Anyone who knows me personally is aware that I am a lunatic perfectionist.  Even in a hazy discipline like writing, I have to Make It Right — and so none of you should be surprised that while I was waiting for the Book 4 cover to be completed, I went back and did new edits of the previous three books.

I call the updates the Omega Versions — because I hope to never touch them again.

That being said, it’s important to go over what’s changed.  This won’t matter for new readers, but all you stalwarts that made it through the first versions deserve to know everything.

And thus….the change log.

Book 1:

1) Eased the front-loading of the first few pages.
2) Trimmed the shit out of chapter 2.
3) Unfucked some fucked-up sentences.
4) Fixed a Sarovy issue and other inconsistencies.
5) Updated some terminology.
6) Corrected some errors.
7) Tweaked the presentation of mythology.
8) Format tweaks — original file was lost.
9) Added back matter and teaser.
10) Dealt with horse issues.
11) Fixed map.

The biggest change in this was the ‘Sarovy issue’, and if you don’t notice it, that’s for the best.  It was my error.

Book 2:

1) Fixed italics.
2) Clarified magical gibberish.
3) Redid some characters’ hair.
4) Added the Cob/Fiora extended scene.
5) Fixed that Sarovy issue again.
6) Fixed map.

Shhh.  It never happened.  Again, nothing really to see here — mostly error correction and also me forgetting who had what hairstyle.

Book 3:

1) Major edits to chapters 13 and 14.
2) Fixed a time and distance error.
3) Clarification of certain combat scenes.
4) Clarification of various spiritual traumas.
5) Lots and lots of clarification!
6) Fixed some medical issues.
7) Removed a character from some scenes in 33-34 and revised those scenes to fit.
8) Made actual sense of the climactic revelation.
9) Fixed map.

Er, so, I’d thought Book 1 was my bogeyman, but it turned out to be Book 3.  When I was going through it, I just felt swarmed by issues — small and large — that I’d glazed over last time.  That said, if I did everything well, nothing I changed should be noticeable.  The issues with chapters 13-14 and 33-34 are both with minor characters — in the first case combining a few short scenes so the events are less choppy, in the second removing a character so the combat is less chaotic.  In both cases, I realized while going through it that I’d violated my own magic rules (if minorly).  I couldn’t let that stand.

All that said, nothing story-wise has changed.  The only inconsistency a stalwart original-version reader will see, going into Book 4, is that Erevard never attacked Rackmar in the Palace (the chapters 33-34 tweak) and so Rackmar has no response to make to that.

Otherwise, I updated the formatting of all the documents and tweaked all the maps — and hopefully said maps work well in ebook format because goddamn is it difficult to make them work in KDP.  At this point, I’d almost wish to have no maps, they’re so annoying, but this being an epic fantasy series…  Well, we all know how that goes.

I also added a couple pages of Extras to the back of each book, with info on the pantheon, organizations, Imperial/Army chain of command, glossary, and a short (but expanding) timeline.  Hopefully people find those useful.  I’ll probably eventually put versions up attached to the specific book-pages alongside the Teasers.