As I acknowledged before, book 2 was hit-and-miss, with an extreme amount of arrested development on the part of the characters. They kept forging ahead without stopping to think, and people got increasingly - and justifiably - irritated by their antics. They're supposed to be naive people from a remote part (the world is dangerous, but people are fair and the law is just. I mean, it has to be, right?), but they should have learned better by then. And if they don't, the multiple additional characters around them should point out the risks, offering them at least a way to justify their actions (originally, it was the slowly cult-like mentality "Moore cannot be wrong, and we know what he wants" that was supposed to be there to justify it, except I never quite managed to inject that cult part).

Thus, I revised book 2 based on criticism. And it took waaay too long. My initial plan was to start pushing book 3 to RR at the beginning of March, but even without rewriting book 2, it would have never worked out. Part of it is a large amount of work in my day job (I blame Microsoft Teams and the ease by which you set up meetings now, including outside of my usual working hours), and part of it was my usual bouts of mild depression which still happen regularly, more so during winter. You fight depression by going outside, exercising (at least a bit), and, well, not sitting in front of the computer. Which does not help when writing or rewriting a book.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Anyway, book 2 has been finally rewritten and the new version will replace the previous one. It's a rewrite and essentially done, so I will publish the chapters as fast as I can do a last re-read, and a minor editing pass if necessary for a chapter. Expect between 3 to 5 chapters per day for the full re-publication, so about two weeks. I will also take down the previous version. If you want the old version to compare to the one that will be on RR, there is a link below to an epub of the previous version (handily titled "draft 1" to remind you it's the old one).

If you do not want to follow the new book 2 as it comes up, you can wait until you see the Book 2 Epilogue pop up in the list of chapters. There's one less chapter overall, there is some additional content in chapter 18, and major changes in the way the story progresses truly start after the arrival in New Sandusky, around chapter 25, although there are tweaks to the story all over, even in the Zahl arc. The endpoint should be mostly similar, which is why you don't absolutely need to re-read book 2, although there will be some cascading changes into book 3 (notably you might end up wondering what happened to Georgy North when he reappears there since he is now a different character).

And then, it's going to be time to write the final book 3. Which has seen no progress since last year. I hope I will have less work by then and more time to devote to it, but I'm not optimistic. And retirement is at least 5 years away (probably 7 with the pension reform being implemented in France), so no help on that front.