Before we go much further, I thought it would be a good idea to lay out the current status of the TerraFed universe novels and give you a bit of background on the universe itself.

The first novel, entitled Last Bolt from the Black, is complete. It runs approximately 200,000 words and was actually completed some time ago, sometime during the nineties. The origins of the novel dates back even further. To give you some idea of how long, the first writing on this novel was done using WordStar 3.3! I know that's too long for a novel to germinate but I think its time for this universe and its characters to see the light of day.

The second novel is still in progress, but since the first novel needs considerable work to get it into shape, it's a tossup whether or not the work done on the second novel will be continued or scrapped.

The TerraFed universe takes place an undetermined number of centuries in the future, enough time humanity to settle the stars and then politically fracture into hostile camps. Right now, the human race is alone in the universe, although what is called "Human Space" only occupies a tiny sliver of the galaxy.

The Terrafed, or "Terran Federal Union," is based around eleven planets that broke away from the corrupt Coaltion, a body of commercial interests that took up the role of governance after Earth's first world government, the Geneva Concordance, collapsed into global civil war.

The Coalition has slowly rotted away from the inside, losing world after world to the TerraFed until it is largely confined to the former center of human commerce, Coalition Prime. This planet, commonly called "C-Prime," was the final battlefield of the war to break away from the Coalition and is currently divided between Coalition and TerraFed control. The Terran half, even after two centuries, is still half ruined and barely habitable. The Coalition half, with every available hectare of land developed up to several levels, is a dark, oppressive home for hundred of millions who are just starting to feel keenly the Coalition's final death throes.

The TerraFed is itself divided between the more populous eleven worlds that originally opposed the Coalition and the less populous worlds that joined later. The larger planets dominate the lower house of the TerraFed legislature while the more numerous smaller worlds hold control of the upper house.

The Plyaverdan Republic is composed of five former members of the TerraFed that revolted when promises of economic development gave way to what they perceived as exploitation. The struggle to hold these five worlds in the TerraFed resulted in the union's most recent, and most divisive, military conflict, twenty years before the events of the first novel.

Our main character, Archer Stephenson, is a veteran of that war. Since that time, he has largely been drifting, working when he can get it. Most recently, he has been employed on the Coalition half of C-Prime, working for one of the Coalition's many private security forces. Recently, however, he has headed to the TerraFed side of the planet. His quest to avenge wrongs committed twenty years earlier will place him in the center of a power struggle that will eventually rewrite the map of Human Space.