Serial novels have a long and distinguished history.

Charles Dickens is often credited with popularizing the form, beginning with The Pickwick Papers in 1836, and many other notable authors followed in his footsteps. The Count of Monte Cristo was serialized. So was Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Heart of Darkness. Dostoyevsky wrote a serial novel. So did Tolstoy, Verne, Joyce, Hemingway, Wolfe, and King.

And now, courtesy of Liberty Island, you can add my name to the list.

Way, way, way down the list.

Like at the bottom of the list.

Over the next ten weeks, starting a week from today, July 7, and continuing every Wednesday thereafter, I will publish two chapters from my science fiction novel-in-progress Murmurations. It’s an action-packed coming of age story, in the tradition of Starship Troopers, about courage, truth, love, and compassion. It also contains themes of freedom, warfare, and emergent order.

The novel stars Daniel Lyon, who lives an easy life. Out of school but not yet on his own, he plays games with his friends and is in no hurry to leave the nest and make something of himself. 

Until interplanetary religious extremists murder his parents. 

With his support structure ripped away, Daniel decides to take action. He joins the Defense Force in the hope he can play some small part in stopping a future attack. The only problem? The DF has other priorities: domestic extremists on Earth.

Disillusioned, Daniel leaves the DF and is approached by a wealthy entrepreneur assembling his own private army to fight the extremists on their home turf: the planet Geb. Dismayed by the tactics they plan to use, Daniel agrees to join only as their spokesman. In a prophetic coincidence, he looks precisely like Augur, the Gebian God worshipped by the religious extremists.

When the leader of this private army is killed thwarting a terrorist attack on Earth, Daniel decides to take matters into his own hands and travels to Geb alone. He changes his name and recruits his own group of outcast insurgents to prosecute the war his way.

By pulling off the biggest scam in history. 

Relentlessly pursued by government forces and betrayed by trusted confidants, the group splinters and Daniel’s plan threatens to implode. Teetering on the edge of failure, he must sacrifice everything to see the scam through to the end and break the cycle of violence, once and for all.

I hope you’ll tune in for the fun. It all starts July 7.

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Photo by Stevebidmead (Pixabay)