Variant Book 3, aka The Falcons

Updated 8-8-26:

So, after hearing for fifteen years now that the Variant series needs a third book, I have finally agreed with you, and I’ve written it. It is titled The Falcons, and it is completely finished, and is now with my agent and in search of a publisher.

Normally, publishers don’t like to pick up series part-way through, so it’s a tricky sell, but my commitment to all of you, who have been waiting all these years, is that it WILL be available, even if I have to publish it myself.

And I am so happy with how this book is going. Since it's been 15 years since I wrote Variant, this is really like reaching back into a different version of myself. Fortunately for all involved, I keep very detailed notes during the drafting process, so I have easy access to a lot of information that I would have otherwise forgotten--things like "what's Curtis's last name?" and "What city did Jane come from?" So, that's nice.

The book will not be what you expect it to be--it's going to approach the story from an ENTIRELY weird direction, but we will see many characters from Variant and Feedback, as well as revisit some of the locations. More importantly, we will get answers to things such as "What was Maxfield Academy for?", "Why did they have the president's daughters?", "What the HELL was that thing in the tank at the end?", as well as lots of little fan servicey things.

(That's a fun thing about writing this book: since I'm revisiting it after such a long time, I feel more like a fan than I feel like the original author, and there are questions that I, also, want the answers to: "What happens to Becky and Benson after they get away? Do they end up together? But what about Jane? And what about some of those other characters who are peripheral but well-liked (Carrie, Harvard, Shelly, etc)?)

The big thing to know is that none of what I'm writing in this book, in terms of Maxfield's motives and origins, differ from my original vision for the books. I've known since very early on what that big thing in the tank was, and why it was there, and where Maxfield Academy came from, and ALL THE ANSWERS. So this new book is not a reinvention of the wheel. It's the original vision, just seen through different eyes.

What you will get in this book, however, are some NEW and engaging characters who I absolutely love. There will be fear and explosions and death and romance and a satisfying ending.

(The other thing that this book is: a love letter to the Four Corners area. Yes! They're not always stuck in one location, and they move around and talk about a lot of places that probably mean absolutely nothing to YOU, but mean a lot of things to me. Like, one big thing takes place in Nageezi, New Mexico. You know what's in Nageezi? NOTHING. It's barely a place. But I like it, so it's in the book.)

Lest any of this makes it sound like the process of writing this book is just me screwin' around, let me assure you that it most definitively IS me screwin' around. But it's, hopefully, me screwin' around in a way that is good for the overall narrative with a satisfying character arc and answers to all* of the mysteries.

*New mysteries may arise that need to be answered. We'll see.

(It would probably be bad form to not try to point you to where you can buy the rest of the series: Variant, and Feedback.