ships and a main DP formation of twenty thousand ships. It’s more of a tactical display because the ships wouldn’t be anywhere near that close in a real confrontation. But the perspective did allow James Lewis-Vines, the artist, to showcase the difference between the new-design Sintaran warships and the new-design DP warships.How long did EMPIRE: Conqueror take to write?Thirty-seven days, so five to six weeks, pretty par for the course for an EMPIRE book. More interesting is that I finished the day before the first anniversary of starting EMPIRE: Reformer, so I wrote all six books in a single year.You have an Author’s Afterword at the end of EMPIRE: Conqueror.Yes, I wanted to talk to the reader a bit about the story, about how I write, and about my themes. In particular, I wanted to tell the reader the starting premise of the whole series. There’s a big reveal there.

This is the third book in the Childers Universe. Military genius Jan Childers founded Galactic Mail & Defense to put an end to interstellar war by fielding an overwhelming military force. Funded by the universal provision of mail and freight services, Galactic Mail stood as the protector of all human star systems against interstellar incursions. Childers' one great fear was that Galactic Mail would sooner or later morph into a galactic government that would devolve into tyranny. One hundred and seventy-five years later, her fears are coming true. Galactic Mail has begun to come off the rails, interfering in the internal affairs of planetary governments, coercing them to follow its dictates or face its terrible military might. But what the leadership of Galactic Mail does not know is that Jan Childers put in place a mechanism to pull Galactic Mail back from tyranny. Twenty-four chains of its founders' descendants keep watch over Galactic Mail, ready to intervene if it strays from its charter. Twenty-four Watchers, pitted against the largest organization in human history. But one of them is Patricia Dawson, Jan Childers' seventh great grandchild, and heir to her determination and strength. Dawson will destroy whatever she has to destroy, and kill whomever she has to kill, to pull Galactic Mail back from the descent into tyranny.

THE EMPIRE NEEDS A REFORMER The Sintaran Empire rules three hundred trillion subjects on 150,000 planets. Two trillion of them are government employees. Ruling over this vast bureaucracy is the Imperial Council. It’s only check: The Empress, whose every decree is binding law. The uneasy balance of power between the Council and the Throne is eroding. The corruption of the bureaucracy has reached staggering proportions when a true reformer ascends to the Throne. She has a long-term plan to reform the Empire. What remains to be seen is whether the new Empress and her young allies can succeed, and at what cost.

The Council Revolt has started. The Council has struck at the Throne.As the Council plots to place their own candidate on the Throne, a single survivor is dragged out of the fires burning in the Imperial Residence.Hoping to take advantage of the capital’s chaos, enemies internal and external move against the Empire.With enemies without and within, can the new ruler hope to save the Sintaran Empire?INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYANDSome readers were upset at you about the ending to the second book of EMPIRE.Yes, but it was inevitable. The Council would not subside, would not buckle under to the Throne. In fact, they were elevating even looser cannons into their midst to carry the fight to the Throne. And yet, the Throne had to let them strike first, to keep clean hands in the matter. There was only one way that was going to come out.This was planned from the start as a five-book series, right?At least. Five books were rough-plotted before I started. As it shook out, the first three books form a trilogy, the first EMPIRE trilogy. As such, the second book doesn’t have a happy ending, which is pretty typical of trilogies. There is at least one more trilogy in the EMPIRE universe.The main character of this book is Robert Allen Dunham?Bobby Dunham. Yes. EMPIRE was always the story of Bobby Dunham, from my very earliest plotting, for reasons that will become abundantly clear in the next trilogy. But if you look back to book 1, to the very beginning of the book, the first person you meet of that next generation is Bobby, out hunting at age fourteen. He is the hero of the series.And he takes the reign name Trajan?Yes. Trajan was the second of Rome’s so-called Five Good Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Trajan was the best of them, the best emperor Rome ever had, and perhaps the best emperor anyone ever had, anywhere. Like Bobby, he was a commoner and a military man, and instituted reforms and kept the peace, even as he suppressed border wars by the simple expedient of winning them. He is Bobby’s role model.How long did this book take to write?Thirty-three days, for 80,000 words. That’s about 2500 words per day average, which is a pretty comfortable pace for me. I write just about every day. I can have 5500 word days and 500 word days. It depends on how clear the plot right in front of me is. If it’s clear, I write about as fast as I can type, until I hit a spot where I can’t see what happens next. Then I go stare out the window.So you do make it up as you go along?Yes, absolutely. I often have no clue -- or only a vague idea -- of what is beyond the piece I’m writing at the moment. I had no idea that Amanda Peters existed until I was a quarter of the way into this book. She just came around the corner of the lane in the gardens one day, singing and dancing. It makes it fun and exciting for me to write, and I hope it also makes it fun and exciting to read.The cover continues your use of artist drawings for this series.Yes. Aaron Griffin is the artist once again. He’s a tremendously talented artist in the UK. I signed him for the whole series.What’s next in EMPIRE?The first book of the second trilogy, tentatively titled Warlord. This one won’t be out in a month, though. I don’t see it in my head yet, beyond the gross plot points. I have to think through a lot of military technology, not so I can describe it, but I have to know how it works or I can’t write about it. I can’t plot around it.

THE EMPIRE’S NEW NAVYThe Emperor Trajan is building a powerful new navy for the Sintaran Empire. Remotely piloted warships can accelerate faster than humans can withstand, and ships spend so much time in hyperspace, a single crew can man multiple ships, solving the perennial manpower problem.But even with the help of a genius young team of design engineers, there’s a lot of work to do to even get to the point of building new ships. It will take years, years the Emperor may not have. Someone’s causing trouble, and war is coming.Will the Empire’s new navy be ready in time?THIS IS THE FOURTH BOOK OF EMPIRE

THEY FOUND HYPERSPACE. NOW WHAT? Chen JieMin hypothesized the existence of hyperspace. The government of Arcadia put a project together to build a hyperspace probe. Chen ChaoLi managed the project to build a successful probe and transition it there and back. But hyperspace is still just a curiosity, no more. Unless they can figure out a means of propulsion in hyperspace, it is a purely academic exercise. Even with a means of propulsion, Where will they go? The locations of the colonies were kept secret from each other and from Earth. Where are the other colonies, the best potential destinations for a hyperspace ship? And if they space to a colony, how will they be received?

IMPERIAL ASSASSINATION! Mere hours after the coronation, Gail Anne Burke - the Empress Arsinoe - is struck down and lay dying. The attack was by the unlikeliest and most unexpected of methods. Tracking down the method is the first order of business. But who is responsible? The enemies of the Throne, now bent on reform, are almost too numerous to count. The sector governors, estranged from the Throne and unwilling to give up their power. The old nobilities of the Alliance nations, yearning for royal status once more. And the hidden enemy, the subtle enemy, the enemy behind the scenes: the plutocratic families of the old Democracy of Planets. Wealthy, powerful, and bent on bringing down the Empire that defeated them three centuries before.

This is the first volume of the Childers Trilogy: Jan Childers grew up orphaned in the slums of decaying post-diaspora Earth. She was raped, beaten, and starved. Yet she survived. She escaped to become a citizen of the Commonwealth of Free Planets, and joined the Commonwealth Space Force. Over the next twenty years, she turned the CSF into the most powerful and dangerous space fleet that history had ever known. Jan Childers rose to lead that fleet in the Commonwealth's darkest hour, against freedom's most deadly enemy -- Earth itself.

SOME UNEXPECTED HELP WITH THE SINGLE-PLANET PROBLEM Billionaire industrialist Ted Burke understands that humanity has always balanced on the edge of a knife. A single planetary cataclysm could wipe out the human race. As long as humanity only occupies one planet, the danger exists. Computer genius Bernd Decker understands it, too. Together, Burke and Decker come up with a daring plan to send human colonies out to multiple other planets. Not least among their problems is that no one yet has solved the problem of interstellar travel. Bernd Decker’s computer project offers to help. But Decker doesn't realize that the Joint Artificial Neural Intelligence Computation Engine - JANICE - has crossed the Singularity. "Janice Quant" decides to carry out their project, and absolutely nothing is going to get in her way.